SECTION
EIGHT
Human Relationships in Yoga
YOU
seem not to have understood the principle of this yoga. The old yoga demanded a
complete renunciation extending to the giving up of the worldly life itself. This
yoga aims instead at a new and transformed life. But it insists as inexorably
on a complete throwing away of desire and attachment in the mind, life and
body. Its aim is to refound life in the truth of the
spirit and for that purpose to transfer the roots of all we are and do from the
mind, life and body to a greater consciousness above the mind. That means that
in the new life all the connections must be founded on a spiritual intimacy and
a truth quite other than any which supports our present connections. One must
be prepared to renounce at the higher call what are spoken of as the natural
affections. Even if they are kept at all, it can only be with a change which
transforms them altogether. But whether they are to be renounced or kept and
changed must be decided not by the personal desires but by the truth above. All
must be given up to the Supreme Master of the yoga.
The power that
works in this yoga is of a thorough-going character and tolerates in the end
nothing great or small that is an obstacle to the Truth and its realisation.
Personal relation is not a part
of the yoga. When one has the union with the Divine, then only can there be a
true spiritual relation with others.
The idea that all sadhaks must be
aloof from each other and at daggers drawn is itself a preconceived idea that
must be abandoned. Harmony and not strife is the law of yogic living. This
preconceived idea arises perhaps from the old notion of Nirvana as the aim; but
Nirvana is not the aim here. The aim here is
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fulfilment of the Divine in life
and for that, union and solidarity are indispensable.
The ideal of the
yoga is that all should be centred in and around the Divine and the life of the
sadhaks must be founded on that firm foundation, their personal relations also
should have the Divine for their centre. Moreover, all relations should pass
from the vital to the spiritual basis with the vital only as a form and
instrument of the spiritual – this means that, from whatever relations they have
with each other, all jealousy, strife, hatred, aversion, rancour and other evil
vital feelings should be abandoned, for they can be no part of the spiritual
life. So, also, all egoistic love and attachment will have to disappear – the
love that loves only for the ego's sake and, as soon as the ego is hurt and
dissatisfied, ceases to love or even cherishes rancour and hate. There must be
a real living and lasting unity behind the love. It is understood of course
that such things as sexual impurity must disappear also.
That is the
ideal, but as for the way of attainment, it may differ for different people.
One way is that in which one leaves everything else to follow the Divine alone.
This does not mean an aversion for anybody any more than it means aversion for
the world and life. It only means an absorption in one's central aim, with the
idea that once that is attained it will be easy to found all relations on the
true basis, to become truly united with others in the heart and the spirit and
the life, united in the spiritual truth and in the Divine. The other way is to
go forward from where one is, seeking the Divine centrally and subordinating
all else to that, but not putting everything else aside, rather seeking to
transform gradually and progressively whatever is capable of such
transformation. All the things that are not wanted in the relation – sex
impurity, jealousy, anger, egoistic demand – drop away as the inner being grows
purer and is replaced by the unity of soul with soul and the binding together
of the social life in the hoop of the Divine.
It is not that
one cannot have relations with people outside the circle of the sadhaks, but
there too if the spiritual life grows within, it must necessarily affect the
relation and spiritualise it on the sadhak's side. And there must be no such attachment as
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would make the relation an
obstacle or a rival to the Divine. Attachment to family etc. often is like that
and, if so, it falls away from the sadhak. That is an exigence
which, I think, should not be considered excessive. All that, however, can be
progressively done; a severing of existing relations is necessary for some, it
is not so for all. A transformation, however gradual, is indispensable, –
severance where severance is the right thing to do.
P.S. I must repeat also that each
case differs – one rule for all is not practical or practicable. What is needed
by each for his spiritual progress is the one desideratum to be held in view.
Absence of love and fellow-feeling
is not necessary for nearness to the Divine; on the contrary, a sense of
closeness and oneness with others is a part of the divine consciousness into
which the sadhak enters by nearness to the Divine and the feeling of oneness
with the Divine. An entire rejection of all relations is indeed the final aim
of the Mayavadin, and in the ascetic yoga an entire
loss of all relations of friendship and affection and attachment to the world
and its living beings would be regarded as a promising sign of advance towards
liberation, Moksha; but even there, I think, a feeling of oneness and
unattached spiritual sympathy for all is at least a penultimate stage, like the
compassion of the Buddhist, before the turning to Moksha or Nirvana. In this
yoga the feeling of unity with others, love, universal joy and Ananda are an
essential part of the liberation and perfection which are the aim of the
sadhana.
