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~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Video Information:
Interview Session, 12.02.20, Greater Noida, India
Context:
Who was Saint Valentine?
How to celebrate Valentine's day?
What's the history of Valentine’s Day?
What are six surprising Facts About St. Valentine?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ .
Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquiry-gita-course?cmId=m00056
📚 Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books?
Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?cmId=m00056
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Video Information:
Interview Session, 12.02.20, Greater Noida, India
Context:
Who was Saint Valentine?
How to celebrate Valentine's day?
What's the history of Valentine’s Day?
What are six surprising Facts About St. Valentine?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ .
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Alright Anu, would you now tell me what is all this about?
00:21It's Valentine's Day, so I just wanted to share all the gifts that I got with you.
00:28Oh, you received so many gifts.
00:32It's Valentine, it's actually been a week, so it's, you know, the love is in the air
00:38and everybody is very very happy and so this is one of the mediums in which people have
00:43been sharing their happiness.
00:45So I've got cards, I've got chocolates, like rose obviously, you know, so some jewellery
00:54as well.
00:55So a fat lot of gifts, who is it?
01:03A few, not just, you know, one.
01:06Okay, so who are they?
01:08They're there, they're, you know, they're trying to…
01:12Looks like half a dozen of them at least.
01:15Not really, but you know, they're trying because, you know, Valentine's, they get the courage
01:22to approach apparently, so they've been, you know, so it's said that it's a special day
01:27where you can, you know, kind of approach somebody in that manner, you know.
01:34Looks like it has been a pretty happy week for you.
01:37Yeah.
01:38Fine, good, good for you.
01:40Now, why have I brought them to you, that is the question.
01:44So although it has been a very happy week, however, I do remember, you know, your teachings
01:51and so you've, you know, it's something that you're not very fond of.
01:57So the gifts would not, is not something that would make you very, very happy.
02:02That much like I'm pretty, that much I've learned.
02:06So I just wanted to understand, like, what is your take on this?
02:11Because it does make everybody else who I've met happy and it does, it's, and you know,
02:16those people who wanted to show their affection were able to do it on this day or throughout
02:22this week.
02:23So just wanted to understand, you know, your take on Valentine's Day and, you know, and
02:28gift giving in that manner.
02:34Who is this fellow called Valentine?
02:37He was Saint Valentine, I hear, Roman in times.
02:45There have been at least three Saint Valentines and there are at least three dates in the
02:57calendar that are officially designated by three different churches as Valentine's Day.
03:0714th of February happens to be the most popular and the most celebrated of those dates.
03:21You said that I'm not very fond of these things, I'm actually very, very fond of Saint Valentines.
03:35Though we do not know about him with much historical accuracy, yet whatsoever has come
03:44to us by way of legend or myth or folklore, it's still quite sufficient to make him a special character.
03:56You know his story?
03:57Somewhat.
03:58What do you know about him?
03:59Okay, so the most popular ones that I like read on and I've heard, so in the Roman days
04:08marriage was banned because the king thought that soldiers focus better if they weren't
04:15married.
04:16So he put a ban on marriages and Saint Valentine was the one who would, you know, still officiate
04:21the weddings of those couples and have them, you know, so in the sense of flourishing of
04:28love in that manner.
04:29It was not merely to get people married.
04:37The king wanted war, the king wanted war and he would say that if you have love, then your
04:49tendency to be ferocious and violent reduces.
04:56So therefore he said that young men should be dedicating their energies towards war,
05:06bloodshed, violence, these things.
05:11Saint Valentine, he said this won't do.
05:18So when he would find a genuinely loving couple, he would arrange for them to get married.
05:31He was probably a priest, probably a pastor, some religious figure he was.
05:39So he would get them married.
05:42So first thing is this, he was not someone who wanted man pitted against man, he did
05:52not want violence amongst human beings.
05:57So he is arrested and put into the jail and again there are various stories, but the gist
06:10is that there he grew into affection for the judges or the jailer's daughter and she
06:32happened to be blind.
06:35He restored her eyesight and this is metaphorical, the true meaning has to be understood.
06:47You see, he is a saint, he is no ordinary lover.
06:54So when it is said that he restored her eyesight, what it means is that he got her in the fold
07:04of the religion of Jesus.
