The Misunderstanding of Love

This is an automated transcript and may contain minor errors.

Welcome to another episode of Upbuilding the Self. I am Vipin and I'm here with Hari Prasad and Rasanath. Hey guys. So let me introduce the episode, the topic for our conversation today. We have a weekly program called remembering who we are at Upbuild. It's a 45-minute lunch program every Wednesday where we talk about topics related to the fact that we are not bodies and minds and egos, but we are actually spirit souls having a material existence.

It's a program that was inspired by our own team practice of having a spiritual start to remind ourselves of who we actually are. And in this program, some months ago, Rasanath, you had introduced this framework of four levels of motivation for doing anything. And this Framework comes from a saint named Bhakti Vinod Thakur, who had this realization and shared it in a commentary on a particular verse in the Bhagavad Gita.

And so we were introducing this Four levels of motivation to the program to everyone who attends. And it really struck a chord is people were getting so much out of understanding what is level one, two, three, and four. Where am I typically operating? And especially. The fourth level, which seems out of reach for many, generated a lot of discussion, a lot of insight, and we wanted to bring that into the podcast because it was such a rich discussion and potentially really paradigm shifting.

So that is our topic, and it's not a Small task but I think before I reveal much more, let me ask one of you to introduce the four levels of motivation to our audience, and then we can hone in on the fourth level and exactly what we're trying to unpack in the level four.

Rasanath, please.

Rasanath: Thank you. So for the sake of our audience, we have recorded a podcast that explores the four levels of motivation and unpacks the four levels in great detail. So if you are interested, you can listen to that podcast first before you. Listen to this one, but we're going to do our best to precisely briefly explain what the four levels of motivation are and each one can be unpacked so much further.

So the most basic, the first level of motivation is motivated by fear. We all know what it means to operate under fear. We have had many instances in our life where we have operated under that and fear is a motivating force.

Vipin: What's the briefest example of someone motivated by fear?

Rasanath: If I do not get this done, I will be fired.

Great. The fear of being fired. That's right. That's a motivating force. The second level of motivation is the attraction of a prospect. There is some reward waiting for me, right? So this is the carrot and the stick. So we talked about the stick first, which is the most basic level. The first level, then the carrot is the motivation.

There is a prospect that is waiting for me and I'm moved. I'm pulled by the prospect. If I do this. then I will get this, right? If I perform, if I beat the deadline, then I will make a certain amount of bonus. If I consistently beat the deadline, then I will end up as the number one employee in the state.

So this is prospect. This is a motivation that's coming from prospect. Right. I'm

Vipin: no longer worried about getting fired, but I'm focused on getting promoted.

Rasanath: Yes, you're focused on getting promoted. But the tricky part is the first two levels are very closely tied in the sense. Because I'm so attracted to the prospect,

Vipin: I fear not getting promoted.

Very

Rasanath: closely tied. And it's important to recognize that you can easily move from one to the other.

Hari Prasada: They're intertwined because even like, why do I want that bonus? I'm afraid of not having enough.

Rasanath: That's the second level.

The third level of motivation is motivated by duty and a sense of what the right thing to do is. An example here would be If I don't do this, other people will suffer. It doesn't have anything to do with, maybe I will not lose anything. It may also not affect my prospect, but it's quite possible that other people will actually get affected.

Usually the third level of motivation, a sense of duty, comes from wanting to do the right thing and specifically starts to get directed towards other people. This is the first level where we explicitly break into thinking about the effect on other people, even when it doesn't have an effect on me.

That's level three. It's motivated by doing the right thing, a sense of duty. And the fourth level is motivated by love. And this is from a place of I do this because I just love the other person. Those are the four levels of motivation that we talked about.

What is also important is to understand and when we look at what we are motivated by, we might actually find, so if we were to draw percentage wise which one of these motivating forces is contributing to what we are doing, we might actually find all the four present, or at least I would say the first three, but the percentage to which force is actually driving everything needs to be really thought about.

And the trick here that many times we tend to do is we would claim to be operating from the more noble ones here. I would say level three and level four. Then we are actually operating from level one and level two, because there may be some traces of it present.

And we like to project that we are actually coming from that place when it's actually happening from level one and level two. So this takes some time to really some honesty here to understand what is pulling the strings.

Hari Prasada: And as hopefully you'll see through the course of this episode, there's not much going on of level four.

So as Rasa not mentioned, the first three is more of what we're looking at in terms of percentages.

Vipin: Yeah. Yeah. So we're here to focus on level four as hard as you just said. Most of what we experienced, what we're experiencing is Combinations of one, two, and three. And there's not that much of a level four.

