An attached mind cannot love || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2014)
Question: Sir, love is not attachment. Attachment means habit and if it is so, the person you love becomes an object. But if we are not attached to that person we love, then we see that person like others, and it is our habit to hurt others for our own profit. So, it is sure that we will hurt that person also whom we love because now we see that person like everyone else. So, if we are not attached to that person, how can we say that we are in love with that person?
Speaker: She is saying that normally people hurt those around them. That is what you call normal human life; keep hurting everybody. She says that if I am attached to someone I don’t hurt him or her, but I hurt everybody else. So, the conclusion is that if I am not attached to the object of my love, I will hurt him as well. Do you see the flow of logic in her mind? I hurt everybody and then there is one exception. Who? The person I love and I am attached to that person. If I am not attached to that person, then I will hurt that person also. So, this implies that if I hurt that person how is it love? Hence the conclusion is, attachment is love.
Do you think that you can have a different self towards different objects? Is it possible? What makes you think that you do not hurt the object of your love? You only think that you do not hurt. You keep hurting everybody. It is the same mind everywhere. Or do you have a different mind when you are in front of your loving object? That is the assumption that we make and it is a great fallacy.
See the kind of separation that we want to create in the mind. We say, ‘I work in an office and I am the most corrupt worker there but I claim that when I come back to my home in the night, I will be very loving towards my wife’. The entire day you have been a pain to the entire world and in the evening you think that you can be loving towards your wife. Is that really possible? Yes, you will try to be loving but your very definition of love will be corrupted because you are a corrupt mind. And with your corrupted definition of love, you will only be violent towards your wife. Maybe you will not beat her but you will be violent in subtle ways, and that violence is more torturous.
There is your neighbor and neighbor’s kids, and there is a street and on the street there are beggar’s kids. You care neither for the neighbor’s kids and you do not give a damn if the kids of beggar die in the cold night, it doesn’t bother you. Do you really think that you can be loving towards your own kids? There are two kids dying right in front of your house, you cannot be loving towards them, can you be loving towards your own kids? But that is what most mothers think and that is why mothers are so violent. They say, ‘my kid’ and this is the deepest violence. That is why the world is like this because we all have been brought up by mothers like these. Who is a mother? Mother is a normal human being. Just because you have given birth to a baby doesn’t mean that you have become a Devi(goddess).
(Everyone laughs).
You are a corrupt mind. You had sex and you produced a baby. What is so special about that? How come you suddenly become capable of divine love? How can you suddenly become special? But no, we think that because she has become a mother, so she has some special capacity of love; with birth, hormones teach you love. No, hormones don’t teach you love.
Of course, nobody knows love. Just as you are violent towards everybody, you are violent towards your object of attraction also. You say, ‘I am afraid, the entire world is a terror to me so I want to secure, I want to secure grades, I want to secure money, I want to secure respectability, I want to secure future’. What will you do when you have a boyfriend? You will want to secure the boyfriend as well. And what will you do in order to secure that boyfriend? You will say, ‘Don’t look at anybody else!’. And you will fight with him, you will quarrel with him and there will be a great heartburn if you find him talking even to a an 80 year old woman, because it is the same mind. The mind which is possessive towards everything else in life, possessive towards clothes, possessive towards food, possessive towards this and that, and wants to secure everything, this same mind will want to secure and possess the boyfriend as well, and then life will be hell. Can you create a totally different mind when it comes to boyfriend? No, you can’t do that, you have one mind.
When you go to a shop, how do you buy clothes? You have 2 or 3 conditions in your mind:
First, it should appear pleasant to the eye.
Second, it should be good to touch when I wrap it around me.
Third, it should not be very expensive but it should appear expensive.
Am I right? It should not look cheap but at the same time it should not cost me much. So three conditions: good to touch, good to wear and should appear expensive. This is what you do when you select a piece of cloth. And what would you do when you want to select a husband?
The same three conditions:
Good to look at, it should be comfortable when I wrap it around me, and when he walks with me he should not appear cheap, he should appear expensive.
Because, it’s the same mind. The way you behave at a cloth shop is the reflection of your entire life. Don’t you do that? The way you select clothes is the way you select everything else in life. If in selecting clothes you are an exhibitionist, you want to exhibit everything. You want to display your boyfriend everywhere. Just as you display your new dresses, you will display your boyfriend as well. Have you not seen mothers doing that; my new baby? People display their cars, display their houses, and they also display their wife’s and babies, because it is the same mind. You want bribe to do anything in life so, you want bribe even from your husband and wife. Haven’t you seen that? Even kids start doing that. I will work only when you will give me a toy, because it’s the same mind.
You are attached to things out of ignorance. If you are attached even in love, then your love is nothing but ignorance and this is not love, it is sheer greed. You will kill the other person and yourself. In fact you are doing that already. See, when you look at one small segment of somebody’s life, it can be misleading because you are attached to that small segment and you have not really been careful enough to look at everything. When you look at everything, then you will look at that segment too in a different light. I am telling you with certainty that you cannot be somebody who is violent towards the entire world, yet loving towards two or three people. If you are violent towards everybody, you will be violent towards your family members as well. If you are fearful when you walk on a road, you will be fearful when you are with your loved ones because it is the same mind. If you are ignorant when you are in the board room, you will be equally ignorant when you are in the bedroom. Greedy in the boardroom; greedy in the bedroom. It cannot change. If you come across a man who is ambitious, do not feel attracted, run away from him because the ambitious man will be very violent. If he is violent in his career, he will be violent towards you as well. Do not just take him as your lover. Ohh! He is so ambitious, he will move up in life, let me quickly marry him. An ambitious man is a very dangerous man. Do not think that he can be ambitious in the office and a saint at home. That ambition will be the very essence of his mind. If you come across a girl who likes to make a show of herself, stay away. Just as she makes a show of herself, she will also make a show of you and the day you are not worthy of being shown to others, she will kick you away. Just as she throws away her old dresses when they are not worthy of display, she will throw you away the day you are not worthy of display, because it is the same mind.
Life is one, different aspects are shown at different moments but you deepest conditioning will be present everywhere, spoiling everything. Be careful about that!
Excerpted from a ‘Shabd-Yog’ session. Edited for clarity.
