Joseph Weissman's answer is lovely but diffident -- our prophetic texts are embarassingour prophetic texts are embarrassing ... Why embarassingembarrassing??
Towards a non-diffident answermore forthright outlook: withhere's three quotes from, two from well-known sources and one from a personal contact.
I expect itthese sources to be too fringe for this site and will in due course be deleted. Hope it can at least stay for Christmas!!
From a Course in Miracles
This is a course in miracles. It is a required course. Only the time you take it is voluntary
This course can be summed up very simply: Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God.
The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.
There is a place in you where there is perfect peace
Miracles as such do not matter. The only thing that matters is their Source, Which is far beyond evaluation.
Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. The real miracle is the love that inspires them. In this sense everything that comes from love is a miracle.
Ramana Maharshi
In composing songs of devotion described the ultimate love not as selfless but as otherless. Also called non-duality
He who dedicates his mind to Thee, and seeing Thee, always beholds the universe as Thy figure, he who at all times glorifies Thee and loves Thee otherlessly as the Selfotherlessly, he is the master without rival, being one with Thee, O Arunachala-Shiva! And lost in Thy bliss.
How can anything but solitude be the condition of this state?
And to return to the figure of Christmas celebration...
A certain healer
who I talked with said to me:
When Jesus was asked to distill out the large no of Mosaic laws into a few he gave these two
- Love God
- Love your neighbor
These are the obvious exoteric ones. When you add "with all your heart" "as yourself" to these two you see that theres a third hidden esoteric one linking the first two; viz
- the two are one. ie loving God and loving neighbour are the same practice ie "love God" = "love neighbor"
In that state -- obviously non-dual -- how can love and solitude be different?