The bliss of solitude

I don't care what people say

when people find me sitting alone

cause they don't know the bliss of solitude.

So if you are like me,

carry on with the way you are,

cause you have you.

Rohit

Solitude

The word that quits you is solitude.

You are what some may call anti- social.

You do not like the company of other people.
And like things quiet and calm.

In your eyes the majority of society
is too loud and outgoing.

Loneliness - Solitude

"Loneliness is like sitting in an empty room

and being aware of the space around you.

It is a condition of separateness.

Solitude is becoming one

with the space around you.

It is a condition of union.

Loneliness is small,

solitude is large.

Loneliness closes in around you;

solitude expands toward the infinite.

Loneliness has its roots in words,

in an internal conversation

that nobody answers;

Solitude has its roots

in the great silence of eternity."

Kent Nurburn

Loneliness quotes

Pray that your loneliness may spur you

into finding something to live for,

great enough to die for.

Dag Hammarskjold

People drain me,

even the closest of friends,

and I find loneliness to be the best state

in the union to live in.

Margaret Cho

Solitude:

a sweet absence of looks.

Milan Kundera

When you close your doors,

and make darkness within,

remember never to say that you are alone,

for you are not alone; nay,

God is within,

and your genius is within.

And what need have they of light to see

what you are doing?

Epictetus

A man in a bookstore buys a book on loneliness

and every woman in the store hits on him.

A woman buys a book on loneliness

and the store clears out.

Doug Coupland

Writing is an antidote for loneliness.

Steven Berkoff

Solitude is a condition of peace

that stands in direct opposition to loneliness.

Loneliness is like sitting in an empty room 

and being aware of the space around you. 

It is a condition of separateness.

Solitude is becoming one with the space around you. It is a condition of union. loneliness is small, solitude is large. loneliness closes in around you; solitude expands toward the infinite. loneliness has its roots in words, in an internal conversation that nodbody answers; solitude has it's roots in the great silence of eternity.

Kent Nerburn

If you are alone you belong entirely to yourself ... If you are accompanied by even one companion you belong only half to yourself, or even less, in proportion to the thoughtlessness of his conduct; and if you have more than one companion you will fall more deeply into the same plight.

Leonardo da Vinci

The Internet is for lonely people.

People should live.

Charlton Heston

Loneliness has followed me my whole life.

Everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. 

There's no escape. I'm God's lonely man.

Travis Bickle,

Taxi Driver

In cities no one is quiet

but many are lonely;

In the country,

people are quiet but few are lonely.

Geoffrey F. Fisher

Loneliness is the human condition.

Cultivate it.

The way it tunnels into you

allows your soul room to grow.

Janet Fitch

Be able to be alone.

Lose not the advantage of solitude.

Sir Thomas Browne

When we cannot bear to be alone,

it means we do not properly value

the only companion we will have 

from birth to death -- ourselves.

Eda LeShan

We visit others as

a matter of social obligation.

How long has it been since

we have visited with ourselves?

Morris Adler

The person who travels alone can start today;

but the person who travels with another

must wait until the other is ready.

Henry David Thoreau

The cure for all the illness of life

is stored in the inner depth of life itself,

the access to which becomes possible

when we are alone.

This solitude is a world in itself,

full of wonders and resources

unthought of. It is absurdly near;

yet so unapproachably distant.

Deliberately seeking solitude
quality time spent away

from family and friends -- 

may seem selfish. It is not.

Solitude is as necessary

for our creative spirits to develop

and flourish as are sleep and food

for our bodies to survive.

Sarah Ban Breathnach

I remember my grandfather telling me

how each of us must live

with a full measure of loneliness

that is inescapable, and we must

not destroy ourselves with our passion

to escape this aloneness.

Jim Harrison

Wise people are never less alone

than when they are alone.

Jonathan Swift

We can cultivate

an inner solitude and silence

that sets us free

from loneliness and fear.

Loneliness is inner emptiness.

Solitude is inner fulfillment.

Solitude is not

first a place but a state

of mind and heart.

There is a solitude of heart

that can be maintained at all times.

Crowds or the lack of them have little to do

with this inward attentiveness.

It is quite possible to be a desert hermit

and never experience solitude.

