Does love really happen only once?
Questioner (Q): From the very first plan, you said that love happens only once; and the rest is just life. But sir, in this modern era, whenever I watch all over my surroundings, I get so much confused that I thought to ask this question to you. Does love really happen only once?
Acharya Prashant (AP): What’s your name?
Q: Prashant.
AP: Prashant. Prashant, it is not a question of whether it happens once or twice or maybe seven or eight times. He is asking about love. The question is whether we understand what these two words are. Whether we understand, what do we mean when we are using this word 'love'. Whether we understand what we mean when we are using the word 'life'.
How many of you have seen kids of age eight fall in love with girls who are aged six?
(Audience laughs)
How many of you have seen love stories begin at that time? They do not.
(Murmurs in the audience)
Right. Right. Hold your horses. Silence.
Now try understanding this. What you call as love, why must it initiate only after a certain age? It initiates only after a certain age because it is a biological thing. It is your hormones that are at work. And if you are given a few shots of hormones, right now, all of you will start feeling very loving, very loving!
And some of you will escape from this place, for acts of love, to unknown corners!
(Audience laughs and claps)
And that you call as love? Chemicals?
(Audience laughs)
Polymers, molecules? And if the reverse act is done—if your hormones are sapped away, all this talk of love will vanish. Then even the most sentimental love song will not have any meaning for you if your hormones are sucked away from your body. There is nothing important or sacred or sacrosanct about love, as you know love. The love that you know, Krishnamurthy used to call it, is a purely biological remembrance. He used to say that it is a biological-sexual remembrance. It is the act of a machine. There is no understanding, no intelligence in that. It is just that your body is starting to do a few things, and you are thinking that it is some grand thing called love.
First of all, let us understand this. You miss somebody; you call it love. You start feeling jealous; you call it love. You start feeling possessive; you call it love. And this you call as the most sacred emotion. Do we understand what is all this? Have we any idea?
You cannot sleep at night; you call it love.
(Audience laughs).
Your mind starts becoming restless; you think it is love. You get obsessed with a particular object; you call it love. And how soon that love turns into hate. How soon this grand emotion turns into a very petty thing.
So I cannot answer your question, I can only invite you to go deeply into what do we mean by these things. You have a life to live, an entire life to live. And this word is probably going to be important to you. Do not be misled. Do not remain confused. Do not spend your life on imaginations; on fantastic concepts—love.
There is the Facebook account, Advait, “How many of you are connected to us?” A few of you. To create that account, first of all there needs to be an admin account. Now I am that admin. Now I am that admin because I happen to visit campuses all over, so many of you have added me as your friend. I mean there are some 800 to over a 1000. So whatever updates people do - or students - Whatever updates they put on their account, they are also visible on my page when I log in. And there is so much talk of love.
One of us will put up “My love quotient is…” and there is some app or something I do not know, it says “55%”.
(Audience laughs).
And then the next one, “80%.” Now this fellow is really sad.
Then the third one will come up. “Sapna plus Prakash is equal to 44%!” (Audience laughs and claps).
This you call as love? Now the fellow thinks he is surely in love. How blind can we be?
And you look at, and you look at just the pictures that you put up in your accounts. So much of it is “romantic.” And that you call as love.
Chocolates are dropping from heaven.
(Audience laughs).
Some fantastic birds are flying, the skies are all crimson, and there are these beautiful women in the background who are playing violins.
And if you are a girl, then there is somebody on a tall white horse wearing a mask over the eyes and he comes in.
(Audience laughs and claps)
And you call this love. Right? You call this love. And you believe that this is nothing but God himself who is coming, and he comes close to you, comes close to you, comes close to you, and picks up another girl.
(Audience laughs)
And now you want to murder both of them. And this you call as love.
Right? this you call as love. And when you are lonely in the nights, in your bed, something starts happening in your heart. And from the heart it moves downwards.
(Audience laughs)
And this you call as love, right?
How are we living? What are we talking? What are we doing? Your one life, for your own sake, look at it intelligently. What are you doing?
What are you calling as what?
