Preparing for Yoga

Through Human Love

A Compilation from the works of

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

Preparing for Yoga

Through Human Love

© All writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

are copyright of Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust

and have been reproduced here with their kind permission.

© 2017 AuroPublications, Sri Aurobindo Society, Puducherry

www.aurosociety.org

Year of Publication 2017

Compilation done by Jamshed M Mavalwalla

Suggestions taken from Vivechana Saraf

Proof reading done by Archana Udaykumar and Puja

Cover done by Kavita Dutta

Help in making e-book by Shivakumar, Vivechana Saraf and Uttam Mondal

Foreword

All over the world, there is a growing interest in Spirituality and Yoga.  There is a search for the true meaning and purpose of life, for deeper solutions to the problems which confront us all, and how we can contribute to the evolutionary change and progress.

In this search, more and more persons are turning to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother for guidance and enlightenment.  But in their voluminous literature, they do not know where to find the answers they are looking for.

In this regard the Mother has said,

“It is not by books that Sri Aurobindo ought to be studied but by subjects—what he has said on the Divine, on Unity, on religion, on evolution, on education, on self-perfection, on supermind, etc., etc.” (CWM 12: 206)

On another occasion she said:

“If you want to know what Sri Aurobindo has said on a given subject, you must at least read all he has written on that subject. You will then see that he seems to have said the most contradictory things. But when one has read everything and understood a little, one sees that all the contradictions complement one another and are organised and unified in an integral synthesis.” (CWM 16: 309-310)

While there are several compilations which are now available, many sincere spiritual seekers have felt the need of Comprehensive Compilations from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother on specific subjects, where the contents are further organised into sub-topics, so that one can get all that one is looking for at one place.

These books are an effort to fulfill this need and thus help spiritual seekers in their journey and sadhana.  We hope these compilations will help us to get a greater mental clarity about a subject so that we can channel our efforts in the right direction. For Sri Aurobindo has written:

“It is always better to make an effort in the right direction; even if one fails the effort bears some result and is never lost.” (CWSA 29: 87)

We will be glad to get suggestions and feedback from the readers.

Vijay

Preface

‘Preparing for Yoga through Human Love’ is the fourth and the last book in the series of books on LOVE. This book contains Part I ‘Understanding Human Love’ and Part II ‘Yoga and Human Love’.

The quotations in this compilation are taken from the volumes of the Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo (CWSA) and the Collected Works of the Mother (CWM), Second Edition. Each quotation is followed by the book title, volume number and the page number it has been taken from.

While the passages from Sri Aurobindo are in the original English, most of the passages from the Mother (selections from her talks and writings) are translations from the original French. We must also bear in mind that the excerpts have been taken out of their original context and that a compilation, in its very nature, is likely to have a personal and subjective approach. A sincere attempt, however, has been made to be faithful to the vision of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Those who would like to go through the fuller text are advised to go through the Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo (CWSA) and the Collected Works of the Mother (CWM), Second Edition.

The section headings and sub-headings have also been provided by the compiler to bring clarity on the selected topic. Also to emphasize certain portion in the quotations, the compiler has bold-faced some words.

I pray that this book may help the readers to intensify their love for the Divine.

Jamshed M Mavalwalla

Contents

Part One:     Understanding Human Love

I—Human Love Is …

II—In Comparison What is True Love

III—Human Beings Usually Love Because ...

IV—Human Expression of Love

V—Why is There a Need of Desire to Be Loved in Return in Human Love?

VI—What Human Beings Call as ‘Love’ but It is Not Love

VII—Why is Sex Associated with Love?

VIII—The Normal Course of Human Love

IX—Why Does Human Love Founded on Vital Basis at a Certain Stage Begin to Pall

X—Why Human Love Cannot be Pure?

XI—In Human Love What Needs to Be Rejected

XII—With All These Problems How Does Human Vital Love and Affection Last?

XIII—Ideal Human Love

XIV—Love and Marriage

Part Two:     Yoga and Human Love

I—Problems of Human Love In Sadhana

II—The Human Way of Loving Divine Is ...

III—For the Divine to Love Truly is to Do What is Best For the One He Loves

IV—How To Prepare For Yoga Through Human love

V—Evolution of Love, after Love Infiltrating Into Matter

VI—Other Quotations on Human Love

VII— Towards the Future

VIII—Short Summary

Part One:

Understanding Human Love

I—Human Love Is …

“Human love is nothing but divine love perverted and distorted by the instrument through which it is expressed. The same holds true for strength and knowledge. In their essence they are eternal and unlimited. It is the limitations and deficiencies of human nature which distort them and alter them beyond recognition.” (CWM 10: 359–360)

“Love in its origin is divine love. Love in man, that is, love grown human, is distorted, deformed; it is only divine love which is pure.” (CWM 6: 78)

“If it is divine love that you mean, one can obtain it only by renouncing human love, which is a travesty and caricature of it.” (CWM 17: 61)

“I always thought that the Divine was the supreme ineffable Ananda of which human love and delight is only a clouded and fallen ray–most often hardly even that–compared with the empyrean of ethereal fire. How can the luminous eternal Ananda be something cold and dark, I should like to know?” (CWSA 29: 347)

“Human love is mostly vital and physical with a mental support –it can take an unselfish, noble and pure form and expression only if it is touched by the psychic. It is true, as you say, that it is more usually a mixture of ignorance, attachment, passion and desire.” (CWSA 29: 346)

“The Mother did not tell you that love is not an emotion, but that Divine Love is not an emotion,–a very different thing to say. Human love is made up of emotion, passion and desire,–all of them vital movements, therefore bound to the disabilities of the human vital nature.” (CWSA 29: 345)

“Ordinary human love is vital, emotional and physical and always egoistic–a form of self-love.” (CWSA 31: 301)

“What kind [of love]? A human love, don’t they? Like all human loves: frightfully mixed, with all sorts of things. The need of possession, a formidable egoism.” (CWM 6: 106)

“… as for Love, it is quite out of sight!

I mean Divine Love because what human beings call love is a very good friend of money.” (CWM 12: 158)

“There is always a bitter taste behind the human love–it is only the Divine Love which never disappoints.” (CWM 14: 119)

“Do not grieve. Human love is fugitive. It is only the Divine’s love that never fails.” (CWM 14: 119)

“Without self-giving there is no love; but self-giving is very rare in human love which is full of selfishness and demands.” (CWM 14: 121)

“The person I love belongs to me. (statement made by a sadhak)

This is a very ugly love, quite egoistic.” (CWM 16: 174)

“Human love is mainly vital, when it is not vital and physical together. It is also sometimes psychic + vital. But the Love with a dominant psychic element is rare.” (CWSA 31: 301)

“Human affection is obviously unreliable because it is so much bound up with selfishness and desire; it is a flame of the ego sometimes turbid and misty, sometimes more clear and brightly coloured–sometimes tamasic based on instinct and habit, sometimes rajasic and fed by passion or the cry for vital interchange, sometimes more sattwic and trying to be or look to itself disinterested. But fundamentally it depends on a personal need or a return of some kind inward or outward and when the need is not satisfied or the return ceases or is not given, it most often diminishes or dies or exists only as a tepid or troubled remnant of habit from the past or else turns for satisfaction elsewhere.” (CWSA 31: 296)

“But that is the nature of human vital affection, it is all selfishness disguised as love. Sometimes when there is a strong vital passion, need or tie, then the person is ready to do anything to retain the affection of the other. But it is only when the psychic is able to get into the movement that there is real unselfish affection or at least some element of it.” (CWSA 31: 297)

II—In Comparison What is True Love

“Love is self-giving without asking anything in return.” (CWM 10: 282)

“To love is not to possess, but to give oneself.” (CWM 16: 173)

“And what is the first gesture of love? To give oneself, to serve. What is its spontaneous, immediate, inevitable movement? To serve. To serve in a joyous, complete, total self-giving.” (CWM 9: 50)

“True love is a self-forgetting.” (CWM 17: 140)

“My sweet Lord, my little Mother,

Give me the true love, the love that forgets itself.” (CWM 15: 215)

“True love is the love that wants, to the exclusion of all else, the highest good for the loved one. This is the love that I have and want to have for you.” (CWM 16: 117)

“Love does not forgive, it understands and cures.” (CWM 16: 213)

“Indeed, nothing brings more happiness than a pure and disinterested love.” (CWM 16: 172)

“Indeed he is happy who loves the Divine because the Divine is always with him.” (CWM 14: 180)

“True love is something very deep and calm in its intensity; it may quite well not manifest itself in any exterior acts sensational or affectionate.” (CWM 14: 124)

“True love is something very deep and very calm in its intensity; it may very well not manifest itself through outer effusiveness.” (CWM 16: 173)

“… as I told you, it is a deep spiritual calm and peace that is the only stable foundation for a lasting Bhakti and Ananda.” (CWSA 31: 287)

“Do you know what is true love?

There is only one true love, the love from the Divine, which, in human beings, turns into love for the Divine.

Shall we say that the nature of the Divine is Love.” (CWM 12: 304)

“You first have to realise the Divine Consciousness–only then will you be able to know what true love is.” (CWM 16: 119)

“True love and consecration lead much quicker to the Divine than an arduous Tapasya.” (CWM 14: 100)

“As for perfect love, it exists only in the Divine.” (CWM 16: 253)

“Whereas with one’s heart, one can set out to discover the Immanent Divine. And if one knows truly how to love, without desire or egoism, one finds Him very soon, for always He comes to meet you in order to help you.” (CWM 16: 252)

“Indeed, as soon as one becomes conscious of the Divine and is united with Him, one learns to love with the true love: the love that loves for the joy of loving and has no need to be loved in return; one also learns to draw Force from the inexhaustible source and one knows by experience that by using this Force in the service of the Divine one receives from Him all that one has spent and much more.” (CWM 16: 401)

“I have said that if one wants to know what love is, one must love the Divine. Then there is a chance of knowing what love is.” (CWM 6: 102)

“But the true love for the Divine is in its fundamental nature not of this kind, but psychic and spiritual. The psychic element is the need of the inmost being for self-giving, love, adoration, union which can only be fully satisfied by the Divine. The spiritual element is the need of the being for contact, merging, union with its own highest and whole self and source of being and consciousness and bliss, the Divine. These two are two sides of the same thing. The mind, vital, physical can be the supports and recipients of this love, but they can be fully that only when they become remoulded into harmony with the psychic and spiritual elements of the being and no longer bring in the lower insistences of the ego.” (CWSA 29: 340–341)

“In any case human affection whatever its value has its place, because through it the psychic being gets the emotional experiences it needs until it is ready to prefer the true to the apparent, the perfect to the imperfect, the divine to the human. As the consciousness has to rise to a higher level, so the activities of the heart also have to rise to that higher level and change their basis and character. Yoga is the founding of all the life and consciousness in the Divine, so also love and affection must be rooted in the Divine and a spiritual and psychic oneness in the Divine must be their foundation–to reach the Divine first leaving other things aside or to seek the Divine alone is the straight road towards that change. That means no attachment –it need not mean turning affection into disaffection or chill indifference.”  (CWSA 31: 296-297)

“Among those who have come into this world seeking to reveal the Divine here and transform earthly life, there are some who have manifested the Divine love in a greater fullness. In some the purity of the manifestation is so great that they are misunderstood by the whole of humanity and are even accused of being hard and unloving, although the Divine love is there. But it is in them divine and not human in its form as in its substance. For when man speaks of love, he associates it with an emotional and sentimental weakness. But the divine intensity of self-forgetfulness, the capacity of throwing oneself out entirely, making no restriction and no reservation, as a gift, asking nothing in exchange, this is little known to human beings. And when it is there unmixed with weak and sentimental emotions, they find it hard and cold; they cannot recognise in it the very highest and intensest power of love.” (CWM 3: 70–71)

III—Human Beings Usually Love Because ...

“The thirst for affection and love is a human need, but it can be quenched only if it turns towards the Divine. As long as it seeks satisfaction in human beings, it will always be disappointed or wounded.” (CWM 14: 121)

“There is a thirst for Love which no human relation can quench. It is only the Divine’s love that can satisfy that thirst.” (CWM 14: 121)

“On the other hand, human society, human friendship, love, affection, fellow-feeling are mostly and usually–not entirely or in all cases–founded on a vital basis and are ego-held at their centre. It is because of the pleasure of being loved, the pleasure of enlarging the ego by contact, mutual penetration of spirit, with another, the exhilaration of the vital interchange which feeds their personality that men usually love–and there are also other and still more selfish motives that mix with this essential movement. There are of course higher spiritual, psychic, mental, vital elements that come in or can come in; but the whole thing is very mixed, even at its best. This is the reason why at a certain stage with or without apparent reason the world and life and human society and relations and philanthropy (which is as ego-ridden as the rest) begin to pall.” (CWSA 31: 286)

IV—Human Expression of Love

“Q: Mother, what kind of love is that which says, ‘If you love me, I shall love you’?

A: If you love me, I shall love you? That’s exactly the way men speak: ‘If you love me, I love you, if you don’t love me, I don’t love you.’  This is just the most human expression of love. And it goes still farther, they apply it also to their relation with the Divine. They say to the Divine: “If you do what I want, I shall say that you love me, and I shall love you. But if you don’t do what I want, then I won’t think at all that you love me, and I certainly will not love you.”

That’s how it is. That means that it becomes commercial.” (CWM 5: 237)

“I tell you, so long as there is this calculation in the mind or the feelings and sensations, so long as there is some calculation, more or less acknowledged, it is bargaining, it is not love.” (CWM 5: 237–238)

“Q: But ‘If you don’t love me, I shall love you’?

A: That begins to be better!

And what is better still is not to ask oneself whether one is loved or not, one should be absolutely indifferent to that. And that begins to be true love: one loves because one loves, not at all because one receives a response to one’s love or because the other person loves you. All those conditions–that is not love. One loves because one cannot do otherwise but love. One loves because one loves. One doesn’t care at all about what will happen; one is perfectly satisfied with the feeling of one’s love. One loves because one loves.

All the rest is bargaining, it is not love.” (CWM 5: 237)

“The small beginning is this: the need, when one loves, that what one loves or the person one loves should know that he is loved. But in the relation with the Divine: one loves the Divine but insists that the Divine should know that one loves Him! That’s the beginning of the fall. One does not even think about the real thing. It doesn’t even slightly touch the mind. … It is a long, long, long way to go from what men call “love” to true love–a long way.” (CWM 5: 238)

“Not those who say: ‘If you love me, I love you’, that indeed is at the very bottom of the ladder, right at the bottom, almost in the pit.... There is a still lower rung: ‘Love me and then I shall see if I love you’. There you have to deal with altogether disgusting people. I am speaking only of the need of reciprocity: that is the first step of the descending scale.” (CWM 5: 238)

“At first one loves only when one is loved.

Next, one loves spontaneously, but one wants to be loved in return.

Then one loves even if one is not loved, but one still wants one’s love to be accepted.

And finally one loves purely and simply, without any other need or joy than that of loving.” (CWM 14: 122)

V—Why is There a Need of Desire to Be Loved in Return in Human Love?

“Certainly one has the right to love and true love carries in itself its joy, but unhappily human beings are egoistic and immediately mix with their love the desire to be loved in return, and this desire is contrary to spiritual truth and the cause of passions and sufferings.” (CWM 14: 119)

“True love has no need of reciprocation; there can be no reciprocation because there is only one Love, the Love, which has no other aim than to love. It is in the world of division that one feels the need of reciprocation–because one lives in the illusion of the multiplicity of Love; but in fact there is only One Love and it is always this sole love which, so to say, responds to itself.” (CWM 14: 122–123)

“Indeed, there is only one Love, universal and eternal, as there is only one Consciousness, universal and eternal.

All the apparent differences are colorations given by individualisation and personification. But these alterations are purely superficial. And the “nature” of Love, as of Consciousness, is unalterable.” (CWM 14: 123)

“There is only one love–the Divine’s Love; and without that Love there would be no creation. All exists because of that Love and it is when we try to find our own love which does not exist that we do not feel the Love, the only Love, the Divine’s Love which permeates all existence.” (CWM 14: 124)

“It [ordinary affection] is the vital seeking to pour itself out with the implicit idea of getting a return, an interchange. The consciousness of oneness is something behind all life and all forms of affection come no doubt from it, but not consciously, and they get changed, mixed, perverted when the vital takes up the action of the force of Love of whose true or divine nature it is unconscious.” (CWSA 31: 297)

“The one you love must have the right of freedom in her feelings and if you want the truth you must understand this right and accept it. Otherwise there will be no end to your miseries. This is an occasion to surmount your egoism and to open to the true life. If you decide to make this effort my help will be with you.” (CWM 14: 119–120)

VI—What Human Beings Call as ‘Love’ but It is Not Love

“There is only one love, the Divine Love, eternal, universal, equal for everyone and everything.

