communal events – whether political gatherings or
demonstrations or religious festivals and celebrations – may
even end up leaving the individual with an intensified sense
of isolation. Hence neither hermetic retreat, ‘being alone
together’ in a symbolic community, nor resignation to what
is felt as the compromise of ‘ordinary relationships’ may
suffice to overcome the aware individual’s sense of social
isolation.
For the more politically-oriented individual this
isolation may actually lead them away from aware relating
to others and be replaced instead by a militant hostility
towards others – for example in the form of individuals,
groups or communities with other values or convictions,
ethnic origins, class or colour. For the more spiritually
oriented individual the same intensified isolation may lead
to ever greater identification with their own divine Self –
yet at the exclusion of aware relations to the living human
Others in their lives. And whilst this can lead to the
experience of evermore exalted and higher states of divine-
spiritual Self-awareness, the individual’s capacity to embody
this awareness in deepened relations with a human Other
diminishes. The result is a vicious circle in which an ever-
greater spiritual ‘realisation’ of Self through relationship
with God leads to an ever-diminished spiritual relationship
to human Others. One very central reason for such
dilemmas and vicious circles of isolation is a failure to fully
accept and finds ways of responding to unavoidable