{"id":3747,"date":"2013-07-13T01:50:57","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3747"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:50:57","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:57","slug":"09-the-true-foundation-of-love-vol-01-first-series-1947","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/02-other-editions\/letters-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-first-series-1947\/09-the-true-foundation-of-love-vol-01-first-series-1947","title":{"rendered":"-09_The True Foundation of Love .htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\n
\nVI<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nLove: Human to Divine<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nThe True Foundation of Love <\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nTO bring the Divine Love and Beauty and Ananda into the world is, indeed, the whole crown
\nand essence of our Yoga. But it has always seemed
\nto me impossible unless there comes as its support
\nand foundation and guard the Divine Truth\u2014what
\nI call the Supramental\u2014and its Divine Power. Otherwise 
\nLove itself blinded by the confusions of this
\npresent consciousness may stumble in its human
\nreceptacles and, even otherwise, may find itself unrecognised, 
\nrejected or rapidly degenerating and lost
\nin the frailty of man’s inferior nature. But when it
\ncomes in the divine truth and power. Divine Love
\ndescends first as something transcendent and universal
\nand out of that transcendence and universality it
\napplies itself to persons according to the Divine
\nTruth and Will, creating a vaster, greater, purer personal 
\nlove than any the human mind or heart can
\nnow imagine. It is when one has felt this descent
\nthat one can be really an instrument for the birth
\nand action of the Divine Love in the world. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 251<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nBeyond Emotion<\/a>
\n… <\/b>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nTHE Mother did not tell you that love is not
\nan emotion, but that Divine Love is not an
\nemotion,\u2014a very different thing to say. Human love
\nis made up of emotion, passion and desire,\u2014all of
\nthem vital movements, therefore bound to the disabilities 
\nof the human vital nature. Emotion is an
\nexcellent and indispensable thing in human nature,
\nin spite of all its shortcomings and dangers,\u2014just
\nas mental ideas are excellent and indispensable things
\nin their own field in the human stage. But our aim is
\nto go beyond mental ideas into the light of the Supramental 
\nTruth, which exists not by ideative thought
\nbut by direct vision and identity. In the same way
\nour aim is to go beyond emotion to the height and
\ndepth and intensity of the Divine Love and
\nthere feel through the inner psychic heart an
\ninexhaustible oneness with the Divine which the
\nspasmodic leapings of the vital emotion cannot reach
\nor experience. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nAs Supramental Truth is not merely a sublimation
\nof our mental ideas, so Divine Love is not merely a <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 252<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nsublimation of human emotions; it is a different
\nconsciousness, with a different quality, movement and substance. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n26-5-1930<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 253<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nLove in Sadhana<\/a>
\n<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nI<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nAND first about human love in the sadhana. The
\nsoul’s turning through love to the Divine must
\nbe through a love that is essentially divine, but as
\nthe instrument of expression at first is a human
\nnature, it takes the forms of human love and bhakti.
\nIt is only as the consciousness deepens, heightens
\nand changes that that greater eternal love can grow
\nin it and openly transform the human into the divine.
\nBut in human love itself there are several kinds of
\nmotive forces. There is a psychic human love which
\nrises from deep within and is the result of the meeting
\nof the inner being with that which calls it towards a
\ndivine joy and union; it is, once it becomes aware of
\nitself, something lasting, self-existent, not dependent
\nupon external satisfactions, not capable of diminution
\nby external causes, not self-regarding, not prone to
\ndemand or bargain but giving itself simply and spontaneously, 
\nnot moved to or broken by misunderstandings, 
\ndisappointments, strife and anger, but pressing
\nalways straight towards the inner union. It is this <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 254<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\npsychic love that is closest to the divine and it is
\ntherefore the right and best way of love and bhakti.