It is man (the human being) who calls all kinds of feelings ‘love’: all the desires, attractions, vital exchanges, sexual relations, attachments, even friendships, and many other things besides.

But all that is not even the shadow of love nor even its deformation.

These are all mental and vital, sentimental or sexual activities, and nothing more.” (CWM 16: 411)

“The difference is that what men call ‘love’ for another human being is not love at all, but a frightful mixture of sentimentality, weakness, ignorance and sensuality. It is obvious that such a feeling cannot be directed towards the Divine.” (CWM 17: 133)

“Love is not sexual intercourse.

Love is not vital attraction and interchange.

Love is not the heart’s hunger for affection.

Love is a mighty vibration coming straight from the One, and only the very pure and very strong are capable of receiving and manifesting it.

To be pure is to be open only to the Supreme’s influence and to no other.” (CWM 14: 125)

“I do not like that the word love should be polluted to speak of sexual desire, the human inheritance of the animal.” (CWM 14: 125)

“The love which is turned towards the Divine ought not to be the usual vital feeling which men call by that name; for that is not love, but only a vital desire, an instinct of appropriation, the impulse to possess and monopolise. Not only is this not the divine Love, but it ought not to be allowed to mix in the least degree in the Yoga.” (CWSA 29: 338)

“There is a vital love, a physical love. It is possible for the vital to desire a woman for various vital reasons without love– in order to satisfy the instinct of domination or possession, in order to draw in the vital forces of a woman so as to feed one’s own vital or for the exchange of vital forces, to satisfy vanity, the hunter’s instinct of the chase etc. etc. [This is from the man’s viewpoint] This is often called love, but it is only vital desire, a kind of lust. If however the emotions of the heart are awakened, then it becomes vital love, a mixed affair with any or all of these vital motives strong, but still vital love.” (CWSA 31: 492)

“Love does not consist in demands and desires–demand and desire spring from ego. Love exists for its own sake and does not offer itself on conditions. These feelings do not spring from the psychic and it is only by the psychic prevailing in you that the true consciousness can become free and full in the nature and all these repinings and unhappinesses disappear.” (CWSA 31: 300–301)

“Vital emotions are of an altogether different nature … they are violent, they usually fill you with an intensity, a restlessness, sometimes a great satisfaction. And then the opposite comes with the same force. And so people, many people think … some people imagine they experience love only when it is like that, when love is in the vital, when it comes with all the movements of the vital, all this intensity, this violence, this precision, this glamour, this brightness. And when that is absent they say, ‘Oh, this is not love.’

And yet that is exactly how love gets distorted: already it is no longer love, it is beginning to be passion. And this is an almost universal error among human beings.” (CWM 15: 323–324)

“Some people are full of a very pure, very high, very selfless psychic love and yet they know nothing about it and think they are cold, dry and without love because this admixture of vital vibration is absent. For them love begins and ends with this vibration. …

As I said, some people are quite beyond that, they have been able to control it in such a way that it does not get mixed up with anything else; they have in themselves this psychic love which is full of self-forgetfulness, of self-giving, compassion, generosity, nobility of life, and is a great power of identification. So most of these people think they are cold or indifferent–they are very nice people, you see, but they do not love–and sometimes they themselves do not know. I have known people who thought they had no love because they didn’t have this vital vibration. Usually, when people speak of emotions, they are speaking of vital emotions.” (CWM 15: 324)

VII—Why is Sex Associated with Love?

“Indeed, as soon as terrestrial development made it possible, Nature took up this sublime force of love and put it at the service of her creative work by linking and mixing it with her movement of procreation. This association has even become so close, so intimate, that very few human beings are illumined enough in their consciousness to be able to dissociate these movements from each other and experience them separately. In this way, love has suffered every degradation; it has been debased to the level of the beast.” (CWM 12: 66–67)

“Sex, for instance, is a movement of general Nature seeking for its play and it uses this or that one–a man vitally or physically “in love” as it is called with a woman is simply repeating and satisfying the world-movement of sex, if it had not been that woman, it would have been another; he is simply an instrument in Nature’s machinery, it is not an independent movement. So it is with anger and other Nature-motives.” (CWSA 31: 486)

“It is not that it is not possible to keep the love pure, but the two things [love and sex-desire] are so near each other and have been so much twined together in the animal beginnings of the race that it is not easy to keep them altogether separate. In the pure psychic love there is no trace of the sex-desire, but usually the vital affection gets very strongly associated with the psychic which is then mixed though still not sexual; but the vital affection and the vital physical sex-emotion are entirely close to each other, so that at any moment or in any given case one may awake the other. This becomes very strong when the sex-force is strong in an individual as it is in most vitally energetic people. To increase always the force of the psychic, to control the sex impulse and turn it into the ojas, to turn the love towards the Divine are the true remedies for this difficulty. Seminal force not sexually spent can always be turned into ojas.” (CWSA 31: 490)

“Nature in the material world started with the physical sex-pull for her purpose of procreation and brought in the love on the basis of the sex-pull, so the one has a tendency to wake the other. It is only by a strong discipline or a strong will or a change of consciousness that one can eliminate the pull.” (CWSA 31: 490)

“Lust is the perversion or degradation which prevents love from establishing its reign; so when there is the movement of psychic love in the heart, lust or vital desire is the one thing that must not be allowed to come in ... for any mixture of the perversion will corrupt the psychic or spiritual action and prevent a true fulfilment.” (CWSA 31: 490-491)

“The movement of self-existent psychic or spiritual love general and without a special object can come, but it must be kept free from all taint of sex–otherwise it cannot endure.” (CWSA 31: 491)

“What is real love? Get clear of all the sentimental sexual turmoil and go back to the soul,–then there is real love. It is then also you would be able to receive the overwhelming love without getting the lower being into an excitement which might be disastrous.” (CWSA 31: 491)

“What is this idea that this desire of the heart hungering to love women is not sex-desire? That and the physical lust are both forms of sex-desire.” (CWSA 31: 491)

VIII—The Normal Course of Human Love

“The phenomenon of which you speak is normal to human nature. People are drawn together or one is drawn to another by a certain feeling of affinity, of agreement or of attraction between some part of one’s own nature and some part of the other’s nature. At first this only is felt; one sees all that is good or pleasant to one in the other’s nature and even attributes, perhaps, qualities to him that are not there or not so much there as one thinks. But with closer acquaintance other parts of the nature are felt with which one is not in affinity–perhaps there is a clash of ideas or opposition of feelings or conflict of two egos. If there is a strong love or friendship of a lasting character, then one may overcome these difficulties of contact and arrive at a harmonising or accommodation; but very often this is not there or the disagreement is so acute as to counteract the tendency of accommodation or else the ego gets so hurt as to recoil. Then it is quite possible for one to begin to see too much and exaggerate the faults of the other or to attribute things to him of a bad or unpleasant character that are not there. The whole view can change, the good feeling change into ill-feeling, alienation, even enmity or antipathy. This is always happening in human life. The opposite also happens, but less easily–i.e. the change from ill-feeling to good feeling, from opposition to harmony. But of course ill-opinion or ill-feeling towards a person need not arise from this cause alone. It happens from many causes, instinctive dislike, jealousy, conflicting interests, etc.

One must try to look calmly on others, not overstress either virtues or defects, without ill-feeling or misunderstanding or injustice, with a calm mind and vision.” (CWSA 31: 299–300)

IX—Why Does Human Love Founded on Vital Basis at a Certain Stage Begin to Pall

“It is the way that vital love usually takes when there is no strong psychic force to correct and uphold it. After the first vital glow is over, the incompatibility of the two egos begins to show itself and there is more and more strain in the relations–for one or both the demands of the other become intolerable to the vital part, there is constant irritation and the claim is felt as a burden and a yoke. Naturally in a life of sadhana there is no room for vital relations–they are a stumbling block preventing the wholesale turning of the nature towards the Divine.” (CWSA 31: 299)

“... human friendship, love, affection, fellow-feeling are mostly and usually ... founded on a vital basis and are ego-held at their centre. ... This is the reason why at a certain stage with or without apparent reason the world and life and human society and relations and philanthropy (which is as ego-ridden as the rest) begin to pall. There is sometimes an ostensible reason–a disappointment of the surface vital, the withdrawal of affection by others, the perception that those loved or men generally are not what one thought them to be and a host of other causes; but often the cause is a secret disappointment of some part of the inner being, not translated or not well translated into the mind, because it expected from these things something which they cannot give. It is the case with many who turn or are pushed to the spiritual life. For some it takes the form of a vairagya which drives them towards ascetic indifference and gives the urge towards Moksha. For us, what we hold to be necessary is that the mixture should disappear and that the consciousness should be established on a purer level (not only spiritual and psychic but a purer and higher mental, vital, physical consciousness) in which there is not this mixture. There one would feel the true Ananda of oneness and love and sympathy and fellowship, spiritual and self-existent in its basis but expressing itself through the other parts of the nature. If that is to happen, there must obviously be a change; the old form of these movements must drop off and leave room for a new and higher self to disclose its own way of expression and realisation of itself and of the Divine through these things–that is the inner truth of the matter.” (CWSA 31: 286)

“The more intense it [Human affection] is, the more it is apt to be troubled by tumults, clashes, quarrels, egoistic disturbances of all kinds, selfishness, exactions, lapses even to rage and hatred, ruptures.” (CWSA 31: 296)

“The vital must have decided that my love would express itself in a particular way, and as it did not happen that way, the vital says, “There is no love!” (CWM 17: 64)

“But there is another way of vital love which is more usually the way of human nature and that is a way of ego and desire. It is full of vital craving, desire and demand; its continuance depends upon the satisfaction of its demands; if it does not get what it craves, or even imagines that it is not being treated as it deserves –for it is full of imaginations, misunderstandings, jealousies, misinterpretations–it at once turns to sorrow, wounded feeling, revolt, pride, anger, all kinds of disorder, finally cessation and departure.” (CWSA 29: 342–343)

X—Why Human Love Cannot be Pure?

“I suppose ‘love’ expresses something more intense than bhalobasha [good-will] which can include mere liking or affection. But whether love or bhalobasha, the human feeling is always either based on or strongly mixed with ego,– that is why it cannot be pure. It is said in the Upanishad, ‘One does not love the wife for the sake of the wife’ or the child or friend etc. as the case may be ‘but for one’s self’s sake one loves the wife’. There is usually a hope of return, of benefit or advantage of some kind, or of certain pleasures and satisfactions, mental, vital or physical, that the person loved can give. Remove these things and the love very soon sinks, diminishes or disappears or turns into anger, reproach, indifference or even hatred.” (CWSA 29: 339–340)

XI—In Human Love What Needs to Be Rejected

“Aversion and quarrelling are unyogic, not Yogic tendencies; the fact that this Asram is full of quarrels only shows that it is still an Asram of very imperfect sadhaks, not yet an Asram of Yogis–it does not at all mean that aversion and quarrelling are the dharma of the spiritual seeker.

The ideal of the Yoga is that all should be centred in and around the Divine and the life of the sadhaks must be founded on that firm foundation, their personal relations also should have the Divine for their centre. Moreover, all relations should pass from the vital to the spiritual basis with the vital only as a form and instrument of the spiritual;–this means that from whatever relations they have with each other all jealousy, strife, hatred, aversion, rancour and other evil vital feelings should be abandoned, for they can be no part of the spiritual life. So also all egoistic love and attachment will have to disappear–the love that loves only for the ego’s sake and as soon as the ego is hurt and dissatisfied ceases to love or even cherishes rancor and hate. There must be a real living and lasting unity behind the love. It is understood of course that such things as sexual impurity must disappear also.” (CWSA 31: 288–289)

XII—With All These Problems How Does Human Vital Love and Affection Last?

“It is the ordinary nature of vital love not to last or, if it tries to last, not to satisfy, because it is a passion which Nature has thrown in in order to serve a temporary purpose; it is good enough therefore for a temporary purpose and its normal tendency is to wane when it has sufficiently served Nature’s purpose. In mankind, as man is a more complex being, she calls in the aid of imagination and idealism to help her push, gives a sense of ardour, of beauty and fire and glory, but all that wanes after a time. It cannot last, because it is all a borrowed light and power, borrowed in the sense of being a reflection caught from something beyond and not native to the reflecting vital medium which imagination uses for the purpose. Moreover nothing lasts in the mind and vital, all is in a flux there. The one thing that endures is the soul, the spirit. Therefore love can last or satisfy only if it bases itself on the soul and spirit, if it has its roots there. But that means living no longer in the vital but in the soul and spirit.” (CWSA 31: 298–299)

“It is not that these affections cannot last–tamasic instinctive affections last because of habit in spite of everything dividing the persons, e.g. certain family affections; rajasic affections can last sometimes in spite of all disturbances and incompatibilities and furious ruptures because one has a vital need of the other and clings because of that or because both have that need and are constantly separating to return and returning to separate, or proceeding from quarrel to reconciliation and from reconciliation to quarrel; sattwic affections last very often from duty to the ideal or with some other support though they may lose their keenness or intensity or brightness.” (CWSA 31: 296)

“But [in human love] there is also an element of habit, something that makes the presence of the person loved a sort of necessity because it has always been there–and this is sometimes so strong that even in spite of entire incompatibility of temper, fierce antagonism, something like hatred, it lasts and even these gulfs of discord are not enough to make the persons part; in other cases this feeling is more tepid and after a time one gets accustomed to separation or accepts a substitute. There is again often the element of some kind of spontaneous attraction or affinity, mental, vital or physical, which gives a stronger cohesion to the love.” (CWSA 29: 340)

XIII—Ideal Human Love

1. A Man may Love a Women for Herself

2. He Might Have no Hope of Any Return Whatever and Yet Love Her, Adore Her, Live for Her, Die for Her Simply because She is She

“One who loves a queen may know that if she returns his love it will bring him power, position, riches and yet it need not be for the power, position, riches that he seeks her love. He may love her for herself and could love her equally if she were not a queen; he might have no hope of any return whatever and yet love her, adore her, live for her, die for her simply because she is she. That has happened and men have loved women without any hope of enjoyment or result, loved steadily, passionately after age has come and beauty has gone. Patriots do not love their country only when she is rich, powerful, great and has much to give them; their love for country has been most ardent, passionate, absolute when the country was poor, degraded, miserable, having nothing to give but loss, wounds, torture, imprisonment, death as the wages of her service; yet even knowing that they would never see her free, men have lived, served and died for her—for her own sake, not for what she could give. Men have loved Truth for her own sake and for what they could seek or find of her, accepted poverty, persecution, death itself; they have been content even to seek for her always, not finding, and yet never given up the search. That means what? That men, country, Truth and other things besides can be loved for their own sake and not for anything else, not for any circumstance or attendant quality or resulting enjoyment, but for something absolute that is either in them or behind their appearance and circumstance.” (CWSA 29: 11–12)

3. I have loved thee for thyself indeed — Immortal to immortal I made speed

Immortal Love

If I had wooed thee for thy colour rare,

Cherished the rose in thee

Or wealth of Nature’s brilliants in thy hair,

O woman fair,

My love might cease to be.

Or, had I sought thee for thy virtuous youth

And tender yearning speech,

Thy swift compassion and deliberate truth,

O heart of ruth,

Time might pursue, might reach.

But I have loved thee for thyself indeed

And with myself have snared;

Immortal to immortal I made speed.

Change I exceed

And am for Time prepared.”

