Love is the mother of
all negative emotions

24th April 2010

Love is the mother of all negative emotions. All those who lose their temper are perfectionists. They want everything perfect, they simply love perfection. They have high Pitta (a characteristic of the body as per the ancient science of Ayurveda). They seek perfection in everything. Jealousy is because of love. You love somebody so jealousy arises. Greed is when you love objects more than people. Arrogance is when you love yourself too much. Arrogance is to love oneself in a distorted manner. Not even a single object on this planet wants not to be loved or be away from love. Yet we don’t want any of the pain or suffering that comes along with love. How can one achieve this? Only through cleansing and uplifting our spirit which is possible through spirituality. We are made up of both matter and spirit. Our body needs vitamins. If any nutrient is missing, then we have a deficiency. Similarly, we are made up of spirit. Spirit is beauty, truth, joy, happiness, love, and peace. For me, spirituality is that which enhances all these qualities and removes the boundaries. We can bring up our children and youth in this spiritual way. Nowadays violence in college campuses is common. This is unfortunate. If there is violence, then there is something fundamentally wrong. There was so much pride attached to non-violence and equanimity when I was growing up. Schools and colleges will have to bring about peace, happiness, celebration and joy. But if we are miserable, we cannot bring happiness to anybody. First we need to attend to our misery. It’s a catch 22. If you are not happy, you can’t do anything to make others happy. So how can you be happy? Unless you think from a broader perspective, you cannot be happy. There is a technique to get depressed. If you just sit and think about yourself all the time, “what about me, what about me?” you will get depressed. We need to engage ourselves in some service activities and spiritual practices that eliminate negative vibes and make our presence lighter, happier, more content and more intuitive. Intuition is essential. If you are a businessman, you need intuition to know which stocks to invest in. If you are poet or a literary person, you need intuition. If you are a doctor, you need intuition. Doctors don’t base the prescription just on observation. There is something else that also contributes to the prescription. All doctors here will agree with me. Intuition can come when we look deep inside. Without intuition and a spiritual connection, it is like using a cell phone without a sim card in it. We pray, but we are not connected at all. Then we wonder why our prayers are not answered. Because there is no spirituality and values inside, and hence no connectivity is there. This is how many people become atheists. An incident happens in their life, their prayers didn’t work, and they get illusioned. Each one of us has enormous potential. Your thoughts are very powerful; you can create what you want. It’s not like you can go to the moon tomorrow, but for that to happen the vision has to come first. The intuitive power has to come. First, believe that it is possible for you to live in a state of unconditional love, peace and tranquility. As a child you have lived in this state. As children we all have done it. We were bubbling with enthusiasm.

Gurudev then led the audience through a meditation