Expectation

Parental expectations, peer comparison, and academic pressure can overwhelm you only when you allow others’ desires to dictate your life. As an adult, you are responsible for discovering your own potential and making choices through your own understanding. Love is not about fulfilling each other’s expectations or keeping someone happy. True love requires freedom—giving others the space to live and grow, while living according to your own inner clarity.

Acharya Prashant: If you look at knowledge that man has gathered in various fields, you will easily see that all of man’s knowledge is related to man’s desire. Man does not try to gain knowledge in fields that have absolutely no connection with man’s fundamental desires.

Acharya Prashant: If you will observe, you will find that people who are living most contented lives do not find it necessary to intrude in the lives of their kids, their sons and daughters. Because they are complete and satisfied in themselves. If they have to do something, or get

As long as you are trying to locate love outside of you in the world, as long as you are trying to find a lovely object somewhere out there, it would remain a reason for disappointment. Love is not something that you discover in another person, thought, idea or object. Love is something that you carry with yourself, wherever you go.

Most of us are not the bunnies our parents want us to be. Whose problem is it? Yours? Let it be their problem! Why do you worry?

The problem is, the usual feminism always proceeds keeping the man at the center. The woman is saying, “The man is alright, and I want to be like the man.” This is such a low standard to set. Whereas, true feminism would proceed keeping the person that the female is,…

You defeat someone not because he is weak; you defeat someone when he wants to protect his weaknesses. Understand the difference. It is not your weaknesses that defeat you; it is your fondness towards your weaknesses, your protective attitude towards your weaknesses that defeats you.

You never want the other person; you want returns from the other person.

Do not be with someone who makes you dependent, even in the name of care or love. Do not watch a film series, or a web series, or a TV serial that kind of makes you addicted. The ‘I’ wants to get attached. And if the object that the ‘I’

A fellow might be doing the worst possible thing to you in the name of love or concern or friendship, and he will keep saying, “But you know, this is my care towards you.” This is not care. You must apply intelligence. Is this love? Is this care? When you

Questioner (Q): The Bhagavad Gita says, don’t focus on the outcome of your work. But a book called The Secret says, visualize a positive outcome of your work. Which of these is true?

Why do you want commitment? Because not only do you want to have sex, you want an uninterrupted and guaranteed supply of sex; that is what you call as commitment.

Nobody is obliged to live as per your fancies. Are you able to fulfill your own expectations? And if even you cannot meet your self-image, how is the poor wife or husband going to live up to what you expect from him or her? If you think that it is…

Only in aloneness can you have relationships that are not exploitative. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter what name, what color you give to your relationship; your relationship will be definitely one of exploitation.

Questioner: If I do deeply understand that the bliss of consciousness or

If you start thinking that a man or a woman will bring contentment to you, will bring godliness to your home, then you are going to be severely disappointed.

You do not really care about the expectations that, let’s say, the entire humanity has from you. It is bitterly cold and a dog is outside your doorsteps; you do not wonder about the expectations that that dog might be having. It is only the expectations of a particular four…

Questioner (Q): Acharya Ji, the main two enemies on the path of love that always stop one from moving forward are attachment and expectation, and they both lead to suffering and it takes a lot of guts and effort to stand up and walk again on the path of love.

You did not do what you should have done for yourself; therefore you now expect somebody else to do good things for you.

The responsibility to bring goodness to your life rests primarily upon you, not upon somebody else. To bring somebody to life and then expect that somebody to…

She won’t directly say, “Get me a sari.” Often when they need a sari, they do not say they need a sari; they say, “Janu (beloved), you do not love me!” And janu understands: she needs a sari

Even when everything seems to be going right in a relationship, keep checking: Have I become dependent? Have I become exploitative? Have I started holding expectations? Has the other started holding expectations? Is the other blocking my view of the larger universe? Has the other become too central to my

Is your lover enfeebling you, enslaving you, or empowering you? Ask yourself.

Somebody who limits you, cages you, mostly in the name of care, cannot be your friend, let alone lover.

Somebody who allows you to comfortably exist with your weaknesses cannot be a worthy lover.

Our love is always a product of conditions and proceeds only as long as conditions remain favorable. It hurts to hear this, because we want to claim and we have professed in front of our loved ones many a times that “I will keep loving you till eternity” and, you

Acharya Prashant (AP): Nothing comes on its own to cling to anybody. We go to things. We go to things, thoughts, places, people, and then clutch them – that's attachment. So, why do we want to cling to various objects?

Questioner (Q): We feel secure.

Lovers often like it when the partner acts silly. “It is so sweet, chomu is so silly!” But have you ever seen the partner going crazy saying, “My chomu is so enlightened”? An enlightened chomu

Questioner: When I send Advait’s broadcasts to the world, the world sends me back some stupid videos and posters, and that irritates me a lot. Though I delete them, yet I remain disturbed. What is this disturbance?

Acharya Prashant: This disturbance is your hope that your relationships are all not

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.

Truth cannot be forced upon anyone, but neither should falsehood be entertained. Genuine love is not about preserving relationships at any cost; it is about helping oneself and others break free from illusion, even if that means risking the relationship itself. Spiritual growth begins by questioning conditioning, examining falsehood without bias, and choosing authenticity over comfort. Real relationships are built on the courage to seek freedom, not convenience.

Love is not a special emotion reserved for selected people or relationships but a way of relating free from self-interest, possession, and psychological dependence. Most relationships become transactions driven by insecurity, where the ego seeks completion through ownership and exchange. Genuine companionship arises without the urge to control or claim another, allowing affection to exist naturally, freely, and without conditions or expectations.

Freedom is often assumed to be the ability to choose, yet most decisions arise from conditioning, biology, social influences, and habit. Real freedom begins by seeing how mechanical and unconscious life usually is. As awareness deepens, confusion and endless options gradually diminish, making life simpler and more direct. Liberation lies not in imagining freedom, but in recognising and understanding the forces that keep one bound.