When we are in the depths of our loneliness, what comforts us – what could possibly take us away from it? What, indeed? So often, it feels like there is no solace; like we are running from our own shadow. And it is true, in a way. There is no escape from being alone. We are always alone. But there is a way out of loneliness.

All our efforts at escaping loneliness are fundamentally flawed, for we don’t understand the nature of what we are running from. There is something beautiful about your loneliness. And when you see that, when you acknowledge it, learn to delight in it, that’s when something shifts inside you. When your loneliness becomes aloneness – that is freedom! That is when you can truly begin to Love!

Fragmentation and the search for wholeness

As Osho once said – the first thing is to acknowledge aloneness. Aloneness is our true nature; we can never, ever, not be alone. We come into this world alone, we leave the world alone. And in between these two, we are alone – but we frantically hide from it, run from it, pretend it isn’t true.

I remember analysing an attachment style test in a psychology class once. It aimed to discover how secure we are in our relationships. One of the questions was: “Do you ever feel like you want to completely merge with another?”

The room erupted into an awkward, hesitant burst of laughter at such a question. How absurd! – they seemed to be saying. But I remained silent. An old memory struck me, and I remembered feeling that same depth of loneliness, once, a long time ago. Or perhaps it never truly left me – an alienation so deep that the only way out truly seemed to be melting into another person.

Feeling cut-off in the middle of a lunchtime crowd, feeling alone when cuddling with a girlfriend; always on the outside looking in at life. I remember glancing around at my fellow students. The look on their faces – it seemed like many felt the same way.

This alienation is the universal dilemma of human existence – never at ease, never at home. It drives almost everything we do. Loneliness and separation is an intrinsic, permanent part of our ego.

In the teachings of non-duality, the core of many religions and philosophies, the message is simple – we are all part of the infinite, ever-present, eternal One Life. We are all deeply interconnected and inseparable.

The ego, then, is the universal illusion, the exaggerated feeling of “I”, and the root of all our solitude. For the moment we feel we are “I”, that is the moment we have created the “Not-I”, the other, everything else. We become a fragment, cut off from the rest of existence. We become a dot in this world, forgotten by God.

This sense of fragmentation, for some – perhaps the ones who couldn’t laugh in the lecture hall – is conscious. It shows up as a deep and constant sense of not being whole, of not being enough.

For others, those who laughed at the test, this sense is unconscious. They lack something, but they don’t know what it is. And so they seek, and strive, and struggle, yet all the time not knowing what it is they are trying to fill. More belongings, more sex, more status, more power, more recognition, more, more, more. Almost all their efforts stem from this drive for self-completion. But it is all futile – we are throwing our energies down a bottomless pit. That we are trying to fulfil is the very thing that is causing our lack.

Romance – the new alcohol

Romance is perhaps the most common cover-up for the sense of fragmentation. If we are lonely, it must make sense that we need a special someone! Logical and cold, like a business transaction. A boyfriend, a girlfriend, a lover, someone, anyone! We have reduced them to a mere cover up for our sorrows – no different from the misuse of alcohol, the noise of our television, or killing time on the phone until we can next be with someone – as if we have so much time to kill!

Sex is the closest we can get to oneness on a physical level, and that is why it is so deeply satisfying. And when we peer deeper into our heart, fragmentation shows up as a need to attach, to cling, to melt and to merge. How many people are conscious of this lack? How common is this primordial sense of alienation? Common enough to show up on a standardised psychological test.

And so we look for someone to take away that feeling. When we are with someone, we can take our mind off that background sense of disharmony. Suddenly, our existence seems to have meaning. “I am not alone!” You exclaim, as you cuddle, hug, and kiss. “I have someone who needs me, who wants me! I am beautiful, I am wanted, I am worthy! I am no longer alone!”

And yet, a mere cover-up is all they will ever be. Even when we are with our loved ones, we are still just as we are – alone.

A few weeks ago, I was watching a documentary on the “host” sub-culture, in the nightclub districts of an affluent country. It revolved around handsome young men - dressed up gaudily, highly trained in seduction, paid to lounge around in special bars. They play host to multitudes of women – often young, pretty, and rich – who pay for their company, their caresses, and their idle flattery.

The film focused in particular on the finest host in town – a charming man who owned his own bar. He was living the dream. His prowess with women made other men pale in comparison. He stole women away from their husbands and boyfriends. Women fought over him, sometimes physically, sometimes by throwing money at him, and he goes home with a different one every night. It seemed he would be the last man on Earth to feel alienated.

Near the end of the documentary, I remember the interviewer asking him if it was all worth it. He hangs his head and sighs. “It was all fun for the first few years. But after a while… I don’t know. It doesn’t matter anymore. I am the loneliest man in the world.”

The beauty of aloneness, and the sorrow of loneliness

If romance and sex, if money and fame and recognition offer no relief, what does one do? When you are in the throes of heartache and loneliness, what good are the teachings on oneness and inter-existence? Unless you can experience what they are pointing to – how do they comfort you?

Pretty words to fill your head, and then you close the book and turn to look at your bed, and find it as cold and lonely as it was before. If we can never not be alone, what then? All I can offer is a change of perspective.

