What Does Valentine’s Day Really Mean?

Acharya Prashant: All right, Anu, would you now tell me what all this is about?

Questioner: It’s Valentine’s today. So, I just wanted to share all the gifts that I got with you.

Acharya Prashant: Oh, you received so many gifts?

Questioner: It’s Valentine’s. It’s actually been a week, so it’s, you know, love is in the air and everybody’s very, very happy. And so this is one of the mediums through which people have been sharing their happiness. So I’ve got cards, I’ve got chocolates, like roses obviously, you know, some jewelry as well.

Acharya Prashant: A fat lot of gifts. Who is it?

Questioner: It’s a few, not just one.

Acharya Prashant: Okay. So who are they?

Questioner: They’re there.

Acharya Prashant: Looks like half a dozen of them at least.

Questioner: Not really, but you know, they’re trying, because, you know, Valentine’s, they get the courage to approach, apparently. So they’ve been, you know, so it’s said that it’s a special day where you can approach somebody in that manner.

Acharya Prashant: Looks like it has been a pretty happy week for you.

Questioner: Yeah.

Acharya Prashant: Fine. Good. Good for you. Now, why?

Questioner: Why have I brought them to you? That is the question.

So, although it has been a very happy week, however, I do remember your teachings. And it’s something that you’re not very fond of. So the gifts are not something that would make you very, very happy. That was what I've learned. So I just wanted to understand, like, what is your take on this? Because it does make everybody else whom I’ve met happy, and you know, those people who wanted to show their affection were able to do it on this day, or throughout this week. So I just wanted to understand your take on Valentine’s Day and gift-giving in that manner.

Acharya Prashant: Who is this fellow called Valentine?

Questioner: He was Saint Valentine, I hear. Roman end times.

Acharya Prashant: There have been at least three Saint Valentines, and there are at least three dates in the calendar that are officially designated by three different churches as Valentine’s Day. Fourteenth of February happens to be the most popular and the most celebrated of those dates.

You said that I’m not very fond of these things. I’m actually very, very fond of Saint Valentine. Though we do not know about him with much historical accuracy, yet whatever has come to us by way of legend, or myth, or folklore, is still quite sufficient to make him a special character. Do you know his story?

Questioner: Somewhat.

Acharya Prashant: What do you know about him?

Questioner: Okay. So the most popular ones that I’ve read and heard: in the Roman days, marriage was banned because the king thought that soldiers focused better if they weren’t married. So he put a ban on marriages, and Saint Valentine was the one who would still officiate the weddings of those couples and have them; so, in a sense, a flourishing of love in that manner.

Acharya Prashant: You see, it was not merely to get people married. The king wanted war. The king wanted war, and he would say that if you have love, then your tendency to be ferocious and violent reduces. Therefore, he said that young men should be dedicating their energies towards war, bloodshed, violence, these things.

St. Valentine, he said, “This won’t do.” So, when he would find a genuinely loving couple, he would arrange for them to get married. He was probably a priest, probably a pastor, some religious figure. So he would get them married.

So the first thing is this.

He was not someone who wanted man pitted against man. He did not want violence amongst human beings. So he is arrested and put into jail. Again, there are various stories, but the gist is that there he grew into affection for the judge’s or the jailer’s daughter, and she happened to be blind. He restored her eyesight. And this is metaphorical, the true meaning has to be understood.

You see, he’s a saint. He is no ordinary lover. So when it is said that he restored her eyesight, what it means is that he got her into the fold of the religion of Jesus. Actually, the story says that forty to fifty members of the jailer’s household converted to Christianity, and obviously that included the jailer’s daughter as well.

So when he loves, that’s the action of his love, right? To bring the beloved to the path of religion. And that is also what is symbolically meant by giving eyes to someone. She was blind, and he gave her eyes. She was blind, probably not in the physical sense, but in the mental sense, that she could not see the Truth. She could not really understand what the world is, what life is, what thoughts are, what emotions are, what this entire business of taking birth, living, dying is. And he gave this vision to her. And in that sense, he gave her eyesight.

Just before he was to be executed, martyred, he wrote her a letter. He wrote her a letter, and in that letter he signed off with “Your Valentine.” That was the first letter in which someone declared himself as somebody’s Valentine. And he sends this letter to the girl, and soon after that he is beheaded, executed. His skull, ornamented with flowers, is still on display in Rome, or so it is said. So that is the entire thing about Saint Valentine’s martyrdom.

Obviously, it is something beautiful and entirely lovable. So do not think that I despise this day. I obviously don’t. This day is important for two reasons. The first reason we have already talked of, Saint Valentine’s courage and sacrifice. The other reason we’ll come to in a while.

So you see, this is what love does. This is the action of love. Two things are important here. You said that you are seeing love in the air. The sky is pink and people are going around holding hands and doing their sweet little things. They are very happy, very romantic, and all those things are there, right?

Now you have some sort of a couple in Saint Valentine’s case as well. There is a man, there is a woman, and the man has developed affection for the woman. Now see what happens there. What is it that you gift to your beloved? What did he gift her?