If that's the case, why are we even focusing on it? If it's sort of beyond the reach, what's important? Yeah, because

Hari Prasada: we have to get there. We have to get there actually. Our hearts are longing for this. They're not longing for a sense of duty. Even they're not longing for like getting stuff and they're not longing.

to react based on fear. Our hearts are longing for love, and we all know this. So we have to come to a place to satisfy our own hearts, what to speak of the hearts of others, if we want to do right by them. We have to come to that place of understanding what is this that we're talking about? What are we actually longing for?

And how do we do it?

Vipin: You've made the problem very clear

Rasanath: and concrete. to support what Hari Prasad just said. We are so strongly longing for it. And there is also rampant misunderstanding around what level four is. We won't really aspire for something if we think we already have it. And at the same time, when we think we already have it, this is our current experience.

We think we already have it. And yet we find ourselves Repeatedly disappointed.

Vipin: So, and you're saying there's a misunderstanding of what level four is. You don't have to know anything about this framework. Really what you're saying is there's a misunderstanding about what love is. And if we think we have it, we're not going to seek something else other than what we have.

And so we're really trying to expand our own understanding, our collective understanding of what is love.

Hari Prasada: Yes, and the reason why this context is extremely helpful is because you see, there's a direction.

There is a trajectory here and that context is so helpful to understand how do I get from one level to another? How do I keep going in that trajectory? What's behind it? What's the thread? So yes, you can talk about love in isolation and that's good. But when you have that framework of these four levels, it strengthens it so much more.

Vipin: Rasanath, when you were saying we often think We're at level three, we're operating at level one and two, but we project that to be more like level or three and four. It just reminded me exactly of how we experience our own level of consciousness, where we often think we are healthier than we actually are.

Or Rasnath, you often quote your professor who would say 70 percent of people think they're above average drivers, which is a statistical impossibility. So. We need to be intellectually honest with where we are. That's the starting point. Otherwise, you're working with blinders on, and it's really hard to see the truth.

Rasanath: There's something good about the projection. The reason why the projection happens. The desire. Yes. It's so critical to acknowledge that the projection exists because I want that. And yet, I'm not willing to pay the price to live that. And we'll unpack this more, but the way our minds and egos tend to work is how do I get what is real by paying the minimum price for it.

I want the real thing, but I actually don't want to pay the price for it, which means what I'll do is I'll, I'll make something look like the real thing and convince myself that it's the real thing. That is called, if I rip the bandaid out and say it very blatantly, that is called cheating. That is called deception.

And the reason why this topic is important is because we don't want to deceive ourselves. We want to be true aspirationalists. We want to live the higher levels. especially level four. And what we also want to do is be willing to pay the price for it because that's when we get the real thing.

Vipin: We've done a lot of creating this container and it still may sound abstract to people.

So I want to move to making this very concrete. The first thing that I noticed when you said love the level four of love, you said that love Or another person is what motivates. And I thought, does it always have to be people involved? You know, people will often talk about, I'm, I love this thing that I'm doing.

And that's my motivation. Tiger woods talks about loving golf. You used people there intentionally. So is it possible to love a thing in the way that we're talking about with this level of motivation?

Hari Prasada: You can have some semblance of love in the sense that I'm really hyped up about doing this in the way that I feel hyped up about my perception of love in this world.

When I love somebody and somebody loves me and I get Hyped up about that. It can feel similar when it's like, I just gave a knockout presentation. I love public speaking, man. I love it. I'm in love with it, but to really understand what love is requires. A different paradigm.

Vipin: The word that just popped up for me was validation.

So in, in love, in a reciprocal relationship where you're feeling like I'm hyped up to use your words, I'm feeling a lot of different things, but one of those is the validation of being seen by that other person. And in this case, You might be getting that validation for public speaking and so you feel on the surface that there's similarity there, but you're just making it clear that is not the same thing.

Hari Prasada: That's right. And when you quote Tiger Woods like that, and I always think of that example as well, I just love golf. I'm addicted to golf. I love it. We always ask this question. Is he really? In love with golf. Is he really addicted to golf? No, he's addicted to winning. He's addicted to what golf gives him.

That's what he loves. He loves the adulation and you can see it on his face. So that's not love. We can't say tiger wood is such a lover. Oh, my God. What is not the case? It's absurd. It's something that I'm getting for myself, which is by definition, not love. Now we're looking at a prospect. I'm getting something from this.

So it's about me. Love is not about me.

Vipin: Yes. Great. This is what exactly what Rasna said earlier. This is level two thinking that we're in level four. Then let's define what is love.