Another quote from Osho, then: Aloneness is beautiful, it is grand. Loneliness is sorrowful, it is despair.

On the surface, they look the same. But in reality, they are worlds apart.

Aloneness is our nature. Loneliness is us running away from it.

You are alone. Why make it into a problem? Relax into your loneliness; into your sadness. Don’t run from your aloneness, for it is always there. Celebrate being alone, delight in yourself, dance in your aloneness. If you can’t, then you will forever be running away. Love yourself. It is the only way.

Simply sit down, and be lonely. Don’t think about it. Just feel it. Relax into it, and then you’ll find that your sadness has its own sacredness. Being alone is the perfect chance for you to go deeper into yourself. See all your subtleties, face yourself squarely, and gaze at all the parts you don’t want to. Bring it all up into the light of your awareness, and accept them, love them.

We go off into the city, into the office, into the nightclubs, to run from our aloneness. The teachers, the gurus, the Zen masters – they go off into the mountains so they can get better acquainted with it.

So what? Then what? Once you delight in yourself, then – and only then – can you truly delight in the other. It’s a paradox, one of the biggest ones in the world. Only when you no longer need a lover; that is when you can find romance. Anything else is a sham, a pale imitation.

To be needed and to be loved

A sham. That’s what the entire game of romance is. Who is our “romance” really about? Us, and us alone. We say – I love you. But what we really mean is – Please love me. Manipulation is all it is.

Manipulation to fill our gaps, so we can feel loved, to feel needed. In fact, we have come to confuse the two words – being needed, to us, is the same as being in love!

A friend of mine was complaining to me about something very strange. Her husband had begun to discover the joys of aloneness. He had become meditative, more content and quietly joyful. He loved and laughed when he was with her, but he was also beginning to enjoy his solitary time. He was starting to see that there was nothing lacking, that he no longer needed her to feel complete.

And she began going insane. She became worried; her suspicions began overwhelming her. Why is he so content, so happy? What was he doing in his solitary walks in the park? Is there another woman? She followed him, but he did nothing wrong – he just walked. She spied on him when he was alone in the study, but he did nothing wrong there either – he was meditating, reading, praying. No forbidden love, no strange fetish.

“Why?” she wailed. “What is going on?” Why was she upset? That would be a better question. He no longer needed her, and to her it felt like he was falling out of love. But he wasn’t – in fact, he was falling in love for the first time.

Neediness is so common that we think it’s a sign of romantic love. But neediness is simply that – neediness. And this need will never be satisfied, for nobody – no matter how sweet, handsome, beautiful, gentle, extravagant, and attentive – can ever love your ego the way it wants to be loved.

At most, you will be satisfied for a period of time – the “honeymoon” phase, when you are “in love”, when everything seems perfect and beautiful. Your existence seems to have meaning, for someone needs you and loves you.

Then one day your needs and insecurities – all symptoms of the basic, primordial sense of fragmentation - raise their heads again. Or maybe it just seems that way – they had always been there, we just forgot about them for a while. And that’s when the arguments start, for we think it is the fault of the other person.

“You were supposed to make me happy!” you cry. And the sweetness, the smiles and the kisses begin to swing the other way. We become sad; we attack them for not making us happy; we manipulate them into giving us more. Maybe they give in, and the pendulum swings back into sweetness. Maybe they don’t, and we break up in tears and anger. This even seems normal.

But it is not their fault. No one can take away our primordial sense of separation except us. But we don’t know that, and so we go on complaining and pulling strings. We forget that the only way to be satisfied is to be satisfied in yourself.

Lonely people cannot Love; they can only pretend to, for they have nothing to give. They only give a plastic love, in the hope that someone will give real Love in return. Everything becomes a giant game; a chess match.

But when you no longer need to be needed, when you truly stop wanting to be wanted, that’s when your loneliness changes into aloneness. And you begin to see Love.

Dedicated to all those who are or have been lonely and alienated.

The misunderstandings

This article is perhaps the most misunderstood article I have ever written; and so I’d like to clear up some common misunderstandings here:

1. Loneliness – it is separate from aloneness; two different things. Our physical nature is to be alone. We can never, not be alone. Even if we are having sex, we are still relatively physically separate. But that is not a problem, it only causes sorrow when we run away from it. When we run from our nature, we cause our own pangs of loneliness… but when we acknowledge and embrace our nature, we find the beauty of aloneness.

2. And from aloneness, that is the beginning of true Romance. I am not saying everybody fakes love – I’m saying lonely people do; for they cannot love if they need. Love is the opposite of need. Once you stop needing, that is when you can find love. There are many who do truly love; there are many who do not expect anything in return – but those are the souls who have found aloneness.

3. Once you have stopped being needy, which is what I have called aloneness, that is when you can truly go out into the world and find a proper romance and relationships. Otherwise, it is likely to be neediness, attachment - and not real love. That is all I am saying, I’ve stated that many times throughout the post - that real Love cannot come from loneliness. I am not saying we should all be alone forever, although there’s definitely nothing wrong with that.