Being Alone vs Being Lonley
It is beautiful to be alone. To be alone does not mean to be lonely. It means the mind is not influenced and contaminated by society — J.Krishnamurti
What does it mean to be alone? To be alone does not equate to being lonely. When you are lonely, you lack a feeling of connection with others, in which, it is not necessary to be isolated. Loneliness can be felt when you are surrounded by people as well as when you are alone. On the flip side, you can be completely alone, isolated, and yet not feel lonely.
You may try to connect with others through various means, but unless you make the conscious decision to notice that connection; the connection that all humanity and beings share in the interconnected movement of life, until that point, you will never feel connected. This connection does not depend on the relation the object or being has to you, i.e ‘what the object means in relation to you’, but as another thread, interwoven with you in the fabric of the world.
When we ‘connect’ with others, what is it that we feel? We feel the shared similarity between ourselves and the other person/animal/thing. This similarity however, isn’t something that has been created at the time of ‘connection’, but rather an attribute that has been in existence prior to that moment, and it is a similarity that you have merely noticed at that point in time due to drawing your attention to it.
An example of this would be to suppose a landmark that has been present for many years on the route you have used, commuting to work. Suppose that one day a particular commotion draws your attention to that particular landmark for the first time. For the first time you notice that landmark and realise that the landmark reminds you of your childhood home and instantaneously you feel an emotional connection to the landmark. This connection has been facilitated by your attention to the landmark, without which your commute would have been routinely the same, without ‘connection’ to the particular point.
Because this connection is based on attention to a similarity that we notice in the other, and loneliness is the feeling of being disconnected from others, the basis of curing ourselves from this feeling of separation then, is the truth that we are at the most fundamental level, connected to ALL beings, both sentient and non, by virtue of our shared path in the flow of life.
Loneliness is not based on isolation then, but rather something more subtle- inattention. The inattention to the interconnected nature that all life on earth shares. The rhythm of life and death and the energy that connects it the two.
To be lonely then, is to be inattentive and to be alone is definitely not the same as being lonely.