Rasanath: I first came across this definition in my own practice of the tradition that I became a monk in, which is the path of bhakti.

And the first time I came across the definition of love, it was characterized by two things. It was unmotivated, which means it takes out the idea of prospect and it's uninterrupted. So there are three characteristics. It's unalloyed, which means it's not mixed with anything, there are no conditions around it.

And as a part of the unalloyed, you can think about it. It's unmotivated from a point of view of getting something in return, and it's uninterrupted, which means that love is not interrupted by time, place, or circumstances. The experience of, the experience of love still stays. Now, time, place, and circumstances may Enhance it.

They may deepen it. For example, they say absence makes the heart grow fonder. That's not real. There is a truth to it in the sense that when you truly love, you so deeply want to express it. But then the object of your love is not in front of you. You so deeply desire that you are with the object of your love so that you can express it.

Vipin: Okay. It's uninterrupted, even but love the absence.

Rasanath: Yeah. Yeah. The flow is still the motivation is still uninterrupted by time and place and circumstances. This is the definition of love that I encountered in a text that is considered to be the graduate study of the Gita. And this is where the text begins.

It introduces this topic very early, because the entire text is about the unpacking of love. love or bhakti and it so crystal clear defines bhakti and when I try to understand this from a point of view of where I was it was very clear that it doesn't check any of those boxes.

Hari Prasada: The text Rasnath is referring to is called the Srimad Bhagavatam.

Okay, thank you. The Srimad Bhagavatam.

Vipin: It was striking to me that we're talking about The four levels of motivation and your first word you use for love is it's unmotivated. So I was like, how does that work here? We're talking about love being a motivation and that love being unmotivated. So I will need you to help us unpack that.

And then the second is, I asked you what is love and you defined it by three things that it's not. So that still leaves us with a vast possibility of what it is, but I appreciate the things that you mentioned. The other thing I wanted to comment on is you said in the tradition that you both became monks in, which is Bhakti.

And then later, You equated bhakti with love. So I just wanted to say that the investment in your monastic life in this path of bhakti was all actually about the mood of love in devotion. And so I think it's helpful to equate bhakti and love because why are you both qualified to speak about this anyway.

I mean, you've read, you've read also what you're saying you've read, but I think that connection is also helpful to understand.

Rasanath: Thank you. To address what you just said, and this will also add very directly to the three comments that you made. The first thing is the qualification to speak about this topic.

It's not because we have it necessarily, but I would say we have spent enough time trying to understand it.

Vipin: Yeah, and by it you mean love. So we, it's not because we have the love that we're describing.

Rasanath: Yes, that's right. It's just that we have done our best to grapple with the complexity of this topic. And we can see.

What we don't have and what we need to aspire for.

Hari Prasada: Let me pause on that because I think there's more here that is all the case. And there is a way in which practice makes perfect. So we don't have the perfect thing, but what we're doing is we're following in the footsteps of those who have it as a practice and we've received from them something.

So it's in a budding state. It's not the full blown understanding or experience that we're aspiring for, and yet there is something which can be felt, something which can be tasted, something which can be practiced and grown, which we're dedicating our lives to, by the grace of those who have the real thing.

and who have poured into us and shown us by example that this is real, this is possible, and you can do it. You must do it.

Rasanath: The second point that you raised, which was, she talked about four levels of motivation. And the first thing I said is love is unmotivated. The idea of motivation, when we use the word motivation is it is not materially motivated.

And this is a very important distinction. There is no tangible, I'm not doing this because I'm going to get something in return. And in that sense of the term, it is pure because it is just because I love her. The second thing you said, the three, what it is not, you know, because we use the word unmotivated, uninterrupted, unalloyed.

So it has The prefix is on, is speaking to the negative in the sense it's actually saying what it's not, because that's our reference point. It is very hard to explain something that we actually don't even fully understand. So, best place to start is by saying, well, what it's not, because that's our reference.

This goes back to what we said earlier, how we confuse We project, we may not be on a certain level, but we project where we are to a level that's higher. And this definition is clearing that out. If we are fully honest about it, it's not leaving us any room to misunderstand that the level where we are at is that level.

So that's our reference, which is why the definition is like that.

Vipin: Yeah. Very helpful. And part of my comments around unmotivated was a little bit of a joke, but it was helpful to get. That clarity. And I think the way I would describe that is we're talking about this fourth level of motivation, being motivated to act out of love, but for that love, not to be motivated by prospect or anything else for that matter, that's about my own gain, but it's actually the love being an end in itself, it's not.

About my validation, my, what I'm receiving.