(CWSA 2: 206–207)

4. The True Reliability is There Only When the Psychic Element in Human Affection Becomes Strong

5. For that Reason Friendship can be the Most Durable of the Human Affections Because There is Less Interference of the Vital and Even the Ego can be a Quiet and Pure Fire gives its Warmth and Light

“But the true reliability is there only when the psychic element in human affection becomes strong enough to colour or dominate the rest. For that reason friendship is or rather can oftenest be the most durable of the human affections because there there is less interference of the vital and even though a flame of the ego it can be a quiet and pure fire giving always its warmth and light. Nevertheless reliable friendship is almost always with a very few; to have a horde of loving, unselfishly faithful friends is a phenomenon so rare that it can be safely taken as an illusion.” (CWSA 31: 296)

6. It is only when the Divine is found and the consciousness lifted up into the True Consciousness that the True Relations with Others can Come

“It is not because of your nature or evil destiny that the vital cannot find the satisfaction it expected from relations with others. These relations can never give a full or permanent satisfaction; if they did, there would be no reason why the human being would ever seek the Divine. He would remain satisfied in the ordinary earth life. It is only when the Divine is found and the consciousness lifted up into the true consciousness that the true relations with others can come.”  (CWSA 31: 283)

7. If Human Beings base their Relationships on Psychic contacts they would find that there is a Profound and Lasting Harmony in all the activities of life and disorder and suffering will be replaced by Peace and Bliss

“Human beings are in the habit of basing their relationships with others on physical, vital and mental contacts; that is why there is almost always discord and suffering. If, on the contrary, they based their relationships on psychic contacts (between soul and soul), they would find that behind the troubled appearances there is a profound and lasting harmony which can express itself in all the activities of life and cause disorder and suffering to be replaced by peace and bliss.” (CWM 10: 247–248)

Ideal love potrayed in Sri Aurobindo’s poem ‘Love and Death’

“Ruru and Priyumvada are also types and ideals; love in them, such is the idea, finds not only its crowning exaltation but that perfect idea of itself of which every existing love is a partial and not quite successful manifestation. Ideal love is a triune energy, neither a mere sensual impulse, nor mere emotional nor mere spiritual. These may exist, but they are not love. By itself the sensual is only an animal need, the emotional a passing mood, the spiritual a religious aspiration which has lost its way. Yet all these are necessary elements of the highest passion. Sense impulse is as necessary to it as the warm earth-matter at its root to the tree, emotion as the air which consents with its life, spiritual aspiration as the light and the rain from heaven which prevent it from withering. My conception being an ideal struggle between love and death, two things are needed to give it poetical form, an adequate picture of love and adequate image of Death. The love pictured must be on the ideal plane, and touch therefore the farthest limit of strength in each of its three directions. The sensual must be emphasised to give it firm root and basis, the emotional to impart to it life, the spiritual to prolong it into infinite permanence. And if at their limits of extension the three meet and harmonise, if they are not triple but triune, then is that love a perfect love and the picture of it a perfect picture. Such at least is the conception of the poem; whether I have contrived even faintly to execute it, do you judge.” (CWSA 36: 132)

XIV—Love and Marriage

Social Regulations in Auroville

“... Of course the whole idea of marriage is amusing because I consider the thing childish.

You know in Auroville there will be no marriages. If a man and a woman love each other and want to live together they may do so without any ceremony. If they want to separate they can also do so freely. Why should people be compelled to stay together when they have ceased to love each other?

A lot of crimes would be prevented if people were free in this respect. They would not have to hide things from one another or even commit crimes to be separated. Of course, if they truly love each other they will continue to live together always naturally, without being forced to do so by any law. That is why this ceremony and ritual of marriage is so childish.

Children born in Auroville will have no family name. They will have just the first name.” (CWM 13: 236)

(Mother suggested that the following letter of hers about marriage be published with the statement above.)

On Marriage

“To unite your physical lives, your material interests, to become partners in order to face together the difficulties and successes, the defeats and victories of life—that is the very foundation of marriage, but you already know that it is not enough.

To be united in your sensations, to have the same aesthetic tastes and enjoyments, to be moved in common by the same things, one through the other and one for the other—that is good, that is necessary, but it is not enough.

To be one in your deeper feelings, to keep a mutual affection and tenderness that never vary in spite of all the blows of life and can withstand every weariness and irritation and disappointment, to be always and on every occasion happy, extremely happy, to be together, to find in every circumstance tranquillity, peace and joy in each other—that is good, that is very good, that is indispensable, but it is not enough.

To unite your minds, to harmonise your thoughts and make them complementary, to share your intellectual preoccupations and discoveries; in short, to make your sphere of mental activity identical through a widening and enrichment acquired by both at once—that is good, that is absolutely necessary, but it is not enough.

Beyond all that, in the depths, at the centre, at the summit of the being, there is a Supreme Truth of being, an Eternal Light, independent of all the circumstances of birth, country, environment, education; That is the origin, cause and master of our spiritual development; it is That which gives a permanent direction to our lives; it is That which determines our destinies; it is in the consciousness of That that you must unite. To be one in aspiration and ascension, to move forward at the same pace on the same spiritual path, that is the secret of a lasting union.” (CWM 13: 236–237)

Part Two:

Yoga and Human Love

I—Problems of Human Love In Sadhana

1. In Yoga One Must Not Burden Oneself with Human Love and Attachments

2. Human Love Forms So Many Fetters and Hampers One’s Steps

3. Turns Him Away from the Concentration of His Emotions on the Divine

“But whatever it may be, one who wishes to reach the Divine must not burden himself with human loves and attachments, for they form so many fetters and hamper his steps, turning him away besides from the concentration of his emotions on the one supreme object of love.” (CWSA 29: 346)

4. Human Love Shuts Off From the Direct Divine Force and Help

“I have postponed my answer to give you time to look carefully into the problem and to face it with more quiet and detachment.

One thing only I can tell you that whatever the sincerity, simplicity and purity of the relation between two human beings, it shuts them off more or less from the direct divine force and help and limits their strength, light and power only to the sum of their potentialities.

I cannot say that this is very advisable in your case.” (CWM 14: 120)

5. Lose a Great Part of Strength, Energy and Capacity due to Human Love

“You lose a great part of your strength, energy and capacity due to your so-called human love. It is a great hindrance in your progress.” (CWM 14: 120)

6. Relations of a Vital Kind Do Not Help For They Keep the Consciousness Down on a Vital Basis and Prevent its Rising to a Higher Level

“Relations which are part of the ordinary vital nature in human life are of no value in the spiritual life–they rather interfere with the progress; for the mind and vital also should be wholly turned towards the Divine. Moreover, the purpose of sadhana is to enter into a spiritual consciousness and base everything on a new spiritual basis which can only be done when one has entered into complete unity with the Divine. Meanwhile one has to have a calm goodwill for all, but relations of a vital kind do not help–for they keep the consciousness down on a vital basis and prevent its rising to a higher level.” (CWSA 31: 283)

7. A Study of Poetry on the Human Side of Love, is Not Helpful for Sadhana and For Some It is Distinctly Harmful

“Well, I think it would be better not to lay too much stress, in your studies of poetry, on the human side of love, as it is not helpful for sadhana and for some it is distinctly harmful.” (CWM 17: 335)

8. The Ordinary Vital Human Love is Full of Contrary Movements of Distrust, Misunderstanding, Jealousy, Anger, Despair

“… the sadhaks apply the movements of a vital human love to the Mother and the ordinary vital human love is full of contrary movements of distrust, misunderstanding, jealousy, anger, despair.” (CWSA 32: 548)

9. Vital Love Cannot be Made a Foundation for Divine Love

10. This Lower Vital Way of Human Love Needs to be Rejected and These Elements From the Nature Eliminated

“But there is another way of vital love which is more usually the way of human nature and that is a way of ego and desire. It is full of vital craving, desire and demand; .... A love of this kind is in its very nature ephemeral and unreliable and it cannot be made a foundation for divine love. There has been too much of this kind in the relations of the sadhaks with the Mother–approaching her, I suppose, as a human mother with all the reactions of the lower vital nature. For a long time it was perforce tolerated–and this was the concession made to human weakness–even accepted in the beginning as a thing too prominent in the human being not to be there to some extent but to be transformed by degrees; but too often, it has refused to transform itself and has made itself a source of confusion, disorder, asiddhi, sometimes complete disaster. It is for this reason that we discourage this lower vital way of human love and would like people to reject and eliminate these elements as soon as may be from their nature.” (CWSA 29: 342–343)

11. Psychic Love is Not Usually Left Pure in the Attraction of Human Beings to One Another

“There is such a thing as psychic love, pure, without demand, sincere in self-giving, but it is not usually left pure in the attraction of human beings to one another. One must also be on one’s guard against the profession of psychic love when one is doing sadhana,–for that is most often a cloak and justification for yielding to a vital attraction or attachment.” (CWSA 29: 346)

12. Egoistic Vital Human Love Creates Difficulties for the Sadhana and For the Mother

“The outer being has to learn to love in the psychic way without ego. If it loves in the egoistic vital way, then it only creates difficulties for itself and for the sadhana and for the Mother.” (CWSA 29: 348)

13. Demand for Vital Affection and Love From Men is Not Consistent with the Spirit of Yoga in which One Must Turn One’s Heart to the Divine

“If one cherishes desires, there is bound to be disappointment and suffering, especially if at the same time one does Yoga and takes up the spiritual life. For such desires, demand for vital affection and love from men and demand for physical comforts are not consistent with the spirit of Yoga in which one must turn one’s heart to the Divine and be vitally pure and in physical things must be content with what one gets and equal-minded in all conditions.” (CWSA 31: 258)

14. One Cannot Love As Long As Ego is There

Solution

15. Love Alone Can Conquer the Ego

“So long as the ego is there, one cannot love.

Love alone can love, Love alone can conquer the ego.” (CWM 14: 121)

“Self-love is the great obstacle.

Divine love is the great remedy.” (CWM 14: 121)

16. Perfect Attachment to the Divine Replaces All Vital Attractions and Passions

“Perfect attachment to the Divine replaces all vital attractions and passions.” (CWM 14: 128)

II—The Human Way of Loving Divine Is ...

1. In Human Way You Want the Divine for Yourself, Who Would Have no Other Occupation Than to Satisfy You

2. A Divine Whom You Could See Physically At Every Hour of the Day or Night

3. A Divine Whom You Could Argue With At Your Leisure, Whom You Could Live With

4. If That be So This Divine Would Have To Be of Your Own Stature

5. Then Towards What Could He Lead You?

“In short, what you want is a Divine for yourself, who would have no other occupation than to satisfy you, a Divine whom you could see physically at every hour of the day or night, whom you could argue with at your leisure, whom you could live with, marry–for in its ideal principle, marriage is nothing else but that.

But for it to be so, this Divine would have to be of your own size, your own stature.

And towards what could He lead you if not towards yourself as you are. Is this what you really want in the truth of your being?

I refuse to believe it.” (CWM 14: 129)

6. A Divine Who is One’s Personal Property and To Whom One Gives Oneself Totally Only If the Gift is Reciprocated

7. Instead of Enlarging Oneself to the Size of the Divine and Having a Love as Vast as the universe,

8. One Tries to Reduce the Divine to One’s Own Size

9. Human Love is Not a Need of the Soul, but Rather a Concession it Makes for a Time to the Ego

“The need for human love, to the extent that it is not merely in obedience to the instinct of Nature or to a vital attraction, is the need to have a Divine for oneself alone, at one’s entire and exclusive disposal, a Divine who is one’s personal property and to whom one gives oneself totally only if the gift is reciprocated.

Instead of enlarging oneself to the size of the Divine and having a love as vast as the universe, one tries to reduce the Divine to one’s own size and have His love for oneself alone.

Therefore, human love is not a need of the soul, but rather a concession it makes for a time to the ego.” (CWM 14: 120)

10. If the Call for a Return Does Not Seem to Come, the Love may Sink

11. If the Demands are Not Acceded to Then There is Abhimana Against the Divine, Loss of Faith, Loss of Fervour

“When the love goes towards the Divine, there is still this ordinary human element in it. There is the call for a return and if the return does not seem to come, the love may sink; there is the self-interest, the demand for the Divine as a giver of all that the human being wants and, if the demands are not acceded to, abhimana [hurt pride] against the Divine, loss of faith, loss of fervour. Etc. etc. But the true love for the Divine is in its fundamental nature not of this kind, but psychic and spiritual.” (CWSA 29: 340)

III—For the Divine to Love Truly is to Do What is Best For the One He Loves

“Child, you say to me, “To love me is to do what I want.”

But I say to you that for the Divine to love truly is to do what is best for the one He loves.” (CWM 14: 129)

The Divine Does For Each One What is Best For Him From All Points of View

“Each and every one, when he turns to the Divine, demands that He should do for him exactly what he asks. Whereas the Divine does for each one what is best for him from all points of view. But man, in his ignorance and blindness, revolts against the Divine when his desire is not satisfied, and says to Him, “You do not love me.” (CWM 14: 129)

IV—How To Prepare For Yoga Through Human love

1. We Have To Proceed From Human Love and Arrive At the Divine Love

2. By Intensifying and Transforming Human Love

“And let me say also that, as regards human love and divine love, I admitted the first as that from which we have to proceed and to arrive at the other, intensifying and transforming into it, not eliminating, human love. Divine Love, in my view of it, is again not something ethereal, cold and far, but a love absolutely intense, intimate and full of unity, closeness and rapture using all the nature for its expression. Certainly, it is without the confusions and disorders of the present lower vital nature which it will change into something entirely warm, deep and intense; but that is no reason for supposing that it will lose anything that is true and happy in the elements of love.” (CWSA 29: 344)

3. In Yoga Love and Affection Must Be Rooted in the Divine

“Yoga is the founding of all the life and consciousness in the Divine, so also love and affection must be rooted in the Divine and a spiritual and psychic oneness in the Divine must be their foundation ...” (CWSA 31: 297)

4. The Essence of Human Love is the Divine Love but It is Diminished and Distorted by our Ego

5. When the Psychic Loves it Loves with the Divine Love

“When the psychic loves it loves with the Divine Love.

When you love, you love with the Divine’s love diminished and distorted by your ego, but in its essence still the Divine’s love.

It is for the facility of the language that you say the love of this one or that one, but it is all the same one Love manifested through different channels.

I have given you the clue to find the love you are seeking for since many years; but it is not a mental clue; and it is only if your mind falls silent that you can feel what I want to convey to you.

Blessings.” (CWM 14: 124)

6. Behind the Human Vital Love Bring a Constant Support of the Psychic Human Love

“Why do you always insist on cherishing the idea that I refuse all human love? I have surely written to you to the contrary. I don’t reject it, neither human nor vital love. But I want that behind the vital there shall be the constant support of the psychic human love (not all at once the divine), because that alone can prevent the movements which make you restless, obscured and miserable. In asking this I am surely not asking anything excessive or beyond your power.” (CWSA 35: 441–442)

7. The vital also can be as absolute in its self-giving and nothing can be more generous than its movement when it forgets self for the Beloved

“It is a mistake to believe that if the vital loves, it must be a love that demands and imposes the satisfaction of its desire; it is a mistake to think that it must be either that or else the vital, in order to escape from its “attachment”, must draw away altogether from the object of its love. The vital can be as absolute in its unquestioning self-giving as any other part of the nature; nothing can be more generous than its movement when it forgets self for the Beloved. The vital and physical should both give themselves in the true way–the way of true love, not of ego-desire.”  (CWSA 29: 339)

8. Learn to Love Without Demand, to Love Just for the Joy of Loving

“You feel lonely because you feel the need to be loved. Learn to love without demand, to love just for the joy of loving (the most wonderful joy in the world!) and you will never again feel lonely.” (CWM 14: 121)

9. There is No Place for Egoistic Vital Love in Yoga

10. In Yoga all Love Should be Turned Towards the Divine

“These movements [of egoism] are part of man’s ignorant vital nature. The love which human beings feel for one another is also usually an egoistic vital love and these other movements, claim, demand, jealousy, abhiman, anger etc., are its common accompaniments. There is no place for them in Yoga–nor in true love, psychic or divine. In Yoga all love should be turned towards the Divine and to human or other beings only as vessels of the Divine–abhiman and the rest should have no place in it.” (CWSA 31: 284)

11. In Integral Yoga the Emotional Being Has Not to Be Got Rid Of, But To Undergo a Transformation

12. By Turning All the Being to the Divine

“In this Yoga the emotional being has not to be got rid of, but to undergo a transformation; the shortest way of transformation is to turn all the being to the Divine. But when that is done, then it is found that what is pure and true in any human relation survives, but with a rich and subtle change, or else new relations are established that come straight from the Divine.” (CWSA 31: 287–288)

13. Go Beyond Emotion to the Intensity of the Divine Love and There Feel Through the Inner Psychic Heart an Inexhaustible Oneness with the Divine

“Emotion is an excellent and indispensable thing in human nature, in spite of all its shortcomings and dangers, ... In the same way our aim is to go beyond emotion to the height and depth and intensity of the Divine Love and there feel through the inner psychic heart an inexhaustible oneness with the Divine which the spasmodic leapings of the vital emotions cannot reach or experience.” (CWSA 29: 345–346)

14. If the Vital has Affection, Love, Tenderness it is Because the Psychic is Trying to Express Itself Through the Vital

“Affection, love, tenderness are in their nature psychic,– the vital has them because the psychic is trying to express itself through the vital. It is through the emotional being that the psychic most easily expresses, for it stands just behind it in the heart centre. But it wants these things to be pure. Not that it rejects the outward expression through the vital and the physical, but as the psychic being is the form of the soul, it naturally feels

the attraction of soul to soul, the nearness of soul to soul the union of soul with soul are the things that are to it most abiding and concrete.” (CWSA 31" 284–285)

15. The Psychic Human Love is Closest to the Divine and It Is Therefore The Right and Best Way of Loving

“There is a psychic human love which rises from deep within and is the result of the meeting of the inner being with that which calls it towards a divine joy and union; it is, once it becomes aware of itself, something lasting, self-existent, not dependent upon external satisfactions, not capable of diminution by external causes, not self-regarding, not prone to demand or bargain but giving itself simply and spontaneously, not moved to or broken by misunderstandings, disappointments, strife and anger, but pressing always straight towards the inner union. It is this psychic love that is closest to the divine and it is therefore the right and best way of love and bhakti.” (CWSA 29: 341–342)

16. In the Vital There is a Kind of Love, Which is Full of Joy, Confidence, Generous, Unbargaining, Ungrudging and Absolute in its Dedication

17. This Love is akin to the Psychic and Well-fitted to be its Complement and a Means of Expression of the Divine Love

18. Physical Means Can Be and are Used in the Approach to Divine Love and Worship

19. So long as Physical Means are Done in the Right Spirit They Have their Place

“But that does not mean that the other parts of the being, the vital and physical included, are not to be used as means of expression or that they are not to share in the full play and the whole meaning of love, even of divine love. On the contrary, they are a means and can be a great part of the complete expression of divine love,–provided they have the right and not the wrong movement. There are in the vital itself two kinds of love,–one full of joy and confidence and abandon, generous, unbargaining, ungrudging and very absolute in its dedication and this is akin to the psychic and well-fitted to be its complement and a means of expression of the divine love. And neither does the psychic love or the divine love despise a physical means of expression wherever that is pure and right and possible: it does not depend upon that, it does not diminish, revolt or go out like a snuffed candle when it is deprived of any such means; but when it can use it, it does so with joy and gratitude. Physical means can be and are used in the approach to divine love and worship; they have not been allowed merely as a concession to human weakness, nor is it the fact that in the psychic way there is no place for such things. On the contrary they are one means of approaching the Divine and receiving the Light and materializing the psychic contact, and so long as it is done in the right spirit and they are used for the true purpose they have their place. It is only if they are misused or the approach is not right because tainted by indifference and inertia, or revolt or hostility, or some gross desire, that they are out of place and can have a contrary effect.” (CWSA 29: 342)

20. Love for the Divine Needs Something Purer and Nobler and Higher in the Vital of Ordinary Human Vital Love

“I have never said that the vital is to have no part in the love for the Divine, only that it must purify and ennoble itself in the light of the psychic being. The results of self-loving love between human beings are so poor and contrary in the end–that is what I mean by the ordinary vital love–that I want something purer and nobler and higher in the vital also for the movement towards the Divine.” (CWSA 29: 348)

21. One Must be Sincere in One’s Will To Get Rid of the Vital Demand

“This vital (so-called) love brings only suffering and disappointment; it does not bring happiness; it never gets satisfied and, even if it is granted something that it asks for, it is never satisfied with it.

It is perfectly possible to get rid of this Maya of the vital demand, if one wishes to do it,–but the will to do it must be sincere. If he is sincere in his will, he will certainly get help and protection.” (CWSA 29: 349)

22. Friendship, Brotherhood, Love are Sacred Things and They Should be Rooted in the Soul, Founded on the Rock of the Divine

“All are not indifferent in this Asram to each other, nor is friendship or affection excluded from the Yoga. Friendship with the Divine is a recognised relation in the sadhana. Friendships between the sadhaks exist and are encouraged by the Mother. Only we seek to found them on a surer basis than that on which the bulk of human friendships are insecurely founded. It is precisely because we hold friendship, brotherhood, love to be sacred things that we want this change–because we do not want to see them broken at every moment by the movements of the ego, soiled and spoiled and destroyed by the passions, jealousies, treacheries to which the vital is prone–it is to make them truly sacred and secure that we want them rooted in the soul, founded on the rock of the Divine. Our Yoga is not an ascetic Yoga: it aims at purity, but not at a cold austerity. Friendship and love are indispensable notes in the harmony to which we aspire. It is not a vain dream, for we have seen that even in imperfect conditions when a little of the indispensable element is there at the very root the thing is possible.” (CWSA 31: 294-295)

23. If There is Still the Need for Human Affection and Love, it is Better To Go Through the Experience

24. It is the Best Preparation for Yoga

“If there is, somewhere in some part of your being, still the need for human affection and love, it is better to go through the experience of life; it is the best preparation for Yoga.” (CWM 14: 120)

25. Leave All Relations to Follow the Divine Alone

26. Once the Divine is Attained It Will be Easy to Found All Relations on the True Basis

27. The Other Way is Seek the Divine Centrally and Subordinating All Relation to That and Seeking to Transform Gradually All Relationship

“That is the ideal, but as for the way of attainment, it may differ for different people. One way is that in which one leaves everything else to follow the Divine alone. This does not mean an aversion for anybody any more than it means aversion for the world and life. It only means absorption in one’s central aim, with the idea that once that is attained it will be easy to found all relations on the true basis, to become truly united with others in the heart and the spirit and the life, united in the spiritual truth and in the Divine. The other way is to go forward from where one is, seeking the Divine centrally and subordinating all else to that, but not putting everything else aside, rather seeking to transform gradually and progressively whatever is capable of such transformation. All the things that are not wanted in the relation,–impurity, jealousy, anger, egoistic demand,–drop away as the inner being grows purer and is replaced by the unity of soul with soul and the binding together of the social life in the hoop of the Divine. Your eagerness to bring your friends into the Yoga was perhaps in reality due to a recognition somewhere in the being that this was the safest way to preserve the relation, to found it on the common search for the Divine. If quarrels intervene and there is strife, it is because the old ego-basis stuck still and brought in old reactions not of a Yogic character; but for that the Yoga is not to blame.” (CWSA 31: 289)

“The love of the sadhak should be for the Divine. It is only when he has that fully that he can love others in the right way.” (CWSA 31: 290)

28. In the Initial Stage of Sadhana It is Not Necessary to have Love for Everybody, a General Goodwill is Enough

“It is not necessary to have love for everybody just now. If you have a general goodwill, that is enough.” (CWSA 31: 291)

29. What One Receives from the Divine That is Poured Out on Others

30. Then That is the Highest and Most Satisfying Way to Love

“There is a love in which the emotion is turned towards the Divine in an increasing receptivity and growing union. What it receives from the Divine it pours out on others, but freely without demanding a return. If you are capable of that, then that is the highest and most satisfying way to love.” (CWSA 31: 291)

31. There Must be No Attachment That Would Make the Relation with People an Obstacle in Yoga

“It is not that one cannot have relations with people outside the circle of the sadhaks, but there too if the spiritual life grows within, it must necessarily affect the relation and spiritualise it on the sadhak’s side. And there must be no such attachment as would make the relation an obstacle or a rival to the Divine. Attachment to family etc. often is like that and, if so, it falls away from the sadhana. That is an exigence which, I think, should not be considered excessive. All that however can be progressively done; a severing of existing relations is necessary for some; it is not so for all. A transformation, however gradual, is indispensable,– severance where severance is the right thing to do.” (CWSA 31: 289–290)

32. In Yoga Friendship can Remain, but Attachment Has to Fall Away

“In Yoga friendship can remain, but attachment has to fall away or any such engrossing affection as would keep one tied to the ordinary life and consciousness–human relations must take quite a small and secondary place and not interfere with the turn to the Divine.” (CWSA 31: 295)

33. All Human Affinities Have to be Surrendered to the Divine Along With the Rest of the Old Nature

“It cannot be said that it [one’s affinity for certain persons] is either bad or good in a general way. It depends on the person, the effects and many other things. As a general rule, all these affinities have to be surrendered to the Divine along with the rest of the old nature–so that only what is in harmony with the Divine Truth can be kept and transformed for its work in you. All relations with others must be relations in the Divine and not of the old personal nature.” (CWSA 31: 290)

34. The Inner Being Turned to the Divine Naturally Draws Away from Old Vital Relations

“Yes. The inner being turned to the Divine naturally draws away from old vital relations and outer movements and contacts till it can bring a new consciousness into the external being.” (CWSA 31: 294)

35. Find Happiness and Joy in Love and It will Help You in Your Inner Progress

“Find your happiness and your joy in the very fact of loving, and it will help you in your inner progress; because if you are sincere, you will one day realise that it is the Divine in her that you love and that the outer person is merely a pretext.” (CWM 16: 274)

36. Love and Affection Have to be Rebased on That Deeper and Higher Consciousness

“As to the question about affections etc. I answered X long ago that in Yoga all attachments have to be given up so that there may be no rival to the Divine, but love and affection can be there–only as a new basis of consciousness has to be reached love and affection have to be rebased on that deeper and higher consciousness, not allowed to remain in their old form or on their old level–all the life must be centred round the Divine. It is so in this Yoga at least. There are others in which a man must become aloof from all things, but that is when one is bound towards Nirvana.” (CWSA 31: 295)

“Yes. First, one should enter into union with the Divine, and learn to live in the true light, true consciousness, true force. Yogic relations with others should come only when one lives in the Divine–then it will be safe and then there can be no influence [from others], for the only influence will be that of the Divine.” (CWSA 31: 290)

37. The Family Ties Should be Less Based On a Physical Origin and More On the Basis of Sadhana as Others are Souls of the Mother

“What you write about the family ties is perfectly correct. It creates an unnecessary interchange and comes in the way of a complete turning to the Divine. Relations after taking up Yoga should be less and less based on a physical origin or the habits of the physical consciousness and more and more on the basis of sadhana–of sadhak with sadhaks, of others as souls travelling the same path or children of the Mother than in the ordinary way or with the old viewpoint.” (CWSA 31: 291)

38. One Can Become Indifferent to Family Ties With No Harshness in It

“When one enters the spiritual life, the family ties which belong to the ordinary nature fall away–one becomes indifferent to the old things. This indifference is a release. There need be no harshness in it at all. To remain tied to the old physical affections would mean to remain tied to the ordinary nature and that would prevent the spiritual progress.” (CWSA 31: 291)

39. If You Want to be Free from Feeling of Hurt in Human Love then

40. Look on All with a Kindly Feeling as Children of the Mother

41. Without Any Expectation from Anybody

42. Yoga Demands an Equanimity of Mind Towards All Things and Persons

“Q: There must be something soiled in human love–otherwise why should I feel like this? After some problem with X in which he told me some unpleasant things, my vital got disturbed and my mind got confused. I kept remembering the incident over and over instead of remembering the Mother. I have come here for her–why then do my mind and vital want to make contact with human beings and acquire their narrow love and affection? Tell me now what I should do.

A: These are the usual weaknesses of the human nature when it makes relations with human beings–there are always these clashes and difficulties and turmoil in the vital. If you want to be free from them, do what we have already told you– look on all with a kindly feeling, as children of the Mother, but without any special relation and without any expectation from anybody. Yoga demands an equanimity of mind towards all things and persons.” (CWSA 32: 184–185)

43. In Yoga the Love in the Vital Must Purify Itself of Lower Reactions and Fix Itself on the Psychic Being’s Trust and Confident Self-giving

“But in Yoga this is most undesirable– for here trust in the Mother, faith in her divine Love is of great importance; anything that denies or disturbs it opens the door to obstacles and wrong reactions. It is not that there should be no love in the vital, but it must purify itself of these reactions and fix itself on the psychic being’s trust and confident self-giving. Then there can be the full progress.” (CWSA 32: 548)

44. One Should Not Look Back in a Spirit of Enthusiastic Appreciation to the Old Vital Love

45. The Old Vital Love Must Dwindle Into the Shadowy Constructions of the Past Which Have No Longer Any Importance

“It is not helpful to make so much of the past and give it such a primary value. Whatever may be the glamour of a vital love, once it falls away and one gets to a higher level, it should be seen to have been not the great thing one imagined. To keep the exaggerated estimate of it is to hold the consciousness back from the full essor towards the greater thing with which that cannot for a moment compare. If one keeps a fervour like that for an inferior past, it must make it more difficult to develop the entire person for a higher future. It is indeed not the Mother’s wish that X or you either should look back in a spirit of enthusiastic appreciation to the old vital love. It was indeed “so little” in any true estimate of things. It is not at all a question of comparison or of exalting the vital passion of one at the expense of that of the other. It is the whole thing that must dwindle in its proportions and recede into the shadowy constructions of the past which have no longer any importance.” (CWSA 31: 298)

46. The Vital Love Should Change into a Psychic Love and Become An Instrument for the Transformation of the Soul’s Love

“The love in the vital or other parts is the true thing, good for the spiritual life, only when in the vital love is changed into a form of the psychic love and becomes an instrument for the transformation of the soul’s love, no longer for the desires of the ego which men call love.” (CWSA 31: 301)

47. In Yoga, You Must be Able to Live in the World with a Mind Set Upon the Divine and Not Bound by the Environment

“You ought to be able to see, after receiving today’s telegram, that the cause of the unrest is in yourself and not in the outward circumstances. It is your vital attachment to family ties and the ordinary social ideas and feelings that has risen in you and creates the difficulty. If you want to practise Yoga, you must be able to live in the world, so long as you are there, with a mind set upon the Divine and not bound by the environment. One who does this, can help those around him a hundred times more than one who is bound and attached to the world.” (CWSA 31: 292)

48. Through the Human Affection, the Psychic Being gets the Emotional Experiences it Needs Until it is ready to Prefer the Divine to the Human

“In any case human affection whatever its value has its place, because through it the psychic being gets the emotional experiences it needs until it is ready to prefer the true to the apparent, the perfect to the imperfect, the divine to the human. As the consciousness has to rise to a higher level, so the activities of the heart also have to rise to that higher level and change their basis and character. Yoga is the founding of all the life and consciousness in the Divine, so also love and affection must be rooted in the Divine and a spiritual and psychic oneness in the Divine must be their foundation–to reach the Divine first leaving other things aside or to seek the Divine alone is the straight road towards that change. That means no attachment –it need not mean turning affection into disaffection or chill indifference.” (CWSA 31: 296–297)

49. By an Effort for Progress, Inner Transformation and Aspiration you Grow in Your Consciousness, become Vaster, then the Love you Experience will be Vaster

“Q: In order to know how to love truly, should the nature be transformed?

A: The quality of the love is in proportion to the transformation of your consciousness.

Q: I don’t understand.

A: It is childishly simple. If you have the consciousness of an animal, you will love like an animal. If you have the consciousness of an ordinary man, you will love like an ordinary man. If you have the consciousness of an elite being, you will love like an elite being, and if you have a god’s consciousness, you will love like a god. It is simple! That’s what I have said. And so, if by an effort for progress and inner transformation, by aspiration and growth, you pass from one consciousness to the other and your consciousness becomes vaster and vaster, well, the love you experience will be vaster and vaster. That is quite clear!" (CWM 6: 102–103)

50. The Capacity of Non Egoistic Man’s Love and Self-giving has As Much Power As the Gods

“By his capacity of love and self-giving, man can have as much power as the gods and even more, when he is not egoistic, when he has surmounted his egoism.

If he fulfils the required condition, man is nearer to the Supreme than the gods are. He can be nearer. He is not so automatically, but he has the power to be so, the potentiality.

If human love manifested itself without mixture, it would be all-powerful. Unfortunately, in human love there is as much love of oneself as of the one loved; it is not a love that makes you forget yourself.” (CWM 15: 360)

51. Must Reject all Forms of Love Between Human Beings Because They Cause a Kind of Short-circuit and Cut Off the Direct Connection with the Divine

“who aspire … so that they may take part in the spiritual advance which will lead them along the swiftest paths towards the creation of the new race, the race that will express the supramental truth upon earth. These rare souls must reject all forms of love between human beings, for however beautiful and pure they may be, they cause a kind of short-circuit and cut off the direct connection with the Divine.