But if we possess inward solitude

we will not fear being alone,

for we know that we are not alone.

Neither do we fear being with others,

for they do not control us.

In the midst of noise and confusion

we are settled into a deep inner silence.

Teresa of Avila

Eenzaamheid

Eenzaamheid is een vrije keuze van de buitenkant. Eenzaam - je afzonderen en alleen zijn, zijn woorden die op elkaar lijken. Allebei zijn kenmerken van het alleen zijn. Eenzaamheid is een tijd voor reflectie en het innerlijk zoeken.

Eenzaamheid, je afzonderen kan je brengen in een staat van innerlijke vrede en rust. De zuivere stilte is een transformerende vrede binnen in jezelf. Deze eenzaamheid, je afzonderen kan gebruik worden door het luisteren naar God.

Eenzaamheid - alleen zijn

Terug denkend aan mijn eigen eenzaamheid -alleen zijn.

Verdrietig door afwijzing en onbegrip de reden willen begrijpen. Lopend op mijn eigen levenspad
openbaarde zich de antwoorden vanzelf.

Vele spirituele mensen zijn als kind al erg eenzaam omdat ze niet begrepen worden omdat ze al anders zijn. Trekken zich vaak dromend terug op hun kamer of ze liggen te dromen in het gras. Met je hoofd ben je meer daar als hier. Intuïtief weet je al veel meer. Door de afwijzing die je ondervind door het niet begrepen zijn ga je je eenzaam voelen. Je hebt en vind geen aansluiting bij de mensen. Naarmate je ouder word ga je de eenzaamheid nog meer en meer ervaren ondanks de kennissen en vrienden die je hebt. Zijn het wel vrienden vraag je je af als je gesprekken in jou ogen nergens over gaan. Geen aansluiting op jou interesse dus lopen die vriendschappen vaak op niets uit ook al omdat jij geeft en geeft en geeft en niet meer geven kan omdat er geen respons terug komt.

Waarom zo lang zoeken en alleen zijn, die knagende eenzaamheid voelen.

Het antwoord kwam van binnen uit. Als je geen aansluiting vind bij anderen ligt het daar ook niet! Waar dan wel! Bij jou zelf is het antwoord.

Bij jou zelf, je eigen hart openen en jou zelf boven alles liefhebben. Liefde voor jou zelf, je zelf accepteren wie en hoe jij bent lost eenzaamheid op. Je hebt dan contact met jezelf. Je krijgt zelfkennis en eigenwaarde en je kan heel goed alleen zijn. Je bent graag alleen omdat je dat nodig hebt en kan jezelf ook vermaken.

Ja maar dat kan ik niet hoor je dan.

Als jij niet van je zelf houd kan je ook niet van anderen houden. Bijvoorbeeld je partner en kinderen. Velen zullen nu denken natuurlijk houd ik van ze. Nee dat is liefde vanuit het denken en niet met je hart.

Als jij voelt vanuit je hart en vanuit het voelen met je hart houd van je kinderen en je partner en kan je ook van jezelf houden. Als je van jezelf houd, contact hebt met jou Hogere Zelf ben je niet meer eenzaam.

Eenzaamheid is afgesneden zijn van jezelf. Houden van je zelf maakt je heel en compleet en naarmate jij je pad loopt en meer en meer in contact met jou eigenliefde groeit ook jou eigenwaarde. Zo ga jij jezelf koesteren en ga je heel voorzichtig met je zelf om. Zo ook wordt je selectiever in de keus van vrienden en merk je heel vlug of het echte vriendschappen zijn of geveinsde uit eigenbelang omdat de ander aandacht nodig heeft.

Naarmate je dichter bij jezelf komt en je hart zich opent, je liefde voor jezelf sterker wordt groeit ook de Universele liefde in jou. Dat is liefde voor je naaste, je medemensen en dan verdwijnt meer en meer het alleen zijn gevoel.

Hoe mooi is het als je kunt baden in eigenliefde, je kracht en licht toenemen naarmate je groeit en groeit en je op je pad je zielemaatjes gaat ontmoeten. Doordat jij je zelf liefhebt kan je ook je eigen zielsverbonden herkennen. Het is het gevoel van hart tot hart. Iets wat je moeilijk in woorden kunt vangen of uitleggen, het is er of het is er niet.