Hari Prasada: It's not even about trying to be a good person. The third one duty. It's not about any worldly consideration like that whatsoever. It's something that is so deep and so powerful. It is a force that moves us independently.

Rasanath: Which is why when we talk about it this way, it's like, wait a second, I mean, how do I even understand this?

That is an important thing. It's actually a shocker to our system, which is what we want to focus on is how we reduce something that's lucky to something that's so mundane, right? And here, as you're listening to this, if you're thinking, well, if there's no prospect tied to it, if it's not even being about a good person, then what?

Is this ? What are we really talking about?

That is precisely why it's important to discuss it, because that is how we wanna be thinking then what is this thing? Because when we are asking that question, implicit in that question is how potentially we might have misunderstood and reduced this level, level four.

Vipin: So I wanna hear the answer to that from both of you or from either of you.

What? What do most of us. is love. How have we mis or reduced it? As you sai That was so powerful about the program, the remembering who we are sessions that we had on this topic was for people to acknowledge, I actually have no idea what I'm talking about here. I have no idea what we are talking about.

And it's a topic. Love is a topic that everyone feels entitled or qualified to speak about expertly because they're a human being. And so it feels like this is part and parcel of being a human being, but through the course of the. The conversations became clear that many people, many of us were able to acknowledge, I don't know what love is.

I mean, I can repeat back what other people have told me. I can guess, I can grasp based on my own sense observations, but I don't have a frame to stand on. And that's where the conversation then really opened up because it starts with the humility of, I don't know.

Rasanath: It's so true. And yet. Part of the reason why we think we know what love is, is we can never stop looking for it.

And because we can never stop looking for it, we think we understand this topic. Because it feels so innate in us. This desire to love and to be loved is just so, it's there. It's there, present in a very abstract way, moving us to form relationships, to form connections, to do things. It's there. It's so primary.

Vipin: Yeah, that's a very powerful statement. I'm thinking, I was just trying to search, searching for a metaphor where it's something that you has been with you in a way all your life in you're in search of it, you don't have it, you're in search of it. So you feel like you know it because you know the search, but what's the, yeah, what's the matter?

There's a metaphor here. The

Hari Prasada: metaphor is the musk deer who is carrying the scent of musk and intoxicated by it and keeps chasing after. It outside of himself because thinking that smell, I'm getting closer. I'm getting closer. I'm getting closer. I need to attain that the source of that scent. But then the must dear finds actually that it was in me is actually it falls, the deer falls, and it's abdomen is sliced and pierced.

Yeah, exactly. And the scent starts wafting out and as it's laying in its helpless state and going to give up its life. It was me all along. I had this.

Vipin: It sounds like you're cluing us into an answer here. Yes. I was thinking of a different, not as deep of a metaphor, as in, I think I understand the sky because I can see it every day, or the sun because it's present, but I really don't understand.

That doesn't mean I understand it. But you're pointing to a very different metaphor, which is, It may be closer to getting at what is love.

Hari Prasada: And the thing is, it's not that, oh, the musk deer, therefore, is loving itself, where the object is to love ourselves. It's not that. It's that we possess a love that is buried deeply in our hearts, and no one will argue that the purpose of life is to love and to be loved, as Rastanath was alluding to.

I mean, I have not encountered anybody. These people can exist, but generally speaking, everyone feels that. Love makes the world go round, it's said. Everyone can agree to this, for the most part. But the real thing is untapped. It's buried into our hearts. And in the absence of experiencing it fully, what do we mean by experiencing it fully?

Unconditional. Again, no one will argue that love is unconditional. So why is it that all of our love has conditions on it? So then are we loving? All of our love has conditions on it. You see the state of marriage today. You see even the state of those who don't get divorced. The kind of compromises and unhappiness or selfishness that takes place, that is not love.

Love is unconditional. We know this, but who has experienced it at that level where it's unconditional, it's boundless, it's explosive, and it's sustaining. It's not dependent on a romance. It's not dependent on me providing romance for somebody else and them providing it for me. It's purely out of absolute affection for the other that is unwavering and not dependent on how they treat me.

Vipin: Does that exist? Right. Does that exist that I could have so much affection for someone that no matter how they treated me? That affection wouldn't change.

Hari Prasada: Well, of

Vipin: course

Hari Prasada: the subject. has to be worthy in the sense where the object, you could say the object of love, has to be worthy of that love. And at the same time, we can see that everyone deep down is worthy of that love because everyone is a self.

Everyone is not the coverings of their ego or the destructive habits or even the terrible harm that they cause so deep down. Everyone is worthy, but we're so covered that then we have to think, well, if I love this person, is that endorsing exploitation is then there are all these material considerations.

