Loneliness
Embracing loneliness as a companion transforms it into a profound aloneness, where one finds fulfillment and independence; from this wholeness, love flourishes not as a means to fill voids but as a celebration of shared existence, attracting partners who resonate with the same depth.
Explore Depth →Solitude
Embracing solitude and savoring silence allows you to transcend the crowd's conditioning, awakening self-reliance and revealing authentic values; while initial fears of isolation may emerge, they give way to profound connections and transformative growth, nurturing your spirit like a lion, not a sheep.
Explore Depth →From the Discourses
Where Osho draws this distinction himself — each passage links to the complete discourse.
Osho, the mind does not settle in the crowd, and sheer loneliness also makes the heart panic. Is this a symptom of madness? Kindly explain.
A few things about solitude should be understood. Solitude has three forms. First: what we call loneliness. Second: aloneness. And third: kaivalya. Loneliness is negative. Loneliness is not true aloneness; the memory of the other keeps tormenting you—if only the other were here; the other’s absence hurts, a thorn pricks; the mind is entangled in the other. To outward eyes you are alone, but not within; inside, a crowd is present. Someone may find you sitting by yourself, yet you know you are not alone: someone comes to mind; your heart is set on someone; you are sending out a call to someone; weaving dreams of someone; a cry is going on within—if only someone were here, I would not be alone! You are not reconciled to loneliness. Far from joy, there is not even peace in it. You are restless, agitated. Soon you will find some entanglement: you will…
Beloved Osho, I have often heard you speak of aloneness and loneliness as being opposed; of aloneness being a state in which one is so full -- fulfilled; of loneliness being a state in which one is missing the other, feeling very empty. Reading ryokan's poetry, I feel some loneliness, yet the man is known as an enlightened zen monk. "standing alone beneath the solitary pine, quickly the time passes. Overhead the endless sky. Who can I call to join me on the path?" in the hankering for a true companion, in the need to share that richness, I wonder if in the heart of aloneness, there is a kind o
Kavisho, loneliness is loneliness, and aloneness is aloneness -- and the two never meet anywhere. They cannot by their very nature. Aloneness is so full, so abundantly full of yourself there is no space for anybody else. And loneliness is so empty, so dark, so miserable that it is nothing but a constant hunger for someone to fill it... if not to fill it, at least to help you to forget it. You are quoting from Ryokan's poetry. I don't think Ryokan is yet enlightened. He was certainly a Zen monk, and a great poet, but he fell short of being a mystic. He reached very close, but even to reach very close is not to be enlightened. I have also loved Ryokan's poetry. But beware of poets, because they appear so close to the mystics. Sometimes their words are more juicy than the words of the mystics, because the…
Osho, never before have I felt so much love and never before so alone. Thank you, Osho...
Carl Gustav Jung has made these words very famous. He divided people basically into two types: the introverts and the extroverts. That is a wrong division. People cannot be categorized that way. People cannot be pigeon-holed this way. I have never come across anyone who is just introvert -- he will die immediately, because he will have only the in-breath. I have never come across a person who is just extrovert -- he will die too. People are both. It is possible that one is more of an extrovert than an introvert, and vice versa. And that's what brings imbalance to your personality. One should be both simultaneously. One should be balanced. My sannyasins have to be extrovert introverts, introvert extroverts -- both together. This is one of the most important things to be understood, because in the past the monks have tried to be just introverts. They were called…
I am experiencing something that I am calling "the pain of myself". Can you say what this is?
Vandan, the ordinary life of humanity is a continuous effort to avoid oneself. Everybody is doing it, in different ways of course. Nobody can sit silently and be alone. Watch yourself, how fidgety you become if there is nothing to do. If the radio is not there and television is not there and the newspaper is not there and you don't have a book to read and nobody to talk to, just think how fidgety, restless you become. You are almost in a panic, as if you are dying. You need something to remain occupied with, you cannot be with yourself. And whenever you are with yourself you start feeling bored. Now, this is strange. And if somebody else feels bored with you, you feel very hurt, but you yourself feel bored with yourself! And everybody is the same: nobody feels good being alone. Man is constantly escaping from himself;…
Beloved Osho, I am loving my aloneness. I am feeling fulfilled, nourished, fresh with new energy and ecstatic. However, there are days when I feel lonely. Then I get sad, unmeditative and even grumpy. Osho, can you talk about how to go through the transition period from loneliness to aloneness?
