When all is stripped away, the mind, the emotions, the sense of body, are you able to be intimately alone...?

Question

with what remains? Beyond all concepts of loneliness or aloneness?

What is this intimacy?

Answer 1

This intimacy is Communion!

Welcome Home I Am Sirius, & I am serious.

Many Blessings!



Edit:

As I started to walk away from the computer this came to mind.

There is a time we feel like we "unhook" from our emotional & mental ties to the world as we have known, & dwell for a time in sweet solitude.

But all is a process & whatever place we stand in that process will give rise to the next.

We seem to lose outer connection for a time, but within an amazing transformation is happening, sometimes even unknown to us.

We are like the caterpillar who spins it's cocoon for a period of apparent dormancy to those who look from the outside it.

But within a wonderful transformation is in process.

Then the blessed day arrives, & a butterfly is born!

Many Blessings!

Answer 2

The intimacy is the connection with infinite love. If you have experienced unconditional love, then think of infinite love as having the power of the sun compared with a campfire. They have the same character, but their power makes them completely different. You can hold unconditional love; however, to attempt to hold even the tiniest aspect of infinite love will burn you. It is this understanding that this love is about sharing, available to all and owned by no one. This connection with infinite love shows you to be connected with all life. You can see into the depths of another person's soul as if they had offered you everything. You feel a flood of awareness that comes in waves as you gain strength within this new space. Remember that you are a physical presence that has physiological attributes. Therefore, the understanding comes and the body takes time to catch up. You will feel like a ghost in the world at first, feeling both everywhere and nowhere at the same time. You no longer identify with your body in the same way in that the energy you feel is no longer connected to your body. What you might sense is the essence of you, which is really something in nothing, has no need to locate anywhere.



All that being said, most people forget when romanticizing about enlightenment is that you leave behind everything you ever were. You are so completely gone, it is like a death. With all of the love and light, coming to terms with the process was not blissful as suggested in the Zen story listed in one of the other answers.



The term "I" becomes a convention because you still have to interact with the world. You see people react to your presence in amazing ways, from completely loving to fearful, to disconnected. The only thing that is not possible is to walk into a room unnoticed. Your connection with love shows through every pore in your body as it is felt in every cell. You feel more alive than ever before, you see brightness in the beauty all around, and you see other people creating pain everywhere they turn. That is the hard part, to witness all of the pain and still let it flow through you, because no matter how much you could help, your help will not be seen as such. All you can do is represent love and answer questions if someone asks. Other than that, just allow them to bask in your beauty, for you have become beautiful.

Answer 3

Can you strip the mind away? If you strip the mind away, is there a "you" to witness alone-ness? Can you strip away all your conclusions that make you a personality, without simply replacing those conclusions with other 'new' conclusions?



Or will your conclusion be the same as those who are into the concept of 'non-duality' who conclude that all conclusions are duality, and hence lie in the grave they have made for duality by concluding so?



Is there something or somewhere to rest your mind; could it be, the desire to strip away the mind to reach intimacy is causing unrest (causing you as the measurable a movement of the psyche)?



Here is a curious story.

------------------------

A taxi driver runs over a pregnant lady, because he is distracted by his passengers conversation, and he did not give enough attention to the road. The passengers in the back seat are Buddhists who are hotly and heatedly debating what it is to be in a state of total awareness such that self was absent. The Buddhists got so involved in this discussion, that even after the crash, the taxi driver had to make the Buddhists aware of the dead lady he had just run over. The Buddhists wanted to cultivate awareness: they existed only in that run of thoughts (that desire), although they were not aware of it.

------------------------



Do you really want to be alone? If the mind is stripped away, what will happen to you? Is that why you ask the question, instead of the mental movement that gives rise to questions subsiding?



Can you ask questions without already holding to some previously formed conclusions? Can you move without firm ground to push against? Can thought be still if there is the movement to sweep away the mind? Do you (thought) want to end, or do you want to exist? Can thought answer that question without "creating some other state (position)" by which to judge self against, thus limiting the image of self in that framework? Are you still trying to answer? What will you do with the answer?



