Is it Lust or Love?

Namaste, everyone. I offer you my most humble respects. And before speaking, I will just chant a couple of invocations that are highly auspicious, and are invocations of respect to my spiritual teachers, to the lineage that I belong to, and to the Supreme Soul.

aum namo bhagavate vasudevaya

So, the topic I was asked to speak on is: Is it lust or love? Spiritual wisdom and practices to cultivate real love.

Actually, today is a really auspicious day on the Hindu calendar. They refer to it as Diwali or Deepavali, and sometimes referenced as being the Festival of Lights or New Year. But actually, it’s something more incredibly wonderful. It deals with, in the most ancient of times, an incarnation of the Lord known as Sri Rama, Ramachandra, who manifest in this world, and as part of the pastimes that He manifest, He was very unjustly sent into exile for 14 years. He has appeared in a dynasty, a great dynasty of great emperors and kings, and it was His own father who was manipulated to render this punishment upon Him.

And during that time, He underwent many austerities and performed amazing deeds, and the finale was a great battle with a demonic force in the form of Ravana, whom he defeated. And this coincided with the end of His period of exile, and so, some great sages prepared a mystic airplane for Him, made of flowers, that flew in the sky and brought Him back to the kingdom that He was from, in Ayodhya, the great capital of that kingdom.

And when people were told of His imminent arrival, they all lit these small—they have like little clay pots, and they have a cotton wick, and they burn oil or ghee, and so the whole place gets lit up with these amazing little lights. And so, hence, the people refer to it as the Festival of Lights. But actually, the lights weren’t the main thing. They were simply symptoms of something else.

The people of that kingdom had come to love Him so dearly, and they did not even know why, but they loved Him more dearly than their own life. And so, when He was sent into exile, it was absolutely crushing. It was devastating. And for the 14 years that He was away, people pined. They experienced heartbreak that is incomparable to mundane relationships, complete heartbreak. And the idea that He was imminently going to arrive back in the kingdom was so overwhelming that, as a great expression of love, they lit these lights, serving as like a beacon to attract the Lord of their heart. And so it is an overwhelming expression of love, this undertaking.

And so, the fact that today is the day, this is celebrated, and we are speaking on the subject, is quite wonderful and auspicious. You agree? [Audience: Yes] Cool or what? Super cool.

So, in speaking about the subject of love, some of you might find the—some of the ideas that I will put forward are actually quite challenging, and that is a good thing. To be challenged in the current way that we look at things can be very helpful in relation to our spiritual growth.

Before we get into the subject, I just want to share with you a foundational idea that serves as the basis for the conversation. In this world there are only two actual perspectives— one is the material perspective; the other one is the spiritual perspective.

The great and ancient teachers and great yogis and sages since time immemorial came to experience a reality. This was known as enlightenment, or self-realization, of the fact that the material body is not us. It is a temporary residence. We are residing within this body temporarily. We will reside in it for some time, and then we will forcibly have to vacate. And the most astonishing thing is that everyone is utterly caught up in the false idea that the body is “me.” And so if I have a female body, I say, “I am female,” if I have a male body, I say, “I am male.” If my body is of a particular size or ethnicity or racial group, if it’s of a particular age, I say, I am this, or, I am that.

And it was considered very heartbreaking to the ancient teachers that people adopted this way of living, where they clung to this false idea to the very end, and then abandoning their body at the time of death, they were utterly lost. What will happen now?

Is that cool, or is that a bummer idea? It is what it is, right?

And as part of the great journey, the inward journey of self-discovery, to discover my actual identity, there was the understanding that many of the things that we chase in this world actually originate from the spirit soul itself. For instance, the desire for happiness is actually a spiritual desire. But if we are just lost in the idea that the body is the self, then I will seek to fulfill that need (it’s not just a hope or a wish, it’s a need), that need for happiness through things that stimulate only my body and mind. And spiritually, I remain malnourished.

Apart from the desire for happiness, the biggest driver of all people is the desire to love and to be loved. We hope for it. We long for it. We deeply desire it. But not recognizing the truth of our spiritual identity, we seek to fulfill this profoundly spiritual need simply on the body, the mind and emotions and the physical body. And our experience is that, even though we can stimulate the body and mind with all kinds of amazing experience, it doesn’t fulfill us. It doesn’t satisfy this profound and deep desire that we have for love.

So, since we’re going to talk about love, one of the big problems that we have is a lack of a real clear definition of what is love. What is it? If we turn to the dictionaries, they define it as, “An intense feeling of attraction and deep affection.” That’s a dictionary definition, a common one. And we know— I mean, I am taking it that you are here because you have an interest in things which are spiritual, and when you hear that definition, you know that’s kind of, that’s not just shallow, that’s misleading. It’s actually misleading.

