Manisha Dhami
Imagine love as a river carving through forests. It doesn’t clutch the banks it touches. Instead, it nourishes them, flows freely and merges with the ocean, transformed yet eternally connected. In our rush hour lives, we often mistake love for possession. “This person is mine,” we declare, building dams of jealousy and control. But philosophy whispers a deeper truth. Love is developmental liberation, a force that frees us to grow, much like nature’s rhythms.
This isn’t abstract poetry. It’s the heartbeat of human bonds. In families, friendships, or romances, real love mirrors a banyan tree. Roots entwine without strangling. Branches spread wide, offering shade to all. Love is- “One is not born, but rather becomes,” releasing the beloved to unfold, just as a river welcomes tributaries without force.
Indic wisdom elevates this to cosmic scale, revealing love not as personal gain but universal unfolding. Vedanta’s clarion call, “Tat Tvam Asi” (That thou art), isn’t a mere line. It’s love’s alchemy, the moment the dewdrop trembles, not in fear of vanishing, but in awe of becoming the sky. It’s love’s profound realisation: the self (Tvam) and the infinite (Tat) are one, like rivers losing names upon merging into the sea. No “mine” versus “yours,” but shared essence dissolving ego’s illusions of separation. Love becomes the mirror shattering “I” into “we,” fostering growth beyond isolation. It is the silent, resonant chord that hums between two stars, recognising they are born from the same explosion. It’s the spark of ananda (bliss), where recognizing oneness births boundless joy, not fleeting pleasure.
Samkhya philosophy paints a mesmerising nature metaphor: Prakriti (dynamic matter, the ever-changing river of forms) and Purusha (pure consciousness, the silent witness shore) don’t cling or possess. They evolve in harmonious witness. Their interplay, like wind rippling water without drowning it or sunlight kissing leaves without scorching them, sparks all creation: galaxies, life, minds, without bondage. It is the universe’s first and final love story, not a conquest, but a constant, creative courtship. It’s love as cosmic creativity, where freedom fuels evolution, not chains, balancing Prakriti’s three gunas (sattva, rajas, tamas) into rhythmic dance.
Advaita’s vision completes the circle: love pierces maya, the illusion that paints us as separate droplets battling for space, revealing we’re all ocean from the start. The lover doesn’t possess the beloved. They awaken to their shared vastness, seeing the same consciousness gazing back from every eye. It is the wave falling in love not with another wave, but with the very water of its own being. Like waves rising, dancing, crashing, yet never leaving water, love reveals boundaries were never real. What seemed “other”—spouse, child, stranger—becomes extension of self. Every argument dissolves into understanding. Every farewell becomes homecoming. Relationships transform from transactions into mirrors of the infinite, where loving another is loving your own boundless nature.
Yet today’s society mistakes attachment for love, reducing sacred bonds to transactions bartering security, status and validation for souls. Dating apps commodify human connections as “matches” to collect like trophies, turning souls into profiles we endlessly swipe through, chasing the “perfect” partner who promises lifelong insurance against loneliness. Social media demands relentless proof, vacation reels with filtered sunsets, anniversary posts with choreographed dances, matching outfits for every festival, where raw vulnerability gets airbrushed into curated perfection, heart emojis masking the hollow ache of performed happiness.
Consumerism packages attachment as emotional insurance: expensive gifts against abandonment fears, weekend getaways for social media validation hits. Ghosting culture treats hearts as returnable purchases, “didn’t work out, next!” Influencers glorify “couple goals” badges, coordinated selfies, synchronised vacations, as ownership certificates. Bollywood romanticises possessive stalkers as heroes crooning “you belong to me.” People desperately seek love in these transactions, but real love isn’t a contract, it’s selfless recognition of shared essence, boundless giving without expectation, the silent witness celebrating the other’s unfolding, freedom that nourishes growth rather than negotiates possession. This isn’t love’s boundless flow. It’s attachment’s clogged drain breeding resentment, control, suffocation, quiet desperation.
But watch nature reclaim its wisdom: eagles teach fledglings to fly by pushing them from the nest, trusting wings to unfurl. Forests thrive through symbiotic exchange. Fungi share nutrients underground. Trees don’t hoard sunlight but canopy dance in mutual uplift. They understand the great secret: to hold by letting go, like the sky holds the bird not by cage, but by horizon. In relationships, this rings true: secure romantic bonds evolve into mutual independence, like a riverbed scaffolding flow toward the open sea, not trapping water in muddy pools. Space given freely, individual journeys celebrated, reunions richer for the wandering.
The real essence? Love as moksha in motion: philosophical freedom where clenched fists loosen into infinite embrace. It’s parenting that fans inner fire, not smothers it. Partnerships that trust and uplift. Communities that nurture without chains. In our hyper connected world craving real connection, ask yourself: Does your love dam the flow into resentment, or set it free to carve canyons of growth? What if every bond became a banyan root, deep in shared soil, branches kissing endless sky? Imagine that life reshaped. That’s love’s invitation: not possession, but the boundless bloom.
(The author is an assistant professor, department of human development and family studies in MS University of Baroda. Views expressed are personal)