07:08Actually the story says that 40 to 50 members of the jailer's household converted to Christianity
07:19and obviously that included the jailer's daughter as well.
07:25So when he loves, that's the action of his love, to bring the beloved to the path of
07:35religion and that is also what is symbolically meant by giving eyes to someone.
07:42She was blind and he gave her eyes.
07:45She was blind probably not in the physical sense, but in the mental sense that she could
07:51not see the truth.
07:54She could not really understand what the world is, what life is, what thoughts are, what
08:01emotions are, what is this entire business of taking birth, living, dying and he gave
08:11this vision to her and in that sense he gave her eyesight.
08:23Just before he was to be executed, martyred, he wrote her a letter and in that letter,
08:34he signed off with your valentine.
08:40There was the first letter in which someone declared himself as somebody's valentine and
08:49he sends this letter to the girl and soon after that he is beheaded, executed.
08:58His skull ornamented with flowers is still on display in Rome.
09:10So that is the entire thing about St. Valentine's martyrdom.
09:21Obviously it is something beautiful and entirely lovable.
09:26So do not think that I despise this day.
09:29I obviously do not.
09:32This day is important for two reasons.
09:36The first reason we have already talked of, St. Valentine's courage and sacrifice.
09:47The other reason we will come to in a while.
09:55So you see, this is what love does.
09:56This is the action of love.
09:57Two things are important here.
10:02You said that you are seeing love in the air, the sky is pink and people are going around
10:08holding hands and doing their sweet little thing.
10:11They are very happy, very romantic, all those things are there.
10:17Now you have some sort of a couple.
10:22In St. Valentine's case as well, there is a man, there is a woman and the man has developed
10:32affection for the woman.
10:34Now see what happens there.
10:38What is it that you gift to your beloved?
10:44What did he gift her?
10:48He gave her light.
10:50So that's the Valentine's Day gift, worthy of being given.
10:57That's the only gift worth giving and worth receiving obviously.
11:02Now there are all these things that you have received, surely they are all nice and cute.
11:09But you must check how much of this gives you vision.
11:13Remember that St. Valentine gave eyesight to his girl.
11:23Is this giving you eyesight and vision?
11:25If yes, wonderful.
11:27If no, then you need to take all this a little casually.
11:34So that's about what you give to the other.
11:39And related to that is, what happens to you in the process of giving a genuine gift of
11:46love to the other?
11:49What happened to St. Valentine?
11:56He gave eyes to his girl, great.
12:03And what happened to him in the process?
12:07That's the action of love.
12:09You give the greatest gift possible to the other, which is not a teddy bear or roses
12:16or jewellery or lot of other things that you have here, cards, not this.
12:24Gift her that which makes life living, worth living.
12:29And in that process, if you are to be beheaded, so be it.
12:33In fact, you cannot give the highest gift to the other without facing adverse and dire
12:40consequences upon yourself.
12:46That's the standard that the saint had set.
12:53And all the couples that are going around, they are most welcome to be in love.
12:57Love is a beautiful thing, probably the most beautiful thing.
13:01This is what we are really born for.
13:05But then what is the quality of one's love?
13:08Shouldn't that be investigated into?
13:12You give her that which she really needs and in the process, you lay down your own life
13:23and you need to have the guts, the clarity and the love to do that.
13:34That's what the whole thing is about.
13:40So the one who has given me, let's say the rose or the chocolates or this card, if they
13:48themselves do not carry the wisdom to know what is the right gift, then…
13:55You must see that the whole thing is spiritual in context.
14:01The one who lends his name to this day was a saint and only a saint can love.
14:12When a saint loves, then he gives you eyes.
14:20When an ordinary man loves, he gives you all this and a lot of nonsense, a lot of headache,
14:30a lot of mischief.
14:31I am not alleging, but isn't that what we usually observe?
14:38What is this card?
14:43So, see what it reads with due respect to the one who gave this to you.
14:52Your love is like chocolate, I want to bite into it all the time.
14:57Now does this sound even remotely like something coming from Saint Valentine?
15:07That's the issue.
15:09Your love is like chocolate, I want to bite into it all the time.
15:13Desire, consumption and hidden exploitation, trying to bite into the other.