\nBut that does not mean that the other parts of the
\nbeing, the vital and physical included, are not to be
\nused as means of expression or that they are not to
\nshare in the full play and the whole meaning of love,
\neven of divine love. On the contrary, they are a means
\nand can be a great part of the complete expression
\nof divine love,\u2014provided they have the right and not
\nthe wrong movement. There are in the vital itself
\ntwo kinds of love,\u2014one full of joy and confidence
\nand abandon, generous, unbargaining, ungrudging and
\nvery absolute in its dedication and this is akin to the
\npsychic and well-fitted to be its complement and a
\nmeans of expression of the divine love. And neither
\ndoes the psychic love or the divine love despise a
\nphysical means of expression wherever that is pure
\nand right and possible; it does not depend upon
\nthat, it does not diminish, revolt or go out like a
\nsnuffed candle when it is deprived of any such means; but when it can use it, it does so with joy and gratitude. 
\nPhysical means can be and are used in the
\napproach to divine love and worship; they have not
\nbeen allowed merely as a concession to human weak-
\nness, nor is it the fact that in the psychic way there
\nis no place for such things. On the contrary they
\nare one means of approaching the Divine and receiving
\nthe Light and materialising the psychic contact, and so long as it is done in the right spirit and they are
\nused for the true purpose they have their place. It <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 255<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nis only if they are misused or the approach is not
\nright because tainted by indifference and inertia, or
\nrevolt or hostility, or some gross desire, that they
\nare out of place and can have a contrary effect. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nBut there is another way of vital love which is
\nmore usually the way of human nature and that is
\na way of ego and desire. It is full of vital craving,
\ndesire and demand; its continuance depends upon
\nthe satisfaction of its demands; if it does not get
\nwhat it craves or even imagines that it is not being
\ntreated as it deserves\u2014for it is full of imaginations,
\nmisunderstandings, jealousies, misinterpretations\u2014it
\nat once turns to sorrow, wounded feeling, anger, all
\nkinds of disorder, finally cessation and departure. A
\nlove of this kind is in its very nature ephemeral and
\nunreliable and it cannot be made a foundation for
\ndivine love…. It is for this reason that we discourage
\nthis lower vital way of human love, and would like
\npeople to reject and eliminate these elements as soon
\nas may be from their nature. Love should be a flowering 
\nof joy and union and confidence and self-giving
\nand Ananda,\u2014but this lower vital way is only a
\nsource of suffering, trouble, disappointment, disillusion
\nand disunion. Even a slight element of it shakes the
\nfoundations of peace and replaces the movement
\ntowards Ananda by a fall towards sorrow, discontent
\nand Nirananda. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 256<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nLove in Sadhana<\/a><\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n <\/i>II <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nTHE love which is turned towards the Divine
\nought not to be the usual vital feeling which
\nmen call by that name; for that is not love, but only a
\nvital desire, an instinct of appropriation, the impulse
\nto possess and monopolise. Not only is this not the
\ndivine Love, but it ought not to be allowed to mix in
\nthe least degree in the Yoga. The true love for the
\nDivine is a self-giving, free of demand, full of submission 
\nand surrender; it makes no claim, imposes no
\ncondition, strikes no bargain, indulges in no violences
\nof jealousy or pride or anger\u2014for these things are
\nnot in its composition. In return the Divine Mother
\nalso gives herself, but freely\u2014and this represents
\nitself in an inner giving\u2014her presence in your mind,
\nyour vital, your physical consciousness, her power
\nre-creating you in the divine nature, taking up all the
\nmovements of your being and directing them towards
\nperfection and fulfilment, her love enveloping you
\nand carrying you in its arms Godwards. It is this that
\nyou must aspire to feel and possess in all your parts <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 257 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ndown to the very material, and here there is no limitation 
\neither of time or of completeness. If one truly
\naspires and gets it there ought to be no room for any
\nother claim or for any disappointed desire. And if one
\ntruly aspires, one does unfailingly get it, more and -more as the purification proceeds and the nature
