Loneliness is a widespread problem nowadays. Not loneliness in a physical sense; many people live in crowded matchbox-like apartments in skyscraper building. But loneliness in an emotional sense; people living in adjacent or even same houses are sometimes separated by a distance greater than that between two galaxies.

Though many factors contribute to loneliness, a primary underlying cause is the non-intersection of mutual emotional worlds. People have different desires, different interests, different priorities – and these shape their emotional worlds, that is, the set of things that they feel strongly about.

What reduces people’s emotional worlds to cocoons is materialism, excessive or exclusive obsession with matter and material things. This obsession shuts people within the cocoon of their own material interests, wherein they evaluate others primarily in terms of it affects their interests.

Even if they care or want to care, their self-imposed cocoons checks, even chokes, their expressions of care. That’s why those expressions occurring within their own emotional world aren’t appreciable or even comprehensible to others. No wonder people in general feel disconnected, isolated, deserted.

The best way to break free from this cocoon is by internalizing devotional culture. Gita wisdom enables us to see the commonality among all of us – we are all souls, parts of Krishna, related as family members in the one universal family. The more we apply this wisdom, the more we feel Krishna’s presence, thereby taking off much of the sting of loneliness.

Further, this Krishna-centeredness enables us to discover and develop areas of intersection between our and others’ emotional worlds. The Bhagavad-gita (12.13) indicates that advanced devotees become the non-envious friends of all living beings, for they see they as Krishna does: potentially pure glorious spiritual beings meant for an eternal life of exciting love in an ecstatic family centered on Krishna.

Bhagavad Gita Chapter 12 Text 13

"One who is not envious but is a kind friend to all living entities, who does not think himself a proprietor and is free from false ego such a devotee of Mine is very dear to Me."