Video Information: 12.01.23, BITS, Goa
Description:
In this thought-provoking video, Acharya Ji delves into the nature of love, challenging conventional beliefs about what love truly is. He argues that what many perceive as love is often just natural attraction or attachment, driven by hormonal impulses rather than genuine affection. Acharya Ji emphasizes that real love is not something that comes naturally; it must be learned and cultivated over time. He critiques the idea of "natural" behaviors, suggesting that many of these instincts lead to bondage rather than liberation.
He explains that love should not be confused with possessiveness or ownership, as seen in the mother-child relationship, which he describes as a form of attachment rather than true love. Acharya Ji asserts that love requires clarity and insight, urging individuals to look beyond superficial appearances and to understand the deeper realities of their emotions. He concludes that true love is a spiritual pursuit that transcends mere biological instincts, advocating for a conscious effort to learn and embody love in its purest form.
Context:
~ What is real love?
~ Our love is only hormonal?
~ Why do we come into a relationship?
~ How to form a healthy relationship?
~ What is the real meaning of love?
~ When you love something, you kill it!
~ Be very cautious of natural love
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~
#AcharyaPrashant #आचार्यप्रशांत #Philosophy #BhagavadGita #love #relationship #loveatfirstsight #boyfriend #girlfriend #teenagers #adolescence
Description:
In this thought-provoking video, Acharya Ji delves into the nature of love, challenging conventional beliefs about what love truly is. He argues that what many perceive as love is often just natural attraction or attachment, driven by hormonal impulses rather than genuine affection. Acharya Ji emphasizes that real love is not something that comes naturally; it must be learned and cultivated over time. He critiques the idea of "natural" behaviors, suggesting that many of these instincts lead to bondage rather than liberation.
He explains that love should not be confused with possessiveness or ownership, as seen in the mother-child relationship, which he describes as a form of attachment rather than true love. Acharya Ji asserts that love requires clarity and insight, urging individuals to look beyond superficial appearances and to understand the deeper realities of their emotions. He concludes that true love is a spiritual pursuit that transcends mere biological instincts, advocating for a conscious effort to learn and embody love in its purest form.
Context:
~ What is real love?
~ Our love is only hormonal?
~ Why do we come into a relationship?
~ How to form a healthy relationship?
~ What is the real meaning of love?
~ When you love something, you kill it!
~ Be very cautious of natural love
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~
#AcharyaPrashant #आचार्यप्रशांत #Philosophy #BhagavadGita #love #relationship #loveatfirstsight #boyfriend #girlfriend #teenagers #adolescence
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00I think this is a follow up question to one of your videos, in which you described about
00:12somebody probably raised a question about physical love, and then you explain, you concluded
00:20the statement that Prem Karna Seekhna Hota Hai. So I wanted to learn more about this,
00:26and how can I cultivate this kind of a love in my own life?
00:36You see, whatever comes naturally to you must be taken as problematic. I am saying this
00:49with a lot of responsibility and intent. Instead we have been taught to accept natural things
01:02as beneficial, as alright, just because they are natural. That which is natural is exactly
01:13that which keeps you in bondage. That which you usually call as love is just natural attraction,
01:26belonging to the domain of attachment, asakti, lust. One has to look at it with attention.
01:47Is it love? Is it love? Real love cannot be something so cheap that it starts coming
02:02naturally to you the day you are 14. Now I am 14, my hormones are active, my glands
02:16are overactive, there is puberty, so I am in love. And I couldn't have been in love
02:24at the age of 10 or 11. Ever seen somebody falling in love at the age of 4, 6, 5, something?
02:37Keep medical tragedies aside. You have stuff of that kind. Somebody is generating a lot
02:44of testosterone even at the age of 4. So those kind of cases can be. How is it so that
02:50love of the kind that we know of happens only after you cross a certain age? Obviously that
03:00is not love. That is something of the body. And if certain hormones are taken away from
03:08the body, that kind of love cannot happen. Right? So what love is that? That's just iron
03:17and magnet, sodium and water, a chemical reaction. That's what that love is. But unfortunately,
03:28even very, very intelligent people, brilliant in their fields of occupation, brilliant in dealing
03:41with the objective world, when it comes to love, they do not know their mind. They do not know
03:48what is happening within. And then they make disastrous life choices in terms of choosing a
03:58person, choosing a residence, choosing a vocation. Those who have researched into it, those who have
04:11known something, they have said, please understand what the mind is. They have said the mind is a
04:19thirsty entity. The mind is an entity that is always in want. Therefore, what is love? That
04:32which quenches the mind's thirst is love. The mind is always in a state of attraction. It is
04:41attracted to something that would bring peace to it. So what then is love? Something that would
04:52really bring peace to you. That is love. Not hormonal activity. That cannot be love. But what
05:01you find is that men are necessarily attracted to women, women are necessarily attracted to men.