\nundergoes its needed change. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nKeep your love pure of all selfish claim and desire; you will find that you are getting all the love that you
\ncan bear and absorb in answer. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nRealise also that the Realisation must come first,
\nthe work to be done, not the satisfaction of claim and
\ndesire. It is only when the Divine Consciousness in
\nits Supramental Light and Power has descended and
\ntransformed the physical that other things can be
\ngiven a prominent place\u2014and then too it will not be
\nthe satisfaction of desire, but the fulfilment of the
\nDivine Truth in each and all and in the new life that
\nis to express it. In the divine life all is for the sake of  <\/i>the Divine and not for the sake of the ego. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nI should perhaps add one or two things to avoid
\nmisapprehensions. First, the love for the Divine of
\nwhich I speak is not a psychic love only; it is the love
\nof all the being, the vital and vital-physical included, \u2014all are capable of the same self-giving. It is a mistake 
\nto believe that if the vital loves, it must be a love
\nthat demands and imposes the satisfaction of its 
\ndesire; it is a mistake to think that it must be either
\nthat or else the vital, in order to escape from its
\n"attachment", must draw away altogether from the <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 258<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nobject of its love. The vital can be as absolute in its
\nunquestioning self-giving as any other part of the
\nnature; nothing can be more generous than its movement 
\nwhen it forgets self for the Beloved. The vital
\nand physical should both give themselves in the true
\nway\u2014the way of true love, not of ego-desire. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 259<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nVital Love<\/a> <\/b>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nIT is the ordinary nature of vital love not to last or, if it tries to last, not to satisfy, because it is a
\npassion which Nature has thrown in in order to serve a
\ntemporary purpose; it is good enough therefore for a
\ntemporary purpose and its normal tendency is to wane
\nwhen it has sufficiently served Nature’s purpose. In
\nmankind, as man is a more complex being, she calls in
\nthe aid of imagination and idealism to help her push,
\ngives a sense of ardour, of beauty and fire and glory,
\nbut all that wanes after a time. It cannot last, because
\nit is all a borrowed light and power, borrowed in the
\nsense of being a reflection caught from something
\nbeyond and not native to the reflecting vital medium
\nwhich imagination uses for the purpose. Moreover
\nnothing lasts in the mind and vital, all is a flux there, The one thing that
\nendures is the soul, the spirit. Therefore  love can last or satisfy only if it bases itself on the
\nsoul and spirit, if it has its roots there. But that means
\nliving no longer in the vital but in the soul and spirit. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe difficulty of the vital giving up is because the
\nvital is not governed by reason or knowledge, but by <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 260<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ninstinct and impulse and the desire of pleasure. It
\ndraws back because it is disappointed, because it
\nrealises that the disappointment will always repeat
\nitself, but it does not realise that the whole thing is
\nitself a glamour or, if it does, it repines that it should
\nbe so. Where the vairagya is sattwic, born not of
\ndisappointment but of the sense of greater and truer
\nthings to be attained this difficulty does not arise.
\nHowever the vital can learn by experience, can learn
\nso much as to turn away from its regret of the beauty
\nof the will-o’-the-wisp. Its vairagya can become sattwic
\nand decisive. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n5-7-1936 <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 261<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n
\nLove in Human Relationships\u2014Psychic
\nand Spiritual Love<\/a> <\/b>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nI SUPPOSE "love" expresses something more intense than goodwill which can include mere liking
\nor affection. But whether love or goodwill the human
\nfeeling is always either based on or strongly mixed
\nwith ego,\u2014that is why it cannot be pure. It is said
\nin the Upanishad, "One does not love the wife for the
\nsake of the wife", or the child or friend etc. as the
\ncase may be "but for one’s self’s sake one loves the
\nwife". There is usually a hope of return, of benefit
\nor advantage of some kind, or of certain pleasures and
\ngratifications, mental, vital or physical that the person
\nloved can give. Remove these things and the love
\nvery soon sinks, diminishes or disappears or turns
\ninto anger, reproach, indifference or even hatred.
