It is true that when one is alone one can reflect.
As Manly P. Hall said, life’s experiences are the elements the philosopher experiments with.
Everything is mental, and perception largely shapes the way in which we see and experience the world.
When we can get our mind into a state of observation, of witnessing what is happening without being attached to the consequences or the implications of what is happening, without being attached to any mental position or belief, we become indifferent to pain and pleasure, seeing them for what they really are: experiences which we must learn and grow from, since there is always something to learn from everything.
We must reflect on every event that happens in our life, and we must sacrifice some of our attachments when we find they no longer have a purpose in our life, or perhaps we realize they never did serve a purpose at all.
This essential art of self-examination and self-actualization and self-improvement is being lost.
Many of us cannot understand the idea of simply sitting in solitude and getting in touch with the Spirit which we are.
The Spirit is the source of all real creativity and compassion, of everything pure, of non-attachment to worldly things, including pain and pleasure. Everything is impermanent, compared to the nature of the Spirit.
“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7 KJV)
Many people are afraid to simply sit with themselves, in complete solitude. I don’t mean alone as you chat with your friends on your phone, or as you message them on Facebook. I mean completely alone. Even your senses must leave you alone, for the most part, for this practice which I am describing. We need to take a moment to reflect, and to be honest with ourselves about what we are doing right and what we are doing wrong, what must continue and what must end.
Most of us, even those of us who are not familiar with Taoism, are familiar with the yin and yang sign, many choosing even to get it tattooed on their body.
We all can recognize that everything is connected, that there is not good without bad, or bad without good.
Even celebrities or people who live more focused on physical things and money especially can sense this truth.
One example is 50 Cent’s line on his song Many Men, “sunny days wouldn’t be special if it wasn’t for rain, joy wouldn’t feel so good if it wasn’t for pain.”
We all know that, in this world of duality, everything is both good and bad at once. Everything is relative.
This is eloquently explained by Swami Vivekananda in his classic on Vedanta, ‘Karma Yoga’.
Buddha preached this even before Jesus came to be, that life on this physical plane is suffering, but that we all have the power within us to be joyful even in times of suffering, by remaining centred in non-attachment.
Later, Jesus was born and he reinforced the idea that we must not make the things of this world our treasure.
Historians have not yet agreed on a date, but it is estimated that, at some point during the few centuries in between both of the two previously mentioned events, this truth was beautifully explained in the Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu classic.
“Notions of heat and cold, of pain and pleasure, are born, O son of Kunti, only of the contact of the senses with their objects. They have a beginning and an end. They are impermanent in their nature. Bear them patiently, O descendant of Bharata.” (Bhagavad Gita 2.14)
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