Guidance from Sri Aurobindo - Volume 2

LOVE

HUMAN LOVE

      Even the higher or deeper experiences do not seem to be of much value if one cannot love the Mother with the true heart.

      It is a mistake to think like that. The experiences prepare the different parts of the being for loving in the right way, so that it is not the soul alone that loves. So long as they are open to ignorance and ego they cannot receive and hold the love rightly.

      The action from the higher consciousness increases its intensity. However, what is the use of all that if it has no connection below with my heart that longs for love?

      You might just as well say what is the use of any sadhana. For the separation of the higher consciousness from the lower, the refusal to mix their movements, e.g. love of the Divine and sex, is essential to the sadhana.

      Please excuse me if I linger a little more on the topic of love, because much depends on that for the progress of my sadhana. Some parts of my being refuse to come out of their neutrality because they firmly believe that we have no love for you and you for us. The tough question is not of your love for me but of my love for you. If I have love for you why do I not feel it as before? What is responsible for this state?

      It is the parts that had the vital mixture. They regard that mixed movement alone as love and when it is not active they think there is no love. The love is quiescent; that is all.

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      How stupid is our vital even in its 'prudence'? It loves sensitiveness though that depresses it!

      The vital loves any number of things that do it harm. It prefers the Pleasant always to the Good.

      We depend very much on finding in the Mother's ways a manifestation of her love for us. We feel we can progress only when we get it.

      This demand for a physical manifestation of love must go. It is a dangerous stumbling-block in the way of sadhana. A progress made by indulgence of this demand is an insecure progress which may any moment be thrown down by the same force that produced it.

      The struggle in the outer being has gone out of control. The mind is under the vital's influence. During such circumstances, as a strategy, is it not good to satisfy the desire for the time being?

      How is it you do not see that all that is ego only, the old ego. The solution is not to satisfy it but to get rid of it. If anything in your mind supports the claim, it is no wonder that the suggestions come and stop the progress. You yourself had written the clear knowledge that the divine love must be free from all these lower demands, absolute and unconditioned.

      Can the suggestion of revolt come to one who loves the Divine?

      If the love is absolute and complete and there have never been any vital demands connected with it the suggestion of revolt cannot come.

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      I have heard that many sadhikas love the Mother so much that they are ready to die for her. But if there is no physical expression of the Mother's love for them, they can't love her and some go so far as to revolt, weep or fast.

      It is self-love that makes them do it. It is just the same kind of vital love that people have outside (loving someone for one's own sake, not for the sake of the beloved). What is the use of that in sadhana here? It can only be an obstacle.

      Often the human vital falls on an ignorant idea: if the Mother does not do this or that for me it means that she has no love for me. It has another obsession also which comes from jealousy: why so much more for others and so little or nothing for me? These seem to be stumbling-blocks for many sadhaks.

      All that of course is not love, but self-love. Jealousy is only an ugly form of self-love. That is what people do not understand — they even think that demands and jealousy and wounded vanity are signs of love or at least natural attendants of it.

      In the Ashram the Mother works with us first through the ordinary human love and then through the psychic love, satisfying some of our desires and demands in the beginning. For it is only so that our weak human bullock cart can proceed. But farther on when the bullocks perceive, on the way, that too great a thing called Divine Love they are frightened and fall down by the sudden shock. Then the Divine Mother showers on them the psychic love which lifts them up. And the journey is resumed. By and by, the bullocks become strong and powerful, get accustomed to the Divine Love after many a

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fall. Then nothing is felt as too great a thing for the rest of the journey. For the Divine Love contains everything and can stand on anything.

      All that is quite correct. Even the ordinary human or the psychic love many are unable to feel or understand because it is not quite in the ordinary human way.

PSYCHIC AND DIVINE LOVE

      The psychic never feels that it cannot love the Divine.

      Our psychic loves the Divine but the vital is in revolt. Then there will be gloomy periods. To avoid them we must make our outer being love the Divine. But how to do it with a strong ego in front?

      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.

      The outer being too must love the Divine Mother. If the love is confined within the soul alone there is hardly anything remarkable in it.

      Why do you need something remarkable? The love of the soul is the true thing, simple and absolute — the rest is good only if it is a means of manifestation of the soul's love.

      But what then about the love in the vital itself?

      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

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for the manifestation of the soul's love, no longer for the desires of the ego which men call love.

      The present growth of the sadhana is to make my vital offer its full love for the Divine without any condition. Is it not so?

      Yes, love with surrender and dissolution of the ego.

      Usually I don't wear a coat. But yesterday it was chilly and I had a coat on me. I began to pluck various flowers for offering to the Mother. Unexpectedly, the flower called 'Divine Love' (Punica granatum) fell by itself and was caught just at my chest (heart centre) where the collar of the coat closes in. Any meaning?

      An indication of its coming in the heart.

      I think this can't be a mere accident as it appears to the outer mind. There must be the Mothers hand in it.

Yes.

      Again I saw some very big and beautiful flowers, signifying 'Divine Love' in a dream.

      It is a suggestion of what must and will be.

      The latest form of the suggestions is directed towards myself and the Mother. They say, "You have no love for her." What is worse, they make some part of my being feel that as true.

      But that is surely very evident nonsense. If you feel love for the Mother how can they say you have none or, if they say it, what value has such an obvious lie and why does any part of you assent to it?

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      What surprises me is, on one side I feel a profound love for the Mother but in the outward expression I can't feel any love.

      What do you mean by outward expression? Love is a thing of the heart and does not depend on outward expression.

      It is said that, if one loves the Divine, faith ceases to be important.

      It is not true except that when the psychic love for the Divine is there, faith is there also. But so long as knowledge and realisation are not complete, faith is indispensable.

      The difficulties in sadhana come because we lack a real self-giving and spontaneous love for the Divine Mother. For the integral Yoga especially, they are our only permanent safeguards. Moreover, it is harder to understand the Divine in a physical form than on the ethereal planes. Even our outer questioning and your answering does not bring us sufficiently close. Is it not really so?

      Obviously. To understand divine movements one must enter into the divine consciousness, till then faith and surrender are the only right attitude. How can the mind judge what is beyond all its measures?

LOVE AND ANANDA

      Would you kindly define the nature of Ananda?

      Ananda is a thing to be felt — it cannot be defined except negatively that it is not mere joy, but something much more deep and essential.

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      My physical consciousness does not seem to be ready to receive love and Ananda properly.

      The quiet and calm have to be increased so as to be a firm basis for the love and Ananda.

      How is it that I have suddenly lost the state of Ananda and love that I was experiencing before?

      In order to keep it the whole system must become calm, quiet and free from demands.

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