The necessary thing is after all but this; solitude, great inner solitude. Going into oneself for hours meeting no one - this one must be able to attain.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of solitude for self-discovery and inner peace.
Rainer Maria Rilke suggests that true understanding of oneself requires a deep and prolonged solitude, where one can turn inward and reflect without external distractions. This solitude allows individuals to connect with their inner thoughts and feelings, leading to greater self-awareness and personal insight.
In practice
During a meditation retreat, I shared Rilke's quote to highlight the importance of solitude in finding inner peace.
Spring has again returned. _x000D_ _x000D_ The Earth is like a child that knows many poems._x000D_ _x000D_ Many, O so many. For the hardship_x000D_ _x000D_ of such long learning she receives the prize._x000D_ _x000D_ _x000D_ Strict was her teacher. _x000D_ _x000D_ The white in the old man's beard pleases us._x000D_ _x000D_ Now, what to call green, to call blue,_x000D_ _x000D_ we dare to ask: She knows, She knows!
Verses are not, as people think, feelings (those one has early enough) -- they are experiences. For the sake of a verse one must see many cities, men, and things, one must know the animals feel how birds fly, and know the gesture with which the little flowers open in the morning.
a good marriage is that in which each appoints the other guardian of his solitude
He reproduced himself with so much humble objectivity, with the unquestioning, matter of fact interest of a dog who sees himself in a mirror and thinks: there's another dog.
The only journey is the one within.
And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been
The Soviet system of propaganda and censorship existed not so much for the purpose of spreading a particular message as for the purpose of making learning impossible, replacing facts with mush, and handing the faceless state a monopoly on defining an ever-shifting reality.
No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.
Definition, rationality, and structure are ways of seeing, but they become prisons when they blank out other ways of seeing.
The workman of today works every day in his life at the same tasks, and this fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious.
The more we are proud that the Bethlehem story is plain enough to be understood by the shepherds, and almost by the sheep, the more do we let ourselves go, in dark and gorgeous imaginative frescoes or pageants about the mystery and majesty of the Three Magian Kings.
When death finally comes you will welcome it like an old friend, being aware of how dreamlike and impermanent the pheneomenal world really is.
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