For one who has known love for the Divine, all other forms of love are obscure and too mixed with pettiness and egoism and darkness; they are like a perpetual haggling or a struggle for supremacy and domination, and even among the best they are full of misunderstanding and irritability, of friction and incomprehension.” (CWM 12: 68–69)

52. Unless There Comes the Peace, Purity, Freedom from Ego, Wideness, Light of the Universal Consciousness It is Difficult to Have a Love that is Free From all the Defects, Limitations, of Ordinary Human Love

“But if he means a love that is divine, not tainted by the lower movements, then it is true that until there comes the peace, purity, freedom from ego, wideness, light of the universal consciousness which is the basis of the universal love, it is difficult to have a love that is free from all the defects, limitations, taints of ordinary human love. The more one has of the universality the more one tends to be freed from these things.” (CWSA 29: 338)

53. In This Yoga the Feeling of Unity With Others, Love, Universal Joy and Ananda are an Essential Part of the Liberation and Perfection

“Absence of love and fellow-feeling is not necessary for nearness to the Divine; on the contrary, a sense of closeness and oneness with others is a part of the divine consciousness into which the sadhak enters by nearness to the Divine and the feeling of oneness with the Divine. An entire rejection of all relations is indeed the final aim of the Mayavadin, and in the ascetic Yoga an entire loss of all relations of friendship and affection and attachment to the world and its living beings would be regarded as a promising sign of advance towards liberation, Moksha; but even there, I think, a feeling of oneness and unattached spiritual sympathy for all is at least a penultimate stage, like the compassion of the Buddhist, before the turning to Moksha or Nirvana. In this Yoga the feeling of unity with others, love, universal joy and Ananda are an essential part of the liberation and perfection which are the aim of the sadhana.” (CWSA 31: 285)

V—Evolution of Love, after Love Infiltrating Into Matter

1. The First Results of the Power of Love Infiltrating into Matter was Devouring, Swallowing

2. One Swallows and Absorbs the Thing is a Primitive Way of Uniting with Things

“Well, love in its essence is an absolutely pure, crystalline, perfect thing. In the human consciousness it gets mixed with a fairly considerable amount of mud. So it becomes more and more muddy in proportion to the amount of mud.

It has been said that the tiger’s need for devouring is one of the first expressions of love in the world. I think that long before the tiger, there must have been primitive creatures in the depths of the sea which had only this one function: a stomach. They existed only as stomachs. And so they swallowed–that was their one occupation. Evidently that was one of the first results of the Power of Love infiltrating into Matter, for before this there was nothing: there was perfect inconscience, complete immobility, nothing stirred. With Love movement began: the awakening of consciousness and the movement of transformation. Well, the first forms, it may be said, were the first expression of Love in Matter. So we can go from the need of swallowing which is the only consciousness–a need of swallowing, of uniting–right up to... Excuse me, we say that Love is the power of the world– it is a primitive way of uniting with things, but it is a very direct way: one swallows and absorbs the thing; well, the tiger indeed takes a great joy in it. So there is a joy already, it is already quite a high form of love.” (CWM 6: 103–104)

3. The First Form of Love in Matter is the Need of Devouring

4. One Wants to Possess, Assimilate and the Best Way of Doing It is To Swallow and to Digest

“The first form of love in Matter is the need of devouring: one wants to possess, assimilate; and the best way of doing it is to swallow and to digest! It can be said that the cat is full of love for its kittens when it eats them and the tiger full of love for the lamb it devours!" (CWM 4: 166)

5. Victims Give Themselves Up in a Kind of Delight of Being Eaten

6. Two Examples

“But it is also said that the first expression of love in living beings is the desire to devour. One wants to absorb, desires to devour. There is one instance which would seem to prove that this is not altogether false–that is when the tiger catches its prey or the snake its victim, it happens that both the tiger’s and the snake’s victims give themselves up in a kind of delight of being eaten. An experience is narrated of a man who was in the bush with his friends and had lagged behind and was caught by a tiger, a man-eater. The others came back when they saw that he was missing. They saw the tracks. They ran after him, just in time to prevent the tiger’s eating him. When he came to himself a little, they told him he must have had a frightful experience. He said: “No, just imagine, I don’t know what happened to me, as soon as that tiger caught me and while it was dragging me along, I felt an intense love for it and a great desire to be eaten by it!”

This is quite true, it is not an invention. It is a true story.

Well, I have seen with my own eyes.... I believe I have already narrated this to you–the story of the little rabbit which had been put in a python’s cage. It was in the cage in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. It was the breakfast day. I happened to be there. The cage was opened, the little white rabbit put inside. It was a pretty little white rabbit and it immediately fled to the other end of the cage and trembled like anything. It was horrible to see this, for it knew very well what was happening, it had felt the snake, it knew very well. The serpent was simply coiled up on its mat. It seemed to be asleep, and very quietly it stretched out its neck and head, and then began looking at the rabbit. It looked at it without stirring–just looked at it. I saw the rabbit which at first stopped trembling; it no longer was afraid. It was quite doubled up and it began to recover. And then I saw it lift its head, open its eyes wide, and look at the snake, and slowly, very slowly it went forward towards it till it was just at the right distance. Then the snake with a single leap–without any disturbance, without even uncoiling itself, just remaining where it was, you understand–hop! it took it. And then it began rolling it, preparing it for its dinner. It was not in order to play with it. It prepared the thing. It crushed all its bones nicely, made them crack; then it smeared it with a kind of gluey substance to make it quite slippy. And when it was all quite ready, it began swallowing it slowly, comfortably.... But it didn’t have to disturb itself, it didn’t have to make the least movement, except the last swift one just to catch it when it was right in front. It was the other creature that had come to it.” (CWM 5: 149–150)

7. The Origin of Desire is Love

8. Desire is Love in its Obscurest and Most Unconscious Form

“I believe, right at its origin it is an obscure need for growth, as in the lowest forms of life love is changed into the need to swallow, absorb, become joined with another thing. This is the most primitive form of love in the lowest forms of life, it is to take and absorb. Well, the need to take is desire. So perhaps if we went back far enough into the last depths of the inconscience, we could say that the origin of desire is love. It is love in its obscurest and most unconscious form. It is a need to become joined with something, an attraction, a need to take, you see.” (CWM 7: 37–38)

9. Crystals Which are Formed in Matter Already Obey a Movement of Love

10. In the Trees and Plants Love is the Need to Grow to Get More Light

“You know, crystals which are formed in matter already obey a movement of love; but this becomes quite perceptible in the vegetable kingdom, in the tree and plant. It is the need to grow to get more light. All these trees which are always growing higher –always growing, the smaller ones trying to catch up with the taller, the taller ones trying to climb yet higher; you put two plants side by side, they both try to find an orientation that gives them the maximum light possible–that is the need to grow to get more air, more light, more space." (CWM 5: 242)

11. The Great Force of Universal Love Which Makes Flowers Blossom in Beauty

“Q: Do flowers love?

A: This is their form of love, this blossoming. Certainly, when one sees a rose opening to the sun, it is like a need to give its beauty. Only, for us, it is almost unintelligible, for they do not think about what they do. A human being always associates with everything he does this ability to see himself doing it, that is, to think about himself, think of himself doing it. Man knows that he is doing something. Animals don’t think. It is not at all the same form of love. And flowers, so to speak, are not conscious: it is a spontaneous movement, not a consciousness that is conscious of itself, not at all. But it is a great Force which acts through all that, the great universal Consciousness and the great Force of universal love which makes all things blossom in beauty.” (CWM 5: 241)

12. The Love of Animals for Men

“What kind of love do animals have for men?

A: It is almost the same as that of rather unintellectual men for the Divine. It is made of admiration, trust and a sense of security. Admiration: it seems to you something really very beautiful. And it is not reasoned out: an admiration from the heart, so to speak, spontaneous. For instance, dogs have this in a very high degree.

And then, trust–naturally this is sometimes mixed with other things: with the feeling of some need and dependence, for it is that person who will give me to eat when I am hungry, give me

shelter when it is rough weather, who will look after me. This is not the most beautiful side. And then, unfortunately, it gets mixed up (and I believe–I consider it entirely man’s fault) with a kind of fear; a feeling of dependence and a kind of fear of something which is much stronger, much more conscious, much more... which can harm you, and you have no strength to defend yourself. It is a pity, but I believe it is altogether man’s fault.

But if men really deserved the love of animals, it would be made of a feeling of wonder and of the sense of security. It is something very fine, this sense of security; something that’s able to protect you, to give you all that you need, and near which you can always find shelter.

Animals have an altogether rudimentary mind. They are not tormented by incessant thoughts like human beings. For example, they feel a spontaneous gratitude for an act of kindness towards them, whilst men, ninety-eight times out of a hundred, begin to reason and ask themselves what interest one could have in being good. This is one of the great miseries of mental activity.

Animals are free from this and when you are kind to them they are grateful to you, spontaneously. And they have trust. So their love is made of that, and it turns into a very strong attachment, an irresistible need to be near you.

There is something else. If the master is really a good one and the animal faithful, there is an exchange of psychic and vital forces, an exchange which becomes for the animal something wonderful, giving it an intense joy. When they like to be quite close to you in that way, when you hold them, it is that they vibrate internally. The force one gives them–the strength of affection, of tenderness, protection, all that–they feel it, and it creates a deep attachment in them. Even fairly easily, in some of the higher animals like dogs, elephants, and even horses, it creates quite a remarkable need for devotion (which indeed is not thwarted by all the reasonings and arguments of the mind), which is spontaneous and very pure in its essence, something that’s very beautiful.” (CWM 5: 238–240)

13. Love of Parents for Their Children

“Q: Sweet Mother, what kind of love do parents have for their children?

A: What kind? A human love, don’t they? ... At first, I must tell you that a wonderful picture has been painted... many books written, wonderful things said about a mother’s love for her children. I assure you that except for the capacity of speaking about the subject in flowery phrases, the love of the higher animals like the... well, the mammals for their children is exactly of the same nature: the same devotion, the same self-forgetfulness, the same self-denial, the same care for education, the same patience, the same... I have seen absolutely marvellous things, and if they had been written down and applied to a woman instead of to a cat, superb novels would have been made, people would have said: “What a person! How marvellously devoted are these women in their maternal love!” Exactly the same thing. Only, cats could not use flowery language. That’s all. They could not write books and make speeches, that is the only difference. But I have seen absolutely astonishing things. And that kind of self-giving and self-oblivion–as soon as there is the beginning of love, it comes. But men... I sincerely believe, from all that I have studied, that there is perhaps a greater purity in animals for they do not think, while human beings with their mental power, their capacity of reflecting, reasoning, analysing, studying, all that, oh! They spoil the most lovely movement. They begin to calculate, reason, doubt, organise.”

Take, for instance, parents. At the risk of removing many illusions in your consciousness, I must tell you something about the source of a mother’s love for her child. It is because this child is made of her very own substance, and for quite a long time, relatively long, the material link, the link of substance, between mother and child is extremely close–it is as though a bit of her flesh had been taken out and put apart at a distance–and it is only much later that the tie between the two is completely cut. There is a kind of tie, of subtle sensation, such that the mother feels exactly what the child feels, as she would feel it in herself. That then is the material basis of the mother’s attachment for the child. It is a basis of material identity, nothing else but that. Feeling comes much later (it may come earlier, that depends on people), but I am speaking of the majority: feeling comes only long afterwards, and it is conditioned. There are all kinds of things.... I could speak to you for hours on the subject. But still this must not be mixed up with love. It is a material identification which makes the mother feel intimately, feel quite concretely and tangibly what the child is feeling: if the child receives a shock, well, the mother feels it. This lasts at least for two months.” (CWM 6: 106–107)

14. The Origin of the Family Clans, Tribes, Castes, Classes, Leading to the Creation of Nations

15. Little by Little, Nature will Fuse These Races Too in Her Endeavour to Build a Real and Material Foundation for Human Unity

“It is indeed love, … as the urge behind all movement and all grouping … From then on, too, there clearly appears in Nature’s works the will to rebuild, by steps and stages and through ever more numerous and complex groupings, the primordial oneness. Having made use of the power of love to bring two human beings together to form the biune group, the origin of the family, after having broken the narrow limits of personal egoism, changing it into a dual egoism, Nature, with the appearance of children, brought forth a more complex unit, the family. And in course of time, with multifarious associations between families, individual interchanges and mingling of blood, larger groupings were formed: clans, tribes, castes, classes, leading to the creation of nations. This work of group formation proceeded simultaneously in the various parts of the world, crystallising in the different races. And little by little, Nature will fuse these races too in her endeavour to build a real and material foundation for human unity.

In the consciousness of most men, all this is the outcome of chance; they are not aware of the existence of a global plan and take circumstances as they come, for better or for worse according to their temperament: some are satisfied, others discontented.” (CWM 12: 66–67)

16. The Highest Expressions of Love in Human Beings is the Total Self Giving to What is Loved

17. Example: To Die for One’s Country Or to Give One’s Life to Defend Somebody

“You may go higher and end up with one of the highest expressions of love in human beings: the total self giving to what is loved, that is, to die for one’s country or to give one’s life to defend somebody, and things like that. That indeed is already... fairly high. It is still mixed with some mud. It is not the highest form but it is already something. And you see all the steps, don’t you? Well, from this one has still to climb a good deal to reach the true expression, to reach what I have described, which is at the summit of the ascent–I would not like to travesty my own words" (CWM 6: 104)

VI—Other Quotations on Human Love

“Keep your love pure of all selfish claim and desire; you will find that you are getting all the love that you can bear and absorb in answer.” (CWSA 29: 338–339)

"... as for instance when a person is much loved by others who are yet alive; if at that moment these people who love him concentrate their thought and love on the departed one, he finds a refuge therein, and this protects him completely against those entities; but one who passes away without anyone’s having a special attachment for him, either because he is surrounded by people he has harmed and who do not love him or by people who are in a terribly unconscious state–he is like a prey delivered to these forces.” (CWM 6: 55)

“Note that this power of formation has a great advantage, if one knows how to use it. You can make good formations and if you make them properly, they will act in the same way as the others. You can do a lot of good to people just by sitting quietly in your room, perhaps even more good than by undergoing a lot of trouble externally. If you know how to think correctly, with force and intelligence and kindness, if you love someone and wish him well very sincerely, deeply, with all your heart, that does him much good, much more certainly than you think.”  (CWM 5: 132)

“But usually the psychic element in human love, even where it is present, is so much mixed, overloaded and hidden under the others that it has little chance of fulfilling itself or achieving its own natural purity and fullness. What is called love is therefore sometimes one thing, sometimes another, most often a confused mixture, and it is impossible to give a general answer to the questions you put as to what is meant by love in such and such a phrase. It depends on the persons and the circumstances.”  (CWSA 29: 340)

Love and Hate

“And when the earth no longer needs to hate in order to love, there will be no more hatred.” (CWM 10: 166)

“Yes, that’s it! That is to say, man is still so crude that he needs extremes. That is what Sri Aurobindo said: For love to be true, hatred was necessary; true love could be born only under the pressure of hatred.” (CWM 10: 199)

“This corresponds to a kind of vibration–the vibration received from people who hate. It is a vibration that is fundamentally the same, so to say, as the vibration of love. In its very depths there is the same sensation. Although on the surface it is the opposite, it is supported by the same vibration. And one could say that one is the slave of what one hates just as much as of what one loves, perhaps even more so. It is something that grips you, that haunts you, and which you cherish; a sensation you cherish, for underneath its violence there is a warmth of attraction which is just as great as the warmth you feel for what you love. And it seems that this distortion in the appearance only exists in the activity of the manifestation, that is, entirely on the surface.

One is obsessed by what one hates even more than by what one loves. And the obsession comes from this inner vibration.

All these ‘feelings’ –what to call them?–have a mode of vibration, with something very essential at the core, and covering layers, as it were. And the most central vibration is the same, and as it expands to express itself, it becomes distorted. With love, it is quite obvious; it becomes, outwardly, in the vast majority of cases, something whose nature is quite different from the inner vibration, because it is something that withdraws into itself, shrivels up and wants to draw things towards itself in an egoistic movement of possession. You want to be loved. You say, ‘I love that person,’ but at the same time there is what you want; the feeling is lived as, ‘I want to be loved.’  And so this distortion is almost as great as the distortion of hatred which consists in wanting to destroy what you love in order not to be bound by it. Because you cannot obtain what you want from the object of your love, you want to destroy it in order to become free; in the other case, you shrivel up almost in an inner rage, because you cannot obtain, you cannot absorb what you love. And truly speaking (laughing), from the standpoint of the deeper truth, there is not much difference!" (CWM 10: 213–214)

“Q: How is one to explain this age-old enmity between the Jews and the Arabs (although having a common ancestor) hating each other, generation on generation up to the impasse in which we have been living from some days back?

A: Perhaps the enmity exists only because they are neighbours!

