Is love a trick of physical nature? || Acharya Prashant (2017)

Questioner (Q): It’s something very strong as love. Love for That seems to be shown to me with another person and talk about it. I mean I can but I, it’s pretty convenient deceptive or maybe it is, you know, I don’t understand how we’re using the word love as an aroma of the infinite and what we experience is it a trick of nature?

Acharya Prashant (AP): It’s mostly a trick of nature, physical nature.

Love really is, when it empowers you to discard, discard, discard. To love is to be pushed towards something and if you are really being pushed towards that One thing, which is really a non-thing, then you will have no business fiddling with other things. You will then get all the courage and detachment to leave everything else behind.

It is That, that I’m looking at and everything else is inconsequential, so what do I do with it? I leave it behind.

If love is real, it will be marked by courage and the simple inclination to discard, discard, discard. Love will say, “Only that beloved is precious; everything else has to be put aside.” And if your love rather makes you accumulative, possessive, more theoretical, more conceptual, more mired into the world, more attached to thoughts and philosophies, then it is not love at all.

Love is marked by a certain cleansing. Love is marked by pushing you into impoverishment. Love makes a beggar out of you. A beggar that owns nothing; except love. Such is the magic of love. When you have it you don’t want anything else and if you are still keeping other things, then you must know that it is not love.

If you claim to be in love and you still want a piece of the world, then neither do you know love nor do you know the world.

That is the one test of the love – it purifies, it makes you light, it enables you, empowers you to leave everything behind for the sake of that which is precious, for the sake of that who is your beloved.

Q: Can art or anything in the world que point us towards love of the infinite?

AP: Yes, of course, that can happen. Yes and then you have come upon the way to determine your relationships.

That in the world, which takes you to the Truth, is worth loving, is worth maintaining a relationship with, and that in the world, which takes you away from the Truth, is something that you must immediately put away.

Meanwhile, by itself, nothing in the world is determined to point to the Truth or point away from the Truth. It depends on you. It depends on your predicament and your programming. So, I said, “For you, that which works, is that which you must keep company with.” The trick is to just see, "What is the effect of that company upon me? Is the company of that pushing me deeper into illusions and fancy worlds, emotional cobwebs, theoretical fancies, or is the company of that simply clarifying my mind?"

"What is the effect that the other is having upon me?" That effect determines whether or not the other is worthy of your company. You can call that company as love. You can call that relationship as love. Love between two persons.

So, love between two persons, then, is determined by the love between the mind and Truth.

That person, who takes your mind to Truth, is worth loving. The person who takes your mind to Truth is the only one who deserves to be loved.

Instead, if your loved one is a source of agitation and strife and excitement and distraction in your life, then it is not love at all. You must ask, “What is the effect that this so-called lover is having upon me?”

“What has he brought to my life?”

“How was I before he came in or she came in and how am I since his arrival?”

“What is the effect that your closeness has upon me? Does it purify me or does it taint me?”

Q: Can one let it taint?

AP: Yeah, one can let it taint because the material can only taint the material. Then in that case your relationship with the Truth is direct. Then it does not have to go via the material. Then it is wonderful. Then you say that you don’t require to love anybody or you can love everybody, because you are not bothered about the effect the other person is going to have upon you.

You are saying, “Let the other person taint me or let the other person purify me. The other person is material, the 'me' is material and hence material can only taint the material, material can only purify the material. I am anyway not bothered with the material. My relationship with the Truth is direct not via the material.”

Wonderful! The game is sorted, but that rarely happens. Till the time you believe in the material, till the time you are identified with the body, it’s better to be a little discreet about the human bodies that you relate to, that you keep company with. It’s better to be a little discrete. It’s only after long, that you come to a point where company stops mattering to you. Till the time company is important and relevant to you, you better take care of your company.

Life is decided by no factor stronger than the company and the environment you give to yourself.

Be careful!

Be careful about the people you meet.

Be careful about the stuff you read.

Be careful about what you eat.

Be careful about what you are seeing, what you are hearing. Just don’t let stuff in indiscriminately.

Yes, of course, a point comes when you can quit all care; a point comes when you say that, "Now my immunity is so strong that it doesn’t need to have any defenses."

Till the time that point has not arrived, please be careful. Better, watch out.

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