8 Rules of Love: How to Find it, Keep it, and Let it Go

To introduce the topic of love, Shetty uses a dialogue between a teacher and student to compare love and attraction to the care of a flower. He notes how attraction resembles a flower in a vase while love resembles a planted, uncut flower that receives water and nutrients. He argues that love differs from attraction because “the only way to keep it alive is through constant care and attention” (1).

He discusses the ways past and present civilizations have attempted to describe the complicated nature of love and how his interest in the topic arose from his time as a Hindu monk, when he was first introduced to the Vedas, ancient Hindu religious texts. He decided to write 8 Rules of Love to help people learn how to love by applying ideas from the Vedas, as well as research from science and psychological studies.

Shetty views Love as a Practice and explains that the Vedas characterize love as phases that move from one step to the next. He describes how 8 Rules of Love applies the four “stages of life,” or “classrooms,” of the Vedas—Brahmacharya ashram (student life), Grhastha ashram (household life), Vanaprastha ashram (retired life), and Sannyasa ashram (renounced life)—to four areas of love: preparing for love, practicing love, protecting love, and perfecting love.