Alone with Nothing to Do
How would you feel about sitting at home, all by yourself, for 10 or 15 minutes? Just you, sitting in a chair or on a couch. No TV or radio playing. No books or newspapers to read. During this period of solitude, you won’t be engaging in any activities, other than sitting and looking at whatever you choose to look at.
Does this sound like something you might enjoy? Or would you feel bored or restless after a few minutes?
Let’s assume we increased the time period to 30 minutes. Would it still be pleasurable, or would you be squirming and uncomfortable to sit for that long doing “nothing.”
Finally, consider sitting there for one hour. How would your body, mind and spirit handle a full hour of just sitting in a room alone?
Believe it or not, the way you feel about this exercise provides some insight into your spiritual growth. If you are content spending 30 or more minutes alone without engaging in any activity, you are growing in spiritual awareness. It shows you can be happy just BEING, without the need to DO anything.
If you are uneasy after spending 5 or 10 minutes doing nothing, your spiritual awareness is somewhat limited. Your mind feels the need to engage in activities, to keep you away from resting in your natural state.
This doesn’t mean you should avoid activities. However, as you tune into your divine nature, you enjoy activities, but you can also delight in sitting alone, doing nothing. Your spirit doesn’t need to be entertained before it can be happy.
The need to pursue some type of activity or distraction tells you that you are not comfortable resting in pure BEING. The mind loves to pull you into activity, even mindless activity such as excessive TV watching, because this solidifies the mind’s position. It keeps you out of the present moment, where spirit surfaces and the mind is quieted.
Think about this for a moment. All religions and spiritual traditions speak of the peace, love and glory of our true nature. If that is the case, why do we have trouble spending time alone? Who wouldn’t want to abide in peace and love?
The “entity” that doesn’t want to rest in the beauty of your true nature is the mind. It tells you that you need to be DOING something to be valuable, and that you need to get somewhere else in order to be happy. It is always striving to get to some place, or achieve some status. As you are learning, even when you are successful in acquiring more or achieving status, the mind sets new demands and drags you forward to pursue these new objectives!
As Blaise Pascal said, “all men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.”
Make friends with solitude. If all you can manage today is to sit still for two minutes, so be it. Perhaps you can sit for three minutes tomorrow. I’m not suggesting that you have to close your eyes or start some formal meditation practice. Just sit still with your eyes open.
Your mind will put up a fuss at the beginning but it will eventually quiet down. You will then start to appreciate what the present moment offers as your spirit reveals itself to you.
– Jeff Keller
© 2008