\nBut there is also an element of habit, something that
\nmakes the presence of the person loved a sort of necessity  because it has always been there\u2014and this is sometimes so strong that even in spite of entire incompatibility  of temper, fierce antagonism, something like
\nhatred, it lasts and even these gulfs of discord are not <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 262<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nenough to make the persons part; in other cases this
\nfeeling is more tepid and after a time one gets accustomed  to separation or accepts a substitute. There
\nis again often the element of some kind of spontaneous  attraction or affinity\u2014mental, vital or physical,
\nwhich gives a stronger cohesion to the love. Lastly,
\nthere is in the highest or deepest kind of love the
\npsychic element, which comes from the inmost heart
\nand soul, a kind of inner union or self-giving or at
\nleast a seeking for that, a tie or an urge independent
\nof other conditions or elements, existing for its own
\nsake and not for any mental, vital or physical pleasure,
\nsatisfaction, interest or habit. But usually the psychic
\nelement in human love, even where it is present, is
\nso much mixed, overloaded and hidden under the
\nothers that it has little chance of fulfilling itself or
\nachieving its own natural purity and fullness. What
\nis called love is therefore sometimes one thing, sometimes another, most often a confused mixture, and
\nit is impossible to give a general answer to the question
\nyou put as to what is meant by love in such and such a case. It depends on the
\npersons and the circumstances.  <\/font><\/p>\n

\nWhen the love goes towards the Divine, there is
\nstill this ordinary human element in it. There is the
\ncall for a return and if the return does not seem to
\ncome, the love may sink, there is the self-interest, the
\ndemand for the Divine as a giver of all that the human
\nbeing wants, and if the demands are not acceded,
\nabhiman<\/i> against the Divine, loss of faith, loss of <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 263<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nfervour, etc. etc. But the true love for the Divine
\nis in its fundamental nature not of this kind, but
\npsychic and spiritual. The psychic element is the
\nneed of the inmost being for self-giving, love, adoration,  union which can only be fully satisfied by the
\nDivine. The spiritual element is the need of the
\nbeing for contact, merging, union with its own highest
\nand whole self and source of being and consciousness
\nand bliss, the Divine. These two are two sides of
\nthe same thing. The mind, vital, physical can be the
\nsupports and recipients of this love, but they can be
\nfully that only when they become remoulded in
\nharmony with the psychic and spiritual elements of
\nthe being and no longer bring in the lower insistences  of the ego. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n22-10-1935 <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 264<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nFriendship and Psychic Love<\/a>
\n<\/b>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nIT is certainly easier to have friendship between man and man or between woman and woman than
\n"between man and woman, because there the sexual
\nintrusion is normally absent. In a friendship between
\nman and woman the sexual turn can at any moment
\ncome in a subtle or in a direct way and produce perturbations.  But there is no impossibility of friendship
\nbetween man and woman pure of this element, such
\nfriendships can exist and have always existed. All
\nthat is needed is that the lower vital should not look
\nin at the back door or be permitted to enter. There
\nis often a harmony between a masculine and a feminine
\nnature, an attraction or an affinity which rests on
\nsomething other than any open or covert lower vital
\n(sexual) basis\u2014it depends sometimes predominantly
\non the mental or the psychic or on the higher vital,
\nsometimes on a mixture of these for its substance.
\nIn such case friendship is natural and there is little
\nchance of other elements coming in to pull it downwards or break it. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIt is also a mistake to think that the vital alone has <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 265<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nwarmth and the psychic is something frigid without
\nany flame in it. ‘A clear limpid goodwill is a very
\ngood and desirable thing. But that is not what is
\nmeant by psychic love. Love is love and not merely
\ngoodwill. Psychic love can have a warmth and a
\nflame as intense and more intense than the vital, only
\nit is a pure fire, not dependent on the satisfaction of
\nego-desire or on the eating up of the fuel it embraces.
\nIt is a white flame, not a red one; but white heat is
\nnot inferior to the red variety in its ardour. It is true
\nthat the psychic love does not usually get its full play
\nin human relations and human nature; it finds the
\nfullness of its fire and ecstasy more easily when it is
\nlifted towards the Divine. In the human relation the
\npsychic love gets mixed up with other elements which
\nseek at once to use it and overshadow it. It gets an
\noutlet for its own full intensities only at rare moments.
