On Love

Cosmic Consciousness - Poem by Sri Aurobindo

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At first one loves only when one is loved.

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

Further on, 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.

The Mother, Bulletin, Apri11966.

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 apart of the divine consciousness into which the sadhak enters by nearness to the Divine and the feeling of oneness with the Divine. ...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.

Sri Aurobindo, On Yoga. II, tome I. part II, 8

Love (at least the thing to which human beings give that name) is especially looked upon as an imperious master whose caprices one cannot evade, who strikes you as he pleases and compels you to obey him whether you like it or not. In the name of love the worst crimes have been perpetrated, the wildest follies committed. And yet, man has invented all kinds of moral and social rules hoping to control this force of love, to make it sober and docile. These rules, however seem to have been made only to be broken and the restraint they impose upon its free activity seems only to increase its explosive power. For it is not by rules that the movements of love can be governed. Only a greater, higher and truer power of love can master the uncontrollable impulses of love. Love alone can rule over love by illumining, transforming and enlarging it. For here also, more than anywhere else, control consists not in suppressing and abolishing, but in transmuting through a sublime alchemy. This is because, of all forces acting in the universe, love is the most powerful, the most irresistible; without love the world would fall back into the chaos of inconscience. Consciousness is indeed the creator of the universe, but love is its saviour .

The Mother, The Four Austerities and the Four Liberations

Still, the more varied and most intimate experience of divine love cannot come by the pursuit of the impersonal Infinite alone....

The Divine is a Being and not an abstract existence or a status of pure timeless infinity; the original and universal existence is He, but that existence is inseparable from consciousness and bliss of being, and an existence conscious of its own being ) its own bliss is what we may well call a divine infinite Person -Purusha. Moreover, all consciousness implies power, Shakti; where there is infinite consciousness of being, there is infinite power of being, and by that power all exists in the universe....

It is to this Godhead, this Being that the Bhakti of an integral Yoga will be poured out and uplifted. Transcendent, it will seek him in the ecstasy of an absolute union; universal, it will seek him in infinite quality and every aspect and in all beings with a universal delight and love; individual, it will enter into all human relations with him that love creates between person and person....

He is the friend, the adviser, helper, saviour in trouble and distress, the defender from enemies, the hero who fights our battles for us or under whose shield we fight, the charioteer, the pilot of our ways. And here we come at once to a closer intimacy; he is the comrade and eternal companion, the playmate of the game of living. But still there is so far a certain division, however pleasant, and friendship is too much limited by the appearance of beneficence. The lover can wound, abandon, be wroth with us, seem to betray, yet our love endures and even grows by these oppositions; they increase the joy of reunion and the joy of possession; through them the lover remains the friend, and all that he does, we find in the end, has been done by the lover and helper of our being for our sours perfection as well as for his joy in us.

These contradictions lead to a greater intimacy. He is the father and the mother too of our being, its source and protector and its indulgent cherisher and giver of our desires. He is the child born to our desire whom we cherish and rear. All these things the lover takes up; his love in its intimacy and oneness keeps in it the paternal and maternal care and lend itself to our demands upon it. All is unified in that deepest many-sided relation....

Love and Ananda are the last word of being, the secret of secrets, the mystery of mysteries.

Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, III

We should not hesitate to open ourselves. ..to whatever experience of the Infinite we have, to purify and intensify it, to make it our object of constant thought and contemplation, till it becomes the originating power that acts in us, the Godhead we adore and embrace, our whole being is put into tune with it and it is made the very self of our being It will turn all that is into itself, reveal itself as the universal Ananda Brahman and make all existence its outpouring. If we wait upon it for the inspiration of all our inner and outer acts, it will become the joy of the Divine pouring itself through us in light and love and power on life and all that lives. Sought by the adoration and love of the soul, it reveals itself as the Godhead, we see in it the face of God and know the bliss of our Lover.

Brahman always reveals himself to us in three ways, within ourselves, above our plane, around us in the universe. Within us, there are two centres of the Purusha, the inner soul through which he touches us to our awakening; there is the Purusha in the lotus of the heart which opens upward all our powers and the Purusha in the thousand-petalled lotus whence descend through the thought and will, opening the third eye in us, the lightnings of vision and the fire of the divine energy .

The bliss existence may come to us through either one of these centres. When the lotus of the heart breaks open, we feel a divine joy, love and peace expanding in us like a flower of light which irradiates the whole being. When the other upper lotus opens, the whole mind becomes full of a divine light, joy and power, behind which is the Divine, the Lord of our being on his throne with our soul beside him or drawn inward into his rays; all the thoughts and will become then a luminosity, power and ecstasy. The Divine reveals himself in the world around us when we look upon that with a spiritual desire of delight that seeks him in all things.

A universal spiritual Presence, a universal Peace, a universal infinite Delight has manifested, immanent, embracing, all-penetrating. ...This is the Divine seen around us and on our own physical plane. But he may reveal himself above. We see or feel him as a high-uplifted Presence, a great infinite of Ananda above us-or in it, our Father in heaven-and do not feel or' see him in ourselves or around us.

The complete redemption comes by the descent of the divine Power into the human mind and body and the remoulding of their inner life into the divine image--what the Vedic seers called the birth of the Son by the sacrifice. It is in fact by a continual sacrifice or offering, a sacrifice of adoration and aspiration, of works, of thought and knowledge, of the mounting flame of the godward will that we build ourselves into the being of this Infinite.

Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, 111, ch. VII

The aim here is fulfilment of the Divine in life and for that, union and solidarity are indispensable. "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.... Whatever relations they have with each other, all jealousy, strife, hatred, aversion, rancour and other evil vital feelings should be abandoned....

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 rancour and hate.... 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 often is like that and, if so, it falls away from the sadhak. 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 to some, it is not so for all. A transformation, however gradual, is indispensable, severance where severance is the right thing to do.

Sri Aurobindo, On Yoga,ll, tome I. part II

As to sexual impulse, regard it not as. something horrible and attractive at the same time, but as a mistake and wrong movement of the lower nature.

Sri Aurobindo, On Yoga, II, tome II

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. The true love for the Divine is a self-giving, free of demand, full of submission and surrender; it makes no claim, imposes no condition, strikes no bargain, indulges in no violences of jealousy or pride or anger-for these things are not in its composition. In return the Divine Mother also gives herself, but freely.

..her presence in your mind, your vital, your physical consciousness, her power recreating you in the divine nature, taking up all the movements of your being and directing them towards perfection and fulfilment, her love enveloping you and carrying you in its arms Godwards. It is this that you must aspire to feel and possess in all your parts down to the very material, and here there is no limitation either of time or of completeness. If one truly aspires and gets it there ought to be no room for any other claim or for any disappointed desire.

Sri Aurobindo,On Yoga,ll. tome I

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. Emotion is an excellent and indispensable thing in human nature, in spite of all its shortcomings and dangers. But 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 emotion cannot reach or experience.

Sri Aurobindo,On Yoga,ll, tome I

It is a mistake to think that the vital alone has warmth and the psychic is something frigid without any flame in it. A clear limpid goodwill is a very good and desirable thing. But that is not what is meant by psychic love. Love is love and not merely goodwill. Psychic love can have a warmth and a flame as intense and more intense than the vital, only it is a pure fire, not dependent on the satisfaction of ego-desire or on the eating up of the fuel it embraces. It is a white flame, not a red one; but white heat is not inferior to the red variety in its ardour. It is true that the psychic love does not usually get its full play in human relations and human nature; it finds the fullness of its fire and ecstasy more easily when it is lifted towards the Divine.

You feel lonely because you want to be loved. Learn the joy of loving without demand, just for the joy of loving (the most wonderful joy in the world !) and you will never more feel lonely.

When the vital joins in the love for the Divine, it brings into it heroism, enthusiasm, intensity, absoluteness, exclusiveness, the spirit of self-sacrifice, the total and passionate self-giving of all the nature. It is the vital passion for the Divine that creates the spiritual heroes, conquerors or martyrs.

Sri Aurobindo,On Yoga,ll, tome I, part 11, 8

So long as the whole consciousness is not clear of doubtful stuff and the realisation of oneness confirmed in the supreme purity, the expression of the all-love is not advisable. It is by holding it in oneself that it becomes a real part of the nature, established and purified by joining with it the other realisations still to come. What you feel is only a first touch and to dissipate it by expression would be very imprudent. The sex and the vital might easily become active-I have known cases of very good yogis... in whom the visvaprema became the visvakiima, all-love becoming all-lust. This has happened with many both in Europe and the East. Even apart from that it is always best to solidify and confirm rather than to throw out and disperse. When the sadhana has progressed and the Knowledge from above comes to enlighten and guide the love, then it will be another matter. My insistence on rejection of all untransformed vital movements is based on experience, mine and others' and that of past yogas like the Vaishnava movement of Chaitanya (not to speak of the old Buddhist Sahaja dharma) which ended in much corruption. A wide movement such as that of all-love can only take place when the ground of Nature has been solidly prepared for it. I have no objection to your mixing with others, but only under a continual guard and control by a vigilant mind and will.

Sri Aurobindo,On Yoga, 11, tome I, part II, 8

[The Divine Grace, we give it that name] because we feel in the infinite Spirit or Self or Existence a Presence or a Being, a Consciousness that determines-that is what we speak of as the Divine-not a separate person, but the one Being of whom our individual self is a portion or a vessel It is an action from above or from within independent of mental causes which decides its own movement. We can call it the Divine Grace; we can call it the Self within choosing its own hour and way to manifest to the mental instrument on the surface; we can call it the flowering of the inner being or inner nature into self-realisation and self-knowledge. As something in us approaches it or as it presents itself to us, so the mind sees it. But in reality it is the same thing and the same process of the being in Nature.

