OSHO International Foundation Presents
The Fear of Loneliness
Man ordinarily lives in loneliness.
To avoid loneliness,
he creates all kinds of relationships,
friendships,
organizations, political parties, religions
and what not.
But the basic thing is
that he is very much afraid of being lonely.
Loneliness is a black hole,
a darkness,
a frightening negative state
almost like death ...
as if you are being swallowed by death itself.
To avoid it, you run out
and fall into anybody,
just to hold somebody's hand,
to feel that you are not lonely.
I have seen people
when they are walking in the night on a street,
lonely, they start singing songs.
Nobody has ever heard that they are singers!
And what suddenly transpires
that they become singers? -- and loudly.
They are simply trying to forget that they are lonely.
They are trying to drown themselves in their own voice.
Nothing hurts more than loneliness.
But the trouble is, any relationship
that arises out of the fear
of being lonely
is not going to be a blissful experience,
because the other is also joining you out of fear.
You both call it love.
You are both deceiving yourself and the other.
It is simply fear
and fear can never be
the source of love.
Only those love who are absolutely fearless;
only those love who are able to be alone, joyously,
whose need for the other has disappeared,
who are sufficient unto themselves.
The common psychology of man is of loneliness.
He does everything to avoid it.
But whatever you do, it is always there, just like your shadow.
You may not look at it, but you know it is there.
And once in a while you cannot resist the temptation either:
you will look
and you will find it always there.
You cannot escape from your shadow.
In the same way you cannot escape from your loneliness
just by creating friendships, relationships, marriages,
organizations -- religious, political, social.
They give you a little relief,
but they don't transform anything.
The day you decide that all these efforts are failures,
your loneliness remains untouched by all your efforts,
that is a great moment of understanding.
Then only one thing remains:
to see whether loneliness is such a thing
that you should be afraid of,
or if it is just your nature.
Then rather than running out and away,
you close your eyes and go in.
And suddenly
the night is over,
and a new dawn ...
The loneliness transforms into aloneness.
Aloneness is your nature.
You were born alone,
you will die alone.
And you are living alone
without understanding it,
without being fully aware of it.
You misunderstand aloneness as loneliness;
it is simply a misunderstanding.
You are sufficient unto yourself.
The transition period is a little painful and difficult because of old habits
but it won't be long.
And the way to make it short,
bearable,
is to enjoy your aloneness more and more.
Make it a point that when you are enjoying your aloneness, don't be miserly.
Then sing and dance,
then paint.
Do whatsoever you always wanted to do,
but you were so much involved in relationships
that there was no time left.
Be creative,
and the more creative, the more rejoicing, the more dancing,
the more songful becomes your aloneness,
those periods of sadness,
of grumpiness --
old habits --
will start falling like dead leaves falling from the trees.
They also cling for a little while,
but they have to fall.
Just you have to make your aloneness more and more strong.
So you don't have to do anything with your sadness or your grumpiness,
or your fear that the old habit may come back again.
You have not to think about that at all.
You have to pour your whole energy
into the joy of being alone.
You have only a certain amount of energy --
either you can dance or you can be sad.
If you dance half-heartedly, then you are saving energy for sadness.
That's why I insist: live every moment totally and so intensely
that no energy is left
to be invested in sadness,
in misery, in anger;
simply there is no energy.
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