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
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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. There is sometimes an ostensible reason – a disappointment of
the surface vital, the withdrawal of affection by others, the perception that
those loved or men generally are not what one thought them to be and a host of
other causes; but often the cause is a secret disappointment of some part of
the inner being, not translated or not well translated into the mind, because
it expected from these things something which they cannot give. It is the case
with many who turn or are pushed to the spiritual life. For some it takes the
form of a vairāgya
which drives them towards ascetic indifference and gives the urge towards
Moksha. For us, what we hold to be necessary is that the mixture should
disappear and that the consciousness should be established on a purer level
(not only spiritual and psychic but a purer and higher mental, vital, physical
consciousness) in which there is not this mixture. There one would feel the
true Ananda of oneness and love and sympathy and fellowship, spiritual and
self-existent in its basis but expressing itself through the other parts of the
nature. If that is to happen, there must obviously be a change; the old form of
these movements must drop off and leave room for a new and higher self to
disclose its own way of expression and realisation of itself and of the Divine
through these things – that is the inner truth of the matter.
I take it
therefore that the condition you describe is a period of transition and change,
negative in its beginning, as these movements often are at first, so as to
create a vacant space for the new positive to appear and live in it and fill
it. But the vital, not having a long continued or at all sufficient or complete
experience of what is to fill the vacancy, feels only the loss and regrets it
even while another part of the being, another part even of the vital, is ready
to let go what is disappearing and does not yearn to keep it. If it were not
for this movement of the vital, (which in your case has been very strong and
large and avid of life), the disappearance of these things would, at least
after the first sense of void, bring only a feeling of peace, relief and a
still expectation of
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greater things. What is intended
in the first place to fill the void was indicated in the peace and joy which
came to you as the touch of Shiva – naturally, this would not be all but a
beginning, a basis for a new self, a new consciousness, an activity of a
greater nature; as I told you, it is a deep spiritual calm and peace that is
the only stable foundation for a lasting Bhakti and Ananda. In that new
consciousness there would be a new basis for relations with others; for an
ascetic dryness or isolated loneliness cannot be your spiritual destiny since
it is not consonant with your Swabhava which is made for joy, largeness,
expansion, a comprehensive movement of the life-force. Therefore do not be
discouraged; wait upon the purifying movement of Shiva.
I have always said that the vital
is indispensable for the divine or spiritual action – without it there can be
no complete expression, no realisation in life – hardly even any realisation in
sadhana. When I speak of the vital mixture or of the obstructions, revolts,
etc. of the vital, it is the unregenerated outer vital full of desire and ego
and the lower passions of which I speak. I could say the same against the mind
and the physical when they obstruct or oppose, but precisely because the vital
is so powerful and indispensable, its obstruction, opposition or refusal of
cooperation is most strikingly effective and its wrong mixtures are more
dangerous to the sadhana. That is why I have always insisted on the dangers of
the unregenerated vital and the necessity of mastery and purification there. It
is not because I hold, like the Sannyasis, the vital and its life-power to be a
thing to be condemned and rejected in its very nature.
Affection, love,
tenderness are in their nature psychic, – the vital has them because the
psychic is trying to express itself through the vital. It is through the emotional
being that the psychic most easily expresses, for it stands just behind it in
the heart centre. But it wants these things to be pure. Not that it rejects the
outward expression through the vital and the physical, but as the psychic being
is the form of the soul, it naturally feels the attraction of soul to soul, the
union of soul with soul as the
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things that are to it most
abiding and concrete. Mind, vital, body are means of expression and very
precious means of expression, but the inner life is for the soul the first
thing, the deepest reality, and these have to be subordinated to it and
conditioned by it, – its expression, its instruments and channel. I do not
think that in my emphasis on the inner things, on the psychic and spiritual, I
am saying anything new, strange or unintelligible. These things have always
been stressed from the beginning and the more the human being is evolved, the
more they take on importance. I do not see how yoga can be possible without
this premier stress on the inner life, on the soul and the spirit. The emphasis
on the mastery of the vital, its subordination and subjection to the spiritual
and the psychic is also nothing new, strange or exorbitant. It has been
insisted on always for any kind of spiritual life; even the yogas which seek
most to use the vital, like certain forms of Vaishnavism, yet insist on the
purification and the total offering of it to the Divine. All realisation of the
Divine is an inner realisation, only, here the soul offers itself through the
emotional being. The soul or psychic being is not something unheard of or
incomprehensible.
