Acharya Prashant explains that loneliness is when you are not alright with yourself. He states that the subject of loneliness is the false 'I', the ego, and that only the ego can feel lonely. This feeling leads to a cycle of repercussions where a lonely person seeks a relationship with another lonely individual, resulting in mutual expectations that cannot be fulfilled. The speaker questions how one can provide good company to another if they cannot tolerate their own. Entering a relationship out of loneliness, he asserts, will definitely end in frustration. When one relationship fails to heal the loneliness, the ego seeks another object to grab and clutch, leading to a life that becomes a series of frustrations. However, when loneliness is confronted, it reveals itself as false. The need for a companion is shown to be a conditioned influence on the mind, not one's reality. This conditioning makes one believe certain things are indispensable when they are not. Only the false, incomplete, and hollow self wants to accumulate and combine. When loneliness is honestly examined, it transforms into something that can smile at itself, a state the speaker calls 'aloneness'. This refined ego is no longer scared of looking at itself in the mirror; it revels in being with itself. Aloneness is the state of the ego in which it does not despise or hate itself anymore. Loneliness and aloneness are not about the other but about the relationship one has with oneself. If you live a life that your internal honesty cannot approve of, you will be very lonely, and your relationship with yourself will be fraught with contempt and disgust. When you cannot like yourself, you turn to somebody else, and that is loneliness. Conversely, when you live a life that is rich, full, and honest, you are alright with yourself. This allows for healthy, non-parasitic relationships, as the lonely person is a burden on the other. The most important relationship is the one you have with yourself. Nobody can help you if you do not first like, respect, or love yourself. Aloneness is not the absence of relationships but the presence of health in relationships. Ultimately, loneliness and aloneness are not about your relationship with others, but about your relationship with yourself.