Other People Have Families

“ The Garden of Eden and the heavenly Jerusalem are the same place, depending on whether you are looking backward or forward. 

A person touched by Loneliness is a holy person. 

He is caught in the development of individuation. 

Whether it’s a development or a regression depends on what he does with it. 

Loneliness can destroy you, or it can fire you up for a Dante-like journey through Hell and Purgatory to find paradise. St. John of the Cross called this the Dark Night of the Soul.

The worst suffering I’ve ever experienced has been loneliness, the kind that feels as though it has no cure, that nothing can touch it. 

One day, at the midpoint in my life—a little like Dante—I got so exhausted from it that I went into my bedroom, lay face down on my bed, and said, “I’m not going to move until this is resolved.” 

I stayed a long time, and the loneliness did ease a little. 

Dante fell out of Hell, shimmied down the hairy leg of the Devil, went through the center of the world, and started up the other side, which was Purgatory. 

I felt better, but as soon as I got up and began to do anything, my loneliness returned. 

I made many round trips until gradually an indescribable quality began to suffuse my life, and loneliness loosened its grip. 

Nothing outside changed. The change was entirely inside.

Thomas Merton wrote a beautiful treatise on solitude. 

He said that certain individuals are obliged to bear The Solitude of God. 

Solitude is Loneliness evolved to the next level of reality. He who is obliged to bear The Solitude of God should not be asked to do anything else; it’s such a difficult task. 

For monastics, solitude was one of the early descriptions of God. 

If you can transform your Loneliness into Solitude, you’re one step away from the most precious of all experiences. 

This is the cure for Loneliness.

Excerpt from: "Inner Gold: Understanding Psychological Projection" by Arnie Kotler.