Life is comprised of seven basic emotions: joy, anger, anxiety, love, fear, grief, and hate. We presume their presence in all human beings, for the absence of these emotions implies absence of the very sense organs that enable us to feel anything. These sense organs are five in numbers – ears, eyes, nose, tongue, and skin. Absence of these organs implies absence of life itself in a normal human being. I repeat “in a normal human being”. These sense organs are instruments that convey information to the mind, and then we begin to feel any emotion whatsoever.
Therefore, our emotions and feelings are heavily dependant on: Firstly, the instruments through which the information are receive and carried forward to the mind; Secondly the channels through which the information travel; and Thirdly, or finally on the mind that interprets the information received.
It goes without saying that the quality of the interpreted information in the mind is directly proportional to the health of the ears, eyes, nose, tongue and skin; the health of the channels through which the received information are carried forward to the mind; and the health of the mind itself.
I repeat again “in a normal human being,” only to make the argument plausible and understandable. We presume, in a normal human being, all the five sense organs are healthy, along with the channels through which they carry forward the information received, and the mind itself.
Mind interprets the information and come to certain conclusion. Thus, all the emotions are, in a sense, judgments of the mind.
We, then begin to experience the judgments, the feelings, the emotions. These emotions have always twin effects – on the self, and on others. Experiencing emotions as a subject is quite different from experiencing them as an object.
Here, we are concerned with only one emotion, Love, only to understand it separately, so that we can understand it in a complex form mingled with six other emotions in different doses.
So, let us take the love separately. When we experience it as a subject, we become lovers, and when we experience it as an object we become beloved.
When the idea of love comes to our mind, we immediately become the subject and the object, the lovers and the beloved. This development in a mind of a particular individual automatically assigns two entirely different roles as a subject and an object, or as a lover and as a beloved.
Becoming a subject in itself is a thrill, a joy, another emotion born out of love. It is multiplied when the subject also becomes an object, or the lover becomes the beloved.
My dear brothers and sisters, I repeat again “in a normal human being”, there is always this desire of, as far as the emotion Love is concerned, becoming the subject and the object, the lover and the beloved, both at a time, only to multiply the other emotion Joy.
This is the idea of love, which becomes the vehicle to reach the goal, Joy. Love becomes the means and Joy the end of it.
Recall here again, there are only seven basic emotions, and I have just mentioned another emotion Joy, apart from Love. The other five emotions are - forgive me for repeating here again – anger, anxiety, fear, grief and hate. These five, in a normal human being, produces sorrow. We do not want to become either subject or object of these five, except in the situations that are not normal in any way, and in the persons who are not healthy.
Dear brothers and sisters, I say healthy, both in physique and mind, because a body is both the physique and mind. They do not exist separately, and an individual is composed of the both.
Surprisingly, the emotion Joy is also the final aim and object of these five emotions. An unhealthy person may derive or may try to derive joy even from anger, anxiety, fear, grief and hate, in various human conditions as subject or object, or as a third party.
In a human being, we discourage these five emotions to be applied or experienced, only because their end result is sorrow, even if it may give certain momentary pleasures or joys.
The Joy, out of the seven basic emotions, thus seems to be the thing that is the final goal of the rest of the six emotions. Since the Five – anger, anxiety, fear, grief and hate – are discarded on account of their net result to be sorrow, only one emotion, the emotion of Love, rests with the human being that brings joy and happiness to life, both as a subject or object.
Thus, Love is the only emotion that is worth attention of a human being. I say, the only emotion, yes, the only emotion, because Joy, nevertheless categorized as an emotion, in final reckoning, proves to be the goal of the rest of the six emotions.
The beauty of Joy is that it is the means and the end in itself. It is the last objective of life. When it becomes everlasting, the sages say, human being achieves Moksh or salvation.
And the path goes through only one emotion, the emotion of Love. No other path through other emotions - anger, anxiety, fear, grief and hate – goes towards everlasting Joy, the salvation.
Dear brothers and sisters, anger, anxiety, fear, grief and hate, in the end, inevitably bring sorrows. It is precisely this reason that all of us, from a fool to a philosopher, want to get rid of them. It is just like getting rid of sorrows, despair, or tribulations of life. It is the highest aim of human civilization. The final aim of all the knowledge and philosophies is to get rid of them, without which everlasting joy, salvation or Moksh is not possible at all. When we say we want Moksh, we precisely want freedom from all the sorrows whatsoever. This is the crux of all the religions.
The only means left with us is Love, through which salvation is possible, if it is possible at all. This is the only hope, this is the only silver line, and this is the only ray which we heavily count on.
Human civilizations from all over the world have always been exploring this only instrument for joy, beginning from simple joys of life to everlasting joy or ultimate salvation. There is a long history of it. Numerous sects of Prem-margies (The followers of the Path of Love) in India are, but few to quote. They try to achieve salvation through this path. The Holy Bible emphasizes Love by saying 'I may be able to speak the languages of human beings and even of angels, but if I have no love, my speech is no more than a noisy gong or a clanging bell. I may have the gift of inspired preaching; I may have all knowledge and understand all secrets; I may have the faith needed to move mountains-but if I have no love, I am nothing. I may give away everything I have, and even give up my body to be burned-but if I have no love, this does me no good.' All the religions depend heavily on this emotion, the only emotion, for salvation. It never brings sorrows for us, except when it becomes impure when mixed with the other five emotions – anger, anxiety, fear, grief and hate.
Thus, Love for salvation, automatically comes into the centre stage of human life, along with the simultaneous efforts of getting rid of anger, anxiety, fear, grief and hate. It has been perceived so important that many of the thinkers and philosophers believed “Love is God”.