"I am so lonely.”

I have suffered from a loneliness that I have always felt to be for another, but that, in recent years, at least occasionally in moments of great clarity, I have come to see as a pathological loneliness of and for the self. I have always felt this tremendous longing to unite with a woman; but my every attempt to do so has proven ultimately to be a failure. Yet I have never stopped believing in the possibility of this perfect match, this exquisite mating soul-to-soul. In this current moment of clarity, I understand that it is impossible for me to find another with whom to have this relationship because it is my own self I seek. It is the missing aspects or parts of myself with which I long to belong; with which I crave with my heart of hearts to be as one.

There is no one, no woman, who will ever fill the torn and damaged part of me; will never fill my heart with joy and satisfaction; will never light me up with inspiration and effulgence. Never. None. It is so disheartening, after all these years of seeking, to suddenly realize that there is no one, and never will be anyone; that I have spent my life in delusion, wanting to have restored some aspect of myself that has never existed at all perhaps, that was stolen from me before I even had a chance to develop a more complete wholeness and autonomy. Perhaps the “missing piece,” the source of my loneliness is for the deepest and most fragile part of me. Perhaps it is true that I have never really known my true self, and have, therefore, always longed for that. Perhaps, as the Buddhists say, I have always been seeking after illusion – and only now in utter disillusionment does my journey really begin.

Perhaps that which I seek has always been within myself, immediately in my grasp – and yet I believed that it was someone or something outside of myself that I was seeking and for which I had to become worthy. I have always envisioned a time when she would come; when I had paid enough dues to be worthy of her goddess-like presence in my life. Now it seems that it has all been an illusion. Now it seems that perhaps there never has been anyone after whom I have sought; perhaps it has always been some aspect of myself that I have sought – and all of the burdens and sorrows I have carried and suffered have simply been a cleansing for my heart and soul.

Perhaps it is true what Gautama Buddha said, that all desire brings pain; and that the only way to stop the pain is to relinquish the desire. Perhaps the entire journey of this lifetime has been arranged on some cosmic level for me to reach this very point of clarity and disillusionment, this apotheosis of awareness in which I am, perhaps for the very first time, cognizant of my utter emptiness and dependence on the Universe; that I might become more willing and available to be a cosmic instrument and serve the Greater Whole; that I might finally surrender the forlorn burden of separateness and the delusion of greatness suppressed and denied.

I feel strangely lighter in that this has been lifted from me in this moment. At least right now, I no longer feel burdened or oppressed by the aching hunger in my gut and heart. I no longer feel that I am waiting for someone to arrive in my life to fill me up and magically transform my life circumstances. If there is a muse (and I am sure there is), she is neither here to save me nor will she come because I am needy and emotionally penurious. She will come when I am in the full bloom of my selfness and the fullness of the art that is I. Anything short of total spiritual recognition of the self and full responsibility and effort toward its completion is a spiritual crime, and cannot, will not, be tolerated or nurtured.

If I am come into the fullness of my selfness and spirituality, then she must meet me there. Neither of us may be any longer allowed anything less that total self-expression. Though I am tempted to say that I have some glimmer, or have seen a vision of what that might be, I cannot. Though I may be filled with desires and the wantingness of things to be fulfilled – dreams and hurts and hungers carried through countless millennia – I really have no idea what the Creator has in mind for me. I feel very empty yet very full. I have absolutely no idea what dreams may come. Conversely, I have this sense that whatever comes for me will be wonderful, joyous, and grand. WOW!