So many people are lonely; it is beginning to become a major problem in society. Can you talk about it?
Question:
So many people are lonely; it is beginning to become a major problem in society. Can you talk about it?
Nukunu:
From a sociological point of view it has to do with the fact that we don´t need each other to survive. The families are disappearing because they are not needed. Just hundred years ago the family system was very strong here in Denmark, but now more and more people are single. Historically the family developed as the patriarchate got in power. For the patriarchate private ownership of land, slaves and women was important. When we started to settle, leaving the hunting and collecting culture, and began growing corn and vegetables we left the system of matriarchy. This was the beginning of the family. Today the private ownership of women and land is not needed any more. The women have also started to work, instead of just staying home and giving birth to the children. We could go much deeper into many things here, but I will now go to the more spiritual explanation.
The ego cannot be alone and unoccupied because then it dies. That is why we see people constantly occupied and distracted with something; TV, smart phones or if there is nothing outside that can take their attention they turn to thoughts. We cannot be alone! The ego dies the moment there are no objects to be involved with. Ignorance is duality and separation, and for the ego to exist we need to live in separation – a subject or a “me” (ego) on the one hand and what this me is contemplating (objects) on the other. If we take one of them away, either the subject or the object, we will wake up. In other words we will go beyond ignorance.
It is very difficult to go beyond this game of separation. Everyone lives in it and it is very scary to take the jump beyond. It feels, from the point of view of the ego, as dying. So the ego will keep us occupied with things that are meaningful or not meaningful, and it doesn’t matter which! When the ego is not occupied with anything we get bored and lonely.
Loneliness is a painful, desperate state where we try to find someone or something to get us involved, so that the “me-sense” or ego survives.
People often take “loneliness” and “aloneness” to be the same. But they are not identical. If we take the word aloneness apart we will get “all oneness”, which is a very high and positive state. If we go deep into loneliness, so deep that the separation is transcended – the ego and the separation disappear – we come to aloneness which is our essential nature. People miss this because they cannot endure loneliness. They don´t rest into the feeling, and therefore they do not see that the feeling of loneliness is impermanent and empty. But aloneness is the realization that everything is myself and it is the oneness with consciousness itself. So do not escape from the loneliness. Use it! It is your enlightenment!