The longest time you've gone without the company of other people?

[gone]

Just wondering what's the longest time you've spent without the company of people.
Like 2 days, or two months etc.. were you aware of it and did it affect you in anyway?

[island_fever]

For me, as far as I can remember, it's been 5 days.  One peculiar thing happened though; I lost a day.  My friend called me to let me know that she couldn't come over as planned.  She was supposed to come over on Saturday, so I told her that I wasn't expecting her until the next day anyhow. I thought it was Friday, but it was Saturday.  I have no idea where the "lost" day went.  I wasn't drinking, doing drugs or on any kind of Rx medication.  I have clocks, calendars, etc.  I just lost a day somewhere.  Since I was hanging out doing routine things at home, I had no single event to distinguish one day from the next.  If I'm ever shipwrecked on an island, I'll have to remember to mark the days on a palm tree or something.

[trace]

3 days

[S. Earl Martin]

I have always been a loner. I go days now without seeing anyone as routine. I may talk to someone on the phone for a few minutes. I just enjoy solitude. I have gone into the woods and lived off the land or on what I can bring with me since I was a kid. The longest time was about 3 months. I bring books and meditate. Study nature and explore. When you don't have to be somewhere else. Just watching nature becomes your entertainment. Plus it gives you time to really reflect on what is important and how to live. I am not a nut. No delusional thoughts. To the contrary. I try to be as factual as possible. I am pretty intellegent and have found it hard to find others that I can talk to who don't just give me a blank stare. Or want to go on and on about sports or their personal lives.

[pert -5]

I am pretty intellegent and have found it hard to find others that I can talk to who don't just give me a blank stare. Or want to go on and on about sports or their personal lives.

I usually just keep my mouth shut around most people about things I am into.  Not because it's clandestine, but like you said, you get blanks stares and sports.  I usually behave like an iceberg in most social situations, with people only getting a fraction of the whole.  Unless I'm talking to my few friends that can actually understand me or take the time to learn things, then we get talking.  I can be an asshole.  Someone will come up to me, all excited, and say, "hey, did you see the 8th inning of that Yankee's game last night!?"  And I'll be like, "no, I don't watch baseball and I'm not interesting in your Yankee's game."  Then walk away.  Or sometimes I make fun of these cookie cutter people that are all around, and they don't even know it.  Someone my one friend went to school with came up to us at a mall and we started talking.  I could tell right away that the guy was not very bright.  It came up about me playing guitar and he asked who taught me.  I told him John Lennon did (which in a way is true, I learned guitar by playing Beatles songs by ear, mostly Lennon ones).  This fungus lick says to me, "who's John Lennon?"  So I say, "just some guy who started his own band."  My friend thought what I said was funny too.

As to the OP:  Tat Tvam Asi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tat_Tvam_Asi#In_Advaita

The difference between me and the Hindus is that they revere asceticism, whereas I see it as but one stepping stone on a path of many stones.  Asceticism can help get you to a realization (that the Ego is transient), but from that realization you can and must move on.  A man who is an ascetic and lives in a cave and owns only a walking stick and drinking bowl;  that man is in as much danger of becoming attached to the trifling objects which he possesses as the man of the city who dwells in opulence is attached to his treasure.  The attachment is equally pernicious in both scenarios.  Be the desired objects a  stick and bowl or a mountain of gold.  For the spiritual person, the difference between those twain is naught when they are desired.  (Attachment to desire causes sorrow.  None of you really understand any of this, huh?  Think about it.  Still nothing?  Relax.  Think about it.  It's not supernatural.  It's as logical as arithmetic.  Clam shells can be opened, but the best are opened on the St. Lawrence River.)

[S. Earl Martin]

If you lose something it can bring sorrow. If you have nothing to lose there is no sorrow in the loss. To deaden or control even your emotions so that you can experience things from a distance allows the greatest control and insight. I had 2 nicknames when I was growing up. The Watcher and Spock. I still am very logical by nature. When my wife died many people were really suprised that I just reacted with very little emotion. I just went about making arrangements and taking care of what needed to be done. Even when she went home in the hospital I was left alone with her and the nurses were watching thru the door. I took her hand and kissed her good bye. I told her I loved her and told her to rest. She worked very hard all her life and now she could rest. I told the nurses how to prepare her body and went out and prayed with our relatives. I still had things to do so I kept my composier. Later when I was alone I grieved. Since she went home I have spent alot of time alone. I still go weeks without seeing anyone. This is partially because I am working on things and other people are just interruptions or distractions. Also my health is comprimised with the Leukemia and I could get sick and die if I am around other people. Solitude can bring clarity of thought or insanity. Sometimes both. LOL!!!!

[pert -5]

If you lose something it can bring sorrow. If you have nothing to lose there is no sorrow in the loss. To deaden or control even your emotions so that you can experience things from a distance allows the greatest control and insight.

You're pretty much right on Earl, but it's not as bleak as your words might imply.  It's not like you are staring at all of the things that you COULD be doing or have, and forcing yourself to stay away.  It is an intrinsic change in your very attitude that is oriented toward spiritual things.  You are not suppressing desire, rather you are sublimating it into a sympathetic, self-guided attraction for that which is spiritual.

