Ever since the spread of Coro­n­avirus, its re­ver­ber­a­tions have been felt in the en­tire world as it has re­sulted in lock­downs, so­cial dis­tanc­ing and quar­an­tine in ex­treme cases. The re­sult is we are miss­ing the abil­ity to visit, con­verse with, hug, go out, travel or spend time with dear and near ones by so­cial­iz­ing and start­ing feel­ing lonely. Hous­ton-based au­thor Bhupin­der Singh lays down ground rules to con­quer soli­tude through Gur­bani, prayer, med­i­ta­tion, de­ter­mi­na­tion and in­no­va­tion.

HUMANS ARE SO­CIAL CREA­TURES WITH AN IN­BUILT YEARN­ING TO CON­NECT WITH OTH­ERS. All of a sud­den, life has be­come shal­lower, like liv­ing in a sur­vival mode than liv­ing nor­mally as we are ac­cus­tomed to. As the new pathogen forces us to so­cially dis­tance, we all as a so­ci­ety have started show­ing signs of its im­pact.

The first sign is we are feel­ing anx­ious and frus­trated, in the com­forts of our own house. Al­ready, it has been re­ported that there has been a sig­nif­i­cant up­swing in do­mes­tic vi­o­lence be­cause of lock­down. The lone­li­ness is be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced on a scale as never be­fore, and it can pro­duce un­favourable out­comes for both phys­i­cal and men­tal health.

Pre­dic­tions are that this lone­li­ness is go­ing to leave last­ing scars. The toll on the mass­es’ men­tal and emo­tional well­be­ing will be re­searched and doc­u­mented later in the years to come. Psy­chol­o­gists have es­tab­lished that the per­cep­tion of so­cial iso­la­tion – lone­li­ness, im­pacts the brain and be­hav­iour and is a risk fac­tor for mor­bid­ity and mor­tal­ity. Psy­cho­log­i­cal stud­ies have shown that the per­cep­tion of lone­li­ness ac­tu­ally hurts more than be­ing phys­i­cally alone.

Phys­i­cally alone is not nec­es­sar­ily lone­li­ness, if there is a con­nec­tion with the in­ner self. A per­son can be alone and yet not feel­ing lonely.

Phys­i­cally alone is not nec­es­sar­ily lone­li­ness, if there is a con­nec­tion with the in­ner self. A per­son can be alone and yet not feel­ing lonely. But there is an­other as­pect of be­ing alone, con­nected with the in­ner self with­out the neg­a­tive feel­ing of be­ing lonely. Be­ing alone can pro­vide the con­nec­tion that lone­li­ness yearns for. It forces us to go deeper within, to know our­selves bet­ter and to search and ex­plore tech­niques to re­spond pos­i­tively to lone­li­ness. This soli­tude could be in­spir­ing, in­vig­o­rat­ing and nur­tur­ing.

 

There is a body of lit­er­a­ture from po­ets, artists and au­thors where they have praised it as a cat­a­lyst for their own cre­ativ­ity. It can even evolve us higher, giv­ing rise to a feel­ing of be­ing con­nected with Almighty, when one is all by self. There are many who feel lone­li­ness, even while they are in the midst of the com­pany where they don’t fit in, or are brood­ing over their in­se­cu­ri­ties. Both of these sce­nar­ios have a com­mon “I” fac­tor. The alone­ness changes that per­spec­tive and it is very up­lift­ing and ful­fill­ing.

How are we grow­ing in this new sud­den im­posed cur­few? Maybe we can use it to grow in pos­i­tiv­ity and learn to shun neg­a­tiv­ity. For sure, it is eas­ier said than im­ple­mented. I am not here preach­ing but ex­plor­ing it my­self and hope that we can make this jour­ney to­gether.

I can add here about my own strug­gles, but it is not what this is about. It is about how we can use this as an op­por­tu­nity to grow in­di­vid­u­ally, as a fam­ily, as a com­mu­nity and so­ci­ety. So, the calamity can be the har­bin­ger of change. It can prove to be a ‘Great Re­set­ting’ in our lives. This is our op­por­tu­nity to ex­plore soli­tude and use it as a lad­der to go down deep within when go­ing out phys­i­cally is not an op­tion.

