On YouTube
व्यक्ति-सापेक्ष प्रेम, एक झूठ || आचार्य प्रशांत (2014)
6.8K views
5 years ago
Personalized Love
Ego
Conditioning
Love
Mind
Hierarchy
Freedom
The Supreme
Description

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.