"Once in Western India I was traveling in the desert country on the coast of the Indian Ocean. For days and days I used to travel on foot through the desert, but it was to my surprise that I saw every day beautiful lakes, with trees all round them, and the shadows of the trees upside down and vibrating there. "How wonderful it looks and they call this a desert country!" I said to myself. Nearly a month I traveled, seeing these wonderful lakes and trees and plants. One day I was very thirsty and wanted to have a drink of water, so I started to go to one of these clear, beautiful lakes, and as I approached, it vanished. And with a flash it came to my brain, "This is the mirage about which I have read all my life," and with that came also the idea that throughout the whole of this month, every day, I had been seeing the mirage and did not know it. The next morning I began my march. There was again the lake, but with it came also the idea that it was the mirage and not a true lake. So is it with this universe. We are all traveling in this mirage of the world day after day, month after month, year after year, not knowing that it is a mirage. One day it will break up, but it will come back again; the body has to remain under the power of past Karma, and so the mirage will come back. This world will come back upon us so long as we are bound by Karma: men, women, animals, plants, our attachments and duties, all will come back to us, but not with the same power. Under the influence of the new knowledge the strength of Karma will be broken, its poison will be lost. It becomes transformed, for along with it there comes the idea that we know it now, that the sharp distinction between the reality and the mirage has been known. This world will not then be the same world as before."
- Swami Vivekananda

"Lay not up for yourselves the treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves can not break through nor steal:
For where your treasure is, there also will lie your heart."
- Matthew 6:19-21

[S. Earl Martin]

I agree it is not that we consciously say I don't need this or that. Before Delpha went home the only thing I really was attached to was her. After, it really helped me see that nothing matters. I have food and shelter, but even if that were taken I would still just do what it takes to survive. Or if not so I pass away. We all pass away eventually. When I was younger we struggled to attain things. I must admit we were really never obsessed with wealth. As long as we had enough to be happy. Time and again things came and took what we had worked so hard to aquire. We would just give it up to the Lord and keep going. Attachment to objects brings all kind of emotion's. Jealosy, paranoia, sorrow, pride. Seeing things as just objects taking up space. To be used by you or not is the best way. Peace! 

[pert -5]

After, it really helped me see that nothing matters.

Hmmm.  Everything matters man.  Buddhists might be nihilistic, but I'm not.  The Ego and the body are a temple.  That is what the Holy Eucharist means.  To take in the body and blood of Christ is to state that your body and mind are a worthy temple for the Holy Spirit to dwell in.  Enjoy the world and all it can offer.  Just be careful to put it into perspective.

Something I've recently come to realize is that no matter how faulty or sick our bodies might be, they still are a gift that we should not underestimate.  No matter how many flaws.  The body harbors the brain which is the genesis of human consciousness.  Cherish it, no matter what.  Just don't allow attachment to cause fear of its inevitable end.  Those two sentiments can occur simultaneously for those who are willing to see.

[S. Earl Martin]

Yes, I should have qualified my statement better. Let me try again. In this world what ever we do or accomplish is temporary. Even if we accomplish something that stands the test of time and continues after we are dead. We are still dead. We can't take it with us. Unless you consider the judgement where we will have to give an account of our actions. So in away things do matter, but in another way if I gain something or lose something it is just part of the process. I could spend my time being sad or I could move on to the next phase of my journey. I am not judgeing people who feel emotions about loss. I still miss my wife alot. It has been almost 6 years, but we were so close that it is like a piece of me is missing. I know however that I must honor her by continueing to work for the ideals we both worked for when she was here. As far as attachment? Attachment can cloud judgement. If we hold on to things we are controlled or limited by our attachment to those things. The goal may require us to let go of an object. If we can not do that we may be unsuccessful in our endeavors. If I had only a stick and a bowl? If I saw someone with no stick or bowl? Would I be willing to give them mine? Peace! 

[pert -5]

Namaste Earl.  Your piercing insight is one of the great reasons why I like you man! 

"Yet religious realisation does all the good to the world. People are afraid that when they attain to it, when they realise that there is but one, the fountains of love will be dried up, that everything in life will go away, and that all they love will vanish for them, as it were, in this life and in the life to come. People never stop to think that those who bestowed the least thought on their own individualities have been the greatest workers in the world. Then alone a man loves when he finds that the object of his love is not any low, little, mortal thing. Then alone a man loves when he finds that the object of his love is not a clod of earth, but it is the veritable God Himself. The wife will love the husband the more when she thinks that the husband is God Himself. The husband will love the wife the more when he knows that the wife is God Himself. That mother will love the children more who thinks that the children are God Himself. That man will love his greatest enemy who knows that that very enemy is God Himself. That man will love a holy man who knows that the holy man is God Himself, and that very man will also love the unholiest of men because he knows the background of that unholiest of men is even He, the Lord. Such a man becomes a world-mover for whom his little self is dead and God stands in its place. The whole universe will become transfigured to him. That which is painful and miserable will all vanish; struggles will all depart and go. Instead of being a prison-house, where we every day struggle and fight and compete for a morsel of bread, this universe will then be to us a playground. Beautiful will be this universe then! Such a man alone has the right to stand up and say, "How beautiful is this world!" He alone has the right to say that it is all good. This will be the great good to the world resulting from such realisation, that instead of this world going on with all its friction and clashing, if all mankind today realise only a bit of that great truth, the aspect of the whole world will be changed, and, in place of fighting and quarrelling, there would be a reign of peace. This indecent and brutal hurry which forces us to go ahead of every one else will then vanish from the world. With it will vanish all struggle, with it will vanish all hate, with it will vanish all jealousy, and all evil will vanish away for ever. Gods will live then upon this earth. This very earth will then become heaven, and what evil can there be when gods are playing with gods, when gods are working with gods, and gods are loving gods? That is the great utility of divine realisation. Everything that you see in society will be changed and transfigured then. No more will you think of man as evil; and that is the first great gain. No more will you stand up and sneeringly cast a glance at a poor man or woman who has made a mistake. No more, ladies, will you look down with contempt upon the poor woman who walks the street in the night, because you will see even there God Himself. No more will you think of jealousy and punishments. They will all vanish; and love, the great ideal of love, will be so powerful that no whip and cord will be necessary to guide mankind aright."
- Swami Vivekananda