Q: Master, how do we communicate with our inner Master? Some of us still have feelings of loneliness and emptiness. Is it because we haven’t achieved deep communion with our own inner Master, Who is always our best friend?

M:No, no. We have, we have. But sometimes the world overwhelms us with its activities, attractions and negativity so that it makes us feel as if we aren’t connected with our inner Self. And that’s why we have to meditate every day, to strengthen this knowledge of connectedness.

And it doesn’t happen overnight. For some people it takes long years of practice, and the irony is this: The more people we know, the lonelier we feel. If we were to live alone somewhere, after a while we wouldn’t feel as lonely. But we live in the city or in an environment with a lot of people, big populations, and we know many people. And sometimes people make us feel disappointed and sad or brokenhearted. And these events do really make us feel lonely. Otherwise, within ourselves, if we concentrate more on ourselves, on what we’re doing at every moment of our lives, we won’t feel as lonely.

It’s just because we expect things from other people and people let us down; sometimes people break our hearts and we end up feeling lonely. And this is just the emotional level. Don’t confuse the emotional state of feeling with the spiritual level of practice. But nevertheless, the higher you go, the less lonely you feel, but only if you can let go of other people’s expectations; otherwise you’ll always feel lonely. If you look up to other people and look around at other people instead of trying to be independent, to be within yourself, you’ll feel lonely. So try to be yourself, try to be within yourself. Try to concentrate within.

Try to be independent of other people’s help or judgments or expectations, and your own expectations of other people. Then you won’t feel lonely at all.