Zielsverwanten ontmoeten is een ontroerende gebeurtenis. Je voelt de verbondenheid al op afstand. Je herkent elkaar en bent emotioneel zonder het te kunnen uitleggen. Liefde beleven tussen mensen die je nooit gekend hebt of ontmoet is het aller mooiste geschenk van boven. Zielsverwanten worden in deze tijden samen gebracht om het licht en liefde kracht te versterken om zo samen de wereld mooier te maken voor wat komen gaat. Zo lost de eenzaamheid op en alleen zijn in AL EEN ZIJN.

Meer over eenzaamheid.

In solitude, when we are least alone

It takes time to fall in love with true solitude. And it takes practice. To spend more time with yourself, be out in the world alone and not rush to meet people every weekend. It takes time and practice. But once you get out of that dependency that need for socializing, the bliss of all the things in the world await us.

What is true solitude one would wonder. True solitude is when you achieve true awareness, sensing the presence of that which is forever ignored. The shape of my finger tips and toes, the fine lines on my palms, the shape of my footprint, the tiny squirrel family in the tree outside my house and their daily tik tiking sounds, the whiskers of my cat and his claws, the direction of the breeze that hits me, rustle of the trees I live around.

I can go on n on n on ...

Solitude is beautiful.

Solitude

There is solitude of space

A solitude of sea

A solitude of death, but these

Society shall be

Compared with that

profounder site

That polar privacy

A soul admitted to itself –

Finite infinity

Emily dickinson

Solitude

How sweet, how passing sweet is solitude!

But grant me still a friend in my retreat,

Whom I may whisper: solitude is sweet.

Jean de la Bruyère

She stands alone

She stands alone, both tall and true

The perfect picture of solitude

The soul of a woman encased in bark

With limbs that move in a majestic arc.

Alone she faced the storms of life

The wind and rain, disease and strife

Others gave up, but no, she not ...

And there she stands for all to see

She had her share of troubles and woes

But she made it through and still she grows.

Like her I too know grief and pain

I have faced the wind, I have felt the rain

And like her too, I still stand tall

Though life may beat me, I will not fall.

It may throw punches, I may take a blow

But in the end I too shall grow.

Each storm I weather increases my strength

And beneath this skin, my soul’s to thank

The elm and I, we know what to do

We count on ourselves and make it through.

Kelly Cook

Je alleen voelen

Het puur en woordeloos ervaren van gevoelens,
kan juist een geluksgevoel geven.

Bij je alleen voelen geldt dat
door echt contact te maken met jezelf,
de eenzaamheid verdwijnt.

Je alleen voelen komt namelijk niet voort
uit een gebrek aan anderen om je heen,
maar uit een gebrek aan contact met jezelf.

Geluk vinden we door het beleven van het leven
zoals het op dit moment is.

In touch with your soul

Alone

When I feel most alone, no matter

if life and love remain all around,

when body and mind are too much.

I need to leave the bread at the table,

go out and walk the orchard or the lake,

find the star, the moon, or the last loaf of sun.

Nothing there, nothing

between me and the Scotch pine,

nothing between me and loss,

no bridge across the distance,

only the dissolving heart,

alive, the way.

The sun sinks slowly,
without a body, everywhere,

and try not to be afraid.

A time alone

We hebben allemaal tijd nodig om alleen te zijn. Het maakt je niet eenzaam, maar ik denk dat het voordelig is om in zo'n tijd na te denken en een plan voor jezelf te maken.

Er is een quote van de Dalai Lama dat zegt:

"Spend some time alone, every day."

A little solitude can sometimes help us to regain our esteem,

lift up our mood or even happiness within yourself.

I find it very useful being alone

when it comes to find inspiration.

Just me, myself and I.

Just me and my thoughts.

Hier een tekst van Frances lefkowitz over een tijd alleen zijn.

Depriving yourself of solitude "is the cause of many manifestations of psychological and physiological distress" states psychiatrist T. Byram Karasu, M.D., in The Art of Serenity. "Being with other people for long periods of time, no matter how loving, wonderful and interesting they may be, interferes with one's biopsychological rhythm.