15:25Self-gratification which necessarily comes at the cost of the other.
15:46Your love is so tempting, the more I have it, the more I want.
15:53I, I and I, temptation.
15:59Your love is so lingering, it's always playing on my mind and the ones who have known life,
16:05they have said that if something starts playing on your mind, then it is not at all good for
16:10you because it has become another burden on the mind.
16:14The mind that is already burdened a lot is now carrying constant thoughts and memories
16:21and ideas of one more person.
16:27But that's our definition of love, no, I am thinking about you.
16:31The saints laid down their life so that our faulty definition of love gets corrected and
16:40that's probably the best use this day can be put to, correcting the definition of love.
16:50Moments of your love, just like a chocolate, comes with loads of joy but seem to get over
16:59too quickly.
17:02Excitement, ignorance, ingredients in the classic recipe of suffering.
17:19I don't want to spoil your day, but I see it, you yourself have been not very certain
17:25about things, otherwise you wouldn't have come to me with all this.
17:29Because it was very temporary, like, and I wanted to know more.
17:34You wanted to know more.
17:35Do you also want to show more?
17:38Something else?
17:39I can see that thing down there, what's that?
17:42Okay, that didn't fit the table, so.
17:44That was beyond the scope of the table?
17:47I almost feel guilty when I think of the one who gifted you this, with all his soft and
18:03delicate feelings, now here I am, revealing something beyond the teddy.
18:13But then, it might give the giver and the receiver some quick happiness.
18:24That happiness doesn't last, and not only does it not last, it brings in its wake a
18:30lot of mischief, a lot of sorrow.
18:35Life can be much better than that.
18:39So what is love then?
18:44What would St. Valentine's Day say, what is love?
18:48Bringing light to the other, that was love.
18:53Simple straight, that is love.
18:56Bring light to the other.
19:00It's not your own self-interest that you think of in love.
19:04Bring light to the other, even if you are to be killed the next day, as St. Valentine
19:09was, still bring light to the other.
19:14Even if the one you are bringing light to is your executioner's daughter, still bring
19:20light to her.
19:21And her family.
19:22And her entire family, remember that even the judge or the jailer, whosoever he was,
19:31we do not know the exact history, even he converted to Christianity after St. Valentine's
19:39Sacrifice, even he converted.
19:42So that's the action of love, that's the power of love, that's the compassion of love, that's
19:47the giving capacity of love.
19:51And remember that true love is bound to be spiritual, it can be nothing else but spiritual.
19:59So how do I finally celebrate Valentine's Day, if not…
20:03Call up these people, call up these people and have a really genuine and honest and deep
20:10discussion with them.
20:11I know it may put them off a bit.
20:14Because that's not the expectation.
20:15That's not the expectation.
20:16When they receive your call, they would probably immediately raise some other kind of hope
20:23in their mind.
20:25But if you know love even a little bit, then you should liberate these people from their
20:36self-defeating and self-deceptive fantasies, not further, you know, stoke the fire.
20:44Not reciprocate.
20:45Not reciprocate, yes, not reciprocate.
20:51So a wisdom book maybe then.
20:53A wisdom book, obviously.
20:56You see, it starts with all these things, but you must know what it leads to.
21:03Look at the stats released by the Durex company, it manufactures condoms.
21:10In the Valentine's Day week, sale of condoms spikes by 20-30%.
21:22And then there are the stats available from the medical organizations.
21:28March is the peak month for termination of pregnancy.
21:38So it's not just about these, you know, sweet chocolates and all that.
21:44This love has something enriching, something deeper, something spiritual about it.
21:53It is bound to be all about the body.
21:57Even if it appears emotional, that emotion would ultimately lead only to the body.
22:05So this fallacy that love is primarily emotional must be understood and discounted.
22:19Love is not an emotion.
22:22Love primarily is a spiritual understanding.
22:26From that comes a high quality relationship with the other.
22:32In that relationship, you want to elevate the other.
22:35You don't want to exploit the other.
22:37You don't want to just eat into, bite into somebody's body.
22:43Nor is love some kind of a recipe to temporarily heal somebody's loneliness.
23:00The kind of meanings that we associate with love are highly demeaning actually.
23:08Because they bring you down.