Violence and enmity... when brothers hate, they hate much more than others. Sri Aurobindo has said: “Hate is the indication of the possibility of a much greater love.” (CWM 13: 382)

(Message for the World Vegetarian Congress)

“Love alone can overcome hate and violence.

Let the divine compassion express itself through you always and in all circumstances.

The divine compassion reaches out not only to the one who is eaten but also to the one who eats, not only to the one who is tortured but also the one who tortures.” (CWM 14: 131)

“My dear Mother,

I have noticed that X has not stopped his bad habit. I hate him...

That is quite a big word! It is said that hate is the reverse of love; at any rate it is a dangerous sentiment which leaves you always at the mercy of the one you hate: to hate means that you are still attached; the true attitude is one of complete indifference.” (CWM 16: 77)

“… philanthropy is a social and conventional attitude, a kind of magnified egoism which is not love but a condescending pity which assumes a patronising air.” (CWM 10: 82)

“As Sri Aurobindo says: ‘If you cannot make God love you, make Him fight you. If He will not give you the embrace of the lover, compel Him to give you the embrace of the wrestler.’  For He is sure to conquer you.” (CWM 11: 6-7)

“The Divine has an equal love for all human beings, but the obscurity of consciousness of most men prevents them from perceiving this divine love.

Truth is wonderful. It is in our perception that it is distorted.” (CWM 14: 118)

“Only he who loves can recognise love. Those who are incapable of giving themselves in a sincere love, will never recognise love anywhere, and the more the love is divine, that is to say, unselfish, the less they can recognise it.” (CWM 14: 119)

“To become conscious of the Divine Love, all other love must be abandoned.” (CWM 14: 119)

“Lean more exclusively on the Divine’s love. When one receives the Divine’s love, of what value can be any human love?" (CWM 14: 119)

“They always speak of the rights of love but love’s only right is the right of self-giving.” (CWM 14: 121

“It is not the love that someone feels for you that can make you happy, it is the love you feel for others that makes you happy: for you receive the love that you give from the Divine, who loves eternally and unfailingly.” (CWM 14: 122)

“All the forms that love has taken in the human consciousness on earth are but awkward attempts, deformed and incomplete, to find once again true Love.” (CWM 14: 122)

“There is a great joy in giving; there is a still greater joy in pleasing those we love ...” (CWM 16: 209)

“The work done through love and because of love is surely the most powerful.” (CWM 14: 299)

“How can one stop someone from weeping?

Love him sincerely and deeply without trying to stop his tears.” (CWM 15: 121)

“True love can achieve extraordinary things, but it is rare. All kinds of miracles can be done out of love for the person one loves–not for everyone, but for the people or the person one loves. But it has to be a love free from all vital mixture, an absolutely pure and selfless love which demands nothing in return, which expects nothing in return.” (CWM 15: 325)

“When love is there, the need for forgiveness does not exist.” (CWM 17: 379)

“When one gives one’s love to another human being, the first mistake one generally makes is to want to be loved by the other person, not in his own way and according to his character, but in one’s own way and to satisfy one’s desires. This is the number one cause of all human miseries, disappointments and sufferings.

To love means to give oneself without bargaining–otherwise it is not love. But this is rarely understood and even more rarely practised. And the consequences are painful" (CWM 17: 370)

“I do not have much faith in pure love between human beings.” (CWM 17: 92)

“A love which is sufficiently strong can make a person the slave of the beloved.

You speak here of vital love, but certainly not of psychic love and still less of the Divine Love.” (CWM 16: 174)

“The Ashram is not a place for being in love with anyone. If you want to lapse into such a stupidity, you may do so elsewhere, not here.” (CWM 16: 174)

“Sweet Mother,

What is the best relationship between two human beings? Mother and son? Brother, friend or lover, etc?

All the relationships are good in principle and each one expresses a mode of the Eternal. But each can be perverted and become bad due to the selfish falsehood of human nature which prevents the vibrations of love from manifesting in their purity.” (CWM 16: 278)

“How can one direct this human love towards the ideal love, the true love?

There is only one true love–it is the Divine Love; all other loves are diminutions, limitations and deformations of that Love. Even the love of the bhakta for his God is a diminution and often is tainted by egoism. But as one tends quite naturally to become like what one loves, the bhakta, if he is sincere, begins to become like the Divine whom he adores, and thus his love becomes purer and purer. To adore the Divine in the one whom one loves has often been suggested as a solution, but unless one’s heart and thought are very pure, it can lead to deplorable abasements.” (CWM 16: 297)

“It is the love of the Divine that saves, not a love turned towards human beings.” (CWSA 28: 428)

“In your own case you often write in your wrong moods as if human love, even with some of these lower ingredients, were the only thing possible to you. But that is not so at all, for it contradicts your own deepest experiences. Always what your inner being has asked is Love, Bhakti, Ananda and whenever it comes to the surface it is, even if only in a first elementary form, the divine love which it brings with it. A basis of deep and intense calm and stillness, a great intensity of emotion and Bhakti, an inrush of Ananda, this is in these moments your repeated experience. On the other hand when you insist too much on the love which exists by external cravings, what comes is the other movement–fits of despondency, sorrow, Nirananda. In stressing on the psychic basis, in wishing you to conquer this other movement, I am only pointing you to the true way of your own nature–of which the psychic bhakti, the true vital love are the real moving forces, and the other is only a superficial immixture.” (CWSA 29: 343–344)

VII— Towards the Future

[A one-act play written by the Mother which beautifully brings out ideal human love and going beyond human love to spiritual life.]

PERSONS OF THE DRAMA

SHE

THE POET

THE CLAIRVOYANT

THE PAINTER

THE SCHOOLFRIEND

Towards the Future

As the curtain rises, She and the Schoolfriend are sitting side by side on the sofa.

SHE

How nice of you to come and see me after such a long time... I thought you had forgotten me.

SCHOOLFRIEND

Certainly not. But I had lost trace of you and did not know where to find you. And now that I have found you, what a surprise! You, married... how strange! I can’t believe it.

SHE

I too find it hard to believe.

SCHOOLFRIEND

I understand... I remember how ironically you used to refer to marriage as ‘a co-operative venture in consumption and production’, and how distasteful you used to find everything that displayed human animality, the beast in man. And how you used to say, ‘Let us not be mammals...’

SHE

Yes, I have always enjoyed making fun of current ideas and social conventions. But in all fairness you must admit that I have never said anything against true love, the love that comes from a deep affinity and is marked by an identity of views and aspirations. I always dreamt of a great love that would be shared, free from all animal activity, something that could physically represent the great love which is at the origin of the worlds. This dream accounts for my marriage. But the experience has not been a very happy one. I have loved deeply, with great sincerity and intensity, but my love has not met with the response it hoped for...

SCHOOLFRIEND

My poor friend!

SHE

Oh, I am not telling you this to arouse your pity. I am not to be pitied. My dream is practically unrealisable in the world as it is. Human nature would have to change so much for this to become possible. Besides, my husband and I are very good friends, although that does not prevent us both from feeling very isolated. Esteem and mutual concessions create a harmony that makes life more than merely bearable. But is that happiness?

SCHOOLFRIEND

For many people that might be happiness.

SHE

True, but sometimes I feel such an emptiness in my life! It may have been to fill this emptiness that I gave myself entirely and in all sincerity to that marvellous cause which is so dear to me: to relieve suffering humanity, to awaken it to its capacities and its true goal and ultimate transformation.

SCHOOLFRIEND

I can see that something great, something out of the ordinary rules your life. But as I do not know what it is, it seems rather mysterious to me.

SHE

Of course, I owe you an explanation. I must tell you about it in detail, but that will take some time. Would you like me to come and visit you?

SCHOOLFRIEND

What an excellent idea! Nothing could please me more. When will you come? Would you like to come today?

SHE

Yes, I would be very glad to do so. I always find a deep joy in speaking of the marvellous teaching that guides our life and directs our wills. Just now, I have a few things to arrange so that when my husband returns from his walk he will find everything ready. And as soon as he has started his work, I can go out and I shall come and see you.

SCHOOLFRIEND

Very well, then. Goodbye, I shall see you soon.

(She accompanies her friend to the door behind the screen. Then She returns to the writing table to arrange some papers and books and writing materials. She places some flowers in a vase on the table and looks around her to see that everything is in order. At that moment a key is heard turning in the lock.)

SHE

Ah, there he is. (The Poet enters. She approaches him affectionately.) Did you have a pleasant walk?

POET (absent-mindedly)

Yes, thank you. (He puts his hat down on a chair.) I have found an ending for my poem. It came while I was walking. A little activity in the open air really does help the inspiration. Yes, I think this will be good: I end with a song of triumph, a hymn of victory in praise of the evolved man who has discovered, together with the consciousness of his origin, the knowledge of all that he is capable of doing and the power to realise it. I describe him advancing in the happy splendour of union towards the conquest of earthly immortality. It will be beautiful and truly universal, don’t you think? It is high time that art should stop being a justification for ugliness and defeat... What a happy day it will be when poetry, painting and music express only beauty, victory and joy, leading the way towards the realisation of the future, towards the advent of a world in which falsehood and suffering, ugliness and death will be no more... But meanwhile, how much misery still for man, how much pain and anguish and bitter solitude... It is terrible! Each one has his burden to bear, come what may, whether he wants it or not. (He stands deep in thought.)

SHE (approaching him affectionately and putting her hand on his arm)

Come, set to work, you know that is the best cure for sadness. I am going to leave you to your inspiration. I promised my friend that I would go and spend the afternoon with her and tell her something about the marvellous teaching that guides our life. We shall probably read together some of those pages that are so full of profound truth. To meditate on these things is a great joy to both of us. That would upset the ideas of many men, wouldn’t it? They are convinced that women cannot do anything except talk about clothes. On the whole, they are not entirely wrong. Most women are terribly frivolous, or at least they seem to be. For very often this lightness on the surface hides a heavy heart and veils an unfulfilled life. Poor creatures! I know so many of them who deserve to be pitied.

POET

You are right. Women really deserve to be pitied. Almost all of them lack the protection they need and are like frail craft with no harbour to shelter them from the storm. For most of them do not receive the education that would teach them to protect themselves.

SHE

That is true. Besides, even in the strongest of women, there is a deep need for affection and protection, for an all-powerful strength that leans over her and enfolds her in comforting sweetness. This is what she seeks in love, and when she has the good fortune to find it, it gives her confidence in life and opens up for her the door to every hope. Without that, life for her is like a barren desert that burns and shrivels up the heart.

POET

Oh, how well you say these things! You say them like one who has experienced them very deeply. I shall make a note of them for my next book, which will deal with the education of women. Well then, I shall start my work.

SHE

That’s right; I am going. Goodbye, work well. (She takes a book and goes out.)

POET (sitting down at his desk and seeing everything ready for his work)

Always the same kind and affectionate attentions. She never fails in her care and her sweetness. When I look at her, it is like seeing a light: her intelligence and kindness shine so brightly around her, spreading to all who are near her, whom she guides towards nobler horizons. I admire her, I feel a deep respect for her... But all that is not love... Love! What a dream! Will it ever become a reality? (A melody sung by a magnificent voice is heard. The poet jumps to his feet and goes to the open window.) What a wonderful voice! (He listens in silence until the melody dies away. Sighing, he is about to return to his table when there is a knock at the door.) Hello, who’s there? (He opens the door. The Painter enters.)

POET

It’s you! Hello, old friend, what good wind brings you here?

PAINTER

I had something to tell you. I met your wife and she told me you were in your ‘sanctum’. So I am here.

POET

You did the right thing... So come into the ‘sanctum’ as you call it, and speak. Don’t keep me in suspense. Is it about painting?

PAINTER

No, my painting is going well. But I shall tell you about that another time. It is about music. (The Poet shows interest.) Yesterday evening, when visiting some friends, I heard a true singer who, I am told, is your neighbour. (The Poet makes a gesture of surprise and interest.) Do you know her?

POET

No, but I often hear her singing from here. She has a superb voice, a voice that stirs all the fibres of my being. The very first time it struck my ears, it sounded familiar to me, like an echo from very ancient times. For nearly six months I have been hearing this voice, which forms a kind of pleasant accompaniment to my work. I have very often wished to become acquainted with the owner of such a beautiful voice.

PAINTER

What a wonderful coincidence! Yesterday evening I was introduced to this young lady and she seems to be very charming indeed. We had a long chat together and in the course of the conversation she expressed her admiration for your poetry, which she seems to read with enthusiasm. She also told me that she is all alone in life, that she has to fend for herself and that sometimes she finds it difficult to pull through, and so on. She dreams of becoming a concert-singer. I immediately thought of you and all your connections. Everyone knows how obliging you are. So I volunteered to speak to you about her and to ask you if you could introduce her to a few well-known musicians or composers. That is why I have come.

POET

You did just the right thing. It will be a great pleasure for me to do something for her. So what did the two of you decide?

PAINTER

It was arranged that, if you agreed, I would go and fetch her immediately—it is not very far—and bring her to you so that you may get to know each other.

POET

Perfect. Go and fetch her. I shall wait for you. (The Painter goes out.)

POET (striding restlessly back and forth)

How strange, how strange... There is no such thing as chance; everything is the effect of causes that are simply beyond our control. The power of affinity—who knows? I am curious to know whether the singer is as beautiful as her voice. Here they are. (The door which was only pulled to is pushed open from outside.)Oh, how pretty she is! (The Clairvoyant enters, smiling, followed by the Painter.)

PAINTER

Mademoiselle, may I introduce my friend, the well-known poet whom you admire so much.

POET

I am very happy to meet you, mademoiselle, and to be able to tell you how much I admire your beautiful voice, which you use with such artistry.

CLAIRVOYANT

You are very kind, monsieur, and I thank you. You will excuse me, won’t you, for coming with so little ceremony. But we are such near neighbours. I knew you even before I was introduced to you. I noticed that you often came to your window to listen to me singing and even, at first, I was not very pleased when you applauded me. I thought you were making fun of me.

POET

How wrong you were! I simply wanted to express my admiration and to thank you for all the aesthetic pleasure you give me.

PAINTER

Now that I have done my duty, I shall leave you. I have an appointment with my art-dealer. Ah, the blackguard! He wants to make me paint absurdities because, he says, it is the current taste. But I am resisting...

POET

Yes, resist, resist valiantly. Do not encourage this degeneracy of modern taste, this lapse into falsehood which seems to have seeped into the consciousness of all our contemporaries, in every field of human creativity.

PAINTER

Very well, my friend, I go, fired with a new courage, to do battle for the truth. Goodbye.

POET AND CLAIRVOYANT

Goodbye.

POET (indicating the sofa)

Please sit down, mademoiselle.

CLAIRVOYANT (sitting)

So you are willing to introduce me to a few people and let them hear me?

POET

Certainly. One of our foremost conductors is a friend of mine and with a talent like yours all doors will easily open to you.

CLAIRVOYANT

It will be a great help to me. Thank you so much.

POET

No, no, do not thank me. (He sits by her side.) If you knew all the joy you have given me... If you knew what a pleasant accompaniment the harmony of your rich voice has been to my daily work. I owe you many good and happy hours; yes, it is I who should be grateful to you.

CLAIRVOYANT

It is very kind of you to tell me all this. (She looks around her, then turns to the Poet with a smile.) It is strange how familiar everything seems to me here, perhaps not so much the objects themselves as the air, the atmosphere which envelops them. Excuse my boldness, but I feel as if I were at home, I feel as if I had been coming here always. And I have the feeling that all sorts of wonderful things are going to happen to me now.

POET

I shall be the first person to be glad of it.

CLAIRVOYANT (after a short silence)

I must tell you a strange thing. When I came to settle in this town about six months ago, after my mother’s death, in the hope of earning my living, I had a choice of several small apartments, each one with its advantages and inconveniences. The one that I rented here in this house is no better than any other, but I was impelled to take it by a kind of intuition that I would be happy here, that good things were in store for me here... It is strange, isn’t it?

POET (thoughtfully)

Strange, yes, very strange... (Aside) Is this affinity? Who knows? (To the Clairvoyant) You know, this is strange too, I have felt much calmer and more contented since I have been hearing your voice each day, and I had a very great desire to know you.

CLAIRVOYANT

And I knew you only as a writer whose talent I greatly admired and whom I hardly dared to hope to meet one day. There are such extraordinary and mysterious things in life... mysterious perhaps only because we do not know their causes, otherwise everything would be very simple and natural. And look, at this moment, I too feel a sensation of calm and well-being, and it gives me great strength. If only you knew how much I need strength and encouragement... Life is hard for a helpless and unprotected orphan who is forced to earn her living all alone and who knows nobody to support her in her struggle. But now that I have met you, I feel that all my difficulties will melt away.