But real love has none of these considerations. It is for oneself and another self. And there's much more to that subject that is a very, very vast and deep subject. But we should know love is not for the ego. It's not for the mind. It's not for the body. It is for the self and every self is worthy of that love how it's expressed given all of the coverings that has to be carefully dealt with.

But deep down, that love is for every single living being. In fact, the start

Rasanath: of one's spiritual journey is the inquiry around the desire to love and the need for love. But it's the continuous experience of disappointment around it, and the dichotomy where it is so frustrating that I can wean myself off of not wanting love.

And yet, at the same time, when I try to seek it, I always feel disappointed. And to me, this is the crux of human despair. And this despair, when it's not dealt with properly, is acted out in many, many, many endless ways that range in the spectrum of how destructive it can be.

Hari Prasada: It's said that every act is a crying out for love.

Even the most horrible violence is a crying for love. And there's truth to that. That is true, but it's so perverted through the ego that it's unrecognizable. And instead of seeking that love, we seek the ego gratification as a substitute for love as Madonna sings. It's a substitute for the real thing, and that cheapens love.

Love is so high, we don't ever give it its proper place. Even in our society, we put love on a pedestal, and there are all these love songs and poems, and that's about what we're so obsessed with. And even that is a very cheap thing in comparison to what it actually is. But that shows, and That the perverted reflection is so compelling, such a powerful force, that even that makes the world go round.

So imagine what the real thing is, the boundless, unconditional love of the self for all other living beings as selves. Imagine what that force is. And if we think that we have it, as we've been talking about, we will never go for the real thing. If we think that we have it, we will never go for the real thing.

We will, as Rasanath put it, cheat ourselves out of it.

Rasanath: It happens in two ways. One is love itself is cheapened by how we experience it in the world. And then we get comments, right? When we go outside, Oh, I don't like this lovey dovey stuff. And the reason why I don't like this lovey dovey stuff. Is because I mean think about it in the corporate world where so much about it is pursuit of success Success has become a proxy for actually feeling loved But we were never associated with that Because our experience of love as cheapened is ah, this is just touching feeling.

This is the real thing so first of all love is cheapened and then we treat love as cheap and collectively We reduce what love is You And then we treat it as cheap. This is the challenge which prevents us from pursuing genuinely, honestly pursuing what the real thing is.

Vipin: Why do we think we have it something that we don't have?

Is it the same thing that you described earlier? That, you know, If we think we understand it, we think we understand it because we've been in search for it, and it's, that's innate in us. And so, if we think we understand it, and we actually misunderstand it, then therefore, we also think we have it when we don't.

Hari Prasada: If I never experienced being the emperor of the world, when I'm the head of my class, I think Wow, I have real power here. I'm a powerful person. I'm an important person. If I think that the heart palpitations I get when a girl I like looks at me in that way, that she likes me too. If I think that that is the real thing, because I've never experienced the ecstasy, pure love.

From one self to another, then that's normal, right? So, because we're getting some tiny semblance of something that points directionally to something else that is completely different and the mind interprets that as this is good. I want more of this. This is great. I have an experience. And when we look around us and we see the hall of mirrors that everyone is doing that, we think, Oh, that's what love is.

That's what this world tells us. Everything reinforces that. So this is it. I like that. I want more of that. I don't know anything else. This is in Plato's cave. Outside of Plato's cave is a different reality completely.

Rasanath: I always talk about this example of me being in the monastery, feeling very hungry, coming from the outside, going directly into the kitchen, and looking at this steaming, freshly prepared desert halva that the cook had made.

And putting it on my plate, putting a lump, actually in my hand, I didn't even wait for a plate. I just like scooped it in my hand and I put it in my mouth. And the first thing that happened for me was I was just shocked. Something just shocked my system because instead of. putting sugar in it, the cook had actually put salt in it.

And guess what? And guess what? I did. I took a second bite. You liked it that much

because the hunger, the desperation for it, this is, this is the thing. We can't remove the desperation. We can't remove how deeply we want it. And yet we are unwilling to pay the price of what it takes to achieve pure love, which is. the complete dissolution of the ego, because you can't experience real love until the ego, the ego is always self directed.

It's always thinking about, you know, what do I get? What do I get? How about, what about me? So the only experience of love that can happen when we step out of the bounds of the ego. And we're actually starting to look beyond it. And we're not willing to pay that price, which means now we have to reduce what love is to fit within the ego's parameters.

But it doesn't satisfy the true self. It just doesn't. We still find ourselves wanting, but we're unwilling to acknowledge that our strategies Because it is so insulting to our, it is so confronting to our efforts. It is so embarrassing to who we think we are that we have to deny the fact that we don't actually experience what we are looking for.