\nOtherwise it comes in only as an element, but even
\nso it contributes all the higher things in a love fundamentally  vital\u2014all the finer sweetness, tenderness,
\nfidelity, self-giving, self-sacrifice, reachings of soul
\nto soul, idealising sublimations that lift up human
\nlove beyond itself come from the psychic. If it could
\ndominate and govern and transmute the other elements,  mental, vital, physical, of human love, then
\nlove could be on the earth some reflection or preparation  of the real thing, an integral union of the soul
\nand its instruments in a dual life. But even some
\nimperfect appearance of that is rare. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nOur view is that the normal thing is in Yoga for the <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 266<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nentire flame of the nature to turn towards the Divine
\nand the rest must wait for the true basis: to build
\nhigher things on the sand and mire of the ordinary
\nconsciousness is not safe. That does not necessarily
\nexclude friendships or comradeships, but these must
\nbe subordinate altogether to the central fire.
\nIf any one makes meanwhile the relation with the
\nDivine his one absorbing aim, that is quite natural
\nand gives the full force to the sadhana. Psychic love
\nfinds itself wholly when it is the radiation of the diviner
\nconsciousness for which we are seeking; till then it is
\ndifficult for it to put out its undimmed integral self
\nand figure. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPS. Mind, vital, physical are properly instruments
\nfor the soul and spirit; when they work for themselves
\nthen they produce ignorant and imperfect things\u2014if
\nthey can be made into conscious instruments of the
\npsychic and the spirit, then they get their own diviner
\nfulfilment; that is the idea contained in what we call
\ntransformation in this Yoga. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n7-7-1936 <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 267<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nThe Nature of Divine Love<\/a>
\n<\/b>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nLOVE cannot be cold\u2014for there is no such thing as cold love, but the love of which the Mother
\nspeaks in that passage is something very pure, fixed and
\nconstant; it does not leap into fire and sink for want of
\nfuel, but is steady and all-embracing and self-existent
\nlike the light of the sun. There is also a divine love that
\nis personal, but it is not like the ordinary’ personal
\nhuman love dependent on any return from the person\u2014
\nit is personal but not egoistic: it goes from the real
\nbeing in the one to the real being in the other. But
\nto find that, liberation from the ordinary human way
\nof approach is necessary. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nNovember 1936 <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 268<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nThe Secret of Sadhana<\/a>
\n<\/b>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nTHE Divine Love, unlike the human, is deep and vast and silent; one must become quiet and wide
\nto be aware of it and reply to it. He must make it his
\nwhole object to be surrendered so that he may become
\na vessel and instrument\u2014leaving it to the Divine Wisdom  and Love to fill him with what is needed. Let him
\nalso fix this in the mind not to insist that in a given time
\nhe must progress, develop, get realisation; whatever
\ntime it takes, he must be prepared to wait and persevere
\naid make his whole life an aspiration and an opening
\nor the one thing only, the Divine. To give oneself is.
\nhe secret of sadhana, not to demand and acquire. The more one gives oneself, the more the power to
\n-receive will grow. But for that all impatience and
\nrevolt must go; all suggestions of not getting, not
\nbeing helped, not being loved, going away, of
\nabandoning life or the spiritual endeavour must be
\nrejected. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nI-9-1936 <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 269<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nOn McTaggart’s Statements about Love<\/a>
\n<\/b>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nI HAVE heard of McTaggart as a philosopher but am totally unacquainted with his thought and
\nhis writings, so it is a little difficult for me to answer
\nyou with any certitude. Isolated thoughts or sentences
\nmay easily be misunderstood if they are not read
\nagainst the background of the thinker’s way of looking
\nat things taken as a whole. There is always, too,
\nthe difference of standpoint and approach between <\/font><\/p>\n