05:05Obviously that has to be hormonal. Even if men are attracted to men, that's for sexual reasons. So
05:14even that is hormonal. That is not love. That is just the jungle. That is just the old natural
05:25prakritic game of reproduction playing itself out. You might say that you have fallen for her
05:37eyes or hair or voice or style or knowledge. But ultimately what you get is a baby. And that's what
05:48all natural love is for. Procreation. Nothing else. Take sex out of the equation and tell me,
06:00will people marry at all? Come on guys, be a bit honest. If it is certain that there is no
06:11possibility of sex, would you ever marry? Then you know what you marry for. You can marry if
06:20you know no money is involved. You can marry if you know that the right caste is not involved.
06:26You can marry even if a lot of other desirable things are not in the picture. You will still
06:35somehow tolerate the marriage. But you cannot tolerate the marriage if there is no sex involved.
06:44Even the law says that if there is no sex for a period of X months, then the couple is entitled
06:55to be divorced. You can be separated because there is no real action happening. So you are
07:08not man and wife anymore. So that's not love. Nor is it love when you say, oh I love chicken.
07:18Right? Sometimes you want a living body, sometimes you want a dead body and both
07:31these things you call as love. The thing is that it is your love that turns the living
07:38body into a dead body. Because you love the chicken, therefore the chicken is dead. And
07:44that defines our love. When you love something, you kill it. The same mind and the same mouth
07:55that says, oh I love chicken, that also says, oh I love my kids, oh I also love my wife,
07:59oh I also love my country. See what your love did to the chicken. That's what your love does
08:05to the country and the family. And now you understand why the family and the country
08:11and the entire world are in such a terrible shape. Because you love them. Love means consumption
08:20to us. That's what comes naturally to us. Be very cautious of this word, natural. Never,
08:29never use this word to justify what you are doing or feeling. Don't say, but it is natural. If it
08:36is natural, go to the jungle. All natural things are for that place. Is it natural to
08:44sit in this auditorium? Is it natural to be carrying those gadgets? Then why do you keep
08:51talking of nature? Is it natural to wear clothes? Is it natural to have thoughts? Is it natural
08:59to do whatever, to be educated? Is it natural? Is it natural to brush your teeth? Then why
09:09do you keep saying, you know, but in the jungle, the lion kills the deer and eats it, so it
09:14is natural to kill animals and eat them. I am a flesh eater, I cannot live without chicken
09:19and it is natural to eat those things. You know I have these two teeth. Have you heard
09:27those arguments? You know these two teeth, so I will kill. Alright, kill, but never brush
09:34those teeth. And kill with those two teeth just as the lion tears into the flesh with
09:44its teeth. Do you have that strength? In the jungle, all hunting happens with your hands
09:53and claws and teeth. Do that. And eat raw flesh, that's natural. Come on, show. Why
10:01do you keep talking of natural things? In nature there is no husband and wife. Why do
10:07you marry? Your wife, the neighbor has an equal right over her. That's natural. So if
10:18you say flesh eating is natural, I will say, you know, send your wife over. That's natural.
10:27In the jungle do you have priests and legal systems and things like marriage? So be very
10:37cautious of stuff that is natural. Now he is 18, so he is falling for girls, all this
10:45is natural, all this is bullshit. And if you are to do natural things, tell yourself,
10:58I do not deserve to have a B.Tech degree, I do not deserve to ride a car, I do not deserve
11:09to operate Facebook or Instagram. All I deserve is a cave in the jungle. Go there and do all
11:16the natural things. Right? Fair enough? That's why I said, love has to be learned. Real love
11:28has to be learned. It cannot come to you naturally. Don't say I am 18, therefore I have naturally
11:34fallen in love. It takes a lifetime to learn love. Love is not so cheap that you will just
11:44get it the hormonal way. Without doing anything, without putting in any effort, without earning
11:52it, love has to be earned. And that's what all spiritual pursuit is about. Learning love.
