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

An ashram is a monastic community or hermitage with a spiritual purpose. Shetty defines the term as a “classroom” or a “school of learning, growth, and support. A sanctuary for self-development” (5). The ashrams in the book coincide with its parts on preparing for love, practicing love, protecting love, and perfecting love. These also correlate with the four stages of life in the ashrama system: Brahmacharya, Grhastha, Vanaprastha, and Sannyasa.

The ashrama system was created during the Vedic period and encompasses four stages of life: Brahmacharya, Grhastha, Vanaprastha, and Sannyasa. An individual moves through these stages from student life and religious learning to household or married life, to retired life and contemplation, to renounced life. The book connects these stages to the stages of love: preparing for love, practicing love, protecting love, and perfecting love. Individuals and couples move through each stage to enhance their relationships. 

Translated as “The Song of God,” the Bhagavad Gita is a key Hindu text akin to the Bible. It is a part of the Mahabharata epic and consists of a dialogue between the god Krishna and the leader in a battle, Arjuna, who resists fighting. Krishna and Arjuna discuss ethics, life, metaphysics, discipline, meditation, spiritual ideas, knowledge, devotion, and other topics to help Arjuna make the decision to fight.