Hari Prasada: Well, this is also leading to the second thing. So, Rasanath mentioned about reducing love. That's reducing it from what it actually is to something that we can experience that is not the real thing. That's disguise of love. And the second thing is, well, if it's really as high as what you're talking about, if it's really so deep and so powerful, and I don't have any experience of it myself, and I don't see it around me anywhere I go, then the second thing comes to which is, I dismiss.

Well, it's too lofty. It doesn't exist or if anybody ever has had it or even has it presently, it's definitely not for me. Good for them. Give you a round of applause. Nice job. Nice job. I don't need that. So I either reduce I make love something cheap. Or I dismiss it very cheaply as well that I won't ever have it and I don't care and it's a kind of sour grapes.

It's like, I'll just live my life. It's good enough. In fact, my life's great or if it's not great, then it's a defiance of like, I play the victim and I, I really stay in that space. And the thing is, an ego will not recognize. love much of the time, even when it's being directed towards them by somebody who has it.

Now, it's very rare to experience somebody who has it, but even in the case where you have somebody who has that love, the ego blocks it out. The ego is not receptive to it. The ego is looking for something else. So, And it's threatening when somebody has the real thing. And I don't even have the radar for it.

So what I'm doing is I'm making it that this person has motivation. This person is not unmotivated because I am so used to my ego. And so I'm seeing everything through that lens. There's a saying, wise coining in the sacred texts, Atmavan manyate jagat. We see everything through the lens of the mind. We see it through tinted glasses.

So if I'm motivated, then this person must also be. This person must also be. I can't even believe that there's somebody without an ego. And that's what happened when I met Radhnath Swami. I met who is Rasanath's guru and the person who introduced me to my spiritual path. When I was a student at New York University in 2006, I was so amazed by somebody that looked like he did, and I was like, surely he's not, he's not all that he's cracked up to be.

He must have some motivation. I just have to uncover. And I tried very hard. Most people actually wouldn't even care. They would just assume, and I experienced this with people that I introduced him to, they just assumed like, okay, nice guy. He's a good person, but of course he's also an ego like me and. For me, I couldn't accept that until I knew it was for sure.

And at that point, I just had fireworks in my zoom background. So that was very mystical, but that was what it was like meeting Rob not Swami. So I knew that I must. get to the truth of this. And I was hoping, I was secretly hoping to find the chink in his armor, but I couldn't. I followed him around and I only felt he was more and more genuine than I had allowed him to be.

And I was more and more inspired. And my ego was getting pulverized by his purity and by his love. That's the experience of Being with somebody who has that love. If we can step outside of our egos to receive it and to question ourselves, and not just level everybody, as Soren Ki Guard says, we try to level everybody, put everybody on the same level as me, out of a, a sense of cynicism and envy.

Also,

Rasanath: because if such a person exists. It shows the possibility.

Hari Prasada: And it renders my life meaningless in comparison. I have to change my paradigm, which

Rasanath: I don't want to

Hari Prasada: do.

Rasanath: It's

Hari Prasada: very threatening.

Rasanath: If that possibility exists and I'm not there, then that means I must change. And change is, that's why going back to what I said, you know, I have to pay a price that I'm not willing to pay a price, but it's very hard for me to acknowledge that because that's very humbling to the ego.

And so then I have to reduce or dismiss.

Vipin: So. In light of what you both just said about how difficult it is to acknowledge that this exists and not to default to reduction or dismissal, how can we strive for this type of love? without falling down on our way so easily. I mean, Rasnath, you said earlier, real love requires the dissolution of the ego and Hari Prasad, as you're describing Radhanath Swami, you're saying this is someone who has realized His true self and is not operating from the ego so he can give that kind of love that we're talking about here.

You as the recipient still have to let your ego step aside to really receive it, but you can receive something even if you can't receive the full thing that he's giving you, but you still have to be able to dissolve your ego to be able to receive it completely fully.

Hari Prasada: And even that was in stages.

Previous to my reading Soren Kierkegaard's The Sickness Unto Death, prior to reading that book, I had more walls up. And Soren Kierkegaard experienced, uh, through his book experienced, I have in the sidebars all of my comments, refuting him because I was so rebellious, I was so threatened, and upset, and unexamined, I didn't know that I was Confronted by his paradigm, which was different from mine.

I, this is unconscious. We don't know these things until we shed more light and we become more conscious. But in retrospect, it was very clear that I was fighting him because I didn't like what he had to say, which was all about love, all about the real thing. He has even, A book works of love. That's what it all comes down to.

