Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo

NOVEMBER, 1939

19^th and 20th November, 1939

Disciple : Is physical relations responsible for the vitiation of pure and idealistic love?

Sri Aurobindo : It is not only the physical but also the vital that is equally responsible. Desire, impulse of possession are more responsible for it than the physical relation.

Disciple : There are people who believe that the physical relation is an essential part of the highest relation of love.

Sri Aurobindo : Blake for instance, says that spiritual love should be sanctified by the physical act.

Disciple : Selincourt criticizes Blake.

Sri Aurobindo : Selincourt writing about Blake is like a sheep trying to understand a lion! Blake has got power, you

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can say ferocious power, madness and theories too coherent to be sane.

Disciple : Has the physical relation a place in love?                                        

Sri Aurobindo : A time comes in the life of a woman when to surrender herself she feels it as fulfillment, even physically.

Disciple : Has such a physical relation a place in psychic love?

Sri Aurobindo : It depends. It can be the psychic love extended to the body. In the psychic relation physical relation is possible; when it takes place it is for procreation. It is a part of the attitude of a female to the male – the attitude of submission. Surrender is more psychic than that.

Disciple : In the physical relation is there no danger of the higher elements getting lost?

Sri Aurobindo : It depends on the strength of the psychic being. It may be overclouded by the vital and the physical element. Of course, when it is merely physical then there is no adoration and love in it. Psychic relation is not generally found.

Disciple : An individual who has not found his companion, and has hankering or need for one meets a woman whom he loves; now if he keeps his love free from physical and vital elements, i. e. keeps it pure and psychic – does it mean that such a relation is necessary for him – or that is his need?

Sri Aurobindo : No, it can't be said. It depends on the particular case to say whether it is necessary.

The Vaishnavas wanted to sublimate even the lower

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elements of love by bringing them to the Divine. But we know the result; most of them failed. Not that it cannot be done, it can – but it is not easy.

Disciple : You have written in the Synthesis (of Yoga) that ordinary human love can act as a preparation and may be a form of aspiration.

Sri Aurobindo : It was not written for Yogis. It acts like that in ordinary man, if there is a psychic element in it i.e. if it is true love and not vital desire or attachment or impulse for possession. Then it acts as an awakener and uplifter. Blake accepts the physical also as something Divine. The elements of love are : adoration and desire for the union.

Disciple : Is such a love an unconscious seeking for the Divine? It may not bring divine fulfillment but that of love itself.

Sri Aurobindo : Yes, it is.

Disciple : Is it possible to evoke the Divine in oneself to love the other?

Sri Aurobindo : If one has found the Divine in oneself then he adores Him and surrenders oneself to him. Such a man can love others – but that is a part of action of universal love.

The spark in human love, even if it is degraded afterwards, tends to awaken the consciousness and evolve the being.

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21st November, 1939

Disciple : If love is an unconscious seeking for the Divine, why some people, who have turned to the Divine will seek the human love, especially here?

Sri Aurobindo : Are they conscious of the Divine? If one is conscious of the Divine, one of the two things would happen : either one would turn exclusively to the Divine or being conscious of the Divine one may keep the human love as an appendage.

Disciple : Supposing a man is unconscious and seeks human love can it not be a seeking for Divine?

Sri Aurobindo : These things are hardly pure – they are always mixed up. It may be only a cover for something else. There are people who, as I said, when turn to the Divine turn away from everything else. But it depends.

For instance, when you turn to the Divine you do not give up your friendship for somebody. Only, if you turn to the Divine the friendship ceases in the old sense, but it taken up so that it does not become an obstacle to the progress of each other.

There may be even individual love apart from universal love which one gets when one is conscious of the Divine.

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