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Integrating interiority and relationship

Integrating interiority and relationship

by | May 19, 2025

“In certain states of meditative contemplation, the impulse to withdraw from the world emerges. This movement does not express escape, but rather the need to confront one’s own consciousness without external interference. The inclination toward solitude is not a mistake. It is misleading to interpret it as a rejection of others or as a sign of opposition between connection and interiority. Radical autonomy has no basis. Subjectivity is always constituted in reference to others: we are born into a community, we share symbolic systems, and we participate in interpersonal emotional networks.
Martin Buber argues that the “I” is only constituted in the encounter with a “you.” The subject is not a closed monad, but a node of relationships that takes on meaning in reciprocity (cf. Ich und Du, 1923).
Internalization does not require the breaking of ties. Voluntary isolation is not a condition for self-knowledge. It is not necessary to exclude the other, but rather to silence the ego’s pretensions.
For Jean-Luc Marion, the subject is not a source of giving, but a receptacle for the gift that exceeds him. In the experience of love and contemplation, an ontological passivity of the self is revealed (Étant donné, 1997).
Those who reach a certain existential maturity understand that inner life and openness to others are not mutually exclusive spheres. Both can coexist without cancellation or fusion. Withdrawing from the world under the guise of introspection can become a form of evasion. Similarly, diluting oneself in exteriority without reflexivity leads to a loss of self. Integrating interiority and relationship requires the decentering of the self. Shared life is not opposed to authenticity. Joy does not come from isolation, but from the cessation of self-imposed identity demands.
Nishida Kitarō develops, from the Zen tradition, the notion of “the self as a place of negation,” where the self is not substance, but a function of a radical openness to the other and to nothingness (Zettai mujunteki jikodōitsu, 1932).
Serenity does not require constant reaffirmation of the self. It appears when the need to justify oneself to others or to maintain a defined image of oneself ceases.
It is not the world that must be abandoned, but the narcissistic representation of a self split from the whole. Once this fiction is overcome, reality unfolds as ontological communion.
In such a state, meditation and love are not mutually exclusive. By losing their compulsive nature, both practices reveal a structural unity that transcends all possessive or defensive logic of the self.
Prabhuji
The loneliness of Love

The loneliness of Love

by | May 19, 2025

“There is a loneliness that comes from heartbreak, emptiness, distance, loss, absence, or abandonment. But there is another, more subtle and paradoxical kind that arises at the very heart of true love. One can be deeply in love and still experience a loneliness that is not a lack, but a fulfillment. This loneliness is not the absence of another, but the presence of oneself.
When love reaches a certain depth, it does not become fusion or possession. It transforms into a wide, silent, and living space where the soul can inhabit itself without fear, without noise, and without escape. It is then that one discovers that the most genuine love does not nullify individuality, but rather reveals and sustains it. Authentic love is not a chain or a perpetual promise of companionship. It is a deep ocean surrounding the island that we are. The waves of the other’s presence come and go, touch our shores, bathe us, invite us. But they do not drag us away, they do not flood us, they do not nullify us, they do not destroy us. The deeper that sea of love is, the more solid our island becomes. The more firmly rooted we are in being.
True love is not self-forgetfulness, it is rediscovery. It does not ask us to disappear for the other, but to appear in our fullness. It gives us the opportunity to be with the other without ceasing to be with ourselves. It teaches us that only those who know how to be with themselves, without fear and without haste, can truly love without losing themselves. The value of love is not that it distracts us from our loneliness, but that it illuminates it. It offers us the possibility of being seen without ceasing to see ourselves. Of supporting the other without losing our inner balance. Of walking together without blurring our footprints.
That is why, in the most profound and sincere moments of love, an intense, silent, almost sacred loneliness can arise. Not because of the absence of the other, but because in their presence, one returns to oneself with greater clarity. Love, then, is not a refuge from emptiness, but a place where one’s own silence is appreciated, where the soul can rest without hiding. And it is precisely this solitude that makes love valuable. Because those who have found in love the space to return to themselves have found the only bond that does not imprison: the one that accompanies without invading, that remains without possessing, that touches without breaking.
When love is true, it does not fill a void, it opens up a world. And in that world, everyone can be themselves, whole and free, under the same shared sky.
Prabhuji
Embracing solitude

Embracing solitude

by | May 16, 2025

“Solitude is not a fault, absence, or lack; it is presence. It is the presence of oneself, without mediators, without shortcuts, without masks or disguises. It is not isolation, but a silent communion with who we are when no one is watching us. Being alone is not turning away from the world; it is returning to the center from where one can contemplate the world without begging for belonging. As Pascal wrote: ‘All of man’s unhappiness comes from not knowing how to stay quietly in a room’. The wise man does not flee from the hustle and bustle, but neither does he get lost in it. Those who cultivate solitude do not empty themselves, they fill themselves. They fill their inner space with a serenity that does not depend on the affection or appreciation of others, a lucidity that does not need approval to sustain itself. From the Tao to the desert mystics, from the India of the Upanishads to the silent cloisters of the West, the soul has sought that clear and clean moment in which it can dwell in itself without fear. Rumi said: “Do not feel alone, the entire universe is within you.”
The ability to be alone is, in reality, the most subtle form of maturity. Only those who have become intimate with their own silence can welcome others without devouring them. They do not need to absorb, complete, or possess them. They love without turning that love into a prison. They share without turning that closeness into an obligation. They remain without promising eternity, and they leave without leaving open wounds. Every relationship is a mirror in which one discovers oneself. And that mirror cannot reflect clearly if we are constantly fragmented by the need to be validated.
In solitude, inner freedom grows. Those who have learned to be alone do not confuse company with salvation. They have stopped asking others for what can only be found within. Then, love is not a strategy to escape emptiness, it is a gift from someone who is already complete, whole. Only from there does love cease to be dependence and become dance: two freedoms that are chosen, two solitudes that are respected, two fires that illuminate each other without consuming each other.
It may seem paradoxical, but it is not: only those who are capable of inhabiting their solitude with depth can truly love. Only they can say, “I love you,” without that phrase hiding a “I need you,” “you are a necessity.” Because they know that happiness cannot be borrowed or delegated. Their joy comes from a source that does not dry up when the other person walks away.
Do not fear solitude. It is training for the soul, a way of returning home. It is the place where noise fades away and the essential voice becomes audible. It is there that we learn not to beg for love, but to offer it cleanly, without fear, without conditions. Because only when you have stopped needing someone can you truly choose them.
As Buddha taught, “no one can save you but yourself.” But he also taught that those who have been saved can look at others with compassion, not with lack. That is the paradox of love born in solitude: it does not enslave, it liberates; it does not demand, it welcomes; it does not hurt, it transforms.
Embracing solitude is not resignation; it is learning to walk whole. And those who walk whole do not love out of necessity, but reach out of generosity.”
Prabhuji