23:12And Saint Valentine won't be quite pleased with the meanings we have associated with
23:18his name, his day.
23:20By the way, the sacrifice took place in the 3rd century AD.
23:30And the association of his sacrifice with romantic love took place almost a thousand
23:38years later, more than a thousand years later.
23:42So that association is pretty recent, 14th century, 15th century.
23:47And it was not until the 18th century or so that formal celebrations started.
23:56So you see that these formal celebrations, the participation of market in the festival
24:04of love has a strong consumerist angle to it.
24:14It's a religious day actually.
24:17And true love is bound to be religious.
24:20If you do not like the word religious, then spiritual.
24:24Always remember what Saint Valentine did.
24:30He loved the woman.
24:34He gave her eyes and laid down his own life.
24:38That is love.
24:39Does laying down of life always mean that you have, you know, that's death?
24:46Good.
24:47You see, just as gifting eyes to someone has to be understood beyond the metaphor, beyond
24:56the simple.
24:57Similarly, laying down of one's life or getting beheaded has to be understood beyond the symbolism.
25:08The head stands for the ego.
25:11In love, and in India especially, saints have repeatedly said, if you go to Saint Kabir
25:19for example, he would say, sar kaate bhoi dhare, tab baithe ghar maahe, ye to ghar hai
25:26prem ka, khaala ka ghar naahe, this is the house of love.
25:30In this house, you can enter only after you have cut down your head and put it on the
25:37floor.
25:38So getting beheaded implies severing, cutting off the strong mental and intellectual tendency
25:51to look after your own self-interest and that is called the ego.
25:55The head stands for the ego and the ego means, I, I, I, I have to take care of my desires,
26:01my wants, I'll do that which makes me happy, gives me pleasure.
26:06So you have to get rid of that feeling and that's a very, very strong tendency in every
26:10human being.
26:11Love implies, get rid of your self-centered life, cut off your head, which means please
26:21gain some kind of separation, some freedom from your ego and give to the other what the
26:29other really needs.
26:31Do not be associated with the other in order to get something from her.
26:38Be associated with the other to give something to her and what is it that you give to her?
26:44That which she needs.
26:47Give her eyes, give her spiritual vision, give her the capacity to really see life,
26:55live in freedom, live in clarity and therefore live in joy beyond sorrow.
27:05Because she will think she needs all of this.
27:07Yeah, she may often think that she needs all of this and when you initially try to gift
27:13her eyes, she may even feel offended.
27:16She may say the entire world is gifting each other nice things, this, this, this, this,
27:22this and who are you, you are giving me some kind of religious Gyan, I do not want it.
27:29But then these gifts, look at this, look at this, we are living in an age when many species
27:39of bears, koalas, pandas are getting fast extinct.
27:44As a young man, should your energy be directed towards this toy, turning the bear into a
27:52toy or really living in a way that helps save the species?
28:00That would be love.
28:01That would be love.
28:12So the bear is no harm?
28:14There is nothing harmful in the bear, obviously.
28:18Just that if it limits your life to the stuff present on this table here, then such a life
28:27is pretty limited and suffocating and dwarfed and therefore wasted and hence dark and hence
28:40full of sorrow.
28:41Why live such a life?
28:46This will offer you some momentary excitement but then give you very little depth or richness
28:52and as a young man or woman, you deserve to have a rich, deep, high life.
28:59Love is about gifting that to the other.
29:03Before we end, Acharyaji, you had mentioned two reasons why you love Valentine's Day.
29:09One was because of St. Florentine, the actual story, the actual scene.
29:14What was the second one?
29:18You remembered that.
29:20The second reason why I love the Valentine's Day is because it reminds me of how much work
29:29is left for me.
29:32When I look at all the cute stupidities happening in the name of Valentine's Day and love,
29:44it strongly reminds me that I have a mission at hand.
29:51I need to do a lot.
29:53The world really requires the gift of eyes.
29:58So, yes, this is an important day for me as well.
30:02I guess you love Valentine as much as we pretend.
30:08We all need reminders.
30:09I too need reminders.
30:10So, when these things happen and a public display of ignorance and consumerism happens
30:20in the name of love, then it's a pretty strong call to work even harder in the limited time
30:30that one has.
30:32Listen to that call.