"Self knowledge is only possible in deep aloneness. Ordinarily whatever we know about ourselves is the opinion of others. They say "you are good," and we think we are good. They say,"You are beautiful, " and we think we are beautiful...whatsoever people say about us, we go on collecting. That becomes our self-identity. It is utterly false because nobody else can know you--nobody can know who you are except you, yourself. They know only aspects, and those aspects are very superficial. They know only momentary moods; they cannot penetrate your center. Not even your lover can penetrate to the very core of your being. There you are utterly alone, and only there will you come to know who you are. People live their whole lives believing in what others say, dependent on others...Because you have to depend on their opinions, you have to continuously conform to their ideas; otherwise they will change their opinions. This creates a slaver, a very subtle slavery. If you want to be known as good, worthy, beautiful, intelligent, then you have to concede, you have to compromise continuously with people on whom you are dependent. And another problem arises. Because there are so many people, they go on feeding your mind with different types of opinions--conflicting opinions, too...hence a great confusion exists inside you...You become suspicious about yourself, about who you are...a wavering...You have many voices inside you. Whenever you ask who you are, many answers will come. Some answers will be your mother's, some will be your father's...and so on and so forth. And it is impossible to decide which one is the right answer...This is where man is lost. This is self-ignorance. But because you depend on others, you are afraid to go into aloneness--because the moment you start going into aloneness, you start becoming afraid of losing yourself. You don't have yourself in the first place, but whatever self you have created out of others' opinions will have to be left behind...the deeper you go, the less you know who you are. So in fact when you are moving toward self knowledge, before it happens you will have to drop all ideas about the self. There will be a gap; there will be a kind of nothingness. You will become a nonentity....mystics call this "the dark night of the soul." It has to be passed, and once you have passed it, there is the dawn. The sun rises, and one comes to know oneself for the first time...all is fulfilled...all is attained."
"absolute solitude is on this showing the ineluctable destiny of the soul."
-Ryle
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