But I was like, no, no, no, I have love. I have love. And you are not to tell me what is love. You are not to tell me that I'm not living according to the highest level of motivation. And even if I'm not living according to the highest level of motivation, no one can. And even if they do, good for them. I was doing all of that.

But without his opening me up and seeing something, having a little bit of sincerity to see his wisdom, and to be defeated by him, and literally, I experienced an incredible defeat. And Srila Prabhupada, my guru's guru and Radhnath Swami's guru, he said when he met his guru, Bhaktisiddhanta, who is actually the son of Bhaktivinoda Thakur, who gave us the source material on these four levels of motivation.

When Prabhupada met Bhaktisiddhanta, he said, I was so happy to be defeated by him. He crashed through my paradigm. I was holding strong to it. I was Fighting it, he crashed through it by his purity, his wisdom, his love. And I was so happy to be defeated. And that's what happened to me with Kierkegaard. I put up a big fight.

And so by the time I met Radhanath Swamy, even though there was still some fight in me, and there was still the skepticism and disbelief and confrontation and threat, still, I was more open. If I had met him previously, I wouldn't have been able to receive. And I think I, I think I might have met him previously and I barely even remember it if I did meet him because I was so closed.

So we have to become opened up to receive and to see what's going on and to create space for actual reality to enter in. Instead of just wearing my glasses, seeing everything through the lens of my mind, and then reducing and dismissing accordingly, that's the prerequisite.

Vipin: How do we do this? If I'm listening, how do I open myself up in the way that you're describing?

How do I strive for the type of love that we're talking about without getting defensive and reducing and dismissing? How do we do this?

Rasanath: It's not that we won't get defensive because that's the natural reaction of the ego and we have one. It's to see where the reaction is coming from. When we are identified with our, this is the whole purpose, we are coming back full circle.

When we run the program, Remembering Who We Are, the idea behind the program is to reinforce that we are, in essence, these spirits, souls, that have nothing to do really with the ego and the mind and the body. And when you see the defenses, it's not to suppress them, but it's just to recognize that these defenses are coming from having identified with the ego, from being so stuck on, on the first two levels of motivation, really.

Which is why the four levels of motivation is important, because the third level is a corridor to the fourth. It's so important to understand why the third level, the level of duty, the level of actually really living and deeply thinking about what's the right thing to do, really thinking about the other, is the antidote to how the ego thinks.

The ego is self directed. Now, even when we do that, we will be tempted by the ego to be recognized as, oh, this person is so moral, which is why a lot of conversations happen around fairness. Oh, that was not fair. And many times the conversations that aren't fair are around ethical. I did all of these things and the person did not, that person did not show up that way.

Right. And we will be confronting our egos again, but that's the only way out. We have to learn how to think about the other, even within the context of being imprisoned by the ego, which is why any spiritual tradition will emphasize selfless service. The idea of seva, as talked by the Eastern traditions, is for us to start to break free from the shackles of the ego.

So when you come across someone who you experience real love from, the way you can start to go there is by starting to render service. to that person and to the words of that person, to start to act according to the directions of that person, which is why, again, we need a teacher. We need a guide and we need to act according to the guide, even when it's not palatable for the ego.

It's recognizing that the defenses and they will come. It's natural. The defenses will come up. We are, you know, it's transition, but we refuse to act on those defenses. We refuse to give into those defenses and act on the higher principles. Which is how we start breaking free from the gravitational pull of the ego.

Hari Prasada: I also just want to highlight what you said earlier, Vipin, in response to your own question, because I think it's so important. When you were describing the experience that we had on this subject at Remembering Who We Are, which was so impactful for all of us, you mentioned the result was many people said, Oh my God, I don't actually know what love is.

And then said, I need help. I need help to understand that's really what it comes down to. And that's what Soren Kierkegaard did for me was he got me to admit my own ignorance, which was very painful, very difficult, which I did not want to do at all. I fancied myself a smart person, a deep person, a good person, a loving person, all of that.

And to humbly admit, I don't know. What love is. I don't know what I'm talking about. That was a big thing, but by exposing what's going on with a deeper understanding and getting ourselves to question our egos, question our assumptions, question our experience of love, that is the beginning. And then we say, Oh, this is a problem.

I'm looking for something that I don't have. I'm pretending I have it, or I'm saying nobody has it, or I can't have it. This is a problem. Now I need help. I need help. And then our hearts and minds are open for guidance from those who can help from those who are further along on the.

Vipin: Wonderful. Thank you both so much.

