Sadhana Panchakam, Instruction 33

Translation and Commentary by Jayaram V

5.1 In solitude, let happiness flow

If you are tired, spend time alone. It will give you immense relief. When you are alone, you have a great opportunity to listen to yourself, examine your thoughts, reassess your plans and goals and reset yourself or initiate new actions. This is true in both worldly life and spiritual life. People drain you. Silence and solitude let you recharge and reset yourself. If you are ever in doubt about anything, if your confused or conflicted, spend time alone. You will find clarity. Silence is a cleanser. It removes negativity and mental blocks/

Solitary life is ideal for contemplative practices too. Whether you live in a forest or in your home, you have to practice aloneness to free the mind from disturbances and fix it in the chosen goal. In worldly life also we need to be occasionally alone to review our actions or think about our future or find solutions to our problems. Even in relationships, we need space.

If you are constantly surrounded by people, you will feel drained out and stressed as you let them invade your mind and consume your attention. Spiritual masters and enlightened yogis too seek solitude when they remain busy for a long time spreading their knowledge and wisdom or listening to the suffering of their followers who approach them for solace or solutions. The mind and body are creations of Nature. They are subject to many limitations. Therefore, however skillful you may be in yoga, you have to rest your mind and body to recover from exhaustion.

In worldly life we are conditioned to seek the company of friends and relations to pursue our goals and satisfy our emotional and belongingness needs. In business and profession, we place a lot of value on building a network of relationships and alliances to extend our influence or seek their help to complete our tasks. Society itself encourages social engagement as a means to self-preservation. Since people dread loneliness, solitary confinement is one of the prescribed methods to punish those who violate the laws or question the authority or try to assert their independence.

In spiritual life, solitude is the cherished practice. Aloneness (ekantam) is the means and aloneness (kaivalyam) is the goal. The eternal, infinite self is one and only, without a second. To become absorbed in that state, one must cultivate solitude. The scriptures unanimously recommend it. As stated in the Bhagavadgita (6.10 & 11) yogis are advised to stay alone in a solitary or a secret place and choose a clean place to set up a firm seat and practice concentration and contemplation.

It is not necessary that they should stay at the same place to practice solitude. They can move from place to place as parivrajakas or a sramanas used to do in the past, and still remain secluded avoiding places where people life or congregate. The important aspect of it is that one must be comfortable staying alone and being oneself. If any company is to be sought it shall be the company of the Self not of the people or objects. Staying alone, the yogi should let happiness flow through him. While practicing solitude, they may also occasionally participate in satsangs to meet holy people and interact with them.

The happiness of yogis or reclusive people shall not arise from their contact with external objects since it defeats the purpose and makes them dependent upon sense objects. It shall spontaneously arise from within themselves by the very thought that they are free. As Ashtavakra states (1.11), he who thinks he is free is free and he who thinks he is bound remains bound.” According to him happiness arises when you detach yourself from your body and rest in intelligence, knowing that you do not belong to any caste, group or ashrama and you are invisible and imperceptible to the world.

A free soul, who has renounced desires and attachments and cultivated sameness and equanimity and whose mind is withdrawn and restrained, he is not bound by the dualities or virtue and vice or pleasure and pain. Becoming a witness and knowing that he is neither the enjoyer nor the doer, he remains free and satisfied within himself, untroubled by loss or gain, egoism and delusion. Hence, the Bhagavadgita defines yoga as disassociation from union with pain and suffering, and suggests that one should practice it without despair and disheartedness. At that stage, it does not matter whether he alone or with others. He remains free in all conditions.

<<Previous   Next>>