\nthe spiritual seeker or mystic who (sometimes) philosophises  and the intellectual thinker who (sometimes
\nor partly) mysticises. The one starts from a spiritual
\nor mystic experience or at the least an intuitive realisation  and tries to express it and its connection with
\nother spiritual or intuitive truth in the inadequate
\nand too abstract language of the mind; he looks
\nbehind thought and expression for some spiritual or
\nintuitive experience to which it may point and, if he
\nfinds none, he is apt to feel the thought, however
\nintellectually fine, or the expression, however intellectually 
\nsignificant, as something unsubstantial, because  without spiritual substance. The intellectual <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 270<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthinker starts from ideas and mentalised feelings and
\nother mental or external phenomena and tries to reach
\nthe essential truth in or behind them; generally, he
\nstops short at a mental abstraction or only a derivative
\nmental realisation of something that is in its own
\nnature other than mental. ‘But if he has the true mystic
\nsomewhere in him, he will sometimes get beyond to
\nat least flashes and glimpses. Is it not the compulsion
\nof this approach (I mean the inadequacy of the
\nmethod of intellectual philosophy, its fixation to the
\nword and idea, while to the complete mystic, word
\nand idea are useful symbols only or significative
\nflash-lights) that kept McTaggart, as it keeps many,
\nfrom the unfolding of the mystic within him? If the
\nreviewer is right, that would be why he is abstract
\nand dry, while what is beautiful and moving in his
\nthought might be some light that shines through in
\nspite of the inadequate means of expression to which philosophical thinking
\ncondemns us. However; subject  to this rather lengthy caveat, I will try to deal with
\nthe extracted sentences or summarised thoughts you
\nhave placed before me in your letter. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nLove the main occupation of the selves in absolute
\nreality:<\/i> This seems to me a little excessive. If instead
\nof "the main occupation" it were said "an essential
\npower", that might pass. I would myself say that
\nbliss and oneness are the essential condition of the
\nabsolute reality, and love as the most characteristic
\ndynamic power of bliss and oneness must support
\nfundamentally and colour their activities, but the <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 271<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nactivities themselves may not be of one main kind but
\nmanifold in character. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nBenevolence and sympathy:<\/i> In mental experience
\nbenevolence and sympathy have to be distinguished
\nfrom love; but it seems to me that beyond the dividing
\nmind, where the true sense of oneness begins, these
\nbecome at a higher intensity of their movement
\ncharacteristic values of love. Benevolence becomes an.
\nintense compulsion imposed by love to seek always
\nthe good of the loved, sympathy becomes the feeling
\nout of love to contain, participate in and take as part of
\none’s own existence all the movements of the loved
\nand all that concerns him. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nLove is authentic and justifies itself completely whether
\nits causes be great or trivial:<\/i> That is not often true in
\nhuman practice; for there the destiny of love and its.
\njustification depend very much as a rule (though not
\nalways) on the nature of the cause or object. For if
\nthe object of love is trivial in the sense of its being an
\ninadequate instrument for the dynamic realisation
\nof the sense of oneness which McTaggart says is the
\nessence of love, then love is likely to be baulked of
\nits fulfilment. Unless, of course, it is satisfied with
\nexisting, with spending itself in its own fundamental
\nway on the loved without expecting any return for
\nits self-expenditure, any mutual unification. Still, of
\nlove in its essence the statement may be true: but
\nthen it would point to the fact that Love at its origin
\nis a self-existent force, an absolute, a transcendent (as
\nI have put it), which does not depend upon the objects<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 272<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n-it depends only on itself or only on the Divine; for
\nit is a self-existent power of the Divine. If it were
\nnot self-existent, it would hardly be independent of
\nthe nature or reaction of its objects. It is partly what
\nI mean when I speak of transcendent Love\u2014though
\nthis is only one aspect of its transcendence. That
