We Use One Word for Love. Sanskrit Gives Us a Spectrum

As human beings, we show a remarkable ability to love. We are able to care for people beyond ourselves, to care for strangers. We’re bound by our shared humanity. However, we’re often less kind to ourselves than to strangers.

In this newsletter, we pick up an ancient language: Sanskrit. The concepts might seem archaic and foreign, and so might their sounds, but they touch on the very human conditions we all experience. Language's beauty is that it offers a way to describe an immense range of human experiences. This, my friends, is one example.

The self: where it all begins

We begin with ātma-prema, or self-love, which we approach here through self-respect and self-care. Caring for ourselves can help us care for others, even though we do not have to love ourselves perfectly to love someone else. It goes deeper than ego-love. It implies reverence for one’s true nature rather than narcissistic self-absorption.

Here, we understand ātma-prema, or self-love, as respecting oneself and caring for oneself. Read spiritually, it can mean loving your innermost Self rather than identifying with your temporary ego or physical body. Caring for ourselves can also affect how we approach other forms of love. In psychology, Kristin Neff’s work on self-compassion identifies self-kindness, common humanity and mindful awareness as its three components. This allows us to really reflect on the phrase “fill your own cup first”. What does it really mean? Applying ātma-prema means acknowledging one’s own difficulty without seeing it as a private failure. Moreover, ātma-prema is hinting at something much more profound than mere ego-love. It is being deeply devoted to the self rather than being narcissistically self-absorbed.

When, throughout our lives, we’re taught that care is external and directed towards others, it can become harder to extend that kind of love to oneself. For instance, we can answer a friend’s distressed message while postponing our rest. Ātma-prema would urge you to admit you might be having a hard day without it being a productivity problem. Lastly, as Mary Oliver wrote, “You do not have to be good”; “You only have to let the soft animal of your body / love what it loves.”

To raise a part of you: parenthood

Now, this circle grows wider and includes vātsalya. A famous myth from the Bhāgavata Purāṇa tells of Yaśodā trying to tie the naughty child Krishna to a mortar. In verses 10.9.13–14, the Purāṇa describes how his mother loves the limitless divine and treats him as her own child.

Love in this context doesn’t exist as an abstract feeling towards the universe at large. Love exists in a relationship with interruption, worry and attention.

We want to bring the focus to simple forms of love, love which is not profound in the grand sense of the word. Love is shown in tender ways: when a parent gets up from having their own meal to check on a child, when one brings someone food without being asked, when we look after our pets but also need a break. Through this, we ask you to remember, acknowledge and ask: who is supplying this care? Thank them today for all they do, or did for you as a child.

Thus, in vātsalya, we see one of the most devotional languages of parental affection. The Yaśodā story allows us to see one version of this love.

Friendships: the warm ball of light in our chests

Our experience of friendship lives in the little things, like remembering small details about someone. Crossing the room to greet someone when they feel out of place. We show up again and again and show that we care.

One of the most famous stories is that of Krishna and Sudāmā. The friendship might seem strange and, most of all, unequal. More than that, though, that is the essence of friendship. It’s one of the most independent and free relationships. We show up for our friends as they are; it’s a rare form of radical acceptance. Sakhya is the name for friendship in the Vaiṣṇava traditions, and maitrī, or loving-kindness, is a related concept in Buddhism.

In the popular book All About Love, bell hooks discusses love as a practice that needs care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, trust and honest communication.

We want to leave you with a question. If love is contingent on paying attention and showing up for people, why does our attention stop at “our people”?

Wider circles: who are “our people”?

Moving forward, as we grow and our world grows, let us discuss karuṇā and sevā.

The circle widens further through sevā, selfless service. Here, love moves from emotion to action. One discovers that caring for others can itself be a source of joy. Mother Teresa embodied this spirit when she said:

Indeed we have. We can forget our shared humanity even when we are digitally connected to one another. It can become easy to dehumanise one another. However, engaging in sevā, i.e., selfless acts, can help us become more aware of the human in each other.

As our attention widens, we can practise karuṇā, compassion. We begin to feel the suffering of strangers. Their pain becomes our concern. Compassion marks the transition from “my people” to “all people”. Compassion doesn’t necessarily mean being an empath to the point of absorbing everyone’s suffering, and we know that people alone cannot solve structural problems.

Thus, our circle can widen through these larger relationships and community action. What would the world look like under this type of care, when we see ourselves as part of a community?

Larger than what, exactly?

Now let’s explore what being “larger than the self” entails. It can refer to God, the sacred, a specific community or a sense of interdependence with one another. Thus, at UEF, we hold space for all these complex ideas of being larger than ourselves.

The bhakti tradition in Indian history emphasises devotional love. This is a love towards the mystical that transcends this world. Love can become reverence, surrender and a deeper trust in the world. Mirabai is a well-known example of this type of love; her words inspire us even to this day.

Finally, we arrive at prema, a word for love that, in bhakti traditions, can refer to divine love. It can be applied through a kind of radical acceptance of the self and others: coming as we are and being loved for the same. It’s easier said than done, but we can practise it by deliberately working with and from a place of love within.

There is also samarpana, complete surrender or an offering of oneself. In devotional contexts, this can mean placing one’s trust in the divine. The boundaries between self and other may feel less absolute. A related idea in the Bhagavad Gītā is to act without attachment to the fruits of action. This allows room for hope while acknowledging that we cannot control every outcome. The idea of not being in control can feel scary yet utterly freeing at the same time.

This echoes an idea associated with Albert Einstein: that our sense of separation can confine our concern to ourselves and those closest to us, and that we should widen our compassion to include other living beings and the natural world.

Seen in this light, the Sanskrit vocabulary of love is not merely a collection of words. It offers us one way of thinking about how our capacity for love might grow.

Love begins with “I.”

Then becomes “you.”

Then becomes “we.”

And eventually becomes “all.”

We find invitations to wider care across traditions.

Jesus taught love for one’s enemies. Buddhist teachings encourage loving-kindness towards all sentient beings. Sufi poets have written of divine love. The Upanishads proclaimed:

Love matures as the circle expands.

And perhaps flourishing itself is nothing more than this lifelong journey—from separation to belonging, from possession to participation, from self-centredness to universal compassion.

The child begins by saying “mine.” The sage ends by saying “ours.” And somewhere in between lies the entire journey of Love, Learn, Play.

Thus, through this newsletter, we invite you to practise radical love, love that is larger than what media or tradition teaches us to believe. It begins in your heart and expands to the world. Love works beyond our happiness; it is a truly powerful force in the sense that it makes you larger than yourself. You become larger in your heart space, hold more compassion for others and are more intentional. One day, your circle of love is so wide that there’s no one else left anymore.

P.S. This is the end of love!

Of course, it is not the end of love in our lives, our families, friends, or flourishing. It is the end of the 10 part series on love itself. Next week, we open a conversation about learning, the middle of the triple helix of flourishing; not the obedient digestion of information but real learning. Curious what that is? Find out next week!

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