When the merging gold is absent, we are in the state that we experience as being lonely. Conversely, when we experience ourselves as alone, and that aloneness feels sad and lonely rather than full and peaceful, the aloneness is being experienced as the absence of merging gold. Initially, the absence of the dual unity, the absence of relationship, of connection, of merging gold, is felt as loneliness. As you do your inner work and experience yourself on the deeper levels of Being and essence, you start to become more able to. And you recognize beingness as a state of aloneness, because it doesn't have object relations, it doesn't have mental or emotional connections with people. You are free within—you are just with yourself inside, with nobody else attached to you in your mind. That's why it's experienced as aloneness. But it's not aloneness that is experienced as being separate from others; it's aloneness in the sense that it is pure, free from contaminations, free from inner dialogues. You're not conversing in your mind with somebody else. You're alone. You are as you are. For a long time, this aloneness seems difficult to tolerate. Even though it is a state of Being and essence, it is hard to stay with it, because every time it arises, we think that something is missing. So aloneness is not experienced simply as aloneness—a loneliness comes with it. Fear can accompany it as well, and a sense of deficiency. Every time we feel alone—though it might actually be a state of fullness—the mind thinks, "It must be that I’m rejected. No one wants me. Otherwise, why would I be alone?"