Some women are highly social, enjoying nothing more than a great party or “ladies who lunch” like Truman Capote’s “Swans of Fifth Avenue”. Others prefer peace and quiet and would rather stay home, no matter what exotic entertainment an invitation promises. Neither of these is wrong, but there is a common pattern for women to have fewer friends as they become more spiritually enlightened.
So why do meditation, consciousness-raising workshops, and even tiny steps towards enlightenment encourage us to be more solitary? When we understand that humans possess neuroplasticity, we can see what has created this dramatic shift in our preferences. The more we use our visionary brain, the more we usually desire peace, joy, nature, and privacy, too.
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7 reasons why the most spiritually enlightened women have fewer close friends:
1. Our energy changes
The more our energy improves and the less we are plagued by mental noise, including any pervasive moods of anger, fear, and sadness, the less time and energy we wish to spend socializing.
Our relationship with divine energy and meditation becomes more joyous and nurturing, and with this pivot, practicing meditation and contemplation becomes more important to us. This is also because our willingness to gossip and its cruel inner edge disappears forever.
2. We’re on a self-guided path to inner peace
The more we study and contemplate, the more we can become our best selves, and the less time and energy we want to expend with others who aren’t focused on peace and divine energy. Even in ashrams and spiritual centers, the energy and noise of others can be counterproductive to spiritual bliss.
At the beginning of our search for peace, we need to play “Follow the Leader” to learn about the path to peace, but further on the path, we no longer need to play “Simon Says” and prefer our own self-guided path to inner peace after studying with countless masters. For me, the pursuit of bliss yielded greater and faster results in a quiet, private place, rather than in a group.
3. We become more choosy about friends
The availability of evolved, peaceful people is limited in most environments unless we are living in a spiritual community, yet even there, they are rare. I spent countless weeks in ashrams in India and America, for decades, and enlightened souls could be counted on my fingers, and often on a single thumb.
Meeting my soon-to-become best friend when we were matched as roommates at an ashram was thrilling because we were as alike as sisters and both of us needed a peaceful, loving, and like-minded friend.
4. We opt for a spiritual lifestyle, not a traditional one
Failing to meet people who already share our divine preoccupation is the primary reason that many long-term meditators are satisfied with a few very close friends. It isn’t that we chose that path; rather, by choosing meditation and God, we enjoy contemplation with a greater inner life than the outer one.
In India, it is said that your first twenty years are for education, the second twenty are for marriage and children, and the rest are for God. However, many Indian saints had been married with families, and it is a uniquely Western habit to devote one’s life to career and God until one can finally devote oneself to meditation and divine focus.
5. Deeper connections and communication are key for us
The need to dive deeply into communication with honesty and openness, and to share our values, keeps most long-term meditators within a limited circle of friends. Even if we could find hundreds of candidates, there’s a special connection among those who have experienced merging with God that is still a rarity for most people, though it doesn’t need to be.
The ability to find the right friends who share our interests once we have crossed over into a spiritual lifestyle is the primary reason that we are satisfied to have a few very close friends. But it is the need to go deeper in friendship and communication with honesty and openness, sharing our vision of the divine possibilities that exist for humans, that stops most of us from seeking numerous friends.
The next time a “friend” truly annoys you with gossiping or cruel comments, was she a real friend?
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