Swami Swaroopananda

Life has its needs, expectations, wishes, and desires but it becomes meaningless if there is no love. Today’s modern education with its emphasis on memorization and rational thinking develops the intellect but not the heart. Logic without the sensitivity of love, pure rational intellect without devotion becomes not only dry, but also very often ruthless and even diabolic.

These days, a lot of importance is given to finance, stress and time management, but love management is nowhere on the agenda. The IQ of a person is useful in obtaining a degree, gaining top grades at Stanford or Yale and procuring a job, but it is the Emotional Quotient that eventually ensures success in the workplace and in life itself. The success of a person depends not so much on the art of managing things or finances, but on how he manages people and therefore, in all fields of life and in all relationships, the management of emotions is of utmost significance

Emotions can be both negative and positive. Uncontrolled emotions cause agitations and deplete our energies and capacities, but noble emotions enrich life, increase capacity and productivity, and bring greater peace and happiness.

Pujya Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda often said that emotions and sentiments adorn a person, but sentimentalism is an ugly scar on the human personality. Emotions determine one’s reactions to experiences, situations and persons; they determine how one transacts with people and thus ultimately, one’s success in life. For example, in the office or in the family, a person may be honest and frank, but if he does not have sweetness and sensitivity of character, he will not be successful.

All noble emotions come from love; all the positive values needed to live a life of productivity, beauty and happiness are born out of love. Everybody wants love. There is no endeavor that man takes up with such sincerity and enthusiasm as his pursuit of love and the failure of no project causes as much misery as the failure of one’s aspirations in love. Love becomes directly associated with pain, regret, and guilt.

Everyone wants love, everybody falls in love, yet everybody fears love. In one of the camps for youngsters, when I was talking on the topic of love and explaining its various aspects, a teenager sang:

Some say love it is a river that drowns the tender reed,

Some say love it is a razor that makes the soul to bleed,

Some say love-it is a hunger, a never-ending need.

This is what most people think love to be, because this beautiful emotion has been badly misused and abused and today almost anything is mistaken for love. Infatuation is mistaken for love, attachment is understood as love and even vulgarity and sensuality is called love. People do not understand the nature of love, do not know the difference between love and what goes on in the name of love and end up feeling confused, disappointed and dejected.

The Author is the Global Head of Chinmaya Mission