The Power of Solitude

The Power of Solitude

Jean Louise Quino/Diabetic Products

Just two days ago, I was invited to join an activity which was aimed to show something about an essential human tendency. I didn't know what it was at first but because most of my friends decided to attend, I decided to give it a try.


When we arrived, I was surprised to find that there were many participants. While waiting for the activity to start, we spent our time waiting by talking with each of our circle of friends. Moments later as we were about to forget the reason why we were gathered, one of the participants stood up and and asked for our attention. I noticed him earlier but didn't know he was the moderator because he appeared to be just like the participants.


Then he gave us the instructions. He would call some of us and ask each of us the same two questions. He said that anyone who would mention the first question or the answer to it or anything related to it will ruin the whole activity. However, he encouraged us that we talk about our answers to the second question while he was still calling us one by one.


So he began to call us one by one. There was that certain urge to ask about the first question from those whom he had called. I also learned that the second question was about what we think would be the single rule that all people from different point of views and backgrounds would follow in order to promote peace for all.


It was indeed an interesting question. It sure made us have a great deal of discussion while waiting. Some said that the single rule would be to love God above all.  Some said it's the Golden Rule which says "Don't do unto others what you don't want others to do unto you". Still some others said love one another as you love yourself. Three participants were starting an argument among themselves that their rule is much more supreme than the others.


I was beginning to be enticed to join their argument when I was called by the moderator to enter the room. The room was very quiet. I can only hear the voice of the moderator. The room was also very dark and I ccouldn't see a thing. The moderator told me to render myself alone and enter into a state of total solitude before answering his first question. He told me to return to my basic form so that I would not base my answer from what other people think or what my teachers or influential persons told me. He told me that the answer is already in me and that I already know it. He also warned me that the correctness of my answer is based on my projection of solitude.


And so his question was:"Where did you come from and where are you going?"


I thought the answer to that question was very easy. When I was a child, I was taught that I came from heaven and to heaven I should return if I live a good life. But then, it was something that was taught to me. It took me quite a long time to answer that question.


After the moderator was finished calling all of us, he told us to have two hours break. During the break, we talked just about anything: school, work, family, business. Some shared some laughter. Others still haven't finished arguing about the second question. And not even one mentioned anything about the first question.


Later after the break, the moderator returned and gathered us once again. He told us that he would ask us the same two question not in the room but in the assembly. He began asking the last one he called, down to the first. I noticed that our answers varied in many ways. After that, he asked for another short break.


When we were gathered together again, he revealed to us that he has been recording everything that we said in the room and in the assembly. He played each participant's answer in the room and then in the assembly. We all noticed that we almost have similar answers for the first question while we were in the room but we varied when we were in the assembly. We also noticed that we were calmer in the room than in the assembly. Another disturbing observation is that, we seemed to forget what we said in the room because we answered differently in the assembly.


The moderator told us that solitude is as essential as unity because we seemed to have understood one another more deeply when we were alone in the room than when we were in the assembly. He further said that if we treat others as who they are in solitude, we can get rid of all the classifications we make about ourselves which would start some factions, divisions and wars.


So as I have been writing about searching first for the peace within before the healing of the physical body, it is of the same importance to seek first the unity that comes from solitude.


Finally, Kahlil Gibran poetically says,


There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone.
The silence of aloneness reveals to their eyes their naked selves and they would escape.
And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand.
And there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words.
In the bosom of such as these the spirit dwells in rhythmic silence.