"According to Karasu, this rhythm is a combination of the body's circadian cycle and the hormones and neurotransmitters that affect factors such as mood and sleep patterns. Each of us creates our own inner pulse to help us synchronize with the solar, lunar and other cycles of the outside world. The constant presence of others can literally throw our rhythm out of sync.

"Solitude puts the individual in touch with his or her deepest feelings and allows time for previously unrelated thoughts and feelings to interact, to regroup themselves into new formations and combinations, and thus to bring harmony to the mind," says Karasu, who believes that solitude helps connect us to the worlds of nature and spirituality.

Language ... has created the word "loneliness" to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word "solitude" to express the glory of being alone.

Paul Johannes Tillich,

The Eternal Now

Lonelyness quotes - Being alone

Tragedy, sadness, loneliness and despair

taught me that life is really a beautiful thing;

if it wasn’t I wouldn’t be able to

recognize that anything was wrong.

Greg Evans

To transform the emptiness of loneliness,

to the fullness of aloneness.

Ah, that is the secret of life.

Sunita Khosla

And I look again towards the sky

as the raindrops mix with the tears I cry.

Behold, I am with you always,

even to the end of the age.

The Bible

Better be alone than in bad company.

Thomas Fuller

Do not think of a painful experience

as a dark time in your life. You emerge out

of everything learning something

or becoming a better person. 

You realize who your real friends are

and how much your loved ones mean to you.

Colleen Ho

Here I sit between my brother the mountain

and my sister the sea.

We three are one in loneliness,

and the love that binds us together

is deep and strong and strange.

Kahlil Gibran

I celebrate myself,

and sing myself.

Walt Whitman

I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.

Henry David Thoreau

I wandered lonely as a cloud 

That floats on high o’er vales and hills, 

When all at once I saw a crowd … 

A host, of golden daffodils.

William Wordsworth

I would rather sit on a pumpkin, 

and have it all to myself, 

than be crowded on a velvet cushion.

Henry David Thoreau

If our lives are dedicated to enhancing 

the lives of everyone we come in contact with

 our lives can never lose meaning.

Dr. David Hawkins

If you are afraid of being lonely,

don’t try to be right.

Jules Renard

If you are lonely when you are alone,

you are in bad company.

Jean-Paul Sartre

In solitude the mind gains strength 

and learns to lean upon itself.

Laurence Sterne

In the midst of winter, 

I finally learned that there was

in me an invincible summer.

Albert Camus

Language has created the word loneliness

to express the pain of being alone,

and the word solitude

to express the glory of being alone.

Paul Tillich

Loneliness adds beauty to life.

It puts a special burn on sunsets

and makes night air smell better.

Henry Rollins

Loneliness, alienation from life, is a loneliness from your real Self. Those who are alienated from their real Self have cut themselves off from the basic and fundamental contact with life. Because of the feelings of alienation from Self, human contacts are not very satisfying, and they become social recluses. One of the ways they can find themselves is to lose themselves in social activities with other people.

Dr. Maxwell Maltz

Loneliness is not cured by human company.

Loneliness is cured by contact with reality.

Anthony De Mello

Loneliness is the poverty of Self;

Solitude is the richness of Self.

May Sarton

Memories are the treasures that we keep locked deep

within the storehouse of our souls,

to keep our hearts warm when we are lonely.

Becky Aligada

Modern man’s difficulties, dangerous beliefs

and feelings of loneliness, spiritual emptiness,

and personal weakness are caused by

his illusions about, and separation from,

the natural world.

Benjamin Hoff

Music was invented

to confirm human loneliness.

Lawrence Durrell

Music was my refuge.

I could crawl into the spaces between the notes

and curl my back to loneliness.

Maya Angelo

No matter how lonely you get

or how many birth announcements you receive,

the trick is not to get frightened. 

There’s nothing wrong with being alone.

Wendy Wasserstein

One may have a blazing hearth in one’s soul,

and yet no one ever comes to sit by it.

Vincent Van Gogh

Only by going alone in silence, without baggage,

can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness.

All other travel is mere dust and hotels

and baggage and chatter.

