Can Science Explain True Love?
Questioner: Nature has made us such that we always make groups and love them. For example, we start from family, then caste, then religion. Even the countries are also man-made lines. So, isn't it the basic nature? Nature has kind of made all living beings like that, to make a group. So, what would be the actual difference between love itself and man-made love?
Acharya Prashant: You have an exam tomorrow. The body feels like sleeping, right? The body feels like sleeping. But then you say you have to study. There are two of you. Please understand. And we have talked of it. There is the participant, and there is the observer. There are two within.
So, when you say, “Nature has made me like this,” which “me” are you talking of? This one or this one? There is one that wants to sleep. There is that one that wants to study. You have an exam tomorrow. Which one are you talking of?
Questioner: Yes.
Acharya Prashant: Yes, and both are happy following their own nature. The nature of the body is to die. The nature of this (pointing towards the water bottle) is to witness death. The nature of this (pointing towards another water bottle) is to blindly do what the hormones say. The nature of this is to stay unaffected by any chemicals, any material.
Therefore, when you say, “Nature has made us like this,” you are right. The body has been made like this. In the journey of evolution, yes, groupism helped. Faced with a wild animal, it helped if you were in a group of ten. It helped. But when it comes to inner illumination, if you are still in a crowd, that's a problem. That won't help.
When it comes to the body, certain things help. Most often, these are the same things that do not help who you really are. So, that's where you have to have the heart and the courage to drop. And the willingness to pay the price.
Yes, there are certain things that the body will dislike, but I'll still opt for them because I am not the body. The body has its own interests. I have my own. The body wants to sleep. I want to study. There are these two. Why should I follow the nature of this one? The nature of this one is to just eat, sleep, reproduce, and die. That's what this body is for. Have you seen? Does it ask for anything else? In fact, whenever you want to do something important, you find the body becomes a hurdle after a point. It either wants to sleep or something. It gets tired. Something.
Questioner: Is it so? For example, in physics, we say this is classical, this is non-classical. So, similarly, in our body too, in our self too, there is something which is…
Acharya Prashant: Both classical and non-classical are man-made theories. So, they both belong to this (pointing towards the water bottle). So, we are not talking of the two here. No.
Questioner: But here, these two, there are certain levels where we are bifurcating these two.
*Acharya Prashant: Yes, we are. We are. But these two are not analogous to classical and non-classical. This(pointing towards the water bottle) is all that is existential, open to experience. This (pointing towards the water bottle) is nowhere. This, we are saying, is only in a matter of language. Otherwise, this is non-present. Its job is to see all that is present. By itself, it is really not present. If it were present, then it would be a part of this. So, it is not really present, but it can see all that which is present. And this is who you are.
Now tell me, are you or are you not?
You can only laugh at that, right? Are you or are you not?
Questioner: Yes. We have to find it out, I guess.
Acharya Prashant: In Zen, they respond to such questions with “Moo.” What does “Moo” mean? The answer. The extent of the answer is beyond the scope of the question. So, can't say yes, and also can't say no.
Questioner: So, is the observer effect of that (pointing towards the water bottle) one hampering this (pointing towards the water bottle) one, or is that…
Acharya Prashant: Very well said. Lovely. So, when this (pointing towards the water bottle) no more remains an observer, then this (pointing towards the water bottle) suffers badly, or gets distorted. Gets distorted.
Just as you're supposed to, let's say, watch all this (pointing towards the water bottle). Let's say this is a jungle. But instead of being the observer, you become a consumer. Then what happens to the jungle? You hack it down. You clear away the jungle. You say, “I want timber. I want fruit. I want land. I want to build a resort.”
What are you doing now?
Instead of observing the flow of the river and the song of the wind and the flight of the birds, you are saying, “I'm no more content with observing. I want to consume. I want to catch that bird and eat it up.” And that will destroy the jungle. So, that will destroy this (pointing towards the water bottle), and that will also destroy this (pointing towards the water bottle) because it has not dropped its nature. Its nature was to…
Questioner: Observe.
Acharya Prashant: Observe. Instead of that, it has now become…
Questioner: Consumer.
Acharya Prashant: Consumer. So, this will suffer, and this too will suffer. And this is climate change.
Questioner: Oh!
Acharya Prashant: So, all the species will get wiped out, and man too will get wiped out. You are supposed to just observe them in love, not interfere so much, not be their consumer, but just the observer of their beauty. But the thing with us is we have defined beauty in a way that whenever we call something beautiful, it is threatened.
The moment you say something is beautiful, now you will leap on, tear it apart, and eat it up. The moment you say something is lovable, it's gone, finished. Just yesterday I was quoting, “I love chicken.” What happens to the hen now? Gone. “I love you” is the most violent statement. This is gone. The moment this says, “I love this,” this is hacked down.
Questioner: So, love is also holding it apart.
Acharya Prashant: False love, man-made love, just like man-made religion.
You see, when you are at a place you should not be, right? You want to get away from there. And that you can call attraction towards freedom. You asked me a question. How would you feel if the question is important to you, and yet I don't answer? You'll feel suffocated. This is love for knowledge.
