Friday, November 20, 2015

If Love is the answer, could you please rephrase the question?

Ever since I have been writing nothing has fascinated me more than human relationships & why not? relationships based on love make for an interesting read even though why love happens itself has been dissected thoroughly by medical sciences. Brain must be most fantastic organ of all.. works 24X7 from the time you are born till you fall in love..

La Rochefoucauld said "True love is like seeing ghosts we all talk about it, but few of us have ever seen one" & at this ripe old age 40, I do concur. Being a behaviour addict, i just see so many of known/unknown people in agony, rarely happy for a longer duration. We are remnants of an age wherein we got into marriage or relationship with not much expectations except for companionship & raising a family together. Times have indeed changed!

I see lot of young women who complaint of not being able to find love but constantly going out with the same man who more often than not, picks them from office/home and tabs too. Gives gifts on birthdays, throws parties but is kept hanging like a cur waiting for something sweet while 'They' are looking for someone to love. Lot of man are no different in their behaviour. 

Jack Nicholson once said, “Almost everybody's happy to be a fool for love."
It's highly doubtful that he had evolutionary psychology on his mind when he made this statement, but nonetheless he tapped into a fundamental human foible: When it comes to dating, mating, and relationships, it can be hard for us to see straight. While we may have few 100 thousand years between our forbearers (primitive men) & us, we continue to exhibit same behaviour with regards to dating,mating & seeking. 
This shows evolution of man.It also means that our sages were indeed truthful & brave to write, mention the trials and tribulation as a society that we went through. they have recorded the 'Yug Dharma' as it changed over the years.Greatest of the warriors & one of the most learned mind 'Pitamaha Bhishma' said the following in 'Shanti parva' .. dialogues between him and Dharmaraj Yudhsthir


न चैषां मैथुनो धर्मो बभूव भरतर्षभ
संकल्पादेवैतेषां अपत्यं उपपद्यते - 37

ततः त्रेतायुगेकाले संस्पर्शात् जायते प्रजान
ह्य भूः मैथुनो धर्मस्तेषां अपि जनाधिप - 38

द्वापरे मैथुनो धर्म प्रजानां भवन्नृपःतथा
कलियुगे राजन द्वन्द्व मापेदिरे जनाः - 39


"In satya yuga, intercourse happened as desire arose in minds of fertile men and women. There were no words for mother, father, sibling etc. In Treta Yuga, when men and women touched each other and welcomed the touch, dharma allowed them to copulate for time-being. (this is stage where concept of "favourite" mate started emerging). IN Dwapara Yuga, Men and women started cohabiting as couples but not as stable and committed pair-bonding couples. In Kali Yuga, the stable pair-bonding (what we refer to as institution of marriage) emerged."


Why is making accurate assessments so fraught with difficulty in todays romantic contexts? From an evolutionary perspective, these biases helped our ancestors achieve reproductive success in a prehistoric environment in which that was difficult to do. In a thinly populated world, there were far fewer mating opportunities in a relatively short lifetime. They were also under great threat from infectious diseases and starvation.

Our memories have stories when there were no "names" for relations. Only relation was that between a fertile man and woman. In fact here have been references to The references of free cohabitation, sibling cohabitation, offering one's "stri (woman)" to friend OR guest" (Kindly note that the word "patni" had not evolved), references towards intercourse with alive and dead animals, intercourse with wife of one's guru, cohabitation with multiple males, temporary cohabitation, contract marriage all these are mentioned in Puranas & is the history of Indic people."You can also add Shiva's Aasakti on Mohini & the chase. Subsequently the birth of Harihara.

I return to the fundamental question, what is love and where are the origins of this word? Did we actually confuse this word with what we call " आशक्ति " or lust ? 

In other words, there's a mismatch between our ancient genes and our modern lives—in our diet, and in the romantic realm. Here are four common biases when it comes to love: See what an award winning psychologist Dr Mehta had to say about man women relationships in modern times...



  1. We pay too much attention to looks. According to research, physical attractiveness in the romantic realm is an advertisement of health and fitness. In the ancient world, infectious diseases were far more prevalent than they are today. Muscular men with chiseled features, and women with an optimal waist-to-hip ratio were advertisements that their offspring stood a greater chance of surviving and reproducing. Studies show that we still have an attentional bias for beauty.
  2. " Women underestimate commitment. Pregnancy and lactation are costly for women, which likely encouraged their preference for mates who demonstrate clear signs of long-term commitment and the provision of resources during pregnancy and breastfeeding. Indeed, research shows that women tend to underestimate the level of commitment on the part of men. After all, it would be more costly for a woman to have sex with a man who will love her and leave her than to underestimate a man's interest and wait until a more committed partner comes along. This may explain why some women may debate for stretches of time whether the number of calls, texts, emails, and dates initiated by a suitor add up to real signs of interest and a possible long-term relationship."
  3. Men overperceive sexual interest. Like their counterparts in the animal kingdom, human males invest less in reproduction and can potentially produce far more offspring in his lifetime than women. Thus it is to their reproductive benefit to have a variety of mating partners, which likely encouraged a keener ability to pick up on signals of interest on the part of women. After all, there's more to lose in underestimating sexual interest and missing out on a sexual opportunity than there is in overestimating sexual interest and losing time pursuing a woman who isn't interested. Research consistently shows that men are biased toward overestimating the degree to which a woman may be interested in him. Perhaps this explains why some guys come on too strong, or don't give up when it seems it's time.
  4. We all get jealous way too easily. The green-eyed monster may not be a flattering human emotion, but has served a useful function over the course of human evolution. In women, jealousy serves to prevent their mates from providing resources for other female rivals. For men, jealousy prevents cuckoldry, i.e., investing in genetically unrelated children. The consequences for both genders would be, evolutionarily speaking, costly. Yet today, both resources and paternity certainty can be more easily accessed, and thus jealous responses can unfortunately misfire." 
Pitamah Bhishma also said that 'Kama' is the जननी (mother) of all 'purushaasrtha'.. Let me go back to the root of it all. The root is 'Sanatan' . the word itself can be broken down to Sat -anant or as some bifurcate it as, Sat + Aa + Tan.The meaning is, 'Pursuit since Sat' . Wherin Sat can be construed as Satyug or Truth. So the continuity of civilization is the 'Dharma'

Between all this, where is love? what were you saying, can you repeat that love thing?

No comments:

Post a Comment