\nself-existent transcendent Love spreading itself over
\nall, turning everywhere to contain, embrace, unite,
\nhelp, upraise towards love and bliss and oneness,
\nbecomes cosmic divine Love; intensely fixing itself
\non one or other to find itself, to achieve a dynamic
\nunification or to reach here towards the union of the
\nsoul with the Divine, it becomes the individual divine
\nLove. But there are unhappily its diminutions in the
\nhuman mind, human vital, human physical; there the
\ndivine essence of Love easily becomes mixed with
\ncounterfeits, dimmed, concealed or lost in the twisted
\nmovements born of division and ignorance. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nLove and self-reverence:<\/i> It sounds very high, but
\nalso rather dry; this "emotion" in the lover does not
\nseem to be very emotional, it is a hill-top syllogising
\nfar above the flow of any emotional urges. Self-
\nreverence in this sense or in a deeper sense can come
\nfrom Love, but it can come equally from a participation  in Knowledge, in Power or anything else that
\none feels to be the highest good or else of the essence
\nof the Highest. But the passion of love, the adoration
\nof love can bring in a quite different, even an opposite
\nemotion. Especially in love for the Divine or for one
\nwhom one feels to be divine, the Bhakta feels an<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 273 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nintense reverence for the Loved, a sense of something
\nof immense greatness, beauty or value and for himself
\na strong impression of his own comparative unworthiness  and a passionate desire to grow<\/i> into likeness
\nwith that which one adores. What does come very
\noften with the onrush of Love is an exaltation, a
\nfeeling of a greatening within, of new powers and
\nhigh or beautiful possibilities in one’s nature or of
\nan intensification of the nature, but that is not exactly self-reverence. There
\nis a deeper self-reverence possible,  a true emotion, a sense of the value and even
\nthe sacredness of the soul, even the mind, life, body as an offering or itself
\nthe temple for the inner presence  of the Beloved. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThese reactions are intimately connected with the
\nfact that Love, when it is worthy of the" name, is
\nalways a seeking for union, for oneness, but also
\nin its secret foundation it is a seeking, if sometimes
\nonly a dim groping for the Divine. Love in its depths
\nis a contact of the Divine Possibility or Reality in
\noneself with the Divine Possibility or Reality in the
\nloved. It is the inability to affirm or keep this character
\nthat makes human love either transient or baulked
\nof its full significance or condemned to sink into a
\nless exalted movement diminished to the capacity of
\nthe human receptacle. But there McTaggart brings in
\nhis saving clause, "When I love, I see the other not
\nas he is now (and therefore really is not), but as
\nhe really is (that is, as he will be)." The rest of it
\nthat "the other with all his faults is somehow infinitely <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 274<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ngood\u2014at least for his friend" seems to me too mental
\nto convey anything very definite from the standpoint
\nof the spiritual inner values. But the formula quoted
\nalso is not over-clear. It means, I suppose, something
\nlike Vivekananda’s distinction between the apparent
\nMan and the real Man; or it coincides up to a point
\nwith the saying of one of the early teachers of Vedanta,  Yajnavalkya, "Not for the sake of the wife
\ns the wife dear (or, friend\u2014for the wife is only
\nhe first of a list), but for the sake of the Self (the
\ngreater Self, the Spirit within) is she dear". But Yajnavalkya, a seeker of the One (not the plural)
\nabsolute, would not have accepted the implication
\nin McTaggart’s phrase; he would have said that one must go beyond and eventually seek the Self not in
\nhe wife or friend\u2014even though sought there for a time, but in its own self-existence. In any case there seems to be here an avowal that it is not the
\nhuman being (what he now is) but the Divine
\nor a portion of the Divine within (call it God if you
\nwill or call it Absolute) that is the object of the love.
\nBut the mystic would not be satisfied like McTaggart
\nwith that "will be",\u2014would not consent to remain
\nin love with the finite for the sake of an unrealised
\nInfinite. He would insist on pushing on towards full
\nrealisation, towards finding the Divine in Itself or
\nthe Divine Manifest; he would not rest satisfied with
\nthe Divine unconscious of itself, unmanifested or only distantly in posse.
