Alone but Never Lonely
Who do you connect with in solitude?
Disclaimer- This article is a collaboration of someone who writes as beautifully as she expresses herself and me. Although she wishes to remain anonymous, she has co-authored this piece with me, and I hope to have more opportunities to write alongside her and learn from her expertise. We both hope that the readers recognize a version of themselves through this piece.
Happy Reading!
I come home late, tired and drained. What I need now cannot be offered by the world. What I need now is already within me. I just need to sit with myself and hear me speak. The feeling of being one with the divine, of understanding who I am. Of becoming relaxed yet powerful, for I know now that I found a home in solitude.
The night is another experience to be lived and it wouldn’t be wrong to say that this experience is as vivid as nothing else.
And then it begins.
There is a particular hour of the night when the world finally stops asking things of me.
The notifications fade, the conversations end, and what remains is a silence so complete that it almost has a texture.
Most people rush to fill that silence.
I have learned to sit inside it, because it is there that I meet the only companion who has never left me: myself, and the Divine that breathes within me.
Solitude is not the absence of people; it is the presence of the Self.
Perhaps we fear solitude because, without distractions, we are left with thoughts we have long avoided and feelings we have never understood. Silence brings us face-to-face with ourselves, and that can be uncomfortable. But maybe, if we stop running from it, we might discover that being alone isn’t something to fear, but an opportunity to know ourselves better.
Get Saimaa Malla’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
Loneliness is a hunger for validation from outside, while solitude is the quiet recognition that I am already a complete world.
A mind that depends on constant company is like a lamp that needs another flame to prove it can burn. But a steady flame needs no witness. It simply glows, and in glowing, it becomes a refuge for others too.
The ancient seers understood this. The Upanishads speak of the Atman as a light that does not flicker with circumstance, untouched whether I am surrounded by crowds or sitting in complete stillness.
When I close my eyes, fold my hands and whisper “Om Namah Shivaya”, something shifts. The restless mind settles like river water turning clear. I am not retreating from life; I am returning to its source. The same consciousness that moves the stars, that rests in the Himalayas, that wears the moon upon its head, is breathing quietly within me. In that realization, aloneness dissolves into oneness.
Perhaps this is what it means to find peace within oneself: to realize that even in the quietest moments, we are never truly alone.
There is a stillness beneath our thoughts, a presence that asks for nothing and yet gives us everything we need.
And perhaps the more we learn to listen to it, the more we begin to recognize the Divine not only in our prayers, but in the simple act of just being.
So I no longer see solitude as something to endure.
I see it as a form of prayer, a sacred appointment with the infinite. When a woman learns to be at peace in her own company, she carries a calm that cannot be taken away, because it was never given by anyone in the first place. To be alone, and yet utterly at home in the embrace of the Divine: that is not emptiness.
That is freedom.
Hello readers!
A little appreciation for my co-author, who made this experience all the more special.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, adding your perspective, and helping me bring this piece to life. It’s lovely to have someone to exchange ideas with and create something meaningful together. I’m genuinely glad we got to work on this, and I hope we get to write many more beautiful things together.
Looking forward to more collaborations!