Questioner: Sight.

Acharya Prashant: He gave her light. So that’s the Valentine’s Day gift worthy of being given. That’s the only gift worth giving, and worth receiving, obviously. Now there are all these things that you have received. Surely they are all nice and cute. But you must check how much of this gives you vision. Remember that Saint Valentine gave eyesight to his girl. Is this giving you eyesight and vision? If yes, wonderful. If no, then you need to take all this a little casually.

So that’s about what you give to the other. And related to that is what happens to you in the process of giving a genuine gift of love to the other. What happened to Saint Valentine? He gave eyes to his girl. Great. And what happened to him in the process?

Questioner: He is no more.

Acharya Prashant: That’s the action of love.

Questioner: You give the greatest gift possible to the other, which is not a teddy bear or roses or jewelry or a lot of other things that you have here, cards, not this. Gift her that which makes life worth living. And in that process, if you are to be beheaded, so be it. In fact, you cannot give the highest gift to the other without facing adverse and dire consequences upon yourself. That’s the standard that the saint had set.

And all the couples that are going around are most welcome to be in love. Love is a beautiful thing, probably the most beautiful thing. This is what we are really born for. But then, what is the quality of one’s love? Shouldn’t that be investigated into?

You give her that which she really needs, and in the process you lay down your own life. And you need to have the guts, the clarity, and the love to do that. That’s what the whole thing is about.

Questioner: So, if the one who has given me, let’s say, the rose or the chocolates, or this card. If they themselves do not carry the wisdom to know what is the right gift, then…

Acharya Prashant: You must see that the whole thing is spiritual in context. The one who lends his name to this day was a saint. And only a saint can love.

When a saint loves, then he gives you eyes. When an ordinary man loves, he gives you all this, and a lot of nonsense, a lot of headache, a lot of mischief. I’m not alleging, but isn’t that what we usually observe?

What’s this card? See what it reads. With due respect to the one who gave this to you: “Your love is like chocolate. I want to bite into it all the time.” Now, does this sound even remotely like something coming from Saint Valentine? That’s the issue. “Your love is like chocolate. I want to bite into it all the time.” Desire, consumption.

Questioner: Little materialism.

Acharya Prashant: And hidden exploitation, trying to bite into the other. Personal gratification, which necessarily comes at the cost of the other.

“Your love is so tempting. The more I have it, the more I want.” I, I, and I. Temptation. “Your love is so lingering. It’s always playing on my mind.”

And the ones who have known life have said that if something starts playing on your mind, then it is not at all good for you, because it has become another burden on the mind. The mind that is already burdened a lot is now carrying constant thoughts and memories and ideas of one more person.

Questioner: But that’s our definition of love. “No, I’m thinking about you.”

Acharya Prashant: The saints laid down their life so that our faulty definition of love gets corrected. And that’s probably the best use this day can be put to, correcting the definition of love, right?

“Moments of your love, just like a chocolate, come with loads of joy but seem to get over too quickly.”

Excitement, ignorance, ingredients in the classic recipe of suffering. I don’t want to spoil your day, but I see that you yourself have not been very certain about things. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have come to me with all this.

Questioner: Because it was very temporary, and you wanted to know more.

Acharya Prashant: You wanted to know more. Do you also want to show me something else? Yeah, I can see that thing down there. What’s that?

Questioner: Okay. That didn’t fit the table.

Acharya Prashant: That was beyond the scope of the table?

Questioner: Beyond the scope of the table. So, I got.

Acharya Prashant: I almost feel guilty when I think of the one who gifted you this (teddy) with all his soft and delicate feelings. Now here I am revealing something beyond the teddy. But then it might give the giver and the receiver some quick happiness. That happiness doesn’t last. And not only does it not last, it brings in its wake a lot of mischief, a lot of sorrow. Life can be much better than that.

Questioner: So what is love then?

Acharya Prashant: What would Saint Valentine’s Day say, what is love?

Questioner: Bringing light to the other. That was love.

Acharya Prashant: Simple, straight, that is love. Bring light to the other. It’s not your own self-interest that you think of in love. Bring light to the other. Even if you are to be killed the next day, as Saint Valentine was, still bring light to the other. Even if the one you are bringing light to is your executioner’s daughter, still bring light to her and her entire family.

Remember that even the judge or the jailer, whosoever he was, we do not know the exact history, even he converted to Christianity after Saint Valentine’s sacrifice. Even he converted. So that’s the action of love. That’s the power. That’s the power of love. That’s the compassion of love. That’s the giving capacity of love.

And remember that true love is bound to be spiritual. It can be nothing else but spiritual.

Questioner: So how do I finally celebrate Valentine’s Day?

Acharya Prashant: Call up these people. Call up these people and have a really genuine, honest, and deep discussion with them. I know it may put them off a bit.

Questioner: Because that’s not the expectation.

Acharya Prashant: That's not the expectation. When they receive your call, they would probably immediately raise some other kind of hope in their mind. But if you know love even a little bit, then you should liberate these people from their self-defeating and self-deceptive fantasies, not further stoke the fire.