12:01Learning love. We do not know love. 99 out of 100 people die without having loved even for a
12:15second. See how horrible that is. Is it not? To live for 80 years and not love even for a moment,
12:28is that not horrible? That's how most people live. No love. Loveless lives. Loveless. Loveless.
12:38Just natural. And that too distorted kind of nature. In jungle at least you have pure nature.
12:50Rabbits do what they are conditioned to do biologically. That's nature, right? For them.
12:55We do what the jungle does but in a distorted way. So we are far worse than nature. We have
13:12fallen below Prakriti. Whereas the mandate if you are born human being is to rise above Prakriti.
13:19Are you kidding it? Oh the mother loves the child. Does she not? Come on. The mother has
13:40the child. Right? The child is like what? 6 days old, 10 days old. The mother is still in the
13:48hospital. And then the doctor comes and says, unfortunately you know when the kid was there
13:58being treated in the incubator. Lots of kids have to be kept in the incubator for a few days. Your
14:03kid got swapped. No, this is not your kid. That one is your kid. What happens to this kid then?
14:09And she loves the kid. What happens to the love? Don't you see this is not love. This is just
14:20animalistic attachment. Possessiveness. My baby coming from my body. This is not love. No. The
14:31mother-child relationship is not at all of love. That's why love needs to be learned. Just because
14:41you have given birth, you will not automatically become loving. That's called ownership. Not love.
14:53Mamta. Mamta is not love. Mama means mine. My relationship with this thing is that it is mine.
15:01Mamta. Mine. So I own it. I possess it. It is mine. And that's why I'm taking care of it. Because it
15:08is mine. Just as I take care of my car. Just as I take care of my pots. Because they are mine. No,
15:15that's not love. That's not love. I love my doggy. So I feed it chicken. Because I'm an animal lover.
15:23Is that love? But that's what you hear all the time, don't you? That's the world we live in. I
15:35love my doggy so much. Being an animal lover, I feed it the choicest chicken. And I get a million
15:50likes on Instagram. I just take my doggy and so you look at my doggy, so ill, and I'm taking care
15:55of it. And nobody bothers to ask what really is going on. Nobody bothers to ask because in the
16:08jungle, that which appears is the truth. The animal cannot know beyond the obvious. That's
16:20why they are trapped so easily, no? The animal by definition has no insight. It just believes
16:29in what it sees. And so do we, most of us as human beings. We just believe in what we see.
16:35If you believe in what you see, you are an animal. Oh, what to do? Insight. What does
16:50insight mean? Oh, there is something beyond the obvious. Something beneath the apparent. And if I
16:59look at it, that's what makes me a human being. And by the way, that is also what is love. To
17:08know the reality. You cannot be in love if you do not know what is real. And you cannot know
17:19what is real if you are attached to what is unreal. So the first thing in love is to drop
17:26the nonsense. To clear the rubbish. That's what is love. That's the first act of love. I am in
17:33love. So what do I do? I pick up a broom, clear the rubbish. Love demolishes. Love destroys. Love
17:44cleans up. Love clears. Therefore, it is said that love gives clarity because love clears.
17:54Something? Something related to this? Somebody? We are done with this. People who are in love?
18:14How I love it to address the lovers. That's what keeps me going. Yes.
18:28An extension of this question is, I think in one of the same videos, he also said,
18:35if there is a mathematician who sits down to do some mathematics, or if there is a singer
18:41who sits down to do his riyaz, or any practitioner who does something that they love, that is also a
18:48form of devotion. That is devotion. Is that what you meant to say? Yes, that's very true. But we
18:54don't take it that way. We don't take it that way. We are so enamored with the sensual objects
19:05that we do not see what is hidden. Somebody is prostrating in front of a deity. We will say,
19:17this one is a devotee. But a scientist, sincerely committed to the truth, experimenting in his lab,
19:28will never say, now this one is a real devotee. We talk of devotion as something exclusive to
19:36the temples. How is this that is happening here? Not a religious act, please tell me.
19:44That which is happening here, how is this not meditation? How is this not devotion?
19:50At this moment, how is this place not a temple? Please tell me. But it does not occur to us.
19:58Sir, how can it be a temple? There is no deity. There is no tomb. We do not see the formal
20:07apparatus here. Learn to see what is not visible. If you will see only that which is visible,
20:18you will never be able to see beauty. You will only see cosmetics. You understand what is
20:26cosmetic? Made up, false. Only falseness is visible. The truth has to be seen with insight.
20:36Insight. Are you getting it?