If a mental state (projection/perception) is brought about through contrasting and comparing between the image of "what" is (memory of the past= self) and the image of what might be possible e.g. the image of ''intimacy'' (memory of what is in the past becoming transposed into an ideal alone-ness): will you- desire to remain as that 'hope of escape', or will you prefer to remain as 'fear of endless imprisonment' (that is: the movement of hopelessness)?....What other possibility is there for the body/mind which does silence the mental movement of fear and/or desire? What situations can you think of when those feelings are absent?



Have I answered your question? If you think so, is it not so that there is a "you" 'because' of the answer which is accepted; if you think not, is it not so that there is a "you" 'because' of the answer which is rejected? If you think you don't know if I have answered your question: is it not so that there is still "you" 'because' thought in you makes the conclusions that you do not know if there is in this monologue an answer?



Are you still considering? Why? What do you expect from someone else that you don't already have?



P.S. "Intimately alone" as a phrase is an oxymoron because:

Intimate means "into, within the border: e.g. comparative, not contrasting etc", and "alone" is a contraction from the Old English "all ana" [all by oneself,] from all "all, wholly" + an "one" (see one). If there is no contrasting thing (because all is one), then by definition one is alone and not intimate, as there is only one fold. Only when things are defined, are there multiple (from Latin meaning many fold), where there can be intimate because there is extimate. The Latin ex-timus was not brought into English, where as in-timus was.



Thus thought (which contrasts and compares things) creates multiple out of what is seen/heard/touched/tasted/smelt etc; thus, enabling the measurement of intimate vs extimate. If you are not measuring what is intimate vs extimate, there is no intimacy nor extimacy because intimacy for things/people etc cannot exist without other things being extimate. Its only relative if the brain can contrast.



When the brain is not asking the question, then everything is not divided (e.g. one, alone), but the brain is not perceiving this because aloneness has no relative, accept in the physical sense in relation to things. "Hence you get comments like: ever feel alone inside a crowded room?"

Answer 4

When the individual conditioned spirit soul is stripped of the mind, the emotions, the sense of body, it becomes pure in its original state and is then able to unite with the Supreme spirit soul from where it was separated to experience the self in this material universe. That is the true purpose of every individual soul, to realize its true identity and also remind others that it is not the body, mind, intelligence and ego but it is beyond all this. It is a pure spirit soul come from the spiritual world which is its real true abode. It had forgotten its true home as it became lost & got more and more involved in the illusion of I, me and mine. It got lost by wanting to Enjoy more, to Control and Possess more and to be Better than others. Once the soul surrenders its mind, intelligence and ego it realizes that all creations are made of the pure spirit, all are one and no one is smaller or greater than the other.

Answer 5

Yes and no. There is no sense of aloneness when there is One. That being then knows The One which has til then only been known from the ego/mind. Now it is known to Be the Peace, Joy, Love and fullness that was always strived for from the world of 'other' but what the world can never give. We discover our true nature as Spirit and we understand directly from Source the nature of Reality. As God has said, 'No thing has substance. I alone have Am Substance and the creation is a dream to express My Glory.'



Loneliness is an experience of the ego/mind caught in duality, what the Hindus call Maya and what Jesus referred to when He said, "When you overcome the world even as I have overcome then will I send you out no more."



It is like the wave of the ocean suddenly realizing it is really the ocean itself and not the form that takes place from one trough to another that constantly crashes and becomes a confusion of angst and suffering every time it tries to cling to something. Now it is the vast ocean itself aware of all the waves upon its surface that are still crashing into every landmass and crying out in pain. All it wants to do is rise again to the surface, take form and try to tell all the other souls bound by ego/mind that they are not those forms by the ocean itself. Turn within and overcome the senses that cling to the surface and forget their Source. That's what the Gospel is. Caught in Maya, caught in the ego/mind, man makes religions out of the teachings that every Master comes to share and continues to wallow on the surface of the Ocean of Love, the vast Ocean of Peace, the unfathomable Ocean of Joy.



