Loneliness and emptiness is an inherent feeling that pursues us life after life in this material world. This dreaded emotion has its deep-seeded roots, which originate from our illusion of wanting to enjoy separately from God.
In a state of separated consciousness, the living entity tries to lord over material nature and suffers one distress after another ultimately feeling lonely and empty. Even if we are married to the best partner in the world, we feel lonely and here are the reasons why marriage shows us that.
There are 3 stages of how we work towards our desires
1) The excitement of getting a desire met.
Before marriage, there is so much optimism in meeting the one. We strongly believe that one day we will meet the one who is going to erase our emptiness and that motivates us to pursue the goal of marriage. The excitement of fulfilling that desire gets us on our feet and compensates for our emptiness for the time being
2) Fulfilment of desire
When we fulfil that desire, we get happiness, “Oh my God I’ve met Mr./Mrs. right! I’m so happy that we are going to get married soon and we are going to buy a new house and have kids and we have so many things in common to do”. The second stage is the realization of the desire, which gives us happiness.
3) Unfulfilled and lonely even when desires are met
We are eventually unhappy with what we have even with the best partner, house, car, and children and we realize that we are truly lonely person as now there is no way to fulfil a new desire being stuck in married life and there is nothing more to look forward to. Though surrounded by family, relatives, and friends whom we think can give us happiness, we are ultimately disappointed and something always seems to be missing in life.
This same scenario can be applied to anything in life. As long as our pursuit of happiness is based on material things, we are going to be left unsatisfied. Fulfilment of those material desires satisfies us temporarily but does not give us ultimate happiness.
We still feel a lack and emptiness within. The Bhagavatam confirms SB 11.10.18: It is observed within the material world that sometimes even an intelligent person is not happy. Similarly, sometimes even a great fool is happy. The concept of becoming happy through expertly performing material activities is simply a useless exhibition of false egotism.
Why are we unsatisfied? The reason is that we are nothing of this material world. Being a spirit soul, we are eternal parts and parcel of the Supreme. The body we occupy is compared to a shirt which covers our human body. Imagine a scenario where we are working hard to wash, clean and iron the shirt daily but we are not taking any food or water. We are starving but we keeping the shirt very clean and crisp. How can cleaning and ironing the shirt satisfy my hunger and make me happy? Since there is no food for the spirit soul, we are always going to feel famished.
Therefore, we need to feed the soul and that can be done only by feeding or serving the Super Soul Lord Krishna. SB 8.5.49: When one pours water on the root of a tree, the trunk and branches of the tree are automatically pleased. Similarly, when one becomes a devotee of Lord Viṣṇu, everyone is served, for the Lord is the Supersoul of everyone.
Therefore true happiness and peace are the property of the Lord and only by engaging in his loving service can we purchase it. Just like all parts of the body are meant to work cooperatively to serve the stomach which in turn nourishes the body, in the same way when we collectively work to serve the Lord who is the ultimate beneficiary of all sacrifices, we attain everlasting satisfaction, bliss, and fulfilment which satiates the emptiness.
In marriage, the solution would be to have a relationship that centres on satisfying the Lord who is the anchor of our existence. Engage the entire family in the service of the Lord and in that way, one would not feel loneliness and emptiness that follows us like a shadow but dissipates like a fog when the Sun rises.
SB 7.15.74 — The process of chanting the holy name of the Lord is so powerful that by this chanting even householders [gṛhasthas] can very easily gain the ultimate result achieved by persons in the renounced order. Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira, I have now explained to you that process of religion.
