Loneliness arises when we feel imbalanced and incomplete. The imbalance and incompleteness stem from being identified with our body and mind while the realization of our Self as pure consciousness remains hidden.
Our physical and emotional world operate through the pairs of opposites. Our physical body wants its balance. Our mental energy wants its balance. Male wants female, intellectual wants emotional. This is a generality and the spectrum of this is very wide, but we want to experience the full gamut of life. There is a natural component to this desire for balancing that exists in Nature. A cursory and limited degree of balancing can be found in relationship.
But true balance is intrinsically tied to wholeness. The problem with trying to find wholeness from outside, from another person, is that another person is not a source capable of making us whole. We passionately believe it is though. We dream of the perfect partner, of feeling complete in the perfect relationship. Wholeness always remains an inside job.
This desire for balance and wholeness infuses our emotions with a feeling of loneliness as long as there is no transcendental identification as Self, supreme consciousness. When we are locked into only physical and emotional identification, without the balance of the pure awareness of witness consciousness, we will long for wholeness and will look to another person to supply it. We are created with a strong yearning for wholeness and balance. Unfortunately, as we identify as only our body and thoughts, this yearning for wholeness remains unfulfilled.
Our social conditioning has engrained within us a misperception that our wholeness comes from the person, place, thing and circumstance outside of us. We are overwhelmed with this conditioning through romantic movies, books, marketing and fairy tales. We live in a Prince Charming hope and dream that only fuels loneliness.
Without knowing the Self as pure awareness, whether we are alone or in a relationship, we will still feel loneliness. So, when we are not in a relationship we long for it and when we are in a relationship, we often long to be out of it or in a different one.
The suffering of loneliness turns into neediness and grasping as it intensifies. It leads to intense distraction. But it can also drive us to a strong desire to end our suffering, which can become the motivation to follow the spiritual path and reveal the true source of wholeness. If we accept our loneliness as the motivation to become whole and allow loneliness to become stillness, silence and solitude, we can use loneliness as a powerful tool for our spiritual advancement. As we reveal more and more of our Self, we can enjoy the natural balancing that comes with relationships and the wholeness of knowing our true Self, without the suffering of loneliness, need or grasping.
Ultimately, loneliness is the calling of the Divine, but we remain blind to the Source of this calling. Deep within us, Divinity calls us to unite; to remember, to reveal, to illumine the Self, which is that Divinity. We believe it is a call from without, a call for another. Our loneliness is our best friend when we finally see it clearly and realize that it is the Divine calling us to realization.
Blessings,
