Loneliness is a pervasive human (and nonhuman) experience. Loneliness cascades through many layers of our existence, from the longing we feel in the absence of touch to a kind of existential loneliness that seems to have no origin.

Anavamala, the root ignorance, or our root sense of separation from others, is the condition for loneliness as it is expressed through the construct we call a person.

Even though millions of people never hear of this root ignorance and never become aware that there is any alternative to this ignorance, their every minute is still conditioned by it.

A whole set of behaviors helps us to anesthetize our loneliness: working long hours, constant media stimulation, over-frequent social activities, and relationships that are always in crisis and thus divert our attention from our real condition. And of course, extreme activities of eating, drinking, and drugging. Even spiritual practice can serve as a hedge against loneliness. Certainly those who become followers of false Gurus are suffering mightily from loneliness.

These examples are obvious, but loneliness also shapes our most dearly-held beliefs and activities. For example, we generally believe that having the right girlfriend or boyfriend will cure us of loneliness. Or having children. Or finding the right community. Or getting a pet.

These relationships are necessary and nourishing. At their best, they help us to experience contentment, growth, humor, and spontaneity. But by holding a concept of these particular sorts of relationships as being the keys to fulfillment, and excluding other relationships, we limit our access to fulfillment.

Despite having plenty of loving people in our lives, there are a good number of us who remain sensitive to loneliness. Even surrounded by our friends and family, we feel a painful tug. We sometimes come up with an explanation such as “being different,” or “no one understands the real me.”

This is a recipe for more loneliness. The truth is, it is we who are locked in ignorance of our true nature.

My first diksha Guru reminded me many times that our context is always bigger than anything we can imagine. Our context is the entire cosmos, and all of the dimensions of the cosmos, seen and unseen.

The Buddhists like to say that every being has been your mother or your father. More generally, we are all arising from the same base of infinite potential, and we are all children of infinite potential. We are intimately related to all beings and all manifestations of this world. Only ignorance, the root separation, prevents us from living in this fuller reality.

In order to begin to understand our root loneliness and relax it, we must recognize our true context and join the cosmic community. Our self-understanding must expand and expand until it includes everything and everyone. Until we begin to develop this embodied understanding, we will continue to suffer from the loneliness of individualism.

We are nothing but an infinite web of infinitely nuanced, delicate, shifting relationships. This web is nothing but appearings of the state of the world, which is also our state.

We are living a shared existence, but we keep insisting that we are going it alone, or with our tiny band of designated co-travelers.

The more we practice, the more sensitive we become to our fundamental intimacy with the whole environment, including the many dimensions of beings that populate it.

One of the principle signs of our growing awareness of this intimate web is the increasing responsivity of the world.

The world is always ready to communicate with you whenever you are ready to receive and respond. As you relax and participate with more awareness and sensitivity, you will discover that there has been a wonderful conversation going on all around you that you could not hear or feel when you were caught up in your individualistic tensions.

This conversation involves all of you: body, speech, and mind. It involves the air you breath, the food you eat, the cycles of nature, the sun, the stars, dreams, happenings, and all of the people and other beings you meet. It is a total conversation.

The manifest world is expressive. The delight of the creation is delight in the infinite varieties of conversation that the appearings of duality allow.

To discover this conversation is to discover wonder, gratitude, and true community.

OM Shanti,
Shambhavi

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