What people define in this world is—and they use the term “falling in love.” Why falling? Isn’t it when you fall, you get hurt? It’s the experience of a sudden rise in a sense of excitement and thrill, and the thought, “Is this it? Is this person the one?” Even that idea, “Is this person the one?” is pretty interesting. It speaks to a principle I’ll talk about a little bit later, the idea of soulmate; that we have this actual innate longing and hankering. But I ask the question, “Is this the one?”

And when people talk about falling in love, you notice it’s really—I don’t know, maybe I’m just a little callous. It’s a little amusing that people will ask someone. “Oooh, what’s going on with you? Is there someone new in your life?” And it’s kind of like when a person has—that experience is beginning to waken, they sort of radiate a different presence and things. Right? You know what I’m talking about? Or I’m the only one that knows about this? No, this is a common thing. People—everybody talks about it. They ask that question, “Oooh… who are you seeing? What’s going on?” Because somebody’s feeling a little happy and heady, and, you know, and a little emotionally intense in what’s considered a positive way.

This experience is just always accompanied by this huge hope, this hope and this desire and anticipation for something absolutely wonderful, that thing that I truly need. The problem is with what’s going on, it’s principally psychological, and to a lesser degree, physiological. And people equate that experience, that thing that’s happening to their mind and body as being love.

And this is considered by experts to be incredibly unfortunate. They’ve done studies for over 30 years in the UK. There’s a whole slew of them. And they’ve really examined, in the case of very young people, like early teenagers, when they have that experience too early, when people are emotionally and mentally immature, and they become overwhelmed by that big rush; and associating that with love, what happens—and it usually doesn’t take that long, that initial feeling withers and begins to fade. And then, it’s a question of what are you left with?

And when young people, in particular, begin to have those experiences at too early an age, they often become serial relationship hoppers, because they’ve associated that rush, that emotional rush and experience as being love. And when it’s no longer there, I am no longer “in love.” And if I’m no longer in love with this person why will I hang out with them? I need to find someone else who will light up that experience again. And what it does is it leads to this outcome that as people mature, but they’re carrying this erroneous idea, they become unable to stay in and become really committed to relationships, and move beyond that initial rush, and to actually begin to find what is actual love.

So, we live in a society where this has become a very prominent idea over the last, more so, over the last 50 or 60 years than previously in time. Many people are unaware how rapidly society is changing, that many of the things, the ideas that we may adopt are new, are experimental, and not part of human history, thousands of years of human development where people actually responded and behaved and framed things differently. It’s—there’s been this massive shift, particularly in the last 100 years.

The problem with the idea of falling in love is you can also fall out of love. And of course, that becomes really tragic, particularly if it’s only one of the partners of a relationship who decides it’s time to move on, and the other person is still heavily invested. Then they suffer tremendous heartache and heartbreak. It’s extremely unpleasant and really disorienting. And of course, when people become more inclined to the whims of the mind and the emotions, and are just going to respond and chase those things, you end up with a society of older people who are living alone, terribly lonely and heartbroken, and wondering, “What was that all for? What was that about?”

Are you guys okay with me talking like this? Yeah? I think there’s a massive need for a quite heavy dose of reality.

When people experience, because of their concept of love is so shallow, they think, when I’m no longer feeling this, I’ve fallen out of love, therefore, I don’t need you anymore. You are not providing me with what I want. It’s time for me to move on. What a crap idea! My God, that’s just like amazingly selfish, amazingly self-centered. And then it raises the question: Well, if this is the real person manifesting, was what they were thinking was love, was that also massively selfish and self-centred? Or have they gone from being very selfless and giving, to now being cruel and self-centred and hard-hearted and moving away? What is it? What is the reality?

We live in a very challenging time where over the last 100 years, people have come to—they’ve been fed this message, just as part of the development of the consumer society, that you are the most important person in the world, and your emotions and feelings are paramount, and you don’t have any higher duty in life than fulfilling your own desires and wishes and satisfying your own feelings. And society has not actually lived like that, for thousands of years they didn’t live like that. This is a relatively modern phenomena.

And of course, we see what’s the result: levels of great unhappiness that’s unparalleled in history, rises of mental health issues and depression and all kinds of things that we’ve never seen before. Even when people were being pillaged, and suffering droughts and wars and all kinds of difficulty, you didn’t get the pervasiveness of great depression and unhappiness that’s pervasive in society.

I’ve had the enormous fortune, for the majority of my life to be living primarily in third world countries, or what used to be called third world countries, but countries with very old culture, and people have different value systems and experience a level of contentment and happiness. It’s not perfect, far from perfect, but way better than what’s going on in many of the developed countries.

