Acharya Prashant explains that if loneliness is defined as not having anybody to accompany you, then the person who is lonely is paradoxically never without company. They always have their own company. Traditionally, a lonely person is seen as someone needing another's company, but a deeper look reveals that they are already in the company of their own thoughts. At times, a lonely person might even think they don't need anyone because they are already occupied with their own thoughts. The speaker elaborates that a lonely person is one who is always with himself, unable to leave himself, constantly talking to and looking at himself. This individual is acutely bound to their own consciousness. Within this consciousness, the feeling of 'I' and the feeling of the 'other' or the world exist together. It's impossible to think of oneself without also thinking of the world; the 'I' and the world are always together. Therefore, the lonely person is perpetually attached to their consciousness, which contains a figure of themselves. This figure of the self is limited, needs protection, and lives in fear of the world it simultaneously conceives. The mind of a lonely person is not empty but is a 'teeming crowd,' filled with the image of oneself and the image of the world. The term 'loneliness' can be misleading because the lonely person is actually quite full, with a great deal going on within them. Loneliness is not a barren desert but a bustling restaurant, choked to capacity, serving distasteful dishes. A lonely person is always thinking, perpetually busy with themselves and their personal concerns, unable to escape their self-interest. They are described as always walking with their own shadow, so attached to it that they are always looking at the darkness. By being so focused on the shadow, they have turned their back to the sun. This is the state of the lonely person: they are always with themselves.