While on the one hand, complete withdrawal from the world and fellow humans is not the emphasis in Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga, on the other hand, contact and interaction with others can only be beneficial if approached in the right attitude and with a certain degree of detachment. Undoubtedly, this can lead to a feeling of loneliness especially during the beginning stages. Here, we take the help of Sri Aurobindo’s words in order to cope with the void within.
The inner loneliness can only be cured by the inner experience of union with the Divine; no human association can fill the void. In the same way, for the spiritual life the harmony with others must be founded not on mental and vital affinities, but on the divine consciousness and the union with the Divine. When one feels the Divine and feels others in the Divine, then the real harmony comes. Meanwhile what there can be is the goodwill and unity founded on the feeling of a common divine goal and the sense of being all children of the Mother…. Real harmony can come only from a psychic or a spiritual basis.
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To be alone with the Divine is the highest of all privileged states for the sadhak, for it is that in which inwardly he comes nearest to the Divine and can make all existence a communion in the chamber of the heart as well as in the temple of the universe. Moreover that is the beginning and base of the real oneness with all, for it establishes that oneness in its true base, on the Divine, for it is in the Divine that he meets and unites with all and no longer in a precarious interchange of the mental and vital ego. So do not fear loneliness but put your trust in the Mother and go forward on the Path in her strength and Grace.
Sri Aurobindo