\n<\/i>There is where the parallel with the Ishta Devata <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 275<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nwhich you suggest would not hold; for the Ishta
\nDevata on whom the seeker concentrates is a conscious
\n<\/i>Personality of the Divine answering to the needs of his own personality and
\nshowing to him as in a representative  image what the Divine is or at least
\npointing him through itself to the Absolute. On the
\nother side, when I spoke of the self-absorption of
\nthe Divine Force in its energising, I was trying to
\nexplain the possibility in a Divine Cosmic manifestation  of this apparently inconscient Matter. I said
\nthat in the frontal movement there was something
\nof the Divine that had thrown itself into material
\nform with so much concentration that it became the
\nmotion and the form which the motion of Force
\ncreates and put all that was not: that behind it,\u2014even,
\nbut in a greater degree and more permanently, as
\na man can concentrate and forget his own existence
\nin what he is doing, seeing or making. In man himself,
\nwho is not inconscient, this appears in a different
\nway; his frontal being is unaware of what is behind
\nthe surface personality and action, like the part of
\nthe actor’s being which becomes the role and forgets
\nentirely the other more enduring self behind the
\nactor. But in either case there is a larger self behind; \u201ca Conscient in things inconscient", which is aware
\nboth of itself and of the self-forgetting frontal form
\nseen as the creature. Does McTaggart recognise this
\nconscious Divine within? He makes too little of this
\nAbsolute or Real Self which, as he yet sees, is within
\nthe unreal or less real appearance. His denial of the <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 276<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nDivine comes from the insistence of his mind and
\nvital temperament on the friend as he is, even though
\nhis higher mind may try to escape from that by the
\nidea of what his friend will be; otherwise it is difficult
\nto understand the stupendous exaggeration of his
\nthesis that the love for friends is the only<\/i> real thing
\nin life and his unwillingness to give God a chance,
\nlest that should take away the friend and leave the
\nDivine in his place. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nI do not quite seize what is his conception of the
\nAbsolute. How can it be said that a society(?) of
\ndistinct selves are collectively the Absolute? If it is
\nmeant that where there is a union of conscious liberated  selves there is the presence of the Divine and
\na certain manifestation is possible,\u2014that is intelligible.
\nOr if by society is meant only that the sum or totality
\nof all distinct selves is the Divine and these distinct
\nindividual selves are portions of the Divine, that
\nwould be an intelligible (pantheistic) solution. Only,
\nit would be a Divine All or some kind of Cosmic
\nSelf or Spirit rather than the Absolute. For if there
\nis an Absolute\u2014which intellectually one is not bound
\nto believe except that something in the higher mind
\nseems imperatively to ask for it or feel it is there\u2014
\nit. must surely exist in its own absolute right,\u2014not
\nconstituted, not dependent for its being on a collectivity  of distinct selves, but self-existent. To the
\nintellect such an Absolute may seem an indefinable
\nx<\/i> which it cannot grasp, but mystic or spiritual experience  pushed far enough ultimately leads to it, <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 277<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nand whatever may be the gate of experience through
\nwhich one gets the first glimpse of it, it is there
\neven though not fully grasped in that opening
\nexperience. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nYour own experience of it was, you say, that of
\nan irruption of the Infinite into the finite\u2014of a greater
\nPower descending upon you or uplifting you to itself. That indeed is what it is
\nalways to the spiritual experience\u2014  and that is why I speak of it as the
\nTranscendent.  It reveals itself as such a descending and
\nuplifting Power or a descending and uplifting Love
\n\u2014or Light, Peace, Bliss, Consciousness, Presence; it
\nis not limited by its manifestation in the finite,\u2014
\none feels it, the Peace, the Power, Love, Light or
\nBliss or the Presence in which all these are, to be a
\nself-existent infinity, not something constituted by or
\nlimited to our first sight of it here. McTaggart’s love
\nof friends remained the only<\/i> real thing for him; I
\nmust suppose that he had not this glimpse. But once this irruption has taken
\nplace, this descent and uplifting,  that is bound to become in the end the one
\nthing real, for by that alone can the rest find its own
\nlasting greater reality. It is the descent of the Divine
\nConsciousness and the ascent or uplifting into it of
\nwhich we speak in our Yoga. All else can only hold,
\nmake good, fulfil itself if it can lift itself to be a part
\nof this divine realisation or of its manifestation, and,
\nto do that, it must accept a great transformation and
\nperfection. But the central realisation must be the
\none central aim, and it is that realisation only which <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 278<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nwill make other things, all that is intended to be
\nmade part of it, divinely possible. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n21-1-1932 <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 279<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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