Distancing

We must practice the spiritual discipline of social distancing until we realize that there is no distance at all.

Separation is only in the mind. Swallow vast distances, even the emptiness between the stars, with this breath. Enfold all friends and strangers in the spacious intimacy at the core of your heart. Practice this, even for one moment a day.

Osho said it so perfectly: "The capacity to be alone is the capacity to love. It may look paradoxical to you, but it's not. Only those who are capable of being alone are capable of loving, of sharing, of going into the deepest core of another person - without possessing the other, without becoming dependent on the other, without reducing the other to a thing, and without becoming addicted to the other.

"They allow the other absolute freedom, because they know that if the other leaves, they will be as happy as they are now. Their happiness cannot be taken by the other, because it is not given by the other."

Photo: Swallowtail Moth in Sunflower, by Aile Shebar