The Mother’s comments on human love have to be seen in context. Some are letters written to specific sadhaks and hence it may not be proper to generalise these without knowing the person and his difficulties. There are specific instances where the Mother go through and grow through the experience of human love. There are other instances where She seemed to have sanctioned and blessed the togetherness. At the same time there are instances where She clearly cautioned and even warned against the dangers of a particular relationship as it was likely to lead towards suffering and in certain cases towards a downfall. At the same time she left each one free to make their choices and regardless of their choice continued to pour their Help and Love and Grace even though some even turned away swayed by the spell of human love, preferring it over the Divine. Therefore it is difficult to generalize especially as each one is different, at different stages of development with unique difficulties as well as possibilities that sometimes open their door through the passage of the difficulty itself.
On the other hand there are statements about the general nature of human love or rather of humanity living for its own satisfactions and pleasures being largely incapable of loving truly. Love is essentially about giving for the joy of giving whereas ego wants love for what it can get from the object of love, whether it be a human being, an animal or even God. In fact the presence of ego is a direct contradiction of Love. The former builds walls of separation, the latter demolishes them, the ego is keen to possess and when it cannot do so, it readily turns love into hate, jealousies, hurt, even treachery and betrayal and all the dark and turbid mixture to which human love is prone to and of which history has been a witness. Having said that the development of the ego-individuality is a needed stage in our growth towards the spiritual. Without this phase and until the true individuality of the soul emerges from behind, human beings may become unwitting martyrs succumbing to the forces of ignorance and falsehood. Hence the first necessity is to grow within and discover the soul and the spiritual self before thinking of the soul-mate or the spiritual partner and complimentary soul who can be the companion and collaborator in our journey.
This does not debar us from going through the experiences that a human relationship brings. There are precious lessons even when things do not work out well. As the adage goes, ‘it is better to have loved and failed then not loved at all.’ People who shy away from love either out of fear and inadequacy or out of a sense of pride and superiority often stifle away the force of love within them. They may become narrow and bitter and sad and sometimes even self-centered. So when the time comes to shed the ego-self and give oneself to the Divine they are found clutching at the boundaries of the ego-personality as if afraid of losing themselves in the Divine. It is not that it always happens this way but it is not uncommon either. Human love, with all its failings does add a joy and charm to life that helps uplift us, even if temporarily, out of the dull drab round of an almost mechanical existence in whose groves many land up. No wonder Sri Aurobindo reveals this secret in the epic of Supreme Love, Savitri.
‘To live, to love are signs of infinite things,
Love is a glory from eternity’s spheres.
Abased, disfigured, mocked by baser mights
That steal his name and shape and ecstasy,
He is still the godhead by which all can change.
A mystery wakes in our inconscient stuff,
A bliss is born that can remake our life.
Love dwells in us like an unopened flower
Awaiting a rapid moment of the soul,
Or he roams in his charmed sleep mid thoughts and things;
The child-god is at play, he seeks himself
In many hearts and minds and living forms:
He lingers for a sign that he can know
And, when it comes, wakes blindly to a voice,
A look, a touch, the meaning of a face.
His instrument the dim corporeal mind,
Of celestial insight now forgetful grown,
He seizes on some sign of outward charm
To guide him mid the throng of Nature’s hints,
Reads heavenly truths into earth’s semblances,
Desires the image for the godhead’s sake,
Divines the immortalities of form
And takes the body for the sculptured soul.
Love’s adoration like a mystic seer
Through vision looks at the invisible,
In earth’s alphabet finds a godlike sense;
But the mind only thinks, “Behold the one
For whom my life has waited long unfilled,
Behold the sudden sovereign of my days.”
Heart feels for heart, limb cries for answering limb;
All strives to enforce the unity all is.
Too far from the Divine, Love seeks his truth
And Life is blind and the instruments deceive
And Powers are there that labour to debase.
Still can the vision come, the joy arrive.
Rare is the cup fit for love’s nectar wine,
As rare the vessel that can hold God’s birth;
A soul made ready through a thousand years
Is the living mould of a supreme Descent.’
