Loneliness is an aching void in the center of our beings,
a deep longing to love and be loved,
to be fully known and accepted by at least one other person.
It is a hollow, haunting sound sweeping thru our depths,
chilling our bones and causing us to shiver.

    Is there a person, anywhere,
who has never felt the stab of loneliness,
who has never experienced
the eerie distance of isolation and separation,
who has never suffered the pain of rejection or the loss of love?

    The final rupture or breakdown of a valued loving relationship,
the sudden death of someone who was close and special,
an unavoidable separation from a loved one
—these things strike loneliness into our hearts,
the intense experience of the absence of that specific person.

    Besides longing for a specific person, 
sometimes loneliness has no name attached.
This is the general feeling of being alone,
isolated, separated from others.

    And there is a third kind of loneliness—existential loneliness—
which is even deeper and more pervasive than either of the first two.
It often disguises itself as longing for a specific person
or pretends to be yearning for contact with anyone,
but this deeper lack or emptiness-of-being
is not really a kind of loneliness at all.
Being together with other people, even people we intensely love,
does not overcome this deep incompleteness of being.
This inner default of selfhood has never been solved by relationships,
no matter how good and close and warm our relationships might be.

OUTLINE:

I. Five Differences between
        Interpersonal Loneliness and Existential Loneliness

II. How Does it Feel to be Existentially Lonely?

III. Beyond Existential Loneliness

    Whatever the state of our relationships
—whether close and warm, boring and cool, or non-existent—
we should distinguish our experience of interpersonal loneliness
from the much deeper, more central, loneliness of spirit.

    Loneliness of spirit is really a void within ourselves,
a hollowness that cannot be filled with other people
—no matter how close, warm, & fulfilling our relationships might be.
The yearning we feel is real; it comes from the depths of our selves.
But love is not the answer to this existential yearning.
Fusing with another person will not solve all our problems.
If our real problem is our Existential Malaise—felt as loneliness—
even the most ideal loving relationship will not fill this aching void.

    For a time, probably, love will cover our inner emptiness,
but after the initial period of emotional excitement is over,
our fundamental hollowness will make itself felt again.
Then we might blame each other for our alienation.
We might respond to the reappearance of loneliness
by changing partners.
With a new person to love, we can become lost in romance again,
forgetting momentarily our inner incompleteness of being.

    The belief that 'true love' will solve our Existential Dilemma
is one of the strongest illusions of the Western world.
Perhaps only a series of disappointments will convince us
that love cannot solve our loneliness of spirit.

I. Five Differences between
        Interpersonal Loneliness and Existential Loneliness

   1. Both the longing for a specific person and the general urge
to make connections with others are clearly interpersonal feelings.
But existential loneliness only seems to be yearning for love.
Even the best love will not abolish our loneliness of spirit.
After a while, the inner lack or hollowness gnaws thru again.

    2. Interpersonal loneliness results from being isolated and alone.
When we reunite with the people we love, our loneliness disappears.
But when being together with the people we love
does not overcome our 'loneliness', it might be loneliness of spirit.
We might feel 'lonely', incomplete, & unfulfilled
even when we are receiving all the loving we could ask for.
Nothing others can do will abolish this 'loneliness'
because the problem is inward rather than interpersonal.

    3. Interpersonal loneliness is usually temporary;
when our relationships improve, this loneliness disappears.
But loneliness of spirit is a permanent condition of our beings.
Independent of the ups and downs of our love-lives,
our inward loneliness remains—a persistent lack of wholeness.

    4. Interpersonal loneliness affects only one part of our lives.
But existential loneliness affects every dimension of existence.
We feel incomplete, inadequate, miserable in everything.

    5. We know how to cure interpersonal loneliness: Find people.
It is seldom easy to create good personal relationships,
but at least we know some appropriate ways
to open ourselves to others.
But rearranging our relationships
will not cure our existential loneliness.
In fact, we might be disappointed to feel essentially 'lonely'
even when our relationships are going quite well.
Our central hollowness remains unfulfilled
no matter what the state of our personal relationships.

II. How Does it Feel to be Existentially Lonely?

    Loneliness of spirit is discovered in our depths.
Sometimes, when we least expect it, loneliness freezes us.
Or perhaps it feels like the bottom dropping out of our being.
We feel incomplete, as if something important is missing.
We feel shaky and insecure inside, weak and 'clingy'.
Sometimes this gnawing deficiency makes us want to 'devour' others
—to get as much of them as possible,
to complete our egos by possessing them.
Or we might seek to be supported and protected by others.

III. Beyond Existential Loneliness

    However, our loneliness of spirit can be cured
—independent of our personal relationships.
If our interior hollowness is filled, we no longer use other persons
to plug-up our inner emptiness and fill-in our deficiencies of being.
Instead of trying to fit other people into our interior gap,
we find ourselves loving
from a deep richness, fullness, & completeness.
We are empowered to give to others
without expecting anything in return.

    Just how we enter the new condition of wholeness
will probably always remain a mystery.
Each of us can only try to become sensitive to those interior moments
when we spontaneously find ourselves whole and filled.
If we learn how to attune ourselves better to such moments of peace,
we might discover how to be so that such moments will return.

    The surprising way in which Existential Freedom happens to us
tells us that this new way of being it is not
a latent personality characteristic now blooming.
So when we find ourselves living beyond existential loneliness,
we are not tempted to be proud—as if it were a personal achievement.
Our new completeness is not the result of strenuous internal efforts.
The transformation comes precisely when we give up striving.
And that might be all we will ever know about the process:
how we orient ourselves internally to enable completeness to come.

    When we discover how to open ourselves to this gift,
our hollow yearning is filled, our loneliness of spirit is cured.
In that very place in our depths where we used to feel
empty, lacking, deficient, incomplete, lonely, & needy,
we now find ourselves satisfied and full.

    This new fulfillment empowers us to love in a new way.
Instead of trying to use others to fill our aching existential Void,
we can now appreciate them for the persons they really are.
We no longer need to cling to others
because their absence does not throw us back into loneliness of spirit.

    If we discover how to live beyond existential loneliness,
we are empowered to love from fullness rather than emptiness and need.

1. Have you ever felt lonely for one specific person?

2. Have you also felt the general desire to have more human contact?

3. Have you believed that love is the answer to your Existential Malaise?

4. To what extent have you tried to solve your loneliness of spirit
    by trying to create better loving relationships?

5. If you are not yet convinced,
    what additional experiences are likely to convince you
    that love cannot cure loneliness of spirit?

6. In what ways does our culture say that love is the answer?

7. How realistic are the images of love in movies, music, etc.?

8. Have you ever experienced existential loneliness
    even in the midst of a wonderful loving relationship?

9. What part of your 'urge to merge' with another person
    is really your underlying existential loneliness?

10. Does continued existential loneliness
    sometimes cause relationships to end?

11. Where are you in your journey
    from loneliness to Existential Freedom?

12. Has Existential Freedom enabled you to love without clinging?

   James Park is an existential philosopher.
This cyber-sermon is adapted from
Chapter 1 of his small book
Opening to Grace: Transcending Our Spiritual Malaise .
All rights reserved.
Much more information about James Park
will be found on his home page:
An Existential Philosopher's Museum .

James Park Our Existential Predicament:
Loneliness, Depression, Anxiety, & Death
[Minneapolis, MN: www.existentialbooks.com, 2006--5th edition]
Chapter 1, "Existential Loneliness" p. 25-38.

James Park New Ways of Loving:
How Authenticity Transforms Relationships
[Minneapolis, MN: www.existentialbooks.com, 2007--6th edition]
Chapter 13 "Love Among Existentially Free People" p. 224-231.

James Park Opening to Grace:
Transcending Our Spiritual Malaise .
(Chapter 1 of this book is available on-line:
Interpersonal Loneliness & Spiritual Loneliness .

For several other background books,
click: Books on Existential Spirituality .

For a one-page outline of a presentation of this same subject,
click the following title:
Loneliness of Spirit: Deeper than the Reach of Love .

Many of the above links and a few others are available here:
The Existential Loneliness Portal

     The individual author of each cyber-sermon bears primary responsibility
for all the facts and opinions it contains.
Each subsequent individual or organization that re-distributes cyber-sermons
cannot be held responsible for errors of fact
or controversial opinions cyber-sermons might contain.

    Persons who are not familiar with Unitarian Universalism
are hereby informed that UUism is a decentralized,
creed-free, liberal religious movement.
There is no UU Pope, no UU Bible, and no UU dogma.
There are several traditions from which UUism springs,
but these do not limit individual freedom of belief—or non-belief.
(For more information, see the home page
of the Unitarian Universalist Association: http://uua.org .)

    Thus, no central authority has reviewed
the thoughts contained in any cyber-sermon
—or in any sermon delivered to any local UU congregation.
Cyber-sermons reflect the views of their authors.
They should not be taken to represent the views of any religious body.