Namaste'

Answer 6

This is call transcendence, this is the realization that we are spirit soul, not the body or mind or intelligence.

This is the first step in god realization, as we realize we are spirit and part of the Supreme Spirit.

When we achieve this stage, beyond the material designation and attachments, we become extremely happy.



BG 4.19: One is understood to be in full knowledge whose every endeavor is devoid of desire for sense gratification. He is said by sages to be a worker for whom the reactions of work have been burned up by the fire of perfect knowledge.



BG 4.20: Abandoning all attachment to the results of his activities, ever satisfied and independent, he performs no fruitive action, although engaged in all kinds of undertakings.



BG 4.21: Such a man of understanding acts with mind and intelligence perfectly controlled, gives up all sense of proprietorship over his possessions, and acts only for the bare necessities of life. Thus working, he is not affected by sinful reactions.



BG 4.22: He who is satisfied with gain which comes of its own accord, who is free from duality and does not envy, who is steady in both success and failure, is never entangled, although performing actions.



BG 4.23: The work of a man who is unattached to the modes of material nature and who is fully situated in transcendental knowledge merges entirely into transcendence.



BG 7.19: After many births and deaths, he who is actually in knowledge surrenders unto Me, knowing Me to be the cause of all causes and all that is. Such a great soul is very rare.

Answer 7

"I" is a package consisting of mind, emotions, body plus many more attributes. When all is stripped away, the package loses its relevance.



One example to help understand the statement. One drop of water when it merges with sea, is called sea. The moment it is called sea, it loses its identity of being a drop.



Similarly, when all is stripped away, nothing remains. When all is stripped away, "I" no more exists.



This is not intimacy. This is vacuum.

Answer 8

That is the state of "Everything and Nothing" when you realize that we are all alone together, that the separation between all living things exists only in the mind. Loneliness is an illusion of the ego. We are never alone.

Answer 9

Know nothing

about that Experience



Still a long way to go

So do I think at times



But at other

I wonder whether

the journey has ever begun



Words no matter how profound

are just mere words

not the reality

the experience !!

Answer 10

Happiness



Its also called



Sat - Chit - Anand

meaning - Purity leading to happiness inside as experienced in samadhi, the transcendental state of equanimity and self repose when all attention is turned inwards and material desires are eliminated. However purity is achieved thru celibacy & meditation. This is the teaching of Buddha

Answer 11

After a major surgical operation I woke up and my heart was beating so fast I was convinced I was dieing.

My teacher has taught me that it is essential as one leaves the body to be thinking about God .. so I started repeating the name of God over and over again :))



My attachment to material home and wealth just was not even worth a thought and my emotional attachment to family caught my attention briefly until I realised God would of course look after them :)) ........... I then was part this stillness which has continued as the foundation of my continued existence :)) Sai Ram.

Answer 12

When all humanity is stripped away and all identity is gone, all that is left is the Divine Self, Oneness. You realize what you are and what you have always been. Being being ItSelf. This is the ultimate intimacy.

Answer 13

Nobody is truly alone. We get lonely because we dont share things that we are suppose to. Things like love or knowledge. What we share dont have to be materialistic in nature. What we share in the right moment , right time with the right person always heals both the person who shares and those who receives. See IT has to go where IT has to go for IT to exist in everyone and everything.



If we share things we are suppose to then even when we are alone we are not.



I know this because I am Sirius too he he he. Sorry : )

Answer 14

solitary confinement will cause you to lose your mind. In prison when you are bad, they punish you by removing you from other criminals, and you get depressed



thats how badly you need others: you'd rather be surrounded by evil than be alone



"Take away a man's light, his clothes, his food, his friends, his air, and you leave him with nothing but himself. And for most people, that is not pleasant company"

Answer 15

Intimacy is being, becoming whether that's with or without compassion

Answer 16

If you could strip away all the mind and emotions you would be dead, would you not? as these are vital to our being who and what we are.