It is because Love is so special and sacred that caution is needed. It is a rare treasure and cannot be bared before anyone except that which represents to it as the highest.
What then should one do? To love or not to love, romantically or otherwise since one cannot strictly compartmentalize the force of love as it surges from within. Naturally one cannot force love upon someone nor force the heart to feel love for someone. Love touches us when its moment arrives. It is here that we find an interesting advice by the Mother which in a way gives us the secret of what to do and how to love.
‘It is said that to become conscious of divine love all other love has to be abandoned. What is the best way of rejecting the other love which clings so obstinately (Laughter) and does not easily leave us?
To go through it. Ah!
To go through, to see what is behind it, not to stop at the appearance, not to be satisfied with the outer form, to look for the principle which is behind this love, and not be content until one has found the origin of the feeling in oneself. Then the outer form will crumble of itself and you will be in contact with the divine Love which is behind all things.
That is the best way.
To want to get rid of the one in order to find the other is very difficult. It is almost impossible. For human nature is so limited, so full of contradictions and so exclusive in its movements that if one wants to reject love in its lower form, that is to say, human love as human beings experience it, if one makes an inner effort to reject it, one usually rejects the entire capacity of feeling love and becomes like a stone. And then sometimes one has to wait for years or centuries before there is a reawakening in oneself of the capacity to receive and manifest love.
Therefore, the best way when love comes, in whatever form it may be, is to try and pierce through its outer appearance and find the divine principle which is behind and which gives it existence. Naturally, it is full of snares and difficulties, but it is more effective. That is to say, instead of ceasing to love because one loves wrongly, one must cease to love wrongly and want to love well.
For instance, love between human beings, in all its forms, the love of parents for children, of children for parents, of brothers and sisters, of friends and lovers, is all tainted with ignorance, selfishness and all the other defects which are man’s ordinary drawbacks; so instead of completely ceasing to love—which, besides, is very difficult as Sri Aurobindo says, which would simply dry up the heart and serve no end—one must learn how to love better: to love with devotion, with self-giving, self-abnegation, and to struggle, not against love itself, but against its distorted forms: against all forms of monopolising, of attachment, possessiveness, jealousy, and all the feelings which accompany these main movements. Not to want to possess, to dominate; and not to want to impose one’s will, one’s whims, one’s desires; not to want to take, to receive, but to give; not to insist on the other’s response, but be content with one’s own love; not to seek one’s personal interest and joy and the fulfillment of one’s personal desire, but to be satisfied with the giving of one’s love and affection; and not to ask for any response. Simply to be happy to love, nothing more.
If you do that, you have taken a great stride forward and can, through this attitude, gradually advance farther in the feeling itself, and realise one day that love is not something personal, that love is a universal divine feeling which manifests through you more or less finely, but which in its essence is something divine.
The first step is to stop being selfish. For everyone it is the same thing, not only for those who want to do yoga but also in ordinary life: if one wants to know how to love, one must not love oneself first and above all selfishly; one must give oneself to the object of love without exacting anything in return. This discipline is elementary in order to surmount oneself and lead a life which is not altogether gross.
As for yoga we may add something else: it is as I said in the beginning, the will to pierce through this limited and human form of love and discover the principle of divine Love which is behind it. Then one is sure to get a result. This is better than drying up one’s heart. It is perhaps a little more difficult but it is better in every way, for like this, instead of egoistically making others suffer, well, one may leave them quiet in their own movement and only make an effort to transform oneself without imposing one’s will on others, which even in ordinary life is a step towards something higher and a little more harmonious.’
If we are ready to go through this exacting process then human love, like any other human activity can become a means for taking us closer to the Divine. In any case it is a force too strong for most human beings to resist. And often it is only after going through the experiences of human love and its sweet-bitter taste that a human being becomes ready for the nectar wine of true love that flows from the summits of the Self like a pure mountain stream and rejuvenates the earth making it fertile for the harvest of the gods.’
Affectionately,
Alok da