POET

Rest assured that I shall do everything in my power to help you. It is a duty and a very great pleasure to be of use to an artist and a woman like you.

CLAIRVOYANT (taking his hand in a spontaneous movement)

Thank you. I feel as if we have always been sitting like this, side by side, and that we are friends, old friends... We are friends, aren’t we?

POET (solemnly)

Yes, from the depths of our hearts.

CLAIRVOYANT

I feel so much at ease here, that I am forgetting all conventions. And now to crown my impoliteness, I am overcome by an imperative need to sleep. I have been sleeping so badly at home for such a long time. I feel uneasy, spied on by invisible enemies who wish me harm. I am unable to achieve the calm which would give me a much-needed rest. Whereas here, I have the feeling that something warm and strong enfolds me like a living cloak and little by little I am being overwhelmed by sleep.

POET (looking at her tenderly)

Lie down here, on these cushions. Make yourself comfortable; don’t let anything bother you. And above all do not think even for a moment of customs and conventions; they are fetters of no real value which seem to have been forged by man for his own misery.

CLAIRVOYANT

I am in great need of sleep. I have a persistent pain in my head which makes me suffer a great deal. I have worked so hard to achieve a result as quickly as possible and my brain is terribly tired.

POET (eagerly)

Will you allow me?... I think I can easily give you some relief. (He passes his hand several times across her forehead, then lays it on her head for a moment. The Clairvoyant, who is lying on the cushions, falls asleep with an expression of joy and well-being.)

CLAIRVOYANT (half asleep)

It is all right now, there is no more pain... And I feel so happy.

POET (arranging the cushions so that she may lie comfortably and sitting by her side, holding her hand in his; to himself )

Poor child, so pretty and yet so lonely.

CLAIRVOYANT (speaking in her sleep)

Oh, how beautiful!

POET (softly)

What is beautiful?

CLAIRVOYANT (still asleep)

There, all around you, that violet light... It is like a living and luminous amethyst. It is all around me too, it is giving me strength. It is a protection, a sure protection... Nothing harmful can come near me now. (Enraptured) How beautiful is the violet light around you!

POET

Since you are comfortable, sleep quietly now, without seeing anything.

CLAIRVOYANT (in a far-away voice)

I am falling asleep, falling asleep. Oh, what calm, what ease.

POET (looking at her tenderly)

Yes, sleep, child—a healing sleep. Life has been hard for you and you have great need of rest. (After a moment’s silence) What is the use of trying to deceive myself? I have to admit it: just as her voice thrilled my whole being, so too her presence fills me with a calm and profound happiness. And now she has fallen asleep, under my protection, her first conscious sleep. Her very trust gives me a responsibility, a responsibility which would be very sweet to me. But my wife! I know that she is strong and brave, I know that long ago she realised that what I feel for her is nothing more than friendly affection. She herself cannot be satisfied with that; the depths of her love remain untouched. Yet I have responsibilities towards her too. How can I tell her that my whole being is concentrated upon another? And yet I cannot conceal my feelings; falsehood is the only evil. Besides, it would be quite useless: a woman like her cannot be deceived. Oh, life is often so cruel!

CLAIRVOYANT (still sleeping, turning round and laying her hand on his)

I am happy... happy... (She rests her head on the Poet’s lap in a movement of childlike confidence.)

POET

Dear child! What can I do? (He gazes at her, deep in his thoughts. The Clairvoyant sighs, stretches, and wakes.)

CLAIRVOYANT (looking around her with some surprise)

I have slept... How well I have slept, never in my life have I slept so well.

POET

I am so glad.

CLAIRVOYANT (looking at him affectionately)

You see, the light that encircled you and covered me too was at once a nourishment and a protection; it was so beautiful, so comforting. Even now that I am awake I can feel it around me.

POET

Yes, it is still around you. Is this the first time you have seen coloured lights like this?

CLAIRVOYANT

I remember having seen lights or a coloured mist around certain people. But I have never seen any as beautiful as yours or any to which I have felt so close. Often, around others, it is like a turbid, unwholesome fog. What is it?

POET

It would take rather long to give a clear reply. But I shall try to explain it to you as best I can in a few words. Stop me if I bore you. We are made up of different states which can be compared to earth, water, air and fire. Do you follow?

CLAIRVOYANT

Yes, it is most interesting.

POET

A less dense state penetrates and flows through a denser one, as water evaporates through a porous vessel, with the difference that no loss follows. In the same way, what is more subtle in us forms a kind of sheath around our bodies and we call this subtle sheath the aura.

CLAIRVOYANT

I understand, it is very clear. So then it can be very useful to see auras in this way?

POET

You are right, it is most useful. You can easily understand that the aura is the exact reflection of what is within us, of our feelings and our thoughts. If the thoughts and feelings are calm and harmonious, the aura too will be calm and harmonious; if the feelings are tumultuous and the thoughts disturbed, the aura will express this tumult and disturbance. It will be like the mist which you say you have seen around certain people.

CLAIRVOYANT

Yes, I understand. So these auras are very revealing.

POET

Yes, for those who see auras, deception can no longer exist. For example, however much a man of bad will may try to look like an angel of light, it will be in vain. His aura will reveal that his thoughts and motives are dark.

CLAIRVOYANT (admiringly)

Magnificent! What effects this knowledge might have in the world! But where did you learn such beautiful things? For I do not think that many people are aware of them.

POET

No, especially in modern times, in an age like ours in which success and the material satisfactions it brings are the only things that matter. And yet an ever-growing number of dissatisfied people are trying to find the purpose and goal of life. On the other hand, there are those who know and strive to help suffering humanity; they are guardians of the supreme knowledge which has been handed down from generation to generation and which serves as the basis of a method of self-development whose aim is to awaken man to the consciousness of what he truly is and what he can do.

CLAIRVOYANT

How beautiful this teaching must be! You will reveal it to me little by little, won’t you? For we are going to see each other often, aren’t we? I wish we never had to part again.... While I was asleep I felt that you were everything for me and that I belong to you for ever. And I felt that from now on your protection will always enfold me. And I who was so full of fear, who felt exposed to so many enemies, I am now quiet, calm, confident, for I can tell all who want to harm me: ‘I fear you no longer, I am effectively protected, by a protection that will never

fail me.’ I am right, am I not?

POET

Yes, yes, you are right.

CLAIRVOYANT

I am so happy to have met you at last. I have waited for you so long! And you, are you happy?

POET

Yes... Just now, while you were asleep, I felt a calm and a quiet happiness which I had never experienced before. (Thoughtfully) Yes, this is the true love, which is a force; it is the union that enables new possibilities to be realised... But...

CLAIRVOYANT

But what? Since we are so happy together, what could prevent us...?

POET (rising suddenly)

Oh, you do not know! (He stops short at the sight of She, who has been standing behind the screen for some time already.) Oh! (She comes forward smiling and very calm.)

CLAIRVOYANT (amazed)

I did not know that you were married!

SHE (to the Clairvoyant)

Do not be upset. (Turning to the Poet) Nor you. Yes, I heard the end of your conversation. I returned just as Mademoiselle was waking up. I did not want to disturb you and was about to withdraw, but I thought it would be more useful for all of us if I heard. So I stayed. For I was sure, my dear, that you would find yourself in a cruel predicament. I know your straightforwardness, your loyalty, and I knew that you would be painfully divided between two opposite paths. You know what is said in the teaching which for us is the truth: love is the only legitimate bond of union. The absence of love is enough to invalidate any union. Certainly, there are unions without love, based on esteem and mutual concessions, which can be quite tolerable, but I consider that when love comes, everything else should give way to it. My friend, you remember our pact: we promised each other full freedom the moment love would awaken in either of us. That is why I listened, and now I have come to tell you: you are free, be happy.

POET (deeply moved)

But you, you? I know you always live at the summit of your consciousness, in a pure and serene light. But solitude is sometimes hard and the hours can be monotonous and sad.

SHE

Oh, I shall not be alone, for I shall go and join those through whom we have found the path, those who possess the eternal wisdom and who have, from a distance, guided our steps until now. Surely they will shelter me. (She turns t wards the Clairvoyant and takes her by the hand.) Come, do not be upset. Women who are sensitive and sincere have the right to freely choose the person who will be their protector and guide in life. You have acted according to the natural law and all is well. Our way of looking at things and our behaviour may urprise

you; they are new to you and you do not know the reasons for them. (Pointing to the Poet) He will explain them to you. I am going away, but before I go let me join your hands. (She places the hand of the Clairvoyant in the hand of the Poet.) No blessing can ever be equal to the blessing of love. And yet I shall give you mine, knowing that it will be dear to you. And if you permit, I shall add some advice which is almost a request. Do not allow your union to serve as an excuse for the satisfaction of animal appetites or sensual desires. On the contrary, make it a means of mutual support so that you may transcend yourselves in a constant aspiration and an effort for progress towards the growing perfection of your being. May your association be both noble and generous, noble in quality, generous in action. Be an example to the world and show all men of goodwill the true aim of human life.

CLAIRVOYANT (deeply moved)

You can be sure that we shall do our utmost to deserve the trust you have shown us and be worthy of your esteem. But I would like to hear from your own lips that my coming to this house and the event that has followed do not mean an irreparable misfortune to you.

SHE

Have no fear. I now know for certain that only one love can satisfy my being: it is the love for the Divine, the divine love, for that alone never fails. Perhaps one day I shall find the favourable conditions and the necessary help for the achievement of the supreme realisation, the transformation and divinisation of the physical being which will change the world into a blessed place full of harmony and light, peace and beauty.

(The Clairvoyant, more and more deeply moved, remains silent, her hands clasped as if in prayer. The Poet bows respectfully to Her, takes her hand and lays his forehead on it as the curtain falls.) (CWM 12: 451–470)

VIII—Short Summary

Part One: Understanding Human Love

I—Human Love Is …

1. Human Love is a Divine Love Perverted and Distorted by the Instrument Through Which It is Expressed

2. The Limitations and Deficiencies of Human Nature Distort the Divine Love Beyond Recognition

3. Human Love is a Travesty and Caricature of Divine Love

4. Human Love is Only a Clouded and Fallen Ray Compared with the Empyrean of Ethereal Fire of Divine Love

5. Human Love is Mostly Vital and Physical with a Mental Support

6. Human Love is a Mixture of Ignorance, Attachment, Passion and Desire

7. Human Love is Emotional and Always Egoistic, a Form of Self-Love

8. In Human Love There is a Need of Possession and a Formidable Egoism

9. What Human Beings Call Love is a Very Good Friend of Money

10. There is Always a Bitter Taste Behind the Human Love

11. Human Love is Fugitive, It is Only the Divine’s Love that Never Fails

12. Self-Giving is Very Rare in Human Love Which is Full of Selfishness and Demands

13. The Egoistic Love Which Says That ‘The Person I Love Belongs to Me’ is a Very Ugly Love

14. Human Love With a Dominant Psychic Element is Rare

15. Human Affection is Bound Up with Selfishness and Desire

16. If the Need of Human Affection is Not Satisfied or the Expectation Ceases then Human Affection Diminishes or Dies or Exists Only as a Tepid Remnant of Habit

17. The Nature of Human Vital Affection is All Selfishness Disguised as Love

II—In Comparison What is True Love

1. Love is Self-Giving

2. True Love is a Self-Forgetting

3. True Love Wants the Highest Good for the Loved One

4. Love Understands and Cures – Not Forgive

5. Nothing Brings More Happiness Than a Pure and Disinterested Love

6. True Love is Very Deep and Calm In Its Intensity; It May Not Manifest Itself in Any Exterior Acts Sensational or Affectionate

7. True Love is the Love From the Divine, Which in Human Beings, Turns Into Love For the Divine

8. To Know What True Love Is You First Have to Realise the Divine Consciousness

9. If One Wants to Know What Love Is, One Must Love the Divine

10. The True Love for the Divine in Its Fundamental Nature is Psychic and Spiritual

11. Human Affection has Its Place in Yoga Because Through It the Psychic Being Gets the Emotional Experiences It Needs Until It is Ready to Prefer the Divine to the Human

12. The Purity of the Manifestation in Those Who Have Manifested the Divine Love, is so Great that They are Misunderstood by the Whole of Humanity

13. The Divine Intensity of Self-forgetfulness, the Capacity of Throwing Oneself Out Entirely, Making No Restriction as a Gift, Asking Nothing in Exchange, Is Little Known to Human Beings

14. Human Beings cannot Recognise the Very Highest and Intensest Power of Love

III—Human Beings Usually Love Because ...

1. There is a Human Need of Thirst For Affection and Love

2. This Thirst can be Quenched Only If It Turns Towards the Divine

3. Of the Pleasure of Being Loved

4. The Pleasure of Enlarging the Ego by Contact

5. Mutual Penetration of Spirit, With Another

6. The Exhilaration of the Vital Interchange Which Feeds Their Personality

7. Other Selfish Motives

8. There Can Also Be Higher Spiritual, Psychic, Mental or Vital Reasons

IV—Human Expression of Love

‘If you love me, I love you, if you don’t love me, I don’t love you’ is the Most Common Human Expression of Love

This is Bargaining, It is Not Love

Humans Even Apply This To Their Relation With the Divine

The Descending Scale of Rungs of Love

a.      One Loves because One Cannot do Otherwise but Love

b.      And one is Perfectly Satisfied with the Feeling of One’s Love

c.      If One Loves Regardless of One is Loved or Not It Begins to be True Love

d.      Then ‘If You Don’t Love Me, I Shall Love You’ But One Still Wants One’s Love to be Accepted

e.      Or the Person One Loves Should Know That He is Loved

f.      Then ‘If You Love Me, I Love You’

g.      The Lowest Rung is ‘Love Me and Then I Shall See If I Love You’

It is a Long, Long, Long Way To Go From What Men Call ‘Love’ To Become True Love

V—Why is There a Need of Desire to Be Loved in Return in Human Love?

1. Because Human Beings are Egoistic      23

2. This Desire to be Loved in Return is Contrary to Spiritual Truth and the Cause of Passions and Sufferings      23

3. It is in the World of Division that One Feels the Need of Reciprocation — One Lives in the Illusion of the Multiplicity of Love      24

4. Apparent Differences are Colorations Given by Individualisation and Personification      24

5. All Forms of Affection Comes From the Consciousness of Oneness      25

6. Affection Gets Changed, Mixed, Perverted When the Vital Takes Up the Action of the Force of Love

Solution

Accept That One You Love Must Have the Right of Freedom in Her Feelings

This is an Occasion to Surmount Your Egoism and to Open to the True Life

VI—What Human Beings Call as ‘Love’ but It is Not Love

1. All the Desires, Attractions, Vital Exchanges, Sexual Relations, Attachments, Friendships — All This is Not Even the Shadow of Love nor Even Its Deformation — These are All Mental and Vital, Sentimental or Sexual Activities

2. What Men Call ‘Love’ for Another Human Being is Not Love At All, But a Frightful Mixture of Sentimentality, Weakness, Ignorance and Sensuality

3. Love is Not Sexual Intercourse

4. Love is Not Vital Attraction and Interchange

5. Love is Not the Heart’s Hunger for Affection

6. What Men Call Love is Only a Vital Desire, an Instinct of Appropriation, the Impulse to Possess and Monopolise

7. Various Vital Reasons for Man’s Desires Are to Satisfy the Instinct of Domination or Possession

8. To Draw In the Vital Forces of a Woman So As to Feed One’s Own Vital or For the Exchange of Vital Forces

9. To Satisfy Vanity, the Hunter’s Instinct of the Chase

10. Love does Not Consist in Demands and Desires, Desires Spring from Ego

11. Many People Think That They Experience Love Only When It is Vital Emotions

12. Vital Emotions Distort Love and It Becomes a Passion

13.Some People with Psychic Love Think That They are Cold, Dry and Without Love Because They Didn’t have Vital Vibration

VII—Why is Sex Associated with Love?