Answer 17

Will you be able to be intimately alone...with what remains? Yes.



What remains? Consciousness remains.



This intimacy is 'Emptiness - True silence'.



In the state of true silence there is nothing to be experienced. A Zen story illustrates the truth.



A disciple of Yoka kept approaching him gleefully with all his spiritual experiences that he encountered in his meditation sessions. He related to the master that he saw a light, felt the Kundalini raising, an inner fragrance and the like. Each time he spoke of an experience to his master hoping to be appreciated for his spiritual progress , he was only beaten up.



One day having experienced, 'emptiness', he approached the master with great hopes that he would be accepted this time. Even before he could open up, the master lay his hands on him.



The surprised disciple said, “This is too much, you started beating me even before hearing me”



“There is no need to listen to you. It does not matter what you want to say. The moment you entered the room, I figured out you have come with your stupid ideas!” said the master.



The disciple retorted, “But you should have heard me. I was about to tell you of my experience of 'emptiness', the ultimate and the state of all Buddhas”



Yoka only beat him more and said, “Here you are with another idea, throw your emptiness out!”



The aghast disciple said, “But how can I throw emptiness ? It is not possible”



Yoka said, “The emptiness that you have is not true. It is your idea about emptiness that you are holding on to. Throw it out ! Each time you approached me with your ideas like, light, energy and fragrance. They are just labels changing. Now you have again approached me with the idea of emptiness. Throw that also and only then you will be in true silence!”



True emptiness consists of nothing. Not even the feeling of experiencing. All there is is only consciousness or the subject.



The first and the only worthwhile inquiry is to know: “Who am I within this body-mind mechanism? What is this consciousness, this miracle of consciousness?” This miracle of awareness has to be discovered. You have to peel your being as one peels an onion. Go on peeling…. You will find layers within layers. And finally, when all the layers are discarded, eliminated, you will find in your hands pure nothingness, emptiness. That is your essential core, the center of the cyclone.



You have to learn meditation to enjoy your emptiness. And that is one of the greatest days in life — when a person starts enjoying emptiness, aloneness, nothingness. Just as one peels an onion, peel your personality, layer by layer. Go on throwing those layers. New layers will be there, but finally a moment comes when the onion disappears and there is only emptiness in your hands. That moment is the moment of enlightenment. You cannot desire it, because desire adds another layer to your onion — and a far more dangerous layer than any other layer.



Man should be like a hollow bamboo, so that existence can pass through him. Man should be like a porous sponge — not hard — so that the doors and the windows of his being are open, and existence can pass from one end to another without any hindrance; in fact, finding no one inside. The winds blow — they come in from one window and they go out from another window of his being. This emptiness is the highest bliss possible. But you are like a hard, unporous rock, or like a hard steel rod. Nothing passes through you. You resist everything. You don’t allow. You go on fighting on all sides and in all directions as if you are in a great war with existence. There is no war going on, you are simply befooled by yourself. Nobody is there to destroy you. The whole supports you; the whole is the very earth on which you are standing, the very sky in which you breathe, you live. In fact, you are not — only the whole is. When one understands this, by and by one drops the inner hardness, there is no need for it. There is no enmity, the whole is friendly towards you. The whole cherishes you, loves you. Otherwise, why are you here? The whole brings you forth, like a tree is brought forth by the earth. The whole would like to participate in all your blessings, in all the celebrations that are possible. When you flower, the whole will flower through you; when you sing, the whole will sing through you; when you dance, the whole will dance with you. You are not separate.



Once you understand this, meditation becomes possible. Once you understand this, you relax. You throw off all the armour that you have created around you as a security. You are no longer afraid. Fear disappears and love arises. In this state of love, emptiness happens. Or, if you can allow emptiness to happen, love will flower in it. Love is a flower of emptiness, total emptiness — emptiness is the situation. It can work both ways.