Sri Aurobindo,On Yoga

Krishna's Grace calls whom it wills to call without any determining reason for the choice or the rejection, it is all his mercy, or else he calls the hearts that are ready to vibrate and leap up at his call-and even there he waits till the moment has come.

I t does not depend on outward merit or appearance of fitness.

The Gopis heard and rushed out into the forest -the others did not, or did they think it was only some rustic music or some rude cowherd-lover fluting to his sweetheart : not a call that learned and cultured or virtuous ears could recognise as the call of the Divine?

Some may have the adhikiira (readiness, preparation) for recognising Krishna's flute, some for the call of Christ, some for the dance of Shiva-to each his own way and his nature's answer to the Divine call.

Sri Aurobindo,On Yoga

No error can be more perilous than to accept the immixture of the sexual desire and some kind of subtle satisfaction of it and look on this as a part of the sadhana. It would be the most effective way to head straight towards spiritual downfall and throw into the atmosphere forces that would block the supramental descent, bringing instead the descent of adverse vital powers to disseminate disturbance and disaster....

It is an error too to imagine that, although the physical sexual action is to be abandoned, yet some inward reproduction of it is part of the transformation of the sex-centre. The action of the animal sex-energy in Nature is a device for a particular purpose in the economy of the material creation in the Ignorance. But the vital excitement that accompanies it makes the most favourable opportunity and vibration in the atmosphere for the inrush of those very vital forces and beings whose whole business is to prevent the descent of the supramental Light. The pleasure attached to it is a degradation and not a true form of divine Ananda. The true divine Ananda in the physical has a different quality and movement and substance; self-existent in its essence, its manifestation is dependent only on an inner union with the Divine.....

Divine Love, when it touches the physical, does not awaken the gross lower vital propensities; indulgence of them would only repel it and make it withdraw again to the heights from which it is already difficult enough to draw it down into the coarseness of the material creation which it alone can transform....

Seek the divine Love through the only gate through which it will consent to enter, the gate of the psychic being, and cast away the lower vital error .

Sri Aurobindo Says", Bulletin, August 1965

The Mother has already told you the truth about this idea. The idea that by fully indulging the sex hunger it will be finished and disappear for ever is a deceptive pretence held out by the vital to the mind in order to get a sanction for its desire; it has no other raison d'etre or truth or justification. If an occasional indulgence keeps the sex desire simmering, a full indulgence would only sink you in its mire. This hunger like other hungers does not cease by temporary satiation; it revives itself after a temporary abeyance and wants again indulgence. Neither sops nor gorgings are the right treatment for it. It can only go by a radical psychic rejection or a full spiritual opening with the increasing descent of a consciousness that does not want it and has a truer Ananda.

Sri Aurobindo, Life-Literature-Yoga, 2ndEd., p.27

As to the sexual impulse, for this also you must have no moral horror or puritanic or ascetic repulsion. This also is a power of life and while you have to throwaway the present form of this power (that is the physical act), the force itself has to be mastered and transformed. It is often strongest in people with a strong vital nature and this strong vital nature can be made a great instrument for the physical realisation of the Divine Life. If the sexual impulse comes, do not be sorry or troubled but look at it calmly, quiet it down, reject all wrong suggestions connected with it and wait for the Higher Consciousness to transform it into the free force and Ananda.

letter of Sri Aurobindo, in Mother India, Oct. 1967

If she consents to marry , that would be the best. All these vital disturbances proceed from suppressed sex-instinct, suppressed but not rejected and overcome. A mental acceptance or enthusiasm for the sadhana is not a sufficient guarantee nor sufficient ground for calling people, especially young people, to begin it. Afterwards these vital instincts rise up and there is nothing sufficient to balance or prevail against them,-only mental ideas which do not prevail against the instincts, but on the other hand, also stand in the way of the natural social means of satisfaction. If she marries now and gets experience of the human vital life, then thereafter there may be a chance of her mental aspiration for sadhana turning into the real thing.

"Sri Aurobindo Says", in Bulletin. November 1967

Thoughts and Aphorisms

When we have passed beyond enjoyings, then we shall have Bliss. Desire was the helper; Desire is the bar .

Transform enjoying into an even and objectless ecstasy; let all thyself be bliss. This is thy goal.

All renunciation is for a greater joy yet ungrasped. Some renounce for the joy of duty done, some for the joy of peace, some for the joy of God and some for the joy of self- torture, but renounce rather as a passage to the freedom and untroubled rapture beyond.

In each pain and torture of our being is the secret of a flame of rapture compared with which our greatest pleasures are only as dim flickerings.