Why Does Your ‘Love’ Hurt When You Don’t Get Anything Back?
Questioner: You talked about intent. The intent of the doer matters more than the action. So let's assume somebody does something good but has a malicious intent behind it, or let's say a politician builds a road with the hope of getting votes, but he does not have any good desire for the people. So is that act also not good? Like, is intent really that important?
Acharya Prashant: If the politician declares that I'm doing this to get votes, that's fine. That's fine, then that's a matter of quid pro quo. It's a matter of barter. That's fine. That's practical exchange of goods and services, and there's a certain honesty to it. It's fine. I pay you 100 rupees, you deliver me 100 rupees' worth of goods. No love involved. At the same time, nobody's claiming that love is involved. So, it's fine.
The problem is when you do it for the sake of a return but present it as something done out of love, then there is a problem. If you have expectations, disclose, disclose up front. Are you getting it?
We have hidden expectations. So, I give you something and I won't disclose what I am expecting in return. And when I won't get what I'm expecting, I'll play the victim. I'll say, "Injustice, exploitation, cheating, robbery." You could have simply been a little more honest and told that person that this is what you want. At least he would have known the deal.
Can we do anything without expecting a return? We don't do that, right? But we want to play morally superior. So you say, "You see, I'm doing so much for you." Or, "No, no, no. I'm doing it just because I'm supposed to. It's my duty. It's my duty." What's left unsaid is, "It's my duty within parenthesis, and I expect to be paid for it." And if you don't pay me, I'll abuse you behind your back.
Questioner: So when we help someone, like anybody, like we share notes with our friends or some assignments we are having, and we just share it, and I have met the assignment and I have shared in the group, and that is fine. Then the next time when I ask that guy or that girl for the assignment, and she is like, "No, I won't give," or, "I have not done the assignment," and then I be like, "I'm very upset."
Acharya Prashant: The ego cannot help anybody for the simple reason that the ego has always failed in helping itself. Could you help? First of all, you would have helped yourself. Look at your own state. Look at your own state. You require so much help, and you are claiming to help others. How is that possible?
The ego can never be a helper. It tries, however, to be a trader, a cunning trader. It trades in the name of help.
So you help someone, and when you go to that person asking for something reciprocal, the fellow declines. Seen the kind of hurt and the moral outrage. Seen that? And what does that tell you? Were you a helper in the first place? Were you? No. Not at all. You were a trader. In the name of love, we trade. In the name of help, again, we trade. In the name of charity, we trade. The ego, by definition, cannot love. It cannot help. It can have no gratitude. It is never fulfilled enough to share. It is always so hungry, so hungry. How will it share?
Questioner: When we have expectations from others, that is not helping.
Acharya Prashant: That's two beggars dealing in, you know, extensive trade treaties, both promising so much to the other. A deal of mutual treason and stupidity, both. You know, "I'll give you so much now. What will you give me?" "Well, you know, when you give me so much, then I'll open the doors of my great treasures to you." And these are two beggars, each claiming to help the other and each trying to rob the other. He's not just a beggar; he's a very clever beggar. He's trying to rob a beggar and expecting to get rich in that process.
Questioner: Even expecting love, is that something…?
Acharya Prashant: What will you be loved for? Please tell me. I mean, being who we are. By you, I don't mean you. I mean me. Being who we are, why would anybody love us? And if we are who we are, it has to be somebody fantastically stupid to love us.
We want to be loved. Yes. And we complain when we are not loved. But give me one genuine reason why anybody should love you. What do you have worthy of being loved? Please tell me.
The same kind of ordinary, mediocre tendencies, the same usual biological and physical desires, the same kind of social goals, hopes, and ambitions. Why should anybody love you? Please tell me. And the same kind of bodies. You can't be loved even for your body. Fifty percent of the planet is male, fifty percent is female. What's so special about you? What's so special? You have two eyes. Your neighbor too has a very similar configuration. Very similar configuration, just the model name is different. Why should you be particularly loved? Please tell me.
And if we continue to remain who we are and someone enters our life, what will we offer that person except exploitation? Please tell me.
We are so desperate. We are so hungry. We are so unfulfilled. Somebody enters my life. That's like entering my cage. I'm like a famished wolf in a cage, and some cute little soft rabbit falls in love with me and enters my cage, and I quickly shut the doors, and the love affair has begun. It would be very soon over. The two will unite. The rabbit will no longer be seen. The love affair has reached its summit. The two have become one. No? That's what our love is like.
Look at the kind of promises we make. Look at how we dress up for a date. Is that not all just to fool the other? And then you say it is about keeping your best foot forward. It's not just the foot. You dress up your entire body, and later on there is so much heartbreak. You want to be loved for your makeup. And apart from the makeup, what do you have worthy of being loved? Please tell me. And I'm asking this question not to disappoint you but to challenge you in an encouraging way.
You surely can have beauty. But that beauty cannot come the way we live. That beauty will come from a process of struggle. A process of attrition, a process of reduction, like a sculpture carving a statue. That's how your inner beauty is revealed. But we don't want to go through that process. We remain that unseemly rock, and on top of that we want to be loved, and if we are not loved, then we complain and a million sad songs. "Nobody is loving me." Why should somebody love you? Go wash your face.
The tragedy is each of us deserves to be loved. The comedy is when you become the one who deserves to be loved, you no more want to be loved.
When you are the one who really deserves to be loved, then the desire to be loved is no more there. Then you are love itself personified. Why will you want somebody else to love you? You radiate love. You have so much love. You don't want any more of it from somebody. Instead, you distribute it. You give it to everybody.
So as long as you want to be loved, you don't deserve to be loved. And when you deserve to be loved, you don't want to be loved. So the desire to be loved is a sure-shot proof of the worth that can be loved.
Rise to a point where you don't ask for such things. Otherwise, the world will totally enslave you using your desperation to be loved.
"I'm so desperate to be loved. I'm so desperate to be loved." And go and hook up with some random unworthy person, and then that becomes your life.
"I'm so desperate to have a partner. I just go and marry some random fellow because my aunts and everybody, they are telling me, ‘Oh, you are 28. Nobody will marry you.’ So I was so lonely and so desperate, got hold of some random uncle, and now I can't even get away because there are these two kids. What to do with them?”
If you are desperate, you will be enslaved.
Questioner: So, basically, the love common man knows is all societal and hormonal action.
Acharya Prashant: Yeah. Nothing. Some random nonsense.
Questioner: Sir, koi apse pyar kyon karega?
Acharya Prashant: That's a very good question to ask. I mean, before you complain to existence and beat your head against the trees in the most filmy way possible, ask yourself, “koi mujhse pyar kyon karega?” At the same time you can be one person, not just one person, the entire humanity falls in love with. Look at Socrates, look at Buddha, look at Shri Krishna. Not one person, but history loves them. Humanity itself loves them.
What's interesting is they never said, "We want to be loved." They never said, "We want to be loved." We still love them. We still love them. So you have that potential. But if you remain that little silly lover searching for Mr. or Miss Perfect, then you have wasted it all.
