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The passage you pulled out to discuss from page 301 about " there is no loneliness because there is no one to be lonely," reminded me of a short story I had read a few weeks ago. Written by Jorge Luis Borges it is called "The Aleph" and it has a moment which is similar to Eik's loss of loneliness. The aleph in the story is a point in a man's basement where you can see the whole world and everything tht ever was or will be in it. The man has to lay in a very specific position in utter darkness in order to see it  but when he does he losses all sense of himself and becomes a part of the world. 

Erik's feeling of losing the inside and outside barriers of himself is similar to this nirvana esque interaction with the world in Borges story. And in both you needed to dull the senses in order to acheive this state. We talked about how falling snow mutes sounds and isolates you. Borge's protagonist is similarly isolated by darkness and the barriers of a cellar door. Either way, this enlightenment is only acomplished by depriving yourself of sights sounds, of input of any kind. A strange sentiment, and one I am not sure I agree with, but the idea of both authors.