24 January 2014 - QA 4

Gurudev, how to manage the feeling of loneliness? How to come out of the feeling that nobody needs me?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: You know, everything is going to finish, this whole chapter is going to end one day. You will be all alone! Yes? That is called Vairagya (dispassion). When you get into dispassion, you see that everything here is temporary! All the people you are seeing, everything will be gone one day! This whole thing will finish, like the soap bubble one day bursts. Then only you remain. This gives you immense depth of understanding.

Now, if intellectually this doesn’t suffice your loneliness, then with that loneliness or longing, you can write poems. You can do a lot of things in that loneliness.
Many beautiful art pieces have come out of loneliness. Many songs and music have been born out of that loneliness. So instead of letting the loneliness turn into depression, you can turn the loneliness into a longing for something higher. And the longing will keep the love alive in you. So sing, dance and write poems in the deep pain, and turn this loneliness into longing, and longing into something so creative; something eternal.