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

Jay Shetty is a life coach and influencer who left a corporate career to become a Hindu monk. He lived at an ashram, or Hindu monastery, in Mumbai, India, between 2010 and 2013, where he studied Hindu scriptures, focusing on the ancient texts known as the Vedas. He continued his studies after he left the ashram, studying the Vedas for a total of 16 years.

Born in 1987 in London, England, Shetty had a middle-class upbringing. Although raised by Indian parents, he was not brought up in the Hindu religion. When he was 18, he entered Cass Business School in London to study management, with a focus on behavioral science. He first became acquainted with Hindu philosophy during this time, at a talk he attended by Gauranga Das, a Hindu monk. The experience set him on the path to spiritual studies and becoming a monk himself. While finishing his college degree, he split his time between management studies and studying as a monk.

In Shetty’s first book, Think Like a Monk: Train Your Mind for Peace and Purpose Every Day, he describes the transition that occurred in his thinking when he desired to “immerse [him]self in the monk mindset” (Shetty, Jay. Think Like a Monk: Train Your Mind for Peace and Purpose Every Day. Simon & Schuster, 2020, p. 5). After graduating from Cass Business School, he devoted himself fully to studying with Das in Mumbai, and three years later, Das told him that “he would be of greater value and service if [he] left the ashram and shared what [he’d] learned with the world” (Shetty, p. 7). He left the ashram and his previous job as an executive coach to teach others what he learned about mindfulness.

As a life coach, Shetty reaches people through the podcast On Purpose, which began in 2019. His books, online videos, and online courses reach a wide audience, and he trains other coaches through a coaching certification program that blends Western coaching theories and Vedic principles, along with ideas from Eastern philosophy.

Shetty still considers himself a monk, although monks are not allowed to marry (he married chef Radhi Devlukia in 2016). He refers to their relationship and marriage throughout 8 Rules of Love through anecdotes that illustrate specific relationship issues and how they handled them together using the book’s principles.