According to Osho, when you befriend your loneliness until it turns into aloneness, you become centered, fulfilled, and independent. Entering relationship from this wholeness, you don’t use the other to fill a lack; you share overflow. You move like a master, not a beggar, attracting similarly whole partners. Then love deepens, happiness multiplies, exploitation disappears, and two individuals stand together, celebrating existence rather than confronting each other.
First be happy and complete by yourself, so with a partner you share joy instead of needing them to fix your emptiness.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Should one first come to terms with one's own loneliness before entering into relationship?
Two lonely people are always facing each other, confronting. Two people who have known aloneness are together, facing something higher than both. I always give this example: two ordinary lovers who are both lonely always face each other; two real lovers, on a full moon night, will not be facing each other. They may be holding hands, but they will be facing the full moon high in the sky. They will not be facing each other, they will be together facing something else. Sometimes they will be listening to a symphony of Mozart or Beethoven or Wagner together. Sometimes they will be sitting by the side of a tree and enjoying the tremendous being of the tree enveloping them. Sometimes they may be sitting by a waterfall and listening to the wild music that is continuously being created there. Sometimes, by the ocean, they will both be looking to 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…
Question: ON THE UTILITY OF NOT-BEING: THIRTY SPOKES UNITE AROUND THE NAVE; FROM THEIR NOT-BEING (LOSS OF THEIR INDIVIDUALITY) ARISES THE UTILITY OF THE WHEEL. MOLD CLAY INTO A VESSEL; FROM ITS NOT-BEING (IN THE VESSEL'S HOLLOW) ARISES THE UTILITY OF THE VESSEL. CUT OUT DOORS AND WINDOWS IN THE HOUSE (WALL), FROM THEIR NOT-BEING (EMPTY SPACE) ARISES THE UTILITY OF THE HOUSE. THEREFORE BY THE EXISTENCE OF THINGS WE PROFIT. AND BY THE NON-EXISTENCE OF THINGS WE ARE SERVED. But we are so afraid of emptiness. People come to me and say it is so difficult to be alone because one starts feeling one's emptiness. Then you seek friends, then you seek lovers, and the whole effort from the very beginning is doomed, because a man who is afraid of his emptiness cannot really love. He is afraid. Deep down there is fear. How can he love?
Building the world means: build relationships, so that you forget aloneness. Building sannyas means: accept this aloneness, because it is your nature. Don’t run from it, don’t avoid it; consent to it, embrace it—it is your nature. By running from it you will reach nowhere. For lifetimes you have tried and only failed. Sannyas means: one who has consented to his aloneness. Now he neither whistles, nor sings, nor forms relationships—he is completely fulfilled in himself. And here’s the delightful thing: the more you run from yourself, the more you will have to run; the more solitude will frighten you. The more you agree with yourself, the more you will discover that what you had called loneliness is not loneliness, it is solitude. There is a difference between loneliness and solitude. Loneliness means you miss the other; solitude means your own being is enough.
Question: BELOVED OSHO, IT SEEMS THAT ONE OF THE GREATEST HURDLES THAT FACES A HUMAN BEING IS TO BE ALONE, TO STAND ALONE IN THE FACE OF THE OPINIONS OF THE WORLD, TO STAND ALONE IN THE FACE OF THE LIES OF THE WORLD, TO BE ABLE TO BE PHYSICALLY ALONE, AND, ULTIMATELY, TO BE ALONE WITHOUT EVEN OUR MINDS -- THE COMPANION OF LAST RESORT. WE REALLY KNOW WE ARE ALONE, WE KNOW WE WILL DIE INTO ALONENESS, WE KNOW THAT EVERY CONTACT OUTSIDE OURSELVES IS TRANSITORY -- ONLY YOU REFLECT THE SILENCE OF THE STARS, THE SILENCE OF INFINITY, THE SILENCE OF ETERNITY -- YET JUST BELOW THE HEART THERE IS A PAIN, A KNOT, A FEAR... THE FEAR OF BEING A LITTLE BOY WITHOUT FRIENDS, THE FEAR OF FAILURE AND REJECTION, AND THE PAIN OF PRETENDING I DON'T CARE.