This is a lofty pedestal to aim for dur­ing these try­ing times. Spir­i­tu­al­ity is nur­tured in soli­tude. We can grow from this, be­come stronger like an ice­berg; ca­pa­ble of ris­ing above the sea of lone­li­ness that dis­rupts life we are ac­cus­tomed to and have be­come cosy in it.

The ac­tiv­i­ties lead­ing to it are prayer, med­i­ta­tion, ser­vice, read­ing of scrip­tures and de­vo­tional singing, en­abling:

• Peace in alone­ness – not need­ing con­stant com­pany or emo­tional sup­port of oth­ers. If the urge em­anates then we still have a phone, so­cial me­dia and emails, etc.
• Men­tal peace – the mind be­comes calm, usu­ally, the hu­man mind has a ten­dency to swing on ei­ther side like a pen­du­lum, al­ways on the go. Our mind op­er­ates by think­ing this will work, let us do this. No, don’t do it, will not pan out. But in this state, it is in a neu­tral po­si­tion and com­pletely ab­sent are swing­ing in ei­ther di­rec­tion.
• State of Thank­ful­ness – Cheer­ful ac­cep­tance of all re­al­ity as God’s Or­der –
• Feel­ing pres­ence of Bliss -say good­bye to frus­tra­tions and dis­ap­point­ments and in­stead feel bliss­ful­ness within.

This is a lofty pedestal to aim for dur­ing these try­ing times. Spir­i­tu­al­ity is nur­tured in soli­tude. We can grow from this, be­come stronger like an ice­berg; ca­pa­ble of ris­ing above the sea of lone­li­ness that dis­rupts life we are ac­cus­tomed to and have be­come cosy in it.

Let this chal­lenge help us to look for bless­ings in dis­guise, it will change our out­look to life.  Faith, strong con­vic­tion, cou­pled with en­thu­si­asm can be­come the prime movers of this change. This can bring about lov­ing ac­cep­tance of the sit­u­a­tion, thank­ful­ness and ap­pre­ci­a­tion.

It is this feel­ing of the di­vine pres­ence within, which al­lowed Guru Nanak to cover over 28000 KMs on foot to give the mes­sage of con­nec­tiv­ity as chil­dren of one God. Guru Ji had tasted alone­ness from early child­hood. When he started his first Udassi, he camped in Em­inabad where Rori Sahib Gu­rud­wara stands and spent over a month in soli­tude and in med­i­ta­tion. Sim­i­larly, when he stopped for ex­tended pe­ri­ods dur­ing his Udas­sis, Guru Ji had soli­tude time. When Guru Ji came to Achal Batala for meet­ing with Yo­gis in 1539, in re­sponse to a ques­tion by Charpat Yogi, Guru Ji pro­vided the fol­low­ing in­sight:

ਰਹਹਿ ਇਕਾਂਤਿ ਏਕੋ ਮਨਿ ਵਸਿਆ ਆਸਾ ਮਾਹਿ ਨਿਰਾਸੋ ॥
ਅਗਮੁ ਅਗੋਚਰੁ ਦੇਖਿ ਦਿਖਾਏ ਨਾਨਕੁ ਤਾ ਕਾ ਦਾਸੋ ॥੫॥

One who lives alone, as a her­mit, en­shrin­ing the One Lord in his mind, re­main­ing un­af­fected by hope in the midst of hope, sees and in­spires oth­ers to see the in­ac­ces­si­ble, un­fath­omable Lord. Nanak is his slave. ||5||
–Guru Granth Sahib, page 938

Guru Ar­jan Dev Ji also en­dorses this thought process in these words:

ਸੋ ਇਕਾਂਤੀ ਜਿਸੁ ਰਿਦਾ ਥਾਇ॥ ਸੋਈ ਨਿਹਚਲੁ ਸਾਚ ਠਾਇ॥੩॥

He alone is a her­mit, whose heart is steady and sta­ble. He alone is steady and un­mov­ing, who has found the true place. ||3||
–Guru Granth Sahib, page 1180

These state­ments above are based on ac­tual life ex­pe­ri­ences of our Gu­rus and are not just hearsay. Guru Jis have thus ad­vo­cated a life of a her­mit in the midst of fam­ily, friends, and rel­a­tives. They lived the life of a house-holder yet re­mained de­tached from it. It was this strength alone that al­lowed Gu­rus to face the chal­lenges in life in­clud­ing the sac­ri­fice of their lives.

