If there is craving or hatred in the mind, then there is loneliness. You may not call it that but, if you are mindful, you will describe the symptoms as ‘I feel isolated’, or ‘I feel out of contact’, or ‘I’m not relating’, or ‘I feel cut off from others and from life’.

Preoccupation with yourself - in short, craving and hatred - shuts out others and the world, leaving you lonely, anxious, mentally aching, dimly aware that something is wrong but not quite sure what it is or how to cope with it.

The only way to cope is to come to understand loneliness, just how it occurs, how it ceases. Freedom lies in understanding. Freedom does not lie in replacing loneliness with fulfilment or company or loved ones. You cannot get freedom by replacing loneliness with anything. You can only get freedom by doing absolutely nothing but watching. By watching, you see how loneliness operates. When you see that, you have understanding. And when you have understanding, you are free of loneliness.

When you just watch, you come to know loneliness. The first thing you observe is that as soon as there is a wanting to have something or a desire to get away from something, then there comes about this sense of not being in contact, this sense of isolation from everything around.

You will also observe that when the mind is totally absorbed in the moment, then there is just feeling or movement or thinking or smelling or tasting or touching taking place, and this is accompanied by a sense of contentment and ease.

From all of this you will come to realise that whenever there is a movement away from now, then that is craving or hatred, and with that comes loneliness. When the mind sinks into the moment, there is no thought of ‘me’ - there is just an event that is born and dies - and on such occasions there is no loneliness. Instead there is contentment and fulfilment. Contentment and fulfilment is love.

If we consider what love really is and what it is not, maybe we will learn a little more about loneliness.

From Love to Possessiveness
Say you find yourself attracted to a person - someone you regard as beautiful or wise or witty or good company; there is a quality about the person that makes you want to get closer. So you manipulate life in such a way that you spend a lot of time physically close to them - talking with them, going to the theatre or for walks, or doing small tasks together. Small jobs around the house aren’t a drudge - in fact they become a pleasure if shared with someone whose company you enjoy. Should this familiarity make the bond deeper, then there springs up that which we call love.

Now what is called love can too often drive a wedge between two people because it turns from true love into possessiveness. ‘I want that person’ - ‘I want to be close to them’ - ‘I want them to behave in an appropriate manner’ - ‘I want them to change certain deficiencies of character’ - ’I want them always to be with me and no one else’ - ‘I want them to do and behave as I say’. The moment the mind views another person as ‘mine’, there is no longer love but the beginnings of growing loneliness.

If the mind is aware of its own movements - of the thoughts of ‘I want to have’, ‘I want to be close’, ‘I want them to change’ - then there is the possibility of non-action. If there is non-action, there is no loneliness. If there is no loneliness, there is love - true love, not possessiveness.

Non-action means simply watching the thoughts, seeing them as babblings of the mind, noting them just as ‘thoughts’, not taking them seriously, not believing in their content but just watching the wanting, the desire to possess, the desire to control.

A Stream of Bubbles
You need to view all of these thoughts as if you were viewing bubbles on the surface of a river. There you are on a sunny summer’s day, sitting on the bank of a fast-flowing river. And on the surface of that river are a myriad of little bubbles. As you watch they drift by - some bursting as they hit a rock, some evaporating, new ones being born and being carried off into the distance as the river meanders its way towards the ocean. All the bubbles will die and a myriad of others will be born and in their turn die long before the river reaches the ocean.

If you can view those possessive thoughts, those wanting thoughts, those desire thoughts, like those bubbles on the surface of that river - if you can view them as just so many insubstantial bubbles on the surface of the mind, drifting past to eventually burst and evaporate, then you will not harm yourself by grabbing hold of them. The quietness of the mind is not disturbed.

But should you not view thoughts in this manner but instead regard them as having substance, as somehow being real and solid, then you will take them seriously, the mind will gear itself into ‘responding’ mode and action will follow.

When the content of thought is taken seriously, the mind automatically rears up to act. There is the view of ‘me’ in here who must take action towards that delightful or painful thought out there. There is the view that somehow, in some way, I must do something about these possessive, wanting thoughts. I must get rid of them or, if I’m finding them particularly pleasurable, I must get them to hang around a bit longer.

As soon as there is action, there is separation and, when there is separation, there is loneliness.

If there is no movement of mind for or against loneliness but total attention, then - at that instant - there is both an understanding of how you created loneliness as well as the ending of it. With the ending of loneliness there is no sense of being cut off, isolated, out of contact.

When there is no loneliness, there is love. Love is not thinking about someone else. Love is not wishing to be with someone else. Love is not being with another. Love has no object. Love is. Love is being in the now, with no separation from the now. Love is contentment with whatever is present in the moment. Such a mind is sensitive, alert and full of affection for whatever is.

The loving mind is fascinated by life unfolding before it and feels a deep affection for the mystery of life, a mystery it finds awe-inspiring. It doesn’t demand that this mystery always present it with joyful events. The loving mind knows and accepts that some objects are pleasant and that some are painful. Because it accepts all, there is no longer pleasantness that must be hung on to or painfulness that must be rejected. Rather, there is just an event that comes into being and passes away.