Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c6.s3.32

c6.s3.32

Then, again, solitude has its own effects on a man's inner development. In the normal course of life, each desire is directed to an object. The fulfilment that an impulse finds in its working obscures the phase of recoil that arises through the operation of a man's instinctive tendencies. Isolation from objects, material and social, permits man to observe both the aspects of his reaction, the urge and the recoil, elicited by an object-situation. Hence the life of conation can pursue a course of more complete growth when man is alone with himself, untrammelled by the external environment. Thus the system helps in the elimination of the disharmonies of inner life (Chitta-śuddhi) by giving scope for reflection and isolation, for self-possession, for the integration of different life-processes, and a complete awareness of one's individuality or self-hood, so that man's being may not be dissipated like "broken shreds of cloud" (Chhinnābhramiva naśyati).