Hello again Rita, Ram, Constance, Jonathan, Wolfgang, and All,

Your replies are Divine, as usual.

One of the themes that has been occurring to me (and it's what made me respond to the email string entitled "Solitude") is that one of the sources of my emptiness feeling occurs when I have the thought, "Nothing is going on in my life; nothing at all".

I grew up with a mother that had to fill each and every moment of time either with activity or words; there was no tolerance for silence or stillness, because silence and stillness have the significance that "nothing is going on, nothing meaningful is occurring". This attitude, needless to say, is a result of materialistic thinking: that the only "real" events are those that we can detect with our five senses; if we can't detect something with our five senses, then it is "fantasy" or "nonsense". Thus does the spiritual attunement of our early childhood get snuffed out by our culture, or by our families transmitting that culture. It takes much struggle to dig for the buried treasure, but of course it is well worth the effort.

So when I face moments of "nothing to do", I must realize: Up to the present moment, my life has been a stream of words, activities, and events, which may well have led me to the situation of THE VOID, wherein I can, through habit, experience panicky loneliness at first, but then go beyond that to experience the real meaning of the Universe instead of the illusory meaning conveyed by material occurrences. We do not have to be slaves to the mentality that conventional things (marriage, kids, career advancement, attendance at social gatherings, etc.) must be occurring in our lives in order for us to be in a state of plenitude. The state of plenitude is a natural state, and we would all feel it if not for so many material distractions and our investments in them.

Love,

Kenneth