I wanted to share a big experiment I have been practicing off late. The practice is called “Disconnected Solitude” and it’s been giving great results to me so far. I learned this concept from one of my teachers and it is well worth sharing with the world.
So what is this “Disconnected solitude”. To understand this, you have to first understand what “Solitude” means in day to day life.
“Solitude” literally and figuratively means “Being alone”. It could mean reading a book in your home when none is there. It could mean you are all alone without friends, family and anyone you know in a new city. It could mean you are sitting in a beach for half day without interacting with anyone.
Disconnected solitude means you are alone as well as “Disconnected” from the world in every possible way. No communication, no interaction, no way of allowing any external thoughts or influences during that period.
So here is how the disconnected solitude goes for two days
- Friday night, call up my family, my wife and tell them not to call me for two days. My phone will be off.
- Come home, prepare food on Friday night which you will consume for two days. It is important to prepare this food at home, by yourself and not buy the food from a store or restaurant.
- Turn the phone off. Turn internet off. Turn your computer off. Lock the door from outside giving the impression that nobody is home.
- Saturday morning – wake up. You are not allowed to go outside home or be in touch with Sunlight for two days. You cannot speak with anybody. You cannot hear any external sound. You cannot see anything outside your room.
- You are all alone. All you have to do is sit there. No books, no TV, No Phone, No Internet, No Movies. Nothing. Just sit all day. No bathing. The goal is to curb all possible external influences which influence your mind and body in some way.
- You only eat two times – Lunch and Dinner. That is all. You sleep once, after dinner.
- All day, you sit there doing nothing. Thinking nothing. No activity. You can meditate if you want but no other activity is allowed. Not even physical push-ups or running around in the house or playing any game. You have to sit idle the whole day, eat and sleep.
When I tried this for the first month, I failed every single weekend. I could not last 30 minutes. Then I called my teacher and asked him why it is so difficult to sit alone doing nothing for 30 minutes. Here is what he said
Your Prana is unsteady. Your mind is unsteady. Your “Rajas” component is too high – it is an obstacle to attain self-actualization. With meditation, practice and perseverance, you will be able to control your unsteady mind and lower the “Rajas” component. It will take time. This exercise is meant to test whether you are ready to achieve self-actualization or not. If you fail continusly for weeks to achieve the steadiness of mind, it just means your mind is not ready to reach that stage yet. You still need more and more practice.
The first month I failed badly. Second month onwards, there was some improvement. I was able to go through until 2-3 hours and then quit. Slowly it improved to half day and then one full day.
I have achieved this disconnected solitude successfully for three weeks now. Here is what I learned through the exercise
- When you are lonely, you think about your past, your present, your future, life goals, relationships and hundreds of other things. All these thoughts are not yours. Yes, I am serious. These thoughts are produced by your surroundings and environment where you live in. this filthy world breeds these thoughts in your head without you even knowing it at all. You think about your past and future and everything else because you see worldly objects around you all the time, influencing your thoughts all the time. The moment you remove these worldly objects from your sight, these thoughts will disappear. You will no longer think about useless things and will be able to achieve some stillness of the mind.
- You will be able to listen to your own breath and a constant “Hum” sound coming through your nose. It’s scary but you will be able to realize that.It’s the same sound you hear when you close your ear with your fingers. It’s actually the universal sound of “Aum”. It will take some time for you to realize that the sound is not “Huuuummmm” but “Auuuuuuuum”.
- In a state where there is no sound entering your room, the fan is turned off and there is absolutely no distraction, you will be able to listen to various other sounds happening in your body, in your stomach, in your hair. It will feel like insects are moving inside your hair, something is moving inside your throat. It feels really weird and scary but I did feel it multiple times.
- You will be able to clean up hidden thoughts which were causing you sadness and depression through the subconscious, without you even knowing it. Only after you have entered a state which is free from external distractions, your mind can clean up those scars and heal it effectively so you can repair that area and come out stronger. The mind is a great healer, provided you give it the circumstance and distraction-free environment wherein it can heal itself. If you are always distracting your own mind through worldly endeavors, the mind cannot heal itself.
- Sitting idle for more than 3-4 hours causes stress, fatigue and makes you sleepy in the beginning. this is because the mind is learning to adjust to this new state so it will take a few weeks for it to train and adapt to this new change. This will go away if you keep practicing regularly.
This whole idea of disconnecting yourself from the entire material world is to connect with your inner world, align your mind to heal itself and achieve stillness.
Try it, I hope you will benefit greatly from it. It can be very addictive as well, because if you cherish the experience for more than 3-4 months, you will want to cherish it again and again and start avoiding material distractions, relationships, people, objects and everything else.