Do you have love for your children?

One has to understand these things! Right now you wonder whether there is such a thing as love in this world?

Questioner: Nowadays, we think that the affection we have for our children is love.

Dadashri: Is that so? Even a sparrow has love for her young ones. When she returns to her nest with food, the little hatchlings get excited. The sparrow will place one seed at a time in the mouth of each of her young ones. I am amazed as to how she manages to store the seeds in her beak and yet dispense only one seed at a time in the mouths of her hatchlings.

Questioner:  But how can they have infatuation and attraction when they do not have any intellect?

Dadashri: Yes. That is what I am telling you. This is just something to illustrate the point. Actually even that is not considered love. Love should be with understanding. Even then it is not considered love. This is just an analogy given to understand the difference between the two. Have you not heard people say that the cow has so much affection towards her calf and she has no expectations in return?

False Love: Infatuation And Attraction Is Associated With Expectations 

Infatuation and attraction is found where there is expectation for something in return. How many people must there be in India who have no expectations?

Even when a person grows a mango tree he does it with the expectation that he and his family will enjoy its fruit. He even expects his grandchildren to benefit from it. He does not nurture the tree for the sake of nurturing it and not expecting anything in return. He nurtures it for its fruit. That is why people raise children, for their own benefit, so that their children will take care of them later on. Do you think they raise their children so the children would abuse them when they are old?

Questioner: They raise them so they will take care of them.

Dadashri: But nowadays they abuse them. One man told me, ‘My son does not take care of me’. I replied, ‘Then what do you expect, you yourself are not deserving of their care.’