I just, I wanted to summarize a few things for myself and hopefully for those who are listening as well. We define love by these three things. Three ons, which is what it is not. But part of the reason we define it that way is because the experience is kind of beyond words. And so we have to use what we're familiar with.

Rasnath, you shared unmotivated, uninterrupted and unalloyed. And also we use the word unconditional and the only way to really experience to be able to give a love like that. And to fully receive a love like that is when we are stepping outside of the bounds of our egos, where our egos have been dissolved.

And until then we might be able to get glimpses or tastes of this, but that's the path. When we talk about how do we strive for that love, a love that's boundless and it exists for all living beings, it's, having identified with the real self and not, not with the ego. And when that's the case, then we're going all the way back to this level of motivation, the four levels of motivation, this level of love.

Acts in such a way that when we, when we receive a love like that, we are motivated to reciprocate that love to serve that other person for no other reason than the love itself, than the reciprocation, not for. What I will get for it or what I won't get for it or what this person how this person will respond to me as a result and not because it's the right thing to do, but purely as a reciprocation for something that there's no way to repay what I've received and that's what this level of motivation looks like.

Rasanath: Here's the other thing that I wanted to add very quickly because we start from a place of motivation. the spiritual path, it doesn't tell you stop being motivated. It actually says, look, direct your motivation. When you see someone who has true love, be motivated to desire that being motivated to desire that you will gradually get to a place where, uh, the experience of you want.

And so initially it has to start with the motivation. I want that kind of love,

Vipin: right? Where are you going to direct your desires?

Hari Prasada: But that's a good motivation. That's not on the level of prospect, even. That's actually, and I want to come back to that because that's a very powerful, healthy motivation.

Rasanath: Because you're actually desiring, it's almost like, because you are aspiring for what is on level four, suddenly the motivation finds its purest state. which is desiring, desiring pure love. So that desire is a very necessary one for us to go on the path of spiritual life. Also to what you said, Vipin, about serving somebody who has it.

The spirit behind the service is, I want what you have. I do want what you have, but it's not saying after I get that, then I'll just go and do my own thing. That is material. The reason why I want to serve is because what you have is something that I want so badly to experience, which is pure love. And over time, when I get that experience.

I'm not really thinking about, well, I'm doing this so that I can get what I want. I'm actually starting to serve from a place of, I'm so grateful for what I've received, and I just want to, I just want to reciprocate. But it initially starts with a desire for wanting what the other person has.

Hari Prasada: I wanted to close with the same idea that I was expressing at the close of remembering who we are series, which is, we're not expected to be perfect on Level four level four is lofty.

It is so high. It is so pure and pristine and cannot be cheapened. And at the same time, you don't have to be the possessor of that love. to set your motivation to be attaining that love as Rasanath was mentioning that is actually possible for us and we can perform loving service. What is love? It's actually selfless service to all living beings out of boundless affection, selfless service for all living beings out of boundless affection.

We don't have to be the possessors of that to set our intention and try to act, try to follow in the footsteps of great souls who have modeled that, who have poured into us, who have given us teachings, who've given us practices, who have given us themselves. We can aspire, we can model our actions little by little after them.

My whole life now is about trying to do that. I try not to do anything outside of that level 4 motivation. Do I have that love? No. But am I precluded from having that as my motivation? No. So this is such a high thing that it can't be reduced and it can't be dismissed. Yes. And yet it is also practical and available and here for all of us to build to grow more and more and more.

It is here and now. Practice makes perfect.

Vipin: Thank you. The last thought I wanted to share was just It's not the most natural thing to connect love and spirituality. Most people, including myself, don't always think about love as a spiritual subject. And what I'm really taking away from this conversation is love is only a spiritual subject that, um, Pure love can only come from and be received by the spirit soul, not from anything material.

So anything else that we're talking about in a material realm or context is, as Hari Prasad, you like to say, uh, a distorted refraction of the real thing. And It's never been more clear to me than in this moment, I would say right now that why love and spirituality are so intertwined, why you can't understand love without a spiritual paradigm, without a spiritual context is very powerful.

Hari Prasada: Ultimately, where are these great souls getting their love from? They're going straight to the source. They're going straight to the source. So that is a spiritual paradigm that's required. Otherwise, we're operating within our framework that precludes the possibility of the real thing, real love.

Vipin: Thank you both very much for sharing your wisdom on this subject, and I really hope that it benefits people who are listening not to dismiss Or reduce because it's so easy to do that and not to feel like what these guys are talking about is so distant or theoretical or far away but that actually this is the birthright of of each of us that it's there within us and It requires inquiry.

It requires spiritual inquiry. So many people feel motivated by this conversation to pursue that inquiry. Thank you so much. Thank you both.