One of the most interesting sections of Krishna’s exposition in the Gita comes at the very end, in chapter 18, verse 63, and I mention it here because it has relevance regarding methods of awakening in the perennial philosophy. After Krishna has outlined the three yogas, Arjuna is curious to know which method works best and which he should choose; however, Krishna ends with a very telling comment: “Thus to you has been expounded the knowledge that is more secret than the secret; after considering it fully, you should act as you think best.” At the end of the discourse, Krishna’s answer is basically, “That’s for you to decide.” And here Krishna is recognizing that different pathways appeal to different personality types. Karma yoga, the yoga of “action,” is not best suited for those who enjoy contemplation, and quiet meditation is unappealing to those who like to keep busy. Growth toward spiritual maturity is intensely personal, given that no matter how many mystics have woken up throughout history, this will be the first time you have woken up; consequently, personal choice, based on one’s own nature, is deeply important when it comes to choosing a path.

Dana Sawyer, The Perennial Philosophy Reloaded: A Guide for the Mystically Inclined, p.74

I am coming to see that this is another of those places where organised religion regularly fails the contemplative in finding their path. Rarely if ever do religions – even avowedly contemplative religions like Buddhism – offer the freedom of growth and practice Sawyer outlines here. (The individual’s path is generally seen in terms of obedience and conformity to a known pattern of practice and intent: for instance, in a Christian monastic setting one’s obedience is to one’s superior; in a Zen context to the practice leaders, or to the community’s Master himself.)

The freedom to follow the heart is another matter entirely. As I have often remarked on this blog, a contemplative without a religious framework is called to a kind of solitude,  The inwardly eremitic life doesn’t have necessarily to involve physical isolation or any experiment in extreme living: it is a solitude of the heart, a calling to a necessary quiet.

We are used by now to the way people may be broadly divided into introverts and extroverts, more precisely perhaps into the 16 personalities of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. We may even have stumbled across Elaine Aron and her concept of the highly sensitive person. I think perhaps it is time we recognise the Einzelgänger or Einzelgängerin as a distinct personality type in themselves: contemplatives who find that they are temperamentally unsuited either for formal membership of some church or meeting, or for the particular relationship of personal discipleship.

It would be too easy, perhaps, to dismiss the path of the “independent contemplative” as an easy way, a variety of the cafeteria religion so enthusiastically despised by some of the more orthodox followers of one religion or another. But it is far from being a soft option, followed seriously.

Karen Karper Fredette and Paul Fredette write, in Consider the Ravens: On Contemporary Hermit Life (p.213):

Anyone taking the eremitic vocation seriously is bound to feel helpless, quite impotent, in fact. Hermits are determined to help, to make a positive difference, but how? What can one person do, hidden and alone? Sometimes, solitaries may feel blameworthy because they live lives which shelter them from much of the suffering that so harshly mars the existence of their brothers and sisters. Love and compassion well up in them … but is it enough? What should one do and how? This is where passionate intercessory prayer and supplication spontaneously arises.

The challenge is to live a life given over to praying for others while accepting that one will seldom, if ever, see any results. No one will be able to ascertain how, or even if, their devoted prayers are efficacious for others. It is a terrible kind of poverty—to live dedicated to helping others, yet never know what good one may be doing. All that hermits can hope is that they are doing no harm. Believers leave all results to the mercy of their God. Others rely on their convictions about the interconnection of all humanity, trusting that what affects one, touches all. This is a form of intercession expressed less by words than by a way of life. A Camaldolese monk once wrote: “Prayer is not only speaking to God on behalf of humanity, it is also ‘paying’ for humanity.” Suffering is part of the hermit’s vocation. One of the most acute forms is to never know whether one’s chosen lifestyle is worthwhile or has any value for others. Hermits enter into the darkness, the dusky cloud of unknowing, and walk without any light beyond that which is in their own hearts. Often, unbeknownst even to themselves, they have become beacons for others.