Acharya Prashant begins by differentiating between loneliness and aloneness. Loneliness is when you are not alright with yourself, whereas aloneness is when you are alright with yourself. When you are not alright with yourself, you will obviously seek an alternative to your own company. This need for someone else arises because you are not okay with yourself. You seek someone to relate to, sit with, fill yourself up with, or form a bond with. You look for someone else because looking at yourself reveals only nonsense. If you are only with yourself, you have nobody else to look at but yourself. Everything about you seems like hot air, so you would rather your eyes look elsewhere. This leads to seeking distractions like calling someone, going to the market, or looking for marriage, a social circle, or a community. This state is loneliness. Loneliness is the state of the lonely person, whose self is the ego. Loneliness comes to the ego and only to the ego; only the ego remains lonely. This is how most relationships are formed: two lonely people come together, each taking the other's load. The ego is ugly and does not like itself; it labels itself as unworthy and incomplete. Therefore, the ego cannot just be with itself and feel fine. It must necessarily reach out to the world and want a companion. When you are lonely, you tie a knot with someone who is as lonely as you are, leading to mutual expectations that cannot be fulfilled because neither person is capable of fulfilling them. If you cannot give yourself nice company, you cannot give it to another. If you could not tolerate being with yourself, how can another tolerate being with you? A relationship started out of loneliness will definitely end in frustration. Every new disappointment and failed relationship is an opportunity to reflect in the mirror and look at one's face honestly. Usually, the ego refuses to do this. However, if loneliness is not healed by one relationship, the ego ventures out in search of another object to grab and clutch. This cycle continues, leading to a series of frustrations. Occasionally, after many defeats and disappointments, the ego might realize the idiocy of trying the same thing repeatedly. It is rare for the ego to acknowledge its own foolishness, but when it does, one can look at oneself. If one musters the courage to continue this seeing, the trash just falls away. One finds that one does not dislike oneself so much anymore. What was dislikable was the rubbish one had gathered about one's being. This seeing is purity and truth itself. When the rubbish is gone, the need to hunt for company also disappears, which means loneliness is gone. Loneliness, when confronted, shows up as false. It is an influence upon the mind, not your reality. Only the false, incomplete, and hollow seeks completion. Truth is complete in itself. This refined ego is no longer scared of looking at the mirror. When it is alright with itself, that is called aloneness. Aloneness is the state of the ego in which it does not despise itself anymore. It is a state where you can admire yourself. Aloneness is not about the absence of a relationship but the presence of health in relationships. The most important relationship is the one you have with yourself.