You ask: "Sometimes there is such a feeling of not belonging anywhere…
" Good, that feeling is not wrong. That feeling simply brings the reality. You can create a fiction, but the reality goes on asserting itself again and again. Your fictions cannot dissolve reality — they may hide it for a moment or two, and then reality asserts itself again and your fictions are broken.
"Sometimes there is such a feeling of not belonging anywhere…" You don't belong. The WHOLE is yours — you don't belong anywhere… because to belong anywhere will be very limited. All is yours: the whole God, the whole sky is yours. You don't belong anywhere — belonging will be a limitation, a finitude: the infinite is yours.
"… that even my orange and my mala are no consolation." I have never meant them to be consolations. I don't give you any consolation, I take all consolations away. I am here to shatter all consolations. I am not here to pat your back and sing a lullaby so that you can sleep well and dream beautiful dreams.
No, I have to shock you into awareness so that you see the reality. Sweet dreams won't help. Even if the reality is bitter, it is reality — and one has to learn the ways of it. If it is bitter, it simply says you have not learned its ways — hence it appears bitter. Learn the ways and reality becomes sweet.
But you cannot substitute by sweet dreams. That's what people have been doing down the ages: life after life, people are trying to get consolations. Truth has to be sought, not consolation. The orange, the mala, the sannyas, are not consolations — not at all.
"Are we really so alone?" Yes… more so than you know. You have not yet penetrated it; just the periphery… and you become afraid and you start escaping into the other. Gather courage — take a plunge into your being. Let us be acquainted with our own center. Let us ask only one question sincerely: Who am I? All else is meaningless. Unless this question is answered, all your love affairs, friendships, all are nonsense. Unless this question is answered, nothing is answered.
Go into your aloneness with only one quest: Who am I? And don't seek consolations — because cheap consolations are available, and the mind is very clever in supplying them. When you ask: Who am I? the mind can immediately supply an answer — mind is very clever. Mind says, "You are God. You are a soul, an immortal soul." These are the ideas put by the magician into the heads of poor sheep.
The magician suggested to a few that they were lions, to a few that they were eagles, to a few that they were men, to a few that they were even magicians. The magician hypnotized the sheep and told them, "You are immortal souls: nobody can ever harm you. How can you be harmed?" The magician suggested to them: "I am for you. I am the best master you can ever find, and I exist for you, and I will do whatsoever is needed, and I will always do whatsoever is good for you. Even if I kill you, I will be killing you just for your sake."
You have been given these ideas by the society; your mind is nothing but a projection of the society. It is society within you — the penetration of the society inside you; it is a miniature society. You have been told things, and you have believed them — and when you ask the question "Who am I?" if you are a Hindu the Upanishad will speak from the head: the Upanishad will say, "AHAM BRAHMASMI — I am the Brahma himself." This is not your answer; this is the answer taught by the magician.
I am not saying the answer is wrong or right, I am simply saying it is not your answer — and when the answer is not yours it is wrong. I am not saying whether the answer is right or wrong per se, I am simply saying it is not yours — hence it is wrong. It may be that when you really enter into your innermost core, there you will find AHAM BRAHMASMI — but that will be a totally different thing. Now it is not from the magician, not from the outside, not from the Upanishad, not from the society, not from the priest; now it is arising in your own being.
Maybe, if you are a Christian and you ask, "Who am I?" the answer comes floating — a beautiful lullaby: "The Kingdom of God is within you"… and you are very happy. Don't be deceived by the magician of the Vatican — these things won't help. Christian, Hindu or Mohammedan is not the question. And I am not saying the question is wrong or right; I am simply saying it is not yours, hence wrong.
Only YOUR authentic response will be the true answer. So go deep with only one question; let this be your only key, and unlock all the doors inside… and go on penetrating, go on penetrating. One day, when there is nobody left — not a shadow of the outside — when you are tremendously in the inside, when you are just a subjectivity, a pure virgin consciousness — there is the answer. And it is not an answer which comes in a verbalized form it is an existential experience… and you know that your aloneness is your soul.
Mahavira — one of the great masters of the world — has named the ultimate state KAIVALYA. KAIVALYA means absolute aloneness… his word is of tremendous beauty. He says: When you reach to your innermost core you become absolutely free; and that state is of pure aloneness — KAIVALYA. and out of that is wisdom, and out of that is light, and out of that is compassion: everything is born out of that — so don't avoid aloneness.
Yes, Astha, everybody is absolutely alone — and the sooner you recognize it, and the sooner you dare to go in, the better. Because all the days that are wasted in going somewhere else are simply wasted. You never go anywhere, you simply deceive.
OSHO