Guru Teg Ba­hadur Ji gave a prac­ti­cal demon­stra­tion of alone­ness by liv­ing the life of a her­mit, while with the fam­ily in Bakala. He spent 20 years in med­i­ta­tion alone in a base­ment room there. Even if we look at the life of Guru Gob­ind Singh Ji, we can see that as­pect, no mat­ter what his ex­ter­nal cir­cum­stances were, he was al­ways con­nected. He ex­tols in these words:

ਰੇ ਮਨ ਐਸੋ ਕਰ ਸੰਨਿਆਸਾ ॥ ਬਨ ਸੇ ਸਦਨ ਸਬੈ ਕਰ ਸਮਝਹੁ ਮਨ ਹੀ ਮਾਹਿ ਉਦਾਸਾ ॥੧॥ ਰਹਾਉ ॥

O mind! let as­ceti­cism be prac­tised in this way: Con­sider your house as the for­est and re­main un­at­tached within your­self…..Pause.
Dasam Granth, Page 709

Af­ter all, the mes­sage that Guru Ji taught to his Sikhs, he him­self lived it even in try­ing times. In the midst of Mach­hi­wara for­est in 1704, all alone on a rainy win­ter night, los­ing every­thing in­clud­ing his four sons, fam­ily and Sikhs in­clud­ing Five Beloved –Panj Pyare, still he was singing:

ਮਿਤ੍ਰ ਪਿਆਰੇ ਨੂੰ ਹਾਲੁ ਮੁਰੀਦਾਂ ਦਾ ਕਹਣਾ॥
ਤੁਧ ਬਿਨੁ ਰੋਗੁ ਰਜਾਈਆਂ ਦਾ ਓਢਣੁ ਨਾਗ ਨਿਵਾਸਾਂ ਦੇ ਰਹਣਾ॥
ਸੂਲ ਸੁਰਾਹੀ ਖੰਜਰੁ ਪਿਯਾਲਾ ਬਿੰਗ ਕਸਾਈਯਾਂ ਦਾ ਸਹਣਾ॥
ਯਾਰੜੇ ਦਾ ਸਾਨੂੰ ਸੱਥਰ ਚੰਗਾ ਭੱਠ ਖੇੜਿਆਂ ਦਾ ਰਹਣਾ॥੧॥੧॥੬॥

Con­vey to the dear friend the con­di­tion of the dis­ci­ples, With­out Thee, the tak­ing over of quilt is like dis­ease and liv­ing in the house is like liv­ing with ser­pents The flask is like the spike, the cup is like a dag­ger and (the sep­a­ra­tion) is like en­dur­ing the chop­per of the butch­ers, The pal­let of the beloved Friend is most pleas­ing and the worldly plea­sures are like a hot burn­ing fur­nace.
Dasam Granth, Page 71

So, there is an in­her­ent strength in alone­ness that we can now ex­plore for our­selves es­pe­cially when the op­tion of be­ing “in the com­pany of” is un­avail­able. The Pun­jabi word for alone­ness is “ਇਕਾਂਤ”; and the word for lone­li­ness is “ਇਕਲਾ”, and this Corona event has be­come our ini­ti­a­tion for our jour­ney from lone­li­ness to alone­ness. Like every­thing in the world even the lone­li­ness will end with its ex­piry date, so let us not just suc­cumb to it but face it head-on.  

An en­gi­neer by pro­fes­sion, hail­ing from Myan­mar, ed­u­cated in In­dia, Bhupin­der Singh is a Hous­ton-based busi­ness­man, with a keen in­ter­est in writ­ing books and ar­ti­cles on Sikh his­tory, mo­ti­va­tion and spir­i­tu­al­ity. The books he has writ­ten in­clude, Con­nect­ing with the Mas­ter – A col­lec­tion of es­says on top­ics re­lated to Sikhism, Gur­mat Quo­tient (GQ) – Book on de­vel­op­ment of Spir­i­tu­al­ity, Rehraas – With mean­ing and com­men­tary in Eng­lish, Why are We Here? – Be­come ex­plor­ing the pur­pose of hu­man life, Fish Eat Fish World – An Il­lus­trated Chil­dren’s book, Hu­mil­ity – A Spir­i­tual Jour­ney, In Bul­ly’s Eyes – An Il­lus­trated Chil­dren’s book on Bul­ly­ing