From popular romantic comedies and fairy-tale romance novels with the promise of “happily-ever after” to tragic tales of star-crossed lovers doomed to part, cultures across the world are replete with tales of eternal love. While fantasy and reality are separate, many of us yearn to find our very own love story and happily-ever-after. Technology and social media have changed all aspects of our lives to a great extent, including how we fall in love and our attitudes towards dating and relationships. In a candid conversation with French YouTuber and coach Alexandre Cormont, Sadhguru talks about the limitations of body-based relationships, the true essence of what it means to fall in love, and the core causes behind increasing cases of breakups and divorces.
Sadhguru: “I thought love is about coming together, not about breaking up! I know these things are happening everywhere because we are not looking at life as ‘life’. We have been educated; our education systems, our idea of science and technology has all deduced itself into how to use everything for our benefit- from the smallest bacteria to the largest animal on the planet- everything we want to use for our benefit! In that, unfortunately human beings also are included, so what people are calling as ‘love’ today is actually just a mutual benefit scheme—you give me this, I’ll give you that. The moment you don’t give me that, I won’t give you this. That is why you’re starting the question about love with breakup and divorce.”
“In my understanding of life, love is about weaving two lives together, two lives becoming like one. But now, we are talking about breakup. Today when we talk about love, people are thinking in terms of expiry date: “how long will this last?” So, this is an unfortunate situation. People will not know the profoundness of sharing life with somebody because when you really want to include somebody as a part of your life, you will have to vacate some of yourself. Something of you should fall. This English expression of falling in love is a good thing, see, you cannot rise in love, you cannot fly in love, you cannot climb in love, you can only fall in love. Something that is you must fall. Love is not about getting what you want, it is an opportunity to make yourself vulnerable. It’s an opportunity to lose yourself—this is not a profit oriented project. It is willingly going for a loss, that’s what it is about, but the moment you think about profit, then of course right from day one there is friction.”
“Only because of hormonal draw, people may be coming together; otherwise, the way modern societies are getting structured, we have almost left no room for love. It is only about what I can get out of you, so when this is the way, breakup is a natural process. In the west now, if you say a relationship, it means it’s a body based relationship. Unfortunately, for that they are paying a price because physical contact is not the only way to establish a relationship. Intellectually, you can have a relationship. Emotionally, you can have relationships, so emotional relationships are always far more touching in your life, more tender to you than body-based relationships. Bodies can only have encounters, not relationships. It takes a mind and emotion to have a relationship. It is very powerful if you invest your emotions in something, only then life becomes powerful and meaningful for you to exist.”
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