1. Nature Took Up the Sublime Force of Love and Put It at the Service of Her Work by Linking and Mixing It with Her Movement of Procreation

2. This Association has Become so Close, that Only a Few Human Beings are Illumined Enough to Be Able to Dissociate Sex Movements from Love

3. It is Not Possible to Keep the Love Pure Because Love and Sex-Desire Have Been Twined Together in the Animal Beginnings of the Race

4. The Vital Affection and The Vital Physical Sex-Emotion are Close to Each Other, So One May Awake the Other

VIII—The Normal Course of Human Love

1. One is Drawn to Another by a Certain Feeling of Affinity or of Attraction

2. One Sees All That is Good or Pleasant in the Other’s Nature and Even Attributes That are Not There

3. With Closer Acquaintance Other Parts of the Nature are Felt with which One is Not in Affinity

4. Perhaps There is a Clash of Ideas or Opposition of Feelings or Conflict of Two Egos

5. If There is a Strong Love of a Lasting Character, then One May Overcome These Difficulties

6. Very Often This Strong Love is Not There or the Disagreement is So Acute as To Counteract the Tendency of Accommodation

7. Or Else the Ego Gets so Hurt as to Recoil

8. One Begins to Exaggerate the Faults of the Other

9. Or To Attribute Things to Him or Her of a Bad or Unpleasant Character that are Not There

10. The Good Feeling Changes into Ill-Feeling, Alienation, even Enmity

11. One Must Try to Look Calmly on Others, Not Overstress Virtues or Defects

IX—Why Does Human Love Founded on Vital Basis at a Certain Stage Begin to Pall

1. In Vital Love After the First Vital Glow is Over, the Incompatibility of the Two Egos Begins to Show

2. For One or Both, the Demands of the Other Become Intolerable to the Vital Part

3. Begins to Pall Due to Disappointment of the Surface Vital

4. The Withdrawal of Affection by Others

5. The Perception That Those Loved are Not What One Thought Them To Be

6. The Cause is a Secret Disappointment of Some Part of the Inner Being, Not Well Translated into the Mind

7. Because It Expected From These Things Something which They Cannot Give

8. In Integral Yoga this Vital Mixture Should Disappear

9. The Consciousness Should be Established Not Only on Spiritual and Psychic Level but a Purer and Higher Mental, Vital, Physical Consciousness

10. Intense Human Affection can be Troubled by Clashes, Quarrels, Egoistic Disturbances, Selfishness, Lapses even to Rage and Hatred, Ruptures

11. If Love Does not Express Itself in a Particular Way then Vital Decides that There is no Love

12.Vital Love is Full of Imaginations, Misunderstandings, Jealousies and Misinterpretations

13. If Vital Love does Not Get What It Craves, or Even Imagines that It is Not Being Treated as it Deserves It At Once Turns to Sorrow, Wounded Feeling, Revolt, Pride, Anger, All Kinds of Disorder

14.      Finally Cessation and Departure

X—Why Human Love Cannot be Pure?

1. Human Love is Strongly Mixed with Ego, so It Cannot be Pure

2. In Human Love There is a Hope of Return, of Benefit or Advantage of Some Kind, or of Certain Pleasures and Satisfactions, Mental, Vital or Physical, that the Person Loved can Give

3. Remove These Things and the Love Very Soon Sinks, Diminishes or Disappears or Turns into Anger, Reproach, Indifference or Even Hatred

XI—In Human Love What Needs to Be Rejected

1. Jealousy, Strife, Hatred, Aversion, Rancour and Other Evil Vital Feelings Should be Abandoned

2. All Egoistic Love and Attachment Will Have to Disappear

3. Sexual Impurity Must Disappear

XII—With All These Problems How Does Human Vital Love and Affection Last?

1. It is the Ordinary Nature of Vital Love Not to Last

2. Love can Last or Satisfy Only if it Bases Itself on the Soul and Spirit

3. Tamasic Instinctive Affections Last Because of Habit

4. Rajasic Affections can Last Because One Has a Vital Need of the Other

5. Sattwic Affections Last Very Often From Duty to the Ideal

6. In Human Love There is Also an Element of Habit, That Makes the Presence of the Person Loved a Necessity Because it has Always Been There

XIII—Ideal Human Love

1. A Man may Love a Women for Herself; He Might Have no Hope of Any Return Whatever and Yet Love Her, Adore Her, Live for Her, Die for Her Simply because She is She

2. I have loved thee for thyself indeed — Immortal to immortal I made speed

3. The True Reliability is There Only When the Psychic Element in Human Affection Becomes Strong

4. For that Reason Friendship can be the Most Durable of the Human Affections Because There is Less Interference of the Vital and Even the Ego can be a Quiet and Pure Fire gives its Warmth and Light

5. It is only when the Divine is found and the consciousness lifted up into the True Consciousness that the True Relations with Others can Come

6. If Human Beings base their Relationships on Psychic contacts they would find that there is a Profound and Lasting Harmony in all the activities of life and disorder and suffering will be replaced by Peace and Bliss

Ideal love potrayed in Sri Aurobindo’s poem ‘Love and Death’

7. Ideal love is a triune energy, a sensual impulse, emotional and spiritual

8. All three are necessary elements of the highest passion

9. Sense impulse is as necessary to it as the warm earth-matter at its root to the tree

10. Emotion as the air which consents with its life

11. Spiritual aspiration as the light and the rain from heaven which prevent it from withering

12. The love pictured in poem Love and Death’ must be on the ideal plane, and touch therefore the farthest limit of strength in each of its three directions

13. The sensual must be emphasised to give it firm root and basis

14. The emotional to impart to it life

15. The spiritual to prolong it into infinite permanence

16. And if at their limits of extension the three meet and harmonise, if they are not triple but triune, then is that love a perfect love and the picture of it a perfect picture

XIV—Love and Marriage

1. Social Regulations in Auroville

2. If a man and a woman love each other and want to live together they may do so without any ceremony

3. If they want to separate they can also do so freely. Why should people be compelled to stay together when they have ceased to love each other?

4. If they truly love each other they will continue to live together always naturally, without being forced to do so by any law

On Marriage

1. To unite your physical lives, to become partners in order to face together the difficulties and successes—that is the very foundation of marriage, but you already know that it is not enough

2. To be united in your sensations, to have the same aesthetic tastes and enjoyments, that is necessary, but it is not enough

3. To be one in your deeper feelings, to keep a mutual affection and tenderness that never vary in and can withstand every weariness and irritation and disappointment, to be always and on every occasion happy, to be together, to find in every circumstance tranquillity, peace and joy in each other—that is good, that is indispensable, but it is not enough

4. To unite your minds, to harmonise your thoughts and make them complementary, to share your intellectual preoccupations and discoveries; that is absolutely necessary, but it is not enough

5. Beyond all that, in the depths, at the centre, at the summit of the being, there is a Supreme Truth of being, an Eternal Light, That is the origin, cause and master of our spiritual development; it is That which gives a permanent direction to our lives; it is That which determines our destinies; it is in the consciousness of That that you must unite

6. To be one in aspiration and ascension, to move forward at the same pace on the same spiritual path, that is the secret of a lasting union

Part Two: Yoga and Human Love

I—Problems of Human Love In Sadhana

1. In Yoga One Must Not Burden Oneself with Human Love and Attachments

2. Human Love Forms So Many Fetters and Hampers One’s Steps

3. Turns Him Away from the Concentration of His Emotions on the Divine

4. Human Love Shuts Off From the Direct Divine Force and Help

5. Lose a Great Part of Strength, Energy and Capacity due to Human Love

6. Relations of a Vital Kind Do Not Help For They Keep the Consciousness Down on a Vital Basis and Prevent its Rising to a Higher Level

7. A Study of Poetry on the Human Side of Love, is Not Helpful for Sadhana and For Some It is Distinctly Harmful

8. The Ordinary Vital Human Love is Full of Contrary Movements of Distrust, Misunderstanding, Jealousy, Anger, Despair

9. Vital Love Cannot be Made a Foundation for Divine Love

10.      This Lower Vital Way of Human Love Needs to be Rejected and These Elements From the Nature Eliminated

11. Psychic Love is Not Usually Left Pure in the Attraction of Human Beings to One Another

12. Egoistic Vital Human Love Creates Difficulties for the Sadhana and For the Mother

13. Demand for Vital Affection and Love From Men is Not Consistent with the Spirit of Yoga in which One Must Turn One’s Heart to the Divine

14. One Cannot Love As Long As Ego is There

Solution

15.      Love Alone Can Conquer the Ego

16.      Perfect Attachment to the Divine Replaces All Vital Attractions and Passions

II—The Human Way of Loving Divine Is ...

1. In Human Way You Want the Divine for Yourself, Who Would Have no Other Occupation Than to Satisfy You

2. A Divine Whom You Could See Physically At Every Hour of the Day or Night

3. A Divine Whom You Could Argue With At Your Leisure, Whom You Could Live With

4. If That be So This Divine Would Have To Be of Your Own Stature

5. Then Towards What Could He Lead You?

6. A Divine Who is One’s Personal Property and To Whom One Gives Oneself Totally Only If the Gift is Reciprocated

7. Instead of Enlarging Oneself to the Size of the Divine and Having a Love as Vast as the universe,

8. One Tries to Reduce the Divine to One’s Own Size

9. Human Love is Not a Need of the Soul, but Rather a Concession it Makes for a Time to the Ego

10. If the Call for a Return Does Not Seem to Come, the Love may Sink

11. If the Demands are Not Acceded to Then There is Abhimana Against the Divine, Loss of Faith, Loss of Fervour

III—For the Divine to Love Truly is to Do What is Best For the One He Loves

The Divine Does For Each One What is Best For Him From All Points of View

IV—How To Prepare For Yoga Through Human Love

1. We Have To Proceed From Human Love and Arrive At the Divine Love

2. By Intensifying and Transforming Human Love

3. In Yoga Love and Affection Must Be Rooted in the Divine

4. The Essence of Human Love is the Divine Love but It is Diminished and Distorted by our Ego

5. When the Psychic Loves it Loves with the Divine Love

6. Behind the Human Vital Love Bring a Constant Support of the Psychic Human Love

7. The vital also can be as absolute in its self-giving and nothing can be more generous than its movement when it forgets self for the Beloved

8. Learn to Love Without Demand, to Love Just for the Joy of Loving

9. There is No Place for Egoistic Vital Love in Yoga

10. In Yoga all Love Should be Turned Towards the Divine

11. In Integral Yoga the Emotional Being Has Not to Be Got Rid Of, But To Undergo a Transformation

12. By Turning All the Being to the Divine

13. Go Beyond Emotion to the Intensity of the Divine Love and There Feel Through the Inner Psychic Heart an Inexhaustible Oneness with the Divine

14. If the Vital has Affection, Love, Tenderness it is Because the Psychic is Trying to Express Itself Through the Vital

15. The Psychic Human Love is Closest to the Divine and It Is Therefore The Right and Best Way of Loving

16. In the Vital There is a Kind of Love, Which is Full of Joy, Confidence, Generous, Unbargaining, Ungrudging and Absolute in its Dedication

17. This Love is akin to the Psychic and Well-fitted to be its Complement and a Means of Expression of the Divine Love

18. Physical Means Can Be and are Used in the Approach to Divine Love and Worship

19. So long as Physical Means are Done in the Right Spirit They Have their Place

20. Love for the Divine Needs Something Purer and Nobler and Higher in the Vital of Ordinary Human Vital Love

21. One Must be Sincere in One’s Will To Get Rid of the Vital Demand

22. Friendship, Brotherhood, Love are Sacred Things and They Should be Rooted in the Soul, Founded on the Rock of the Divine

23. If There is Still the Need for Human Affection and Love, it is Better To Go Through the Experience

24. It is the Best Preparation for Yoga

25. Leave All Relations to Follow the Divine Alone

26. Once the Divine is Attained It Will be Easy to Found All Relations on the True Basis

27. The Other Way is Seek the Divine Centrally and Subordinating All Relation to That and Seeking to Transform Gradually All Relationship

28. In the Initial Stage of Sadhana It is Not Necessary to have Love for Everybody, a General Goodwill is Enough

29. What One Receives from the Divine That is Poured Out on Others

30. Then That is the Highest and Most Satisfying Way to Love

31. There Must be No Attachment That Would Make the Relation with People an Obstacle in Yoga

32. In Yoga Friendship can Remain, but Attachment Has to Fall Away

33. All Human Affinities Have to be Surrendered to the Divine Along With the Rest of the Old Nature

34. The Inner Being Turned to the Divine Naturally Draws Away from Old Vital Relations

35. Find Happiness and Joy in Love and It will Help You in Your Inner Progress

36. Love and Affection Have to be Rebased on That Deeper and Higher Consciousness

37. The Family Ties Should be Less Based On a Physical Origin and More On the Basis of Sadhana as Others are Souls of the Mother

38. One Can Become Indifferent to Family Ties With No Harshness in It

39. If You Want to be Free from Feeling of Hurt in Human Love then

40. Look on All with a Kindly Feeling as Children of the Mother

41. Without Any Expectation from Anybody

42. Yoga Demands an Equanimity of Mind Towards All Things and Persons

43. In Yoga the Love in the Vital Must Purify Itself of Lower Reactions and Fix Itself on the Psychic Being’s Trust and Confident Self-giving

44. One Should Not Look Back in a Spirit of Enthusiastic Appreciation to the Old Vital Love

45. The Old Vital Love Must Dwindle Into the Shadowy Constructions of the Past Which Have No Longer Any Importance

46. The Vital Love Should Change into a Psychic Love and Become An Instrument for the Transformation of the Soul’s Love

47. In Yoga, You Must be Able to Live in the World with a Mind Set Upon the Divine and Not Bound by the Environment

48. Through the Human Affection, the Psychic Being gets the Emotional Experiences it Needs Until it is ready to Prefer the Divine to the Human

49. By an Effort for Progress, Inner Transformation and Aspiration you Grow in Your Consciousness, become Vaster, then the Love you Experience will be Vaster

50. The Capacity of Non Egoistic Man’s Love and Self-giving has As Much Power As the Gods

51. Must Reject all Forms of Love Between Human Beings Because They Cause a Kind of Short-circuit and Cut Off the Direct Connection with the Divine

52. Unless There Comes the Peace, Purity, Freedom from Ego, Wideness, Light of the Universal Consciousness It is Difficult to Have a Love that is Free From all the Defects, Limitations, of Ordinary Human Love

53. In This Yoga the Feeling of Unity With Others, Love, Universal Joy and Ananda are an Essential Part of the Liberation and Perfection

V—Evolution of Love, after Love Infiltrating Into Matter

1. The First Results of the Power of Love Infiltrating into Matter was Devouring, Swallowing

2. One Swallows and Absorbs the Thing is a Primitive Way of Uniting with Things

3. The First Form of Love in Matter is the Need of Devouring

4. One Wants to Possess, Assimilate and the Best Way of Doing It is To Swallow and to Digest

5. Victims Give Themselves Up in a Kind of Delight of Being Eaten

6. Two Examples

7. The Origin of Desire is Love

8. Desire is Love in its Obscurest and Most Unconscious Form

9. Crystals Which are Formed in Matter Already Obey a Movement of Love

10. In the Trees and Plants Love is the Need to Grow to Get More Light

11. The Great Force of Universal Love Which Makes Flowers Blossom in Beauty

12. The Love of Animals for Men

13. Love of Parents for Their Children

14. The Origin of the Family Clans, Tribes, Castes, Classes, Leading to the Creation of Nations

15. Little by Little, Nature will Fuse These Races Too in Her Endeavour to Build a Real and Material Foundation for Human Unity

16. The Highest Expressions of Love in Human Beings is the Total Self Giving to What is Loved

17. Example: To Die for One’s Country Or to Give One’s Life to Defend Somebody

VII—Towards the Future

1. The true love, the love that comes from a deep affinity and is marked by an identity of views and aspirations. I always dreamt of a great love that would be shared, free from all animal activity, something that could physically represent the great love which is at the origin of the worlds.

2. This dream is practically unrealisable in the world as it is. Human nature would have to change so much for this to become possible. Esteem and mutual concessions create a harmony that makes life more than merely bearable.

3. One can admire her, feel a deep respect for her... But all that is not love... True Love

4. True love is a force; it is the union that enables new possibilities to be realised.

5. Love is the only legitimate bond of union. The absence of love is enough to invalidate any union. I consider that when love comes, everything else should give way to it.

6. Do not allow your union to serve as an excuse for the satisfaction of animal appetites or sensual desires. On the contrary, make it a means of mutual support so that you may transcend yourselves in a constant aspiration and an effort for progress towards the growing perfection of your being. May your association be both noble and generous, noble in quality, generous in action. Be an example to the world and show all men of goodwill the true aim of human life.

7. I now know for certain that only one love can satisfy my being: it is the love for the Divine, the divine love, for that alone never fails. Perhaps one day I shall find the favourable conditions and the necessary help for the achievement of the supreme realisation, the transformation and divinisation of the physical being which will change the world into a blessed place full of harmony and light, peace and beauty.