John Muir

Only if you’ve been in the deepest valley

can you ever know how magnificent it i

 to be on the highest mountain.

Richard Nixon

People think they know me, but they don`t. 

Not really. Actually, I am one

of the loneliest people on this earth.

I cry sometimes, because it hurts. It does.

To be honest, I guess you could say that it hurts to be me.

Michael Jackson

People who lead a lonely existence

always have something on their minds

that they are eager to talk about.

Anton Checkov

Pray that your loneliness may spur you

into finding something to live for.

Dag Hammarskjold

There is a rapture on the lonely shore ... 

By the deep sea, and music in its roar.

Lord Byron

The soul that sees beauty

 may sometimes walk alone.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The surest cure for vanity

is loneliness.

Thomas Wolfe

The world is round

and the place which may seem like the end

may also be the beginning.

Ivy Baker Priest

The worst loneliness is

not to be comfortable with yourself.

Mark Twain

They are never alone 

that are accompanied with noble thoughts.

Sir Philip Sidney

To be alone is to be different,

to be different is to be alone.

Suzanne Gordon

What lies behind us and what lies before us

are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

William Morrow

When you close your doors, and make darkness within, remember never to say that you are alone, for you are not alone; nay, God is within, and your genius is within. And what need have they of light to see what you are doing?

Epictetus

A little time alone

Sometimes we all need a little time alone.

It doesn’t mean we are mad, upset, depressed or anything.

It’s just that we all need some space

to think and figure things out.

Solitude

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;

Weep, and you weep alone.

For the sad old earth must borrow it's mirth,

But has trouble enough of its own.

Sing, and the hills will answer;

Sigh, it is lost on the air.

The echoes bound to a joyful sound,

But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;

Grieve, and they turn and go.

They want full measure of all your pleasure,

But they do not need your woe.

Be glad, and your friends are many;

Be sad, and you lose them all.

There are none to decline your nectared wine,

But alone you must drink life's gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;

Fast, and the world goes by.

Succeed and give, and it helps you live,

But no man can help you die.

There is room in the halls of pleasure

For a long and lordly train,

But one by one we must all file on

Through the narrow aisles of pain.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

1850-1919

Solitude

Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing.

Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness:

So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another.

Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Many people suffer from the fear of finding oneself alone,

and so they don’t find themselves at all.

Rollo May

We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude,
silence, and private:

and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship.

C.S. Lewis

What a commentary on civilization,

when being alone is being suspect;

when one has to apologize for it, make excuses,

hide the fact that one practices it -

like a secret vice.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Each of us is alone in the world.

It takes great courage 

to meet the full force of your aloneness.

When you face your aloneness,

something begins to happen.

Gradually, the sense of bleakness changes
into a sense of true belonging.

This is a slow and open-ended transition

but it is utterly vital in order

to come into rhythm with your own individuality.

John O’Donohue

Dhammapada

If the traveller can find

A virtuous and wise companion

Let's travel together joyfully

And overcome the dangers of the way.

But if you cannot find

Friend or master to go with you

Travel on alone.

Like a king who has given away his kingdom

Like an elephant in the forest.

Do not carry with you your mistakes

Do not carry your cares.

Travel on alone

Like an elephant in the forest.

O how sweet it is to enjoy life

Living in honesty and strength.

And wisdom is sweet

And freedom.

Dhammapada

the Saying of the Buddha

Solitude, a few quotations

It's easy to find praise of solitude.
Here are a few quotations:

I live in that solitude which is painful in youth,
but delicious in the years of maturity.

Albert Einstein

Loneliness is the poverty of Self;
Solitude is the richness of Self.

May Sarton

The best thinking has been done in solitude.

The worst has been done in turmoil.

Thomas Alva Edison

Solitude is such a potential thing.
We hear voices in solitude,
we never hear in the hurry and turmoil of life;
we receive counsels and comforts

we get under no other condition.

Amelia Barr

Great men are like eagles,
and build their nest on some lofty solitude.

Arthur Schopenhauer

If you can't stand solitude,
perhaps others find you boring as well.

Mark Twain

Waar ik van hou is een rustig leven,
met veel tijd voor mijn ziel.



The richness of solitude
and the pain of loneliness
sometimes gets blurred.