Questioner (Q): Today we read that loneliness is love and in aloneness, love is gone; only the beloved remains. Doesn’t this boil down to self-love? Is aloneness and self-love different?
Acharya Prashant (AP): Love is not blind. And you cannot love nonsense. To help something is one thing, to purify something is one thing, to be compassionate towards something is one thing; but to love something is an entirely different thing. Are you getting it? Love is not something that you have towards everything and everybody. Love has to be highly discriminatory. Love has to be highly conditional. Do you understand what love is? Love means the one I am loving, my beloved is the one I would want to be absolutely like. I would want to merge into him. I would want to give myself up totally and unite with him. That’s love. Now, if there is somebody who is worthy of your help, surely you do not want to become just like that person and become another candidate to be helped. Are you getting it?
If there is somebody, who is not in a healthy state, surely you would want to help him. That’s what you must do. But would you want to become like him? You would not want to become like him. You would not want to unite with him. You would not want to just give yourself up and be him. So, that cannot be love. That can be compassion, which is alright. Are you getting it?
So, love is demanding. The one you must love must be very-very worthy of love; not everything, not everyone deserves to be loved. In fact, the quality of a person and his life can be very well determined by the quality of the one he or she is choosing to love. Getting it?
So now, what is Self-love? Self-love is really possible only when the self is worthy of being loved. For self-love to happen, the petty, and divided, and confused self has to be elevated to the point where it is clean and shining and expansive and fearless. That is real self-love. Are you getting it?
Now, you also see the relation between aloneness and Self-love. Aloneness and the state of Self-love are one. In aloneness, you have turned worthy of love. In loneliness, you despise yourself. Getting it?
What is it that you want to be further clarified?
Q: When you said that in loneliness, you despise yourself, then how again you use that loneliness as love?
AP: Loneliness is love in the sense that loneliness tells you that you are missing the real beloved. Loneliness is like tears that you shed upon being separated from the beloved. So when you are lonely, then you must know that there is separation. And separation hurts only those who are first of all in love, right? So, in that sense, I have said that loneliness is love.
When I say “Loneliness is love", I mean to emphasize that even the state of loneliness can help you by reminding you that the beloved is missing. All loneliness is because you are missing the beloved, so loneliness is love. It’s a euphemism. Take it not very literally.
