Only the ego loves; only love kills the ego || Acharya Prashant (2019)

Love

Only the ego loves; only love kills the ego || Acharya Prashant (2019)

Acharya Prashant

18min

516reads

Only the ego loves; only love kills the ego || Acharya Prashant (2019)

Questioner (Q): Acharya Ji, Pranam, “Love is an egocentric manifestation: The Essential Oneness of all life has no room for love.” ~Wei Wu Wei

Acharya Ji, kindly shed light on this quote. In my first camp, I asked ‘How to be loving’, without knowing what that word meant. Now, I know what my definition of love is: ‘Give me what I want'. As situations change, my love, too, disappears. It comes and goes according to the fulfilment or rejection of my demands. The cycle continues. Now, a little sensitivity has arisen towards people around me. Acharya Ji, please put some light on what I should do, so that I feel the same pain as I feel for myself whenever I do something selfishly. It's not right to expect or burden others to act according to my will.

Acharya Prashant (AP): So, two things: First, the quote, “Love is an ego-centric manifestation: The Essential Oneness of all life has no room for love.” And then she says, “What should I do so that I feel the same pain as I feel for others, whenever I do something selfishly?”

Love is an ego-centric manifestation. The Essential Oneness of all life, there is no love. So, what are we referring to here? We are talking of the usual, normal, ego-centric love. The author is simply saying that the ego cannot love. The ego can want, cling, extract, exploit, expect, hurt and get hurt, but the ego just cannot love.

The awakened one has no loving relationship of the kind the normal one has. You must let this come to you: If our relationships are full of love, then a Jesus, or a Krishna, or a Buddha has no loving relationship at all. And now you know, why the world is so afraid of spirituality. If our love is Love, then a Jesus knows no love. If our normal love is Love, then an awakened one is loveless. So, if you are related to someone in the normal course of love, then your awakening would appear very much like lovelessness to that person. Seen from the eyes of the layman, the awakened ones just cannot love.

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Akshay Kumar

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