...It's dark.

...It's depressing.

...It's hopeless.

...It's bleak.

...It's a blackness or sadness that sometimes seems permanent, pervasive, and inescapable.

But what gets us to that seemingly inescapable abyss in the first place? What gets us to this unseen path of filling our days with something to do just so that we don't feel this feeling of loneliness?

That is the proper question and the question that I think still awaits a good answer for most.

I remember discussing with one of my co-workers several years ago the topic of motivation. He shared the interesting distinction he had learned that it's not a matter of what we're walking towards, or moving towards, but rather it's more a matter of what it is that we're trying to move away from.

Or for more relevance in this discussion, what we're trying to 'escape' (i.e. loneliness) through 'busy-ness'.

I think that loneliness, or the fear of loneliness is a powerful motivator, and a debilitating force, at the same time. It drives us to do things that we don't understand at the time that we do. And at the same time it keeps us entwined in activities that we know we shouldn't be doing or have in our lives and yet we feel powerless to escape the grip of.

But loneliness is still a rather befuddling emotion that I'm detailing now so as to learn more about since for me at least I'm becoming aware that it is never truly ridden from my life through activities and interactions with others. Or to re-state my prior description... through 'busy-ness'.

However, what made this subject even more interesting and compelling for me is recently reading a writing by the great esoteric spirituality author Osho which states that loneliness is not something in and of itself, but rather an absence of something. In this case, light, or awareness of a simple Truth.

I know that I may have lost some of you here so I'll try to make this simpler since even for me it took several readings before what Osho wrote made sense.

Continuing my paraphrasing, what was stated is that loneliness is not something that actually exists in and of itself. It is not something that can be dealt with directly since it really is not something that is in existence because of something.

Of course, we all think it is because...

He left me.

She's gone.

I lost that.

This is over.

That happened.

...So I'm lonely.

This is how the voices go that make us think that loneliness is something that we need to directly address through incorporation of activities and more things and other people into our lives. These are the voices and the words that drive us to fill the 'absence' of whatever was with whatever we are able to find now to occupy that void, or currently empty spot inside of us.

But what has actually happened is we made a critical wrong turn in our thinking of how to handle the situation we're in that involves the creation of this perceived absence that in turn creates the loneliness.

We think that addressing this feeling amounts to filling up the empty space with 'busy-ness'. But it doesn't. And as probably all of us can attest to, that doesn't work. At least not for very long.

Instead, what needs to be done is to see that loneliness is simply darkness that has entered us and that this darkness can't be dealt with directly because it doesn't really exist. Yes, you read right...loneliness doesn't really exist by itself.

Rather, it's simply an absence of the light at that time in our life.

As Osho stated, one wouldn't try to push darkness out of a dark room so as to bring in the light. That is impossible because darkness doesn't really exist. Rather, it's simply an absence of light. So the answer is to turn on the light in that room to make the darkness disappear.

Now I know that I'm still way out there esoterically-speaking. But try to stick with me.

You see, this is only recently coming apparent to me through reading what Osho wrote. But it is so powerful in its teaching.

We can't escape a feeling like loneliness because it can't be dealt with directly. It must be dealt with indirectly but through other direct actions to bring something else, something out of the usual, into us and that lonely space. And the 'other direct action' in this case is to bring the full understanding -- the awareness -- that the loneliness, in and of itself, doesn't really exist.

Bring awareness into the loneliness and the loneliness will disappear.

Bring awareness, or light, into the darkness of loneliness and the loneliness will disappear without being dealt with in some ineffective direct action such as 'busy-ness'.

I know this is radical stuff, and not for the faint of heart to attempt. And I know that this also is oh-so-hard to actually do when one is on the path of trying to escape the darkness of loneliness.

But think about how many things we humans have devised to help us cover up our all-too-common event of suffering through life. In this case suffering with loneliness.

And then remind yourself how ineffective those methods have been, through your own personal testimony, and perhaps you'll begin to see that this is a rather profound and uncommon way of dealing with darkness that just might work in the time of need when one is most lonely.

Give it a try. What have you got to lose, except your loneliness?

And when you actually do do it, let me know how it went. I think you'll be most surprised.

Written by Andre Best
President, Ultimate Results, Inc.
http://www.andrebest.com
'Learn About Life From Another Perspective'

(Author's permission is granted to share this full article with others. Just leave the signature line intact, please.)