Acharya Prashant addresses the concept of 'personalized love'. He begins by stating that love can be received from fifty different directions; it is not necessary for it to come from a living human or animal. Love is simply love. The state in which the mind becomes calm and blissful is love. Given this, he questions why we specifically need a human and why there is a search for a particular person. The speaker explains that this need arises because man considers himself superior to everything else in nature. Love from what is perceived as inferior, like a river or an animal, is not valued. Since man places himself at the top, he seeks love from another human. This is a game of the ego, which creates hierarchies even among people. We feel more validated when a person of high status gives us attention, compared to an ordinary person. This entire dynamic is driven by the ego. Delving deeper, Acharya Prashant explains that our personality is a product of conditioning. The ego wants to reinforce itself within the domain it already occupies. We see ourselves as a personality and thus seek another personality, one that aligns with our conditioning. The very forces that have shaped our identity have also programmed our desires for a partner. In this mechanical process, there is no real love. To call this 'personalized love' is a mistake; it is a disease. True love brings joy and freedom, whereas person-specific love only brings pain and tension. The inner call is for the Supreme, for completeness, but our corrupted mind misinterprets this signal as a desire for a person or marriage. The signal from the Beyond says, "Find me," but the conditioned mind hears, "Seduce a girl." This misinterpretation occurs because our receiving instrument, the mind, is impure. When the mind is cleansed, the illusion of personalized love ends, and only pure, non-personalized love remains. He concludes that making any single person 'special' is a great sin (kufr), as that status belongs only to the Supreme.
