Desire, Love and Maturity
Questioner 1: Hello, Sir. We were talking about love, and usually desire and love are quite connected. I've observed this in my relationships, and people have always told me that ‘you're quite needy when it comes to love.’ I wanted to understand how I can love people without being too needy and also, how someone can love others without needing them.
Acharya Prashant: You see, the lower desires, the way they function is you fulfill them, and the desire proliferates. The more you fulfill that desire, the more you remain desirous.
At most, the desire will change name and form. Getting it? A higher desire is one that, if addressed, dissolves for good. That's what a higher desire is. So, it's alright to be needy. It is just that you should know your fundamental needs. If you do not know what you really need, then you will shop for all the wrong things. Won't you? And the world is a huge marketplace; there's so much available. In fact, whatsoever you demand the world will supply. You should know first what your real need is, and it's alright to be needy, but with the right need.
Otherwise, if you call something very ordinary your need, then that's what you will get – ordinariness. And that doesn't help you; that doesn't give you what you really require. So, it's all right. I mean, see:- need, desire, and love at the highest level these three are one. At the highest level, these three are one.
Your beloved should be your biggest need, your biggest desire, and your love. Obviously, it would be clear we cannot possibly talk of a person fulfilling these criteria. So, that's the thing.
Questioner 1: Acharya Ji, I have a follow-up question on this. I can see that this person is suffering and projecting suffering outward as well. For this kind of man, as I can see that I am also in this situation, for me, what can be my love?
Acharya Prashant: Principally, your love has to be self-centric. A story on love cannot begin with somebody else. It has to begin with yourself. Right? And when you want to reach out and help, then the name of that love is compassion. That is a separate story for now. What you are talking about must begin with yourself. What is it that you really require from life? That's what you should be seeking, and therefore, the object of your love should be the object of your deepest respect.
That's what reverence is, and that's what devotion or worship is. In that surely there can be no attachment or possessiveness, there is no scope for all those things, right? You are looking at something very tremendous; how can you even dream of possessing it?
And getting attached to something is one thing; getting devoted and dissolved is a totally different thing. It’s just that our education does not teach us these things. From kindergarten to doctoral studies, there is no chapter on love. That's left to the literature side. No? That should be introduced in class four and that should be compulsory as a course until post-graduation, whatever.
The real thing, the real thing because if you do not teach them the real thing, they'll take something biological or social as love. The hormones will get duly activated at some point, and they'll think that is what is to be called love. There'll be a desire for something, some luminous attractive object in the world, and they'll think that is what love is. So, if you do not teach them what love is, they'll take totally the wrong thing as love.
And then there are the movies, icing on the cake, and songs; they are there to educate you on love.
Questioner 2: My question is related to maturity. Is maturity just a function of physical age? Sir, I watched a video of an influencer who pointed to the primacy of hormones and body chemistry that determine our maturity. But in one of your videos, you say it is not physical age but spiritual age that matters. So, how do you develop real maturity?
Acharya Prashant: What happens when a fruit gets ripe or mature? What happens? It leaves the tree, the physical ecosystem it came from; that's maturity. When you don't have to be compulsorily dependent on your physicality, then you are mature. Look at a child. Does a child have anything other than its physicality? Does a child understand or realize? Can a child even love? The child can be attached, but can the child even love? No.
If the child feels hungry, let's talk of a baby; it just cries, and it has no option not to cry, right? There is no consciousness there; there is only physical compulsiveness. Maturity is when you can override your body.
Maturity is when you can transcend your body, and by the body, I mean the bodily compulsions. That includes your thoughts, your feelings, and everything because they are all bodily. You very well know how chemicals in the body translate into thoughts and feelings. We call them thoughts; we call them feelings; they are just chemicals within, right?
So, when you can transcend the urges of the body, the instincts, the thoughts, and the feelings, then you deserve to be called mature. As long as you are body-driven, thought-driven, and emotion-driven, and you don't have discretion, you cannot see what is going on - you cannot be called mature. To some extent it can be a function of age, but not necessarily. You can have an 80 year old living and dying very immaturely, quite possible.
And we have had several instances where people of small age, relatively young people, displayed great maturity. So, maturity is not necessarily a function of age. Age is not something that necessarily deserves respect. Respect is to be accorded to the level of your consciousness. And as your consciousness rises, you become less and less dependent, less and less enslaved. As we said, you are able to transcend what is happening physically. And that's not just about your own physical body; the entire world is physical, right? When the physical world does not remain too much for you, then you know that you are approaching maturity. Not only is your body physical, but everything around you is physical. When these physical things do not remain irresistible, then you should know that maturity is descending on you. If the body remains too much, and the apple and the banana and the toy remain too much, then you are a baby, an infant, somebody very immature.