Questioner: Not reciprocate.

Acharya Prashant: Not reciprocate, yes.

Questioner: So, a wisdom book, maybe then.

Acharya Prashant: A wisdom book, obviously. You see, it starts with all these things, but you must know what it leads to. Look at the stats released by the Durex company, it manufactures condoms. In the Valentine’s Day week, the sale of condoms spikes by 20 to 30%. And then there are the stats available from the medical organizations: March is the peak month for termination of pregnancy. So it’s not just about these sweet chocolates and all that.

Unless love has something enriching, something deeper, something spiritual about it. It is bound to be all about the body. Even if it appears emotional, that emotion would ultimately lead only to the body. So this fallacy, that love is primarily emotional, must be understood and discounted.

Love is not an emotion. Love primarily is a spiritual understanding. From that comes a high-quality relationship with the other. In that relationship, you want to elevate the other. You don’t want to exploit the other. You don’t want to just eat into, bite into somebody’s body. Nor is love some kind of a recipe to temporarily heal somebody’s loneliness.

The kinds of meanings that we associate with love are highly demeaning, actually.

Questioner: Because they bring you down.

Acharya Prashant: They bring you down, and Saint Valentine won’t be quite pleased with the meanings we have associated with his name, his day. By the way, the sacrifice took place in the third century AD. And the association of his sacrifice with romantic love took place almost a thousand years later, more than a thousand years later. So that association is pretty recent, fourteenth century, fifteenth century. And it was not until the eighteenth century or so that formal celebrations started.

So you see that these formal celebrations, the participation of the market in the festival of love, has a strong consumerist angle to it. Otherwise, it’s a religious day, actually. And true love is bound to be religious. If you do not like the word “religious,” then spiritual.

Always remember what Saint Valentine did. He loved the woman. He gave her eyes and laid down his own life. That is love.

Questioner: Does laying down of life always mean that you have, that’s death?

Acharya Prashant: Good. You see, just as gifting eyes to someone has to be understood beyond the metaphor, beyond the simple, similarly laying down of one’s life or getting beheaded has to be understood beyond the symbolism.

The head stands for the ego in love. And in India especially, saints have repeatedly said, if you go to Saint Kabir, for example, he would say, “Sar kaate bhunyin dharai, tab baithe ghar maahin. Yah to ghar hai prem ka, khaala ka ghar naahin.” This is the house of love. In this house you can enter only after you have cut down your head and put it on the floor.”

So getting beheaded implies severing, cutting off the strong mental and intellectual tendency to look after your own self-interest, and that is called the ego. The head stands for the ego, and the ego means “I, I, I. I have to take care of my desires, my wants. I’ll do that which makes me happy, gives me pleasure.”

So you have to get rid of that feeling, and that’s a very, very strong tendency in every human being. Love implies getting rid of your self-centered life. Cut off your head, which means please gain some kind of separation, some freedom from your ego, and give to the other what the other really needs. Do not be associated with the other in order to get something from her. Be associated with the other to give something to her.

And what is it that you give to her? That which she needs. Give her eyes. Give her spiritual vision. Give her the capacity to really see life, stand independently, live in freedom, live in clarity, and therefore live in joy beyond sorrow.

Questioner: Because she will think she needs all of this.

Acharya Prashant: She may often think that she needs all of this. And when you initially try to gift her eyes, she may even feel offended. She may say, “The entire world is gifting each other nice things, this, this, this, and who are you? You are giving me some kind of religious gyaan. I do not want it.”

But then, you know, these gifts, I mean, look at this, look at this. We are living in an age when many species of bears, koalas, pandas are getting fast extinct. As a young man, should your energy be directed towards this toy, turning the bear into a toy, or really living in a way that helps save the species?

Questioner: That would be love.

Acharya Prashant: That would be love.

Questioner: So the bear is no harm?

Acharya Prashant: There’s nothing harmful in the bear, obviously. Just that if it limits your life to the stuff present on this table here, then such a life is pretty limited and suffocating and dwarfed, and therefore wasted.

Questioner: And hence dark.

Acharya Prashant: And hence dark, and hence full of sorrow. Why live such a life. This will offer you some momentary excitement but then give you very little depth or richness. And as a young man or woman, you deserve to have a rich, deep, high life. Love is about gifting that to the other.

Questioner: Before we end, Acharya Ji, you had mentioned two reasons why you love Valentine’s Day. One was because of Saint Valentine, the actual story, the actual scene, right? What was the second one?

Acharya Prashant: You remembered that. The second reason why I love Valentine’s Day is because it reminds me of how much work is left for me. When I look at all the cute stupidities happening in the name of Valentine’s Day and love, it strongly reminds me that I have a mission at hand. I need to do a lot. The world really requires the gift of eyes.

So yes, this is an important day for me as well.

Questioner: I guess you love Valentine’s as much as we pretend.

Acharya Prashant: Yes. We all need reminders. I too need reminders. So when these things happen and a public display of ignorance and consumerism happens in the name of love, then it’s a pretty strong call to work even harder in the limited time that one has. I listen to that call.

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