Similarly, when, let's say, you're handcuffed, how do you feel?
Questioner: Suffocated.
Acharya Prashant: Yeah, that's love for freedom. So, that's what love is.
Love is meaningful only in the context of an unnatural state. When you are at a place you should not be, then you feel attracted to the place you should be at. That's love.
So, your nature, for example, is to, I said, continuously know, right? And when you don't know, how do you feel? Uneasy. That is love. Therefore, love is characterized by restlessness. Restlessness. Even in the ordinary kind of physical love, don't you feel restless? You say, “I want that, and without that I'll continue feeling restless.”
True love is, “I want freedom, and without that freedom I continue feeling…”
Questioner: Restless.
Acharya Prashant: That's love. And in physical terms, that translates into being with a person who can rid you of your bondages.
Questioner: With whom I can experience freedom.
Acharya Prashant: Yes. Being in a classroom, then, can be love. Being in a laboratory, then, can be love. Reading a book, then, can be love.
Questioner: So, is it ever a third-person thing? For example, with someone, if I feel free…
Acharya Prashant: Yes obviously. You're in a classroom. There is a teacher. And what the teacher is bringing you is freedom from ignorance. So, what you see happening there is love. It's an exercise in love happening there. Though you won't call it love. For example, nobody would say, “This is a love affair.” But it really is, in existential terms.
Questioner: What if the sense of freedom is itself flawed, and what they seek is completely flawed by their own karma?
Acharya Prashant: Then you'll continue to suffer. And suffering itself means something has gone wrong already.
Questioner: Like initially, for that person, he may feel rejuvenated.
Acharya Prashant: Temporary.
Questioner: And then, in the long term, he will have to deal with the consequences of life itself.
Acharya Prashant: Yes. Therefore, you have to learn from experience. I thought this would bring me freedom, but did it? And having failed here, now I want to go to that. I failed with him; now I want to go to her. But must I not, before that, ascertain that she is not this person, the same person wearing another attire?
Do you see this?
That's what most of our desirous love is like. I suffer with one object, one person, one idea, one place, one endeavor. I suffer there. Then I hop on to the next one without caring to realize that the next one is fundamentally like the previous one. So, I'm only extending my suffering. Right? And this is then not love. Right? This blind desire that just keeps seeking variable objects. And that doesn't help.
Questioner: Why do you think we have it fundamentally? Why? How has it evolved in us through time?
Acharya Prashant: Why do we have it? Why etc. exist? This very question. See, “why” is a paradigm. Whyness indicates causality. All causality exists only in the world of the ego. Otherwise, there is no whyness.
Whyness is only when this leads to that. And that happens only in the world of objects. And when the ego is too obsessed with objects, then the question of why arises. Otherwise, it just is. Just is. There is no why. It just is.
Questioner: I mean, once we understand it, then we can choose. We can perform better. Like, we'll be able to identify that.
Acharya Prashant: Yes. Yes. It happens. You don't do it, but it happens. All kinds of betterment happen.
Questioner: That's why, because even evolutionarily, there will be some purpose. We have derived this in our brain.
Acharya Prashant: All purpose is individual. Individual. Evolution has only one purpose: continuity.
Questioner: Yeah. I mean, even if we die, whatever we do..
Acharya Prashant: It doesn't matter to evolution if one member of a species dies.
Questioner: Even if World War III happens right now, Mother Nature won't really care about us.
Acharya Prashant: Yes. So, our purpose is for this one (pointing towards water bottle). And its purpose is to come to purposelessness. It has assumed purposefulness by attaching itself with this (pointing towards the cup of tea). It said, “This is my purpose.” But here it is suffering. Here it is suffering. So, now the right purpose is to disentangle. Unengage. Disengage. Be here. And play.
Questioner: Yeah. So, what do sannyasis do? Do they actually do it in the same thing? Is there a specific way that they do it?
Acharya Prashant: What do you mean by a sannyasi? Somebody wearing a particular attire?
Questioner: Yeah, that's all. It's stereotyped.
Acharya Prashant: All that is man-made.
Questioner: Yeah, exactly. But then, how can you clear up the definition for all of us?
Acharya Prashant: Yeah. Sannyas simply means dropping the needless. Refusing to be stupid. That is sannyas.
Questioner: So, they might have a predefined need for them, right?
Acharya Prashant: We all have that need. It's just that some are more honest towards their own needs, and some of us are loveless enough to suppress our own inner needs.
Questioner: Like, for me, let's say my need is to socialize with people.
Acharya Prashant: No, that's not your need. No, no, nobody has that need. You socialize for a purpose. Figure out what that purpose is. And then there would be a purpose behind that purpose. And if you continue, you will circle back to yourself. You are the ultimate purpose of all your efforts. And if you see that, then instead of going out, you will go within.
Questioner: Because it's as if it's even said in scientific journals that human beings only survive well when there is stimulation of some sort for them.
Acharya Prashant; They are dealing with the body. When you talk of science, all that science can deal with is the body and the brain.