May you always shine like a Star and be fragrant like a Flower,

God bless your Life with infinite Love and Peace, Amen.

Answer 18

I have this addressed in a play---an opera, actually---I wrote (but did nothing with, unfortunately) entitled, "Is My Kitty Cat a Duck?" There are two main characters, each with three "Aspects of Self" and the man's character is from a wealthy family with an austere dad, whereas the woman is knocked back in life at least two steps for every one step she takes forward. The man, named after his own father, is expected to follow in his dad's footsteps as an advertising executive (chosen for the element of CON JOB that sells the public on products they neither need nor want if left on their own---metaphor for living a lie), but he was given piano lessons secretly by his mom and music is his true love (albeit a deeply REPRESSED and DENIED love). All of his training took him away from emotions, away from sentimental attachments---no pets, no distractions, and he ended up a big shot executive in his father's firm, due for a rather huge promotion for which he had been working hard. In Act I, Scene 1, he leaves his starkly furnished luxury apartment to get the promotion.



In Act 1, Scene 3, however, he returns after being squeezed out---no promotion, no more job in the company, hopes dashed. [Note: Part of the set is a VIDEO SCREEN backdrop used to project images, sometimes in black-and-white/sometimes in color, to the audience that augment the storylines for both characters, giving the audience a peek inside the minds or lives of the characters.] He goes through the stages of grieving, as his three Aspects are drawn into the mix---a pesky "Gidget-type" female persona and two male alteregos, both taller and stronger than he and both figments of his imagination; only the female (or sensitive) seed is real. All of the bluster and boast of Act I, Scene 1 appears on the backdrop screen from the most RECENT (him as characterized in the job he was convinced he'd have), and then evaporates into nothingness; on through each layer of his perceptions of himself, each one in succession appearing in full color, then fading to black and white, then POOF! gone...including his two male alterego selves one at a time, and then he comes to his last vestige of self...William J. Francis Carrington, III...and as this name reverberates (speakers planted in the theater for a SURROUND SOUND effect) and then he sees himself on the screen, he cries out: "Wait! You can't take that away! That's all I have!" And a voice from everywhere says, "But if this is all you have...then who's talking?" And he slips for the first time into his baby-turtle-without-a-shell REAL self---the infant unwarped or unchanged by others' demands, still in tune with the Cosmos and a metaphysical being (where he stored his love of music so that his austere father and he himself would not even sense its presence). One by one, each of his facades of "self" fell away and he was left with his soul-seed connection to Infinite Being, the first time in his entire "privileged" life that he was REAL.



The woman character achieves this point within from the opposite direction---from seeming lack and abuse and brutality. Only after they each are carried to this point do the characters actually meet, and this happens in a Unity Church (metaphysical), third row back (to signify a Trinity), he on the left and she on the right (but in yin-yang transition where each is the other, if that makes sense to you), and each of the Aspects of Self are now in the shape of a Menorah or the "seven churches" cited in Revelations, or any other metaphysical meaning for seven---with the middle (or seventh) element being the FEMALE minister named Leila. Sorry to go on and on...I don't often get a chance to speak of my works and sometimes think I'll go to my grave without ever having brought them to prominence. There is a COSMIC connection that surpasses all manifestations.

Answer 19

Friend,



Have not heard or read .'' Mana Eva Manusyaanam kaaranam bandha mokshayo...''



So when you smash MIND (MANASSU), or in your words strip off the Manassu, you are not ALONE BUT YOU BECOME EVRY THING IN THE UNIVERSE,OMNIPRESENT.

Answer 20

Thimmappa wraps it up for me too: "Intimately one with all that exist including oneself."

Answer 21

Intimately one with all that exist including oneself.

Answer 22

This is a perfect example of a question which sounds profound and deep but is in reality just meaningless crap. loneliness or aloneness for chrissakes.