Cloudscape

Suggest to yourself that everything around you loves you infinitely, and in this suggestion love it back. If nothing else, it is merely a suggestion, but nonetheless it is one that has incredible psychological power.

Spiritual beliefs need not be true; whether they are or not, they work if you believe in them. In this they are true to the spirit — in a spiritual sense — which is all that matters.

Spiritual beliefs are akin to hypnosis: similarly, hypnosis makes use of suggestions which, while untrue, still work. Hypnosis might visualize images such as light filling the body, or pain assuming a physical form, or, as means of hypnotic induction, of magnets on each hand attracting each other or a balloon tied to the hand lifting it; none of these things are real in the physical world, but they are real in the mental world. They are constructs of the mind, and so to the mind they are true.

Within, they exist as thoughts, which are quite real. When one considers this, one realizes that there isn't really anything which is not "real," and that apparently immaterial things matter as much as material things.

We may, for instance, conceive of things as though they were alive; from what we know this may be true or it may not be, but that doesn't really matter. From a certain viewpoint, one could say this is true because the things we perceive around us are themselves but our own perceptions, and therefore, part of our own mind, very much alive. As they are part of our own persona, it can allow us to more fully respect our persona if we deem them as if they were persons themselves.

It is unscientific to simply take it for granted that it is so, but one can nonetheless imagine that it is so. Thereby one can allow oneself to feel more connected to the outside world, even when one is alone.

On the other hand, it can be misleading to mix scientific and spiritual beliefs, though the two may be connected. If one merely imagines something to be true without knowing whether it is so or not, one will never be deceived; if one actually assumes it, however, then one will be easily deceived.

In the silence you can hear things you otherwise cannot. Remember this when you feel alone, that you would listen to the silence. Only when you are alone, you can fully connect to yourself, and discover what you feel, and what you want. This may be a hard lesson, which is why loneliness can be so painful, but know that the lesson does not last forever, and you will become a wiser person from this lesson if only you learn from it. When you are alone, you are alone with God.

As everyone is united in God, one can be united with everyone through God. By connecting to Unity, one can connect to all people. One's sublunary form can't communicate with others in this way, although one's spiritual form, that which is integrated in Unity, does, but becoming aware of one's spiritual form one can become aware of this connection of oneself with all people. Try to do this when you are praying.

From Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet:

"When you pray you rise to meet in the air those who are praying at that
very hour, and whom save in prayer you may not meet.
Therefore let your visit to that temple invisible be for naught but ecstasy
and sweet communion.
For if you should enter the temple for no other purpose than asking you
shall not receive.
And if you should enter into it to humble yourself you shall not be lifted:
Or even if you should enter into it to beg for the good of others you shall
not be heard.
It is enough that you enter the temple invisible."