Got a few notes here. So, big point, and really take this one to heart. We have to be intelligent. Our heart is soft. Our heart is something that we should be very protective of. We should not be taking massive risks, particularly when we see symptoms, when we see the red flags, and we still go, “Uuh! I’m doing it anyway.” It’s like when—what people call love and relationships are usually founded on a great deal of dishonesty. Everybody hides all of their bad stuff. They don’t want the other person to see things that they know they may not like, and so, everybody wants to put up a good face. So they want to hide their bad stuff and just try to show all the good stuff. And then, when they—in the other person, when they see red flags, they’re so quick to dismiss it. Like, you know, it’ll be okay.

But people are like icebergs. In relationships, you only see one tenth of what’s going on with that other person. 9/10’s of it is sort of like hidden away. And so, if you see little signs that are signs of danger, then know it’s going to get much worse, as soon as everybody gets to know each other, and the initial rush wears off a little bit.

But this idea of falling out of love, and when I don’t love this person anymore, I can walk away from that, this idea of great self-interest, is actually classified in ancient Vedic teaching as being lust. The word is kama. This is not karma, K A R M A. This is K long Ā. KĀ M A. Kāma. And what it speaks to is not just sexual desire, which is how it’s commonly used in the Western world, the word lust, but it addresses an intense self-centredness, which is selfishness.

And we understand that if a person is driven by this in seeking a relationship with somebody else, then whatever they’re feeling is not actually love. because the focus is myself, and what I’m getting out of it. If I’m thinking I’m getting something out of it that I value or like or appreciate, then I’m all in, but as soon as I’m not getting anything out of it that I value or appreciate in my current state of consciousness, then I’m all out. Pain time.

So what is love? The great characteristic of love is a generosity of spirit. It is the mood of giving rather than the mood of taking. It’s actually tremendous giving of oneself. It is about compassion. It is about caring. It is about a very deep and caring intimacy. When we look at ancient—both spiritual and even religious traditions, they really clearly defined love as the willing of the good of others. To love someone is to will the good of that person, to work towards what will bring that person in the direction of that which is good (and they’re using the term good here in a very profound way), when you care so much for someone that you only want to see them experience that which is good, these were considered symptoms of what is actually love.

And unfortunately, in more modern times, there has been a lot of hyper-sentimentalized descriptions of love: “Oh love is never having to say, ‘I’m sorry’,” and these ideas they put out there “If you really love the person, you’ll let them go, and if they’re meant to be with you, they’ll come back;” and there’s just like, Hallmark with all their love cards, and all these cute little sayings and things that actually don’t deal with that which is deeper and more wonderful, that which is actually spiritual, that which is transcendental, that which we truly desire.

Even when people in this world are in a very nice relationship, they can still fantasize about a more perfect love. Somebody might watch a movie or something that sort of shines a bit of light on something more perfect and wonderful, and everybody feels, “Ah, if only, if only…” We won’t say it. But you know… “Yeah, the person I’m with is okay. We get along. It’s all good, not a problem. But, wow, that idea!” We have that notion because it comes from a deeply spiritual place, something that is truly part of who we really are.

And any sort of ideas that, “I will love you, if you love me,” is actually quite egotistical. It’s not a spirit of giving.

I can remember the first time I saw—I lived in the Philippines for many years, and I was a young guy, and my wife thought it would be educational for me to check out a movie that’s by this really famous and acclaimed director. And I went along to one of these movies, and I was watching. And there was this girl from a poor family, and she met and fell in love with a guy that was from a wealthy family, and they had a really nice relationship and everything. And then it’s like the mother starts pressuring her son, “You can’t be having relationships; you should be marrying up or someone of equal status, and you’ll value what I’m saying later in life.” All the stuff that people to talk about. So, he ends up cutting off the relationship.

And then the girl comes to his house, after him ignoring her, one night, and she’s standing in the street, and it’s beginning to rain, and she’s there, and she’s throwing some stones up on the window. They had these really cool windows with capis shells, an old Spanish style. And the guy slides the window open, and then she’s there in the rain begging him, and declaring her undying love. “I love you. I love you.” And then his response is to be rather cold-hearted and just absolutely reject her. And she goes from this “I love you. You are everything to me” to now cursing [Tagalog swear word] and just, “You absolute arsehole. How can you do that? I’ll kill you.”

And it’s just like, wow, in the short period of time, this switched from these profound declarations of love to now all of this anger because I’m not getting what I want. I’m not getting what I think I deserve. I’ve, for instance, I’ve got a fantasy that this person is going to be the perfect object of love, and they’re turning me away, so I’m being deprived of what’s truly mine, and what I deserve, and so I manifest anger.

We see this in a lot of what I will just broadly define as material relationships, where people have, they call them really “hot relationships.” And you’ll notice that the hot relationships are also very rocky. They go through this intensity, particularly sexually oriented, to massive fights. There’s no kind of like middle ground. And there are, of course, quite profound spiritual reasons for all of this.

So, we do need to address this deficit that hangs over us, this desire for love. Do take on board that this is a spiritual desire; and it’s there for a reason, because it is part of our nature. But in this world—it’s so sad. People have such a hard time building even healthy relationships. And so, we usually turn inter-species. I’ll get a pet, because my pet loves me unconditionally. No, it doesn’t. Don’t you know what an animal is? I’m not being critical, but it is important to look at things in a realistic way for us to find real solutions to this great love deficit in our heart.

I mentioned earlier the idea of a soulmate. And people actually—that became a big thing more in the 80s, not really in the 70s, in the 80s and the 90s, and it’s still going.

The perfection of the love that we seek and desire is found in the little story I told you at the beginning about Diwali, how all of the people in the Kingdom of Ayodhya experienced an extraordinary love for Rama, and in His absence, they pined, for 14 years, they pined. They had husbands and wives, they had children and parents and grandchildren and all of these things, all those relationships, but they still pined. They saw Him as the highest object and the most perfect object of their love, and there is a deep spiritual reason for it.

This thing I will share, with some people may not sit very well, because we have become somewhat allergic to notions of higher transcendent realities, or God, or whatever we want—term we want to use. We’re okay with the universe. I can send my intentions out to the universe. But if I sent my intentions out to anything or anyone else, that would be weird, but sending it out to the universe is not weird. That’s perfectly okay. And it’s sort of like, from my perspective as being a student of spiritual life, of studying it for over 55 years, more, in this current tradition I’m connected with, and before that in the Ashtanga yoga tradition, it’s sort of like, whoa, things have really taken a bit of a turn. That’s actually not healthy for us.

Then in an ancient text called the Brahma Samhita, there is a verse. This is—samhita means, literally it means like hymn. It’s a special category of Vedic text. And this was meant to be the hymn of the creator of this particular universe, Brahma. And he says that the living being is eternal. Let me just pause there. I mean this is—I’ll share this because this is important. You are an eternal being. You do not die. You cannot die. You are eternal. When you leave the body, the body dies, but you have not died. You’ve just moved on. You are eternal. So:

“The living being is eternal and for all eternity, without a beginning joined to the Supreme Lord by the tie of an eternal kinship.” [Brahma Samhita 5.21]

You have a soulmate. You have a long-lost relationship that we are seeking to recover, we are seeking to re-ignite, to rediscover. It is part of our eternal spiritual nature. And it is for this reason that even if we find a wonderful person and share great intimacy with them and get along really well, it’s not the highest perfection that we always seek.

And when we have lost the plot and become so focused on this idea of the body that I have on is me, this is me, this is who I am, this idea is considered the foundation for all unhappiness. And to the degree that you cling to this idea, to the same degree, you will experience varieties of unhappiness and painfulness in life.

So, in a great text called the Bhagavat Purana, it states:

“Thus, mistaking the temporary for the eternal, my body for myself, and the sources of misery for sources of happiness, I have tried to take pleasure in material dualities. Covered in this way by ignorance I could not recognize You as the real object of my love.” [Bhāgavata Purāṇa 10.40.25]

This is an extraordinary revelation. This is the meaning of self-realization. This is the awakening of actual enlightenment.

This is a really big subject, and we’re just barely touching the surface. Know that your desire to love and to be loved is a spiritual desire. You will not perfectly fulfill that desire with another temporary personality. You may have wonderful relationships, but you won’t be able to perfectly fulfill that desire.

When we actually experience the awakening of true spiritual love, then the way in which we love other living beings—those close to us and even those far from us—will become extraordinary. There will be an awakening. And that definition that we read a little bit earlier, love means willing the good of others, and think of that in relationship to even the relationships that we cultivate in this life, in this world. If I truly love someone, then I am always seeking their good. That’s a profound idea.

And of course, the way that a person will grow in this awakening of true spiritual love is in two things: One is the cultivation of true spiritual wisdom. Don’t buy the crap. For so long we just buy all these ideas and all this stuff. These things, that just like—everybody’s just, often sharing the crap, not the deep truth. Seek what is true and cultivate it.

And the second thing, you need to do is to adopt a meditation practice. And when I say a meditation practice, I am specifically talking about this practice of a deep immersion in spiritual sound. Meditation is not a mental activity. It is an immersion of my mind, of my heart, of my being, in that which is purely spiritual, that is this spiritual sounds. And when I do that, it begins to dissipate the fog. The fog begins to burn off, and I begin to see with great clarity. I will begin to look at myself completely differently. I will look at others really differently. I will look at this world completely differently. This is the meaning of enlightenment.

And so, to close out—ooh, I went over time. Joe Swami is going to be bummed. We’ll chant. I’m going to chant the—what’s sometimes called the Hare Krishna Mantra or the Mahamantra. It is actually a great mantra. It is actually a love song. It is a crying of the heart. It is a crying of the lover for the beloved, or a child for a parent. That is what it is.

So, I will chant and then ask you to respond and follow.