The Need Of Companionship, The Joy of Companionship, I Think, Therefore I Am

The buddha said that what keeps us reincarnating is our need to be recognized, we want to exist and live eternally.

The greatest pain for a human is to be totally alone, or even to feel totally alone, that there is no one with any wisdom you could turn to to help, take care, or advise you when you are in need.

This is supported by the islamic teaching that God was an unknown treasure and wanted to be known, so He created us so that we would know him. According to this, it implies that even God was lonely. In Judaism it is very similar; God created all that is just to give to us so He would have the pleasure of giving and all He asks of us is to thank Him for all He gives.

This makes sense that our feeling alone and lonely is a huge suffering. This goes in harmony with the idea that we want to be recognized because that recognition shows we are not alone. If God needs that, then of course we would as well.

If no one is there to acknowledge you, even in a crowd, you will feel very alone.

So although it is the desire to be known and acknowledged which keeps us reincarnating according to Buddha, the reason for that need is because we feel very alone, or it could be the reverse, that our need to be recognized going unfulfilled gives us that sadness and feeling of being alone.

Whether you believe in reincarnation or not is irrelevant, these are still the same feelings that everyone has, they are very real feelings in everyones life.

This feeling of being alone is so powerful, it gets people to follow the clearly ridiculous and blind themselves to the obvious truth of a group or person or situation in order to be able to join in some group and not feel alone.

This is very common, and it proves the power of the need to not be alone; showing the extremes a person will go to satisfy the need for companionship and being acknowledged.

If you know that this is what is pushing you to do the things you do, maybe you can exert a little more willpower in the future and choose who you associate with, or date, a little more wisely and save yourself a lot of trouble.