It is something very deep to be understood, something of great significance. Love always brings aloneness. Aloneness always brings love. They are never separate.
People think just the opposite. People think, "When you are in love, how can you be alone?" They don't make any distinction between two words: loneliness and aloneness. Hence the confusion.
When you are in love, you cannot be lonely; that is true. But when you are in love, you are bound to be alone - that is even far truer. Loneliness is a negative state. Loneliness means you are hankering for the other. Loneliness means you are dark, dismal, in despair. Loneliness means you are frightened. Loneliness means you are feeling left behind. Loneliness means nobody needs you. It hurts. Loneliness is like a wound.
Aloneness is like a flower. I know your dictionaries will say that loneliness and aloneness are synonyms - they are not. They are totally different phenomena. Loneliness is a wound and can turn into a cancer. Many more people die of loneliness than of any other disease. The world is full of lonely people, and because of their loneliness they go on doing all kinds of stupid things to somehow stuff that wound, that hollowness, that emptiness, that negativity.
The lonely person starts eating too much, just to feel full. The lonely person starts gathering fat. The lonely person starts taking alcohol or other drugs... because he wants to forget himself. The loneliness is so ugly, so scary, so deathlike that one wants to escape from it. The lonely person sits before his TV, glued to the chair for four, five, even six hours. The average American sits for six hours before the TV - just burning his eyes. But what else to do? Where to go? With whom to commune?
Communication has stopped. People are not talking to each other; at the most they talk at the other, but not to the other. People have forgotten how to reach the other. People have become parallel lines, running very close but meeting nowhere. Even husbands and wives, even friends, even so-called lovers, are parallel lines never meeting anywhere - running very close, hoping that tomorrow the meeting will happen. But that is just a hope, that is just an illusion. That keeps people somehow going on.
It is like if you go to the rail-track and you see the rails running parallel - far away in the distance they appear to be meeting, but they never meet. You can go to that place and you will not find them meeting. As you move closer, the meeting-point will move farther away. The distance between you and the so-called meeting-point will remain the same.
This article by Osho originally appeared in the OSHO Times
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People think just the opposite. People think, "When you are in love, how can you be alone?" They don't make any distinction between two words: loneliness and aloneness. Hence the confusion.
When you are in love, you cannot be lonely; that is true. But when you are in love, you are bound to be alone - that is even far truer. Loneliness is a negative state. Loneliness means you are hankering for the other. Loneliness means you are dark, dismal, in despair. Loneliness means you are frightened. Loneliness means you are feeling left behind. Loneliness means nobody needs you. It hurts. Loneliness is like a wound.
People think, "When you are in love, how can you be alone?" They don't make any distinction between two words: loneliness and aloneness.
Aloneness is like a flower. I know your dictionaries will say that loneliness and aloneness are synonyms - they are not. They are totally different phenomena. Loneliness is a wound and can turn into a cancer. Many more people die of loneliness than of any other disease. The world is full of lonely people, and because of their loneliness they go on doing all kinds of stupid things to somehow stuff that wound, that hollowness, that emptiness, that negativity.
The lonely person starts eating too much, just to feel full. The lonely person starts gathering fat. The lonely person starts taking alcohol or other drugs... because he wants to forget himself. The loneliness is so ugly, so scary, so deathlike that one wants to escape from it. The lonely person sits before his TV, glued to the chair for four, five, even six hours. The average American sits for six hours before the TV - just burning his eyes. But what else to do? Where to go? With whom to commune?
Even husbands and wives, even friends, even so-called lovers, are parallel lines never meeting anywhere...
Communication has stopped. People are not talking to each other; at the most they talk at the other, but not to the other. People have forgotten how to reach the other. People have become parallel lines, running very close but meeting nowhere. Even husbands and wives, even friends, even so-called lovers, are parallel lines never meeting anywhere - running very close, hoping that tomorrow the meeting will happen. But that is just a hope, that is just an illusion. That keeps people somehow going on.
It is like if you go to the rail-track and you see the rails running parallel - far away in the distance they appear to be meeting, but they never meet. You can go to that place and you will not find them meeting. As you move closer, the meeting-point will move farther away. The distance between you and the so-called meeting-point will remain the same.
This article by Osho originally appeared in the OSHO Times
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