The fallacy of expression of love

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Acharya Prashant (AP): In matters of Love and all these things, you want the other person to be ‘nice’.

We are such idiots, we want the other person to be ‘nice.’

And if the other person is not nice, we feel, there is no Love.

We have no capacity to see where the whole thing is coming from. We do not see anything. We do not understand anything. And by anything, I mean absolutely anything. Black is white and white is black.

We are prepared to give up our Life probably if somebody comes and says two sweets words to us. Oh! he is my friend. Why? Because he talks sweetly and we do not realize that the sweet talk maybe so poisonous because we see only the actions, because we see only the actions, the words. He comes and hugs me and then he says, ‘baba how are you? Nice!’

And because I live only at the surface, I am alright with that. I do not want to offend him. And if he asks me something, I will give.

But there is another one who admonishes, who chastises, who calls a spade, a spade, who is terribly real. And I’ll say, this fellow is my enemy because he tells me that I am an idiot. You have cancer. The doctor is telling you, you have cancer. Is he your friend or your enemy?

Listener (L): Friend.

AP: But look at our stupidity. We want the doctor to tell us that everything is so nice about me. You are rotting, you are stinking, but you want the doctor to certify that everything is good about me. And the doctor is saying, please change your lifestyle. Look at your mind, take this prescription.

Stop consuming what you do.

Your diet needs modification.

What you read, what you hear, what you think, that is your disease.

Ah! this doctor is telling me that I am diseased. Wicked man, lodge an FIR, get him arrested, he offended me. That is what you live in the world of perceptions. In the sensual world where you can only limit yourself to what you are seeing and what you are hearing. And you have no capacity to go beyond that. And then you say, see it doesn’t stop anywhere.