Questioner: And that is also affecting their own consciousness as well, right?
Acharya Prashant: That affects only when you become a participant, no more an observer. So, all that science is saying is wonderful. But remember, that is not about you. It is about the body. Science is not lying to you. But there is an agency mismatch. What science is saying is great, but it is not about you. So, there is a great scientific discovery, for example, about my thumb. So, it is about this thing. It is not about me.
Science is wonderful when it comes to thumbs. But science is helpless when it comes to the self.
Questioner: Because even isolated confinement is considered the cruelest form of torture.
Acharya Prashant: Yes, when it comes to the body. Because the body requires the body and the mind; they require company of some kind. Yes. But the same thing gets totally reversed when it comes to who you really are. That one feels suffocated in a crowd.
Questioner: Yeah, but then, will the mind function at its best in such a…
Acharya Prashant: The best functioning is when both adhere to their nature. This (pointing towards the water bottle) one needs a crowd. That's its nature. This one needs a crowd. Give it the crowd. Let it have the crowd. This (pointing towards another water bottle) one is an individual. This one can be only in aloneness. So, even in the middle of the crowd, this must be alone. And the crowd is something you can never avoid, even if you try to. So, let this be freely mingling with all kinds of crowds, outer crowds, mental crowds. Right? Because its nature is to be crowded.
Is there anything material in the universe that does not interact with the rest of the particles in the universe? Is it possible? No. Similarly, this too is a particle, and it will interact with the rest of the universe. Let it freely interact. But this one, its nature is to be one, and only one. This should not impose its nature on this, and this should not be allowed to impose its nature on this.
So, you can go to the party, dance, mingle, socialize as much as you want to, but internally you must still remain untouched. That's who you are.
Questioner: So, there are two bodies. One is the observer.
Acharya Prashant: No, this is not a body.
Questioner: Sorry. One is the observer and another is a consumer. So, if I am saying there is an observer-self, is there any supreme observer which is observing everything? Do we have something like that?
Acharya Prashant: There can be one supreme observer here (arranging bottles in a line). It can go to infinity like that. And if this happens, then this happens. If these three have somebody behind them, then are these three observers or observed?
Questioner: Observed.
Acharya Prashant: Observed. Then they'll not be on that side of the cup; then they'll be on this side of the cup because they are the observed phenomena. Which means there can be only one observer, always. If this observer has somebody behind him, then this one is no more the observer. It is the observed one.
Questioner: So, is it what we call Advait?
Acharya Prashant: You can call it Advait.
Questioner: Hello, sir. My name is Deepshikha, and I'm from the AI department, a first-year PhD student. Since childhood, girls are trained so that they can follow religious practices and rituals. And the other thing is that women always keep praying and fasting for husbands and sons. We do not feel the same as my mother feels about religion.
So, my question is: How should a woman or a girl treat religion?
Acharya prashant: It's not a question that pertains only to the current situation. Man-made religion was always ugly. Man-made religion was always always ugly. There is a great difference between religion and man-made religion. That is ugly, and that has always been ugly.
The kind of religion you see being practiced all around has always been ugly. No doubt about it.
Listener: That's what happens throughout history. Initially, during its foundation, it would definitely mean something. For example, the caste system that we have now. Initially, it might just have been like a flowchart of how a system is, how any system is. But now we are using that for human greed, where we categorize people based on their caste and so on.
Acharya Prashant: It is not something that can flow from the past to the present. It has to be individually discovered by each human being, in each generation, at each point in time.
Religion is not ancestral property. It is not a thing of legacy. You cannot say, “Our glorious forefathers bequeathed it, and we have inherited it.”
Listener: It has to evolve with time, but that's what we didn't…
Acharya Prashant: No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying each child is born ignorant. And the journey from ignorance to illumination is religion. And each one of us has to do it for herself. Yes, the past can help, but the past can also be a big impediment. You have to travel on your own because it's your own life. Right?
Most of what we know as religion is not religion at all. It is a very vicious distortion of religion. Religion is…
Questioner: Personally, I think I believe in only humanity as a religion.
Acharya Prashant: Only?
Questioner: Only humanity.
Acharya Prashant: What's that?
Questioner: Like, without one particular God, there are some set of rules which—
Acharya Prashant: Where do those rules come from?
Questioner: We made them.
Acharya Prashant: So, that is as bad as man-made religion. If the chef is bad, would the pizza be better than the cake? If the chef is a drunkard or totally mad, would the pizza be better than the cake? Then what is this new religion called humanity? Man-made religion. This humanity also is equally corrupted and distorted because it is coming from you.
Listener: Yeah, I think that's where the problem lies, where religions try to tell us foundational concepts, and we cannot even question them ourselves. That's where it falls.
Acharya Prashant: See, religion is the journey from your native biological state of ignorance, hmm, to a state where you see that (outside) and you see this (within). And therefore, you are no more in ignorance about either of them. That is religion. A movement from darkness to understanding. Apart from this, there is nothing called religion. These rituals, traditions, whatever the stories are, they don't constitute religion. They're just traditions, and that tradition can be of no help.