You just 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; there is simply no energy left. So the whole effort has to be very positive. Feed and nourish your aloneness with all that you have, pour your love, and you will be surprised that those gaps of sadness and…
The Synthesis
The Intersection: Both are physical states of being completely alone, devoid of the company of the 'other'.
The Divergence: Loneliness is a negative state: it is the sadness that the 'other' is missing. The lonely person feels empty and seeks distraction. Solitude is a profoundly positive state: it is the joy of being present with oneself. A person in solitude feels entirely whole and overflowing.
Osho's Synthesis: Osho frequently notes that society creates lonely people because it never teaches individuals how to meet themselves. Meditation is the alchemy that transforms the misery of loneliness into the magnificent bliss of solitude. When you are joyful alone, your relationships become sharing, not necessity.
The two states look identical from outside — a person sitting by themselves — and are, for Osho, opposites that "never meet anywhere." Loneliness is an emptiness: the other is missing, the mind aches with their absence, and inwardly a whole crowd of memories and hungers keeps you company. Solitude — aloneness — is a fullness so complete there is no room left for anybody else; nothing is missing because you have finally arrived in your own presence.
Ordinary life, Osho observes, is largely engineered to avoid the first without ever discovering the second: radio, gossip, work — anything but sitting with oneself. The sections below give the distinction in his own words, each linked to the full discourse.
The Three Forms of Being Alone
Osho maps the whole territory in one stroke: loneliness, aloneness, and beyond both, kaivalya.
Solitude has three forms. First: what we call loneliness. Second: aloneness. And third: kaivalya. Loneliness is negative. Loneliness is not true aloneness; the memory of the other keeps tormenting you—if only the other were here; the other’s absence hurts, a thorn pricks; the mind is entangled in the other. To outward eyes you are alone, but not within; inside, a crowd is present.— Maha Geeta, Chapter 64 →
They Never Meet Anywhere
Answering a disciple moved by Ryokan's lonely poetry, Osho refuses any continuum between the two states — one is hunger, the other abundance.
loneliness is loneliness, and aloneness is aloneness -- and the two never meet anywhere. They cannot by their very nature. Aloneness is so full, so abundantly full of yourself there is no space for anybody else. And loneliness is so empty, so dark, so miserable that it is nothing but a constant hunger for someone to fill it... if not to fill it, at least to help you to forget it.— The Golden Future, Chapter 20 →
The Lifelong Escape from Oneself
Why does loneliness bite so hard? Osho's diagnosis: we have never once been in our own company without reaching for a distraction.
the ordinary life of humanity is a continuous effort to avoid oneself. Everybody is doing it, in different ways of course. Nobody can sit silently and be alone. Watch yourself, how fidgety you become if there is nothing to do.— The Secret, Chapter 6 →
Crossing from Loneliness to Aloneness
To a disciple oscillating between blissful aloneness and grumpy lonely days, Osho gives the practical economics of the transition.
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.— The New Dawn, Chapter 27 →
Frequently Asked
Loneliness is defined by absence — the other is missing and their lack torments you; you are outwardly alone but inwardly crowded with memories and cravings. Solitude, or aloneness, is defined by presence — you are so full of your own being that nothing is missing. Osho insists they are not degrees of one state but opposites that never meet.
Not company itself — escape is the problem. Osho points out that most relationship is two lonelinesses using each other as anesthetic, which is why it disappoints. A person who has found aloneness relates out of overflow rather than hunger; only then, he says, does love become possible instead of mutual need.
Osho's counsel is twofold. First, stop the constant flight into occupation and distraction and actually meet yourself — the fidgety discomfort is the door, not the obstacle. Second, invest positively: pour your energy into the joy of being alone rather than fighting the sadness. Meditation is precisely the practice of savoring one's own presence until it becomes abundance.