Sri Aurobindo on forms of Love External

Sri Aurobindo on various forms of the Love-vital, psychic, human, universal and the Divine, with a beautiful letter on Love for the divine Mother in the end. Ordinary human love is vital, emotional and physical and always egoistic—a form of self-love. The psychic element is very small except in a few. * 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. * It is difficult to define its [psychic love’s] limits or to recognise it. For even when there is the psychic love for another person, it gets in the human being so mixed up with the vital that it is the commonest thing to justify a vital love by claiming for it a psychic character. One could say that psychic love is distinguished by an essential purity and selflessness—but the vital can put on a very brilliant imitation of that character, when it likes. * It depends on what you mean by psychic “love”. One can have a psychic feeling for all beings; it does not depend on sex nor has it anything sexual in it. * There is a fundamental psychic feeling which is the same for all; but there can also be a special psychic feeling for one or another. * It [psychic love] is sometimes turned to the human person, but it never gets its true satisfaction till it turns to the Divine. Sri Aurobindo CWSA, Vol-31, Pg. 301-302   A psychic love towards all is also emerging; this love is a thing inward and does not seek to express itself outwardly like the vital love which men usually have. The psychic and spiritual attitude is also not dependent on the good and bad in beings, but is self-existent regarding them as souls who carry the Divine in them however thickly concealed and are children of the Mother. Sri Aurobindo CWSA, Vol-30, Pg-358 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. Sri Aurobindo CWSA, Vol-31, Pg-286 I suppose “love” expresses something more intense than bhalobasha 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. But 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. Lastly, there is in the highest or deepest kind of love the psychic element, which comes from the inmost heart and soul, a kind of inner union or self-giving or at least a seeking for that, a tie or an urge independent of other conditions or elements, existing for its own sake and not for any mental, vital or physical pleasure, satisfaction, interest or habit. 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. Sri Aurobindo CWSA, Vol-29, Pg. 339-340   It is not necessary to have love for everybody just now. If you have a general goodwill, that is enough. Sri Aurobindo CWSA, Vol-31, Pg-291   No, that by itself [expressing one’s affection to all] is not the wideness needed—the spiritual wideness brings the sense of being one being with all, of containing all in oneself, as it were, and with that comes a kind of universal love which is spiritual, free and pure, but which one is not moved to show to everybody by outward signs, but which has its effect. Sri Aurobindo CWSA, Vol-31, Pg-304   The oneness with all in its basis is something self-existent and self-content which does not need expression. When it does express itself as love, it is something wide and universal, untroubled and firm even when it is intense. This is in the basic cosmic oneness. There is also the surface cosmic consciousness which is an awareness of the play of cosmic forces—here anything may rise, sex also. It is this part that needs the perfect psychisation, otherwise one cannot even hold, contain and deal with it in the proper way. Sri Aurobindo CWSA, Vol-29, Pg. 337   The Divine’s love is that which comes from above poured down from the Divine Oneness and its Ananda on the being—psychic love is a form taken by divine love in the human being according to the needs and possibilities of the human consciousness. Sri Aurobindo CWSA, Vol-29, Pg-336   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.   The next day the correspondent asked, “What must one do to have this love?” Sri Aurobindo replied, “First you must want it in a continuous way. Sri Aurobindo CWSA, Vol-31, Pg-291   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—and this represents itself in an inner giving—her presence in your mind, your vital, your physical consciousness, her power re-creating 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. And if one truly aspires, one does unfailingly get it, more and more as the purification proceeds and the nature undergoes its needed change.   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. Sri Aurobindo CWSA, Vol-29, Pg. 338-339 M.S. SRINIVASAN Sri Aurobindo Society

This message was sent to sandeep@ebdmail.com by srinivasan@aurosociety.org No. 11, Saint Martin Street, Puducherry, Puducherry UT 605001, India

On the Divine Force of Love

We are celebrating the value of Love this August.

Love is one of the great universal forces; it exists by itself, and its movement is free and independent of the objects in which it manifests. It manifests wherever it finds a possibility for manifestation, wherever there is receptivity, wherever there is some opening. What you call love and think of as a personal or individual thing is only your capacity to receive and manifest this universal force. But because it is universal, it is not an unconscious force; it is a supremely conscious Power. Consciously it seeks for its manifestation and realisation upon the earth; consciously, it chooses its instruments, awakens to its vibrations those who are capable of an answer, endeavours to realise in them that which is its eternal aim, and when the instrument is not fit, drops it and turns to look for others. Men think that they have fallen in love; they see their love come and grow, and then it fades—or, it may be, endures a little longer in some who are more specially fitted for its more lasting movement. But their sense in this of a personal experience all their own was an illusion. It was a wave from the everlasting sea of universal love.

Love is universal and eternal; it is always manifesting and identical in its essence. And it is a Divine Force; for the distortions, we see in its apparent workings belong to its instruments. Love does not manifest in human beings alone; it is everywhere. Its movement is there in plants, perhaps in the very stones; in animals, it is easy to detect its presence. All the deformations of this great and divine Power come from the obscurity, ignorance, and selfishness of the limited instrument. Love, the eternal force, has no clinging, no desire, no hunger for possession, no self-regarding attachment; it is, in its pure movement, the seeking for the union of the self with the Divine, a seeking absolute and regardless of all other things. Love divine gives itself and asks for nothing. We do not need to say what human beings have made of it; they have turned it into an ugly and repulsive thing. And yet even in human beings, the first contact of love does bring down something of its purer substance; they become capable of forgetting themselves; for a moment, its divine touch awakens and magnifies all that is fine and beautiful. But afterwards, human Nature comes to the surface, full of its impure demands, asking for something in exchange, bartering what it gives, clamouring for its own inferior satisfaction, distorting and soiling what was divine. 

The Mother

CWM, Vol-3, Pg. 69-70

 

The force of love in the world is trying to find consciousnesses capable of receiving this divine movement in its purity and expressing it. This race of all beings towards love, this irresistible push and seeking out in the world’s heart and all hearts, is the impulse given by a Divine love behind the human longing and seeking. It touches millions of instruments, always trying, always failing. Still, this constant touch prepares these instruments, and suddenly, one day, there will awake in them the capacity of self-giving, the capacity of loving.

 

The movement of love is not limited to human beings and is perhaps less distorted in other worlds than in humans. Look at the flowers and trees. When the sun sets, and all becomes silent, sit down for a moment and put yourself into communion with Nature: you will feel rising from the earth, from below the roots of the trees and mounting upward and coursing through their fibres up to the highest outstretching branches, the aspiration of intense love and longing,—a longing for something that brings light and gives happiness, for the light that is gone and they wish to have back again. There is a yearning so pure and intense that if you can feel the movement in the trees, your own being will go up in an ardent prayer for the peace, light, and love that are unmanifested here. Once you have come in contact with this large, pure and true Divine love, if you have felt it even for a short time and in its smallest form, you will realise what an abject thing human desire has made of it. It has become in human Nature something low, brutal, selfish, violent, ugly, or else it is something weak and sentimental, made up of the pettiest feeling, brittle, superficial, and exacting. And this baseness and brutality or this self-regarding weakness they call love!

The Mother

CWM, Vol-3, Pg. 71-72

M.S. SRINIVASAN

24th Aug 2022, shared via the email newsletter

Friendship - Vinisha Choudhary

Friendship is one of the most precious gifts of life. It is a relationship between people. It is the purest and divine relationship among all other relations. Friends support you in life, not only in the happy times but also in your hard times. 

True friendship is what gives us reason to stay firmer and happy in life. Many people don't have a family, but they have family friends to them. In a good friendship honesty and loyalty plays a very important role. Having a best friend in life is a blessing that doubles your joy and divides your pain. Friends never leave up in bad times. 

We learn how to understand people and trust others. A real friend will always motivate you and cheer for you. When we make friends on the first day of school, we become delighted, but when we all get far from our friends, we miss them a lot. Whether they made fun of us and whether they helped us in our bad times.

TRUE FRIENDS ARE NEVER APART, MAYBE IN DISTANCE BUT NEVER IN HEART 

Vinisha Choudhary

Class: 11th Science

The Fabindia School

Friendship - Laxman Singh

Laxman Singh

Friendship is a divine relationship. We don’t have similarity in our blood, but still, that person cares for us. Irrespective of all differences, a friend chooses you, understands you, and support you. Whenever you are in self-doubt or lacking confidence, talk to a friend, and your worry will surely go away.

A true friend will always want your happiness. A life without a good friend is merely empty. Honesty is the key factor to maintain the friendship forever. For understanding each other’s emotions, you have to be completely honest with each other. Patience and acceptance are also other factors for friendship to last long. Understanding the differences as well as accepting them is what a maturity factor in a friendship. Friendship will fulfill you with sweet memories that you can cherish for the rest of your life.

The unbounded love, as well as care, is what makes the relationship between two friends strong.

Laxman Singh

Class IV

The Fabindia School