This is such an important subject that needs to be shared even though there is not good quality video with this talk.
Love, as a subject to be explored, is definitely challenging for many of us and the lack of a meaningful conversation about love and a meaningful definition of love is terribly sad.
How do we define love? Many dictionary definitions center around it being “an intense feeling of attraction and deep affection.” What is called falling in love often produces an intense kind excitement and anticipation and hope for something fantastic that’s going to result from this relationship/experience. But we are only talking about an emotional and physiological response, and this is not love. It doesn’t last.
What happens then when we no longer feel that response? When I’m no longer in love with you or I have “fallen out of love”, when I’m no longer having that physiological and mental response? Well, I am no longer in love. Therefore, I should leave you and I should look for someone else who gives me that experience.
This is not love, it is lust. If you make me feel good, I love you. If you no longer make me feel good, I’m sorry, I just don’t love you anymore. Lust meant intense personal desire and it’s all about me and what I am feeling. “What’s in it for me?” It’s about taking as opposed to giving.
The characteristic of love is to give.
Love means willing “the good” of others. To love someone is to will “the good” for that person; to work toward what will bring that person in the direction of “the good”. Real love is truly a spiritual experience.
Two verses I quoted:
The same jīva is eternal and is for eternity and without a beginning joined to the Supreme Lord by the tie of an eternal kinship. – Śrī Brahma-saṁhitā 5.21
Thus mistaking the temporary for the eternal, my body for my self, and 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
