Love, Jealousy, Wisdom

Q: Could you please comment a little bit on your concept of love. Love for parents, spouse, children, surroundings, friends etc.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: I tell you, love..you are made up of love. You are made up of a substance called love. Your spirit is all love. And there are various types of love. Parental love, love of the siblings. Then love for the children, love for the spouse. They are little flavors. Different, but underneath that, I don’t see love as only an emotion, it is our very existence. Because all the atoms in your body love each other and that’s why you are a human being. That’s why there is a bond. You know the moment the love that is the binding force between the atoms is gone, our body disintegrates. So, I see love more as the very existence not just as an emotion. I would say Love with wisdom leads you to bliss.

Love without wisdom or with ignorance leads you to jealousy, greed, anger, frustration and everything else. All these negative emotions are just an offspring of love. See you can’t be jealous of somebody if there is no love. Right? Greed is because you love certain things more than people, that is called greed. You love somebody more than you should and that is called possessiveness. And you love perfection so much that you can’t stand imperfection, and you show it as anger. Right? Love needs to be harnessed with a little wisdom.






The narrow line between love and jealousy
November 12, 2009

A new study carried out at the University of Haifa has found that the hormone oxytocin, the "love hormone", which affects behaviors such as trust, empathy and generosity, also affects opposite behaviors, such as jealousy and gloating. "Subsequent to these findings, we assume that the hormone is an overall trigger for social sentiments: when the person's association is positive, oxytocin bolsters pro-social behaviors; when the association is negative, the hormone increases negative sentiments," explains Simone Shamay-Tsoory who carried out the research.
(Biological Psychiatry
Volume 66, Issue 9, 1 November 2009, Pages 864-870 )
http://www.physorg.com/news177245481.html

Neural correlates of Wisdom

"Defining wisdom is rather subjective, though there are many similarities in definition across time and cultures. However, our research suggests that there may be a basis in neurobiology for wisdom's most universal traits," study author Dr. Dilip V. Jeste of the department of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, said in the news release.

Jeste and his colleague, Dr. Thomas W. Meeks, studied existing articles, publications and other documents for the six attributes most commonly associated with wisdom and for the brain circuitry associated with those attributes.

They found that these six traits are associated with heightened activity in several different areas of the brain. It appears that the neurobiology of wisdom involves an "optimal balance" between more primitive brain systems (the limbic system) and the more developed areas of the brain, the researchers said.

"Understanding the neurobiology of wisdom may have considerable clinical significance, for example, in studying how certain disorders or traumatic brain injuries can affect traits related to wisdom," Jeste said.

The study appears in the April 6 issue of the journal Archives of General Psychiatry.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=is-wisdom-in-the-brain-2009-04-06

Success in the long term comes by giving up pleasure in the short term

Q: How do we know what to do in life?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: First know what not to do. It’s easier. Purpose of life is not to be miserable and make others miserable. It is a gut feeling. Choose that which gives you long term happiness even if it gives short term misery. Choosing that which gives you long term misery and short term joy is not wise.

There was a famous experiment in 1989 , well known now as the “Marshmallow experiment”. Performed by Walter Mischel at Stanford University this experiment showed an amazing thing, that testing a child’s self-control at 4yrs could predict academic success later in life.

The numerous experiments actually entailed in this study started with the same basic premise. Children were told that they could obtain a small reward immediately or could hold out for a more valuable reward later. The rewards were carefully calibrated to produce conflict in the child over whether to go for the immediate reward or wait for the larger reward (eg one marshmallow vs two, hence the name of the experiment). The experimenter would then leave the child alone and return a short (although not for the child) time later, typically about 15 minutes. The child could ring a bell at any time to recall the experimenter and receive their lesser reward.

In a follow-up to these experiments children from the original studies were then looked at more than ten years later to see if the ability to delay self gratification had effects later in life. They authors predicted that differences in the ability of children to delay when they had been given no strategies to help them (eg hiding the rewards) would perform better later in life than those who had the rewards removed from sight. This prediction turned out to be upheld, those students who could had been able to delay their own satisfaction without external help had higher test scores and were described by their parents as, to quote the study:

“more verbally fluent and able to express ideas; they used and responded to reason, were attentive and able to concentrate, to plan, and to think ahead, and were competent and skillful. Likewise they were perceived as able to cope and deal with stress more maturely and seemed more self assured.”

In conclusion, those who could avoid the impulse of instant gratification were more able and prepared to succeed in the long run.

Researchers find delayed gratification led to greater success in growing children


http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/244/4907/933
http://sciblogs.co.nz/skepticon/2010/08/10/delayed-gratification-success/