Acharya Prashant: Do not think that all the care that one takes to appease his body, all the lust, and all the bodily vanity is for nothing. It is a very, very calculated thing. Lust is needed so that you never get liberated. One requires one episode after the other of remaining entangled with one person or many persons in a bodily way so that the doors don’t open.
It is never, never about the other person. It is about your own body identification, and it is about your own conspiracy against yourself.
The more you love stuff in the dimension of the ego, the more you are just blocking your real love. And heed my words, whenever real love would come to you by grace, as magic, you will find that something in the worldly dimension suddenly takes you away, and that which takes you away you will call as love. That which takes you away from your real love you will call as love.
Therefore, what you call as love is your greatest ploy to remain loveless. That which we call as love is our best and most proven method to remain totally loveless. To have love in this world is to be totally denied of love. Is there anything else that ever causes a man’s fall? Nothing but love. Look at the story of any fallen man—and there are only fallen men and women, obviously—look at the story of any of the fallen ones, and at the center of the fall you will always find love.
Be very, very cautious of love. Nothing will take you away from this place except love. If there is one thing that will snatch you away from this place, it is love. Once you are with me, you are with me till love takes you away.
We have examples of the opposite as well. There are people who once were cosmic lovers, global lovers of the universal order. There was nothing in all the twenty-one universes that was spared of their love. But now that they are here, they are relatively loveless—and glory to such lovelessness! Please remain loveless.
Full article link: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articles/finally-only-love-will-liberate-the-ego-1_5e2cd11
Many Indian parents keep their children, and especially their daughters, away from sport, even where coaches and facilities exist. The barrier is often not outside but in the parent’s own ideas: poor returns, uncertainty, and fixed notions of what a girl’s life must be. Blaming our own parents does not help either; our life is now our responsibility. Parenting is a decision of the greatest responsibility, and it begins with self-love. Can we love a child if we cannot love ourselves?
True love is not a biological instinct, emotional attachment, or social conditioning. Biology and science explain the body's drives, but they cannot explain the self that seeks freedom. Love is the inner restlessness to move from ignorance and bondage toward truth and liberation. Religion is not rituals or inherited beliefs but this personal journey of understanding. Freedom—not possession or conformity—is the essence of both love and religion.
We often call something “help” or “love” while secretly expecting something in return. When that return does not come, we feel hurt, revealing that the relationship was a trade, not genuine help. The ego, being unfulfilled, cannot truly love or share. Likewise, desperation to be loved makes us controllable. Real love emerges when we stop seeking validation, work on ourselves, and become so inwardly fulfilled that we no longer need to be loved.