Human affection is obviously
unreliable because it is so much based upon selfishness and desire; it is a
flame of the ego sometimes turbid and misty, sometimes more clear and brightly coloured – sometimes tamasic based on instinct and habit,
sometimes rajasic and fed by passion or the cry for vital interchange,
sometimes more sattwic and trying to be or look to itself disinterested. But
fundamentally it depends on a personal need or a return of some kind inward or
outward and when the need is not satisfied or the return ceases or is not
given, it most often diminishes or dies or exists only as a tepid or troubled
remnant of habit from the past or else turns for satisfaction elsewhere. The
more intense it is, the more it is apt to be troubled by tumults, clashes,
quarrels, egoistic disturbances of all kinds, selfishness, exactions, lapses
even to rage and hatred, ruptures. It is not that these affections cannot last
– tamasic instinctive affections last
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because of habit in spite of
everything dividing the persons, e.g. certain family affections; rajasic
affections can last sometimes in spite of all disturbances and
incompatibilities and furious ruptures because one has a vital need of the
other and clings because of that or because both have that need and are
constantly separating to return and returning to separate or proceeding from
quarrel to reconciliation and from reconciliation to quarrel; sattwic
affections last very often from duty to the ideal or with some other support
though they may lose their keenness or intensity or brightness. But the true
reliability is there only when the psychic element in human affections becomes
strong enough to colour or dominate the rest. For
that reason friendship is or rather can oftenest be the most durable of the
human affections because there there is less
interference of the vital and even though a flame of the ego it can be a quiet
and pure fire giving always its warmth and light. Nevertheless reliable
friendship is almost always with a very few; to have a horde of loving,
unselfishly faithful friends is a phenomenon so rare that it can be safely
taken as an illusion... In any case human affection whatever its value has its
place, because through it the psychic being gets the emotional experiences it
needs until it is ready to prefer the true to the apparent, the perfect to the
imperfect, the divine to the human. As the consciousness has to rise to the
higher level so the activities of the heart also have to rise to that higher
level and change their basis and character. Yoga is the founding of all life
and consciousness in the Divine, so also love and affection must be rooted in
the Divine and a spiritual and psychic oneness in the Divine must be their
foundation – to reach the Divine first leaving other things aside or to seek
the Divine alone is the straight road towards that change. That means no
attachment—it need not mean turning affection into disaffection or chill
indifference. But X seems to want to take his vital emotions just as they are –
tels quells – into the Divine – let him try
and don't bother him with criticisms and lectures; if it can't be done he will
have to find it out for himself.
It is not because of your nature
or evil destiny that the vital
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cannot find the satisfaction it
expected from relations with others. These relations can never give a full or
permanent satisfaction; if they did, there would be no reason why the human
being would ever seek the Divine. He would remain satisfied in the ordinary
earth life. It is only when the Divine is found and the consciousness lifted up
into the true consciousness that the true relations with others can come.
When I said
there was no harm, I meant that it was better to tell the Mother what was in
your mind than to keep it moving in yourself. But once told, all should be put
away from the mind and it should recover its quietude.
These movements are part of man's
ignorant vital nature. The love which human beings feel for one another is also
usually an egoistic vital love and these other movements, claim, demand,
jealousy, abhimāna, anger, etc.,
are its common accompaniments. There is no place for them in yoga – nor in true
love, psychic or divine. In yoga all love should be turned towards the Divine
and to human or other beings only as vessels of the Divine – abhimāna and the rest should have
no place in it.
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.
The higher vital movement is more
refined and large in motion than that of the ordinary vital. It stresses
emotion rather than sensation and desire, but it is not free from demand and
the desire of possession.
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Relations which are part of the
ordinary vital nature in human life are of no value in the spiritual life –
they rather interfere with the progress; for the mind and vital also should be
wholly turned towards the Divine. Moreover, the purpose of sadhana is to enter
into a spiritual consciousness and base everything on a new spiritual basis
which can only be done when one has entered into complete unity with the
Divine. Meanwhile one has to have a calm goodwill for all, but relations of a
vital kind do not help – for they keep the consciousness down on a vital basis
and prevent its rising to a higher level.
Regarding your question about a
complementary soul and marriage, the answer is easy to give; the way of the
spiritual life lies for you in one direction and marriage lies in quite another
and opposite. All talk about a complementary soul is a camouflage with which
the mind tries to cover the sentimental, sensational and physical wants of the
lower vital nature. It is that vital nature in you which puts the question and
would like an answer reconciling its desires and demands with the call of the
true soul in you. But it must not expect a sanction for any such incongruous
reconciliation from here. The way of the supramental yoga is clear; it lies not
through concession to these things, – not, in your case, through satisfaction,
under a spiritual cover if possible, of its craving for the comforts and
gratifications of a domestic and conjugal life and the enjoyment of the
ordinary emotional desires and physical passions, – but through the
purification and transformation of the forces which these movements pervert and
misuse. Not these human and animal demands, but the divine Ananda which is
above and beyond them and which the indulgence of these degraded forms would
prevent from descending, is the great thing that the aspiration of the vital
being must demand in the sadhak.
A human vital interchange cannot
be a true support for the
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sadhana and is, on the contrary, sure
to impair and distort it, leading to self-deception in the consciousness and a
wrong turn of the emotional being and vital nature.
What you write about the family
ties is perfectly correct. It creates an unnecessary interchange and comes in the
way of a complete turning to the Divine. Relations after taking up yoga should
be less based on a physical origin or the habits of the physical consciousness
and more and more on the basis of sadhana – of sadhak with sadhaks, of others
as souls traveling the same path or children of the Mother than in the ordinary
way or with the old viewpoint.
When one enters the spiritual
life, the family ties which belong to the ordinary nature fall away – one
becomes indifferent to the old things. This indifference is a release. There
need be no harshness in it at all. To remain tied to the old physical
affections would mean to remain tied to the ordinary nature and that would
prevent the spiritual progress.
The attachment to parents belongs
to the ordinary physical nature – it has nothing to do with Divine Love.
It [the child's indebtedness to
his father for bringing him up] is a law of human society, not a law of Karma.
The child did not ask the father to bring him into the world – and if the
father has done it for his own pleasure, it is the least he can do to bring up
the child. All these are social relations (and it is not at all a one-sided
debt of the child to the father, either), but whatever they are, they cease
once one takes to the spiritual life. For the
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spiritual life does not at all
rest on the external physical relations; it is the Divine alone with whom one
has then to do.
The inner being turned to the
Divine naturally draws away from old vital relations and outer movements and
contacts till it can bring a new consciousness into the external being.
The movement of which you speak
is not psychic but emotive. It is a vital emotive force that you put out and waste.
It is also harmful because, while on the one side you try to reject a past
vital relation or tie with these people, you by this movement re-establish in
another way a vital relation with them. If there was anything wrong in your
first movement, this is quite a false way of remedying the defect.
Certainly, it
would be better to reject without any violent feeling against any person,
because the violence is a sign of a certain weakness in the vital which must be
corrected – not for any other reason. The rejection should be quiet, firm,
self-assured, decisive; it will then become radical and effective.
It is as the love of the Divine
grows that the other things cease to trouble the mind.
The influence of the love for the
Divine when it takes hold of any part is to turn it towards the Divine – as you
describe it “concentration on the Mother” – and in the end all is gathered and
harmonised around this central turn of the being. The difficulty is with
mechanical parts of the being in which the old thoughts go on recurring by
habit. If the concentration continues to grow, this becomes a thing of little
importance at the circumference of
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the mind and in the end drops
away to be replaced by things that belong to the new consciousness.
The inner loneliness can only be
cured by the inner experience of union with the Divine; no human association
can fill the void. In the same way, for the spiritual life the harmony with
others must be founded not on mental and vital affinities, but on the divine
consciousness and the union with the Divine. When one feels the Divine and
feels others in the Divine, then the real harmony comes. Meanwhile what there
can be is the goodwill and unity founded on the feeling of a common divine goal
and the sense of being all children of the Mother.... Real harmony can come
only from a psychic or a spiritual basis.
To be alone with the Divine is
the highest of all privileged states for the sadhak, for it is that in which
inwardly he comes nearest to the Divine and can make all existence a communion
in the chamber of the heart as well as in the temple of the universe. Moreover
that is the beginning and base of the real oneness with all, for it establishes
that oneness in its true base, on the Divine, for it is in the Divine that he
meets and unites with all and no longer in a precarious interchange of the
mental and vital ego. So do not fear loneliness but put your trust in the
Mother and go forward on the Path in her strength and Grace.
The love of the sadhak should be
for the Divine. It is only when he has that fully that he can love others in
the right way.
To give oneself to an outsider is
to go out from the atmosphere of sadhana and give oneself to the outer world forces.
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One can have a
psychic feeling of love for someone, a universal love for all creatures, but
one has to give oneself only to the Divine.
It cannot be said that these
affinities are either bad or good in a general way. It depends on the person,
the effects and many other things. As a general rule, all these affinities have
to be surrendered to the Divine along with the rest of the old nature, so that
only what is in harmony with the Divine Truth can be kept and transformed for its
work in you. All relations with others must be relations in the Divine and not
of the old personal nature.
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.
A personal relation is formed
when there is an exclusive mutual looking to each other. The rule about
personal relations in this yoga is this: (1) All personal relations to
disappear in the single relation between the sadhak and the Divine: (2) All
personal (psychic-spiritual) relations to proceed from the Divine Mother,
determined by her, and to be part of the single relation with the Divine
Mother. In so far as it keeps to this double rule and admits no physical
indulgence or vital deformation or mixture, a personal relation can be there.
But since as yet the supramental has not taken possession but is only
descending and there is still struggle in the vital and physical levels, there
must be a great carefulness such as would not be necessary if the supