Below is the response Osho gave to someone who shared that they were suffering incredibly from loneliness and asked what they could do about it. Since it is relatively long, I have translated it with some abridgments. To read the full text in English, I have provided a link at the end of the post. As usual for Osho, he offers a new perspective on solving human problems\u2014one that is radical and goes straight to the very roots of the issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe darkness of loneliness cannot be fought directly.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n It is something essential for everyone to understand, that there are a few fundamental things which cannot be changed.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n This is one of the fundamentals. You cannot fight with darkness directly, with loneliness directly, with the fear of isolation directly. The reason is that all these things do not exist; they are simply absences of something, just as darkness is the absence of light.<\/em><\/p>\n Now what do you do when you want the room not to be dark? You don\u2019t do anything directly with darkness \u2014 or do you? You cannot push it out. There is no possible way to make any arrangement so that the darkness disappears.<\/em><\/p>\n You have to do something with the light. Now that changes the whole situation; and that\u2019s what I call one of the essentials, fundamentals. You don\u2019t even touch the darkness; you don\u2019t think about it. There is no point; it does not exist, it is simply an absence.<\/em><\/p>\n So just bring in light and you will not find darkness at all, because it was the absence of light, simply the absence of light.<\/em> You can go on fighting with this darkness your whole life and you will not succeed, but just a small candle is enough to dispel it. You have to work for the light because it is positive, existential; it exists on it own. And once light comes, anything that was its absence automatically disappears.<\/em><\/p>\n Loneliness is similar to darkness.<\/em><\/strong> In the dictionaries, loneliness and aloneness are synonymous, but existence does not follow your dictionaries \u2013 and yet nobody has ever tried to make an existential dictionary which will not be contradictory to existence.<\/em><\/p>\n Loneliness is absence<\/strong>. Because you don\u2019t know your aloneness, there is fear and you feel lonely, so you want to cling to something \u2014 to somebody, to some relationship \u2014 just to keep the illusion that you are not lonely. But you know you are \u2014 hence the pain.<\/em><\/p>\n On the one hand you are clinging to something which is not for real, which is just a temporary arrangement \u2014 a relationship, a friendship. And while you are in the relationship you can create a little illusion to forget your loneliness.<\/em><\/p>\n But this is the problem: although you can forget for a moment your loneliness, just the next moment you suddenly become aware that the relationship or the friendship is nothing permanent.<\/em> The illusion gives a certain solace, but it cannot create the reality so that all fear disappears. It represses the fear, so on the surface you feel good \u2014 at least you try to feel good. You pretend to feel good to yourself: how wonderful is the relationship, how wonderful is the man or the woman.<\/em><\/p>\n But behind the illusion \u2014 and the illusion is so thin that you can see behind it \u2014 there is pain in the heart because the heart knows perfectly well that tomorrow things may not be the same. And they are not the same.<\/em><\/p>\n Your whole life\u2019s experience supports this \u2014 that things go on changing.<\/em><\/p>\n Nothing remains stable; you cannot cling to anything in a changing world.<\/em> And perhaps in the long run you will understand one day that it was good that it did not listen to you, that existence did not bother about you and just went on doing whatever it wanted to do, not according to your desire.<\/em><\/p>\n It may take a little time for you to understand. You want this friend to be your friend forever, but tomorrow he turns into an enemy, or simply says, \u201dGet lost!\u201d and he is no longer with you.<\/em><\/p>\n And then somebody else, who is far more superior, fills the gap, and suddenly you realize it was good that the other one got lost; otherwise you would have been stuck with him.<\/em><\/p>\n But still the lesson never goes so deep that you stop asking for permanence.<\/em> What I am trying to say is that every effort that has been directed toward avoiding loneliness has failed, and will fail, because it is against the fundamentals of life.<\/em><\/p>\n What is needed is not something in which you can forget your loneliness.<\/em><\/p>\n What is needed is that you become aware of your aloneness, which is a reality.<\/em> Just the word \u201clonely\u201d immediately reminds you that it is like a wound: something is needed to fill it. There is a gap and it hurts, something needs to be filled into it.<\/em><\/p>\n Aloneness, the very word \u201caloneness\u201d does not have the same sense of a wound, of a gap which has to be filled.<\/em><\/p>\n Aloneness simply means completeness. You are whole; there is no need of anybody else to complete you.<\/em> But it is so full, it is not empty, it is so full and so complete and so overflowing with all the juices of life, with all the beauties and benedictions of existence, that once you have tasted aloneness the pain in the heart will disappear. Instead, a new rhythm of tremendous sweetness, peace, joy, bliss, will be there\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n So I will not ask you to do anything about your loneliness. Forget loneliness, forget darkness, forget pain. These are just the absence of aloneness. The experience of aloneness will dispel them instantly. \u201c<\/em><\/p>\n And the method is the same: just watch your mind, be aware.<\/em> But always look whether anything that you are facing as a problem is a negative thing or a positive thing.<\/em><\/p>\n If it is a negative thing, then don\u2019t fight with it; don\u2019t bother about it at all. Just look for the positive of it, and you will be at the right door.<\/em><\/p>\n Most of the people in the world miss because they start fighting directly with the negative door.<\/em><\/p>\n There is no door; there is only darkness, there is only absence. And the more they fight, the more they find failure, the more they become dejected, pessimistic \u2014 and ultimately they start finding that life has no meaning, that it is simply torture. But their mistake is they entered from the wrong door.<\/em><\/p>\n So before you face a problem, just look at the problem: is it an absence of something? And all your problems are the absence of something. And once you have found what they are the absence of, then go after the positive.<\/em><\/p>\n And the moment you find the positive, the light \u2014 the darkness is finished<\/strong>.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
\n\u201cIt was not something material with its own being, not something that exists \u2014 simply because light was not there, you got a false feeling of the existence of darkness.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nYou don\u2019t know your aloneness. You have not experienced your aloneness and its beauty, its tremendous power, its strength.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nYesterday you did not know this man or this woman, you were strangers. Today you are friends. Who knows about tomorrow? Tomorrow you may be strangers again, hence the pain.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n\u201cYou wanted to make your friendship something permanent but your wanting is against the law of change, and that law is not going to make exceptions. It simply goes on doing its own thing. It will change everything.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nYou will start asking for permanence with this man, with this woman: \u201cNow this should not change!\u201d You have not really learned the lesson that change is simply the very fabric of life. You have to understand it and go with it. Don\u2019t create illusions; they are not going to help. And everybody is creating illusions of different kinds\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nAnd it is so beautiful to experience it, to feel it, because it is your freedom from the crowd, from the other. It is your freedom from the fear of being lonely.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nSo try to find your innermost center, where you are always alone, have always been alone. In life, in death, wherever you are, you will be alone.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nBecome more and more conscious, so finally you are only conscious of yourself. That is the point where you become aware of aloneness\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n