What to do with loneliness and pain?

It has come to me recently that we all have within us the knowledge of what our deepest desires are. Our deepest desires are obscured by things we believe we want for ourselves. Because we think that these things will bring happiness and will satiate our true inner desire for freedom. When we become quiet, it seems that we can see our deepest desire for freedom, and the things that will lead us there and the things that will not.

Loneliness is a pervasive suffering that has saturated our world. This is something we all feel at times, and some more than others. We have created so many barriers to love and acceptance that we feel cut off and separate in new ways. What to do about it? It appears that surrounding ourselves with people is not the answer. Nor is filling the space with television and radio, internet and phone. In fact, anything we do to try to escape it is actually making it worse, because it is like we are placing a bandage over a disease that cannot heal. And so the disease festers while we continue to look away.

An antidote is to acknowledge our truest desire to be free, and this way, every loneliness and pain can be used as an opportunity to practice awareness. Every moment that we think we are alone, we can use as a moment to be present without distraction, or to love without obscuration. So loneliness is actually of great benefit, and takes us closer to the freedom of our deepest heart's desire. Let us be the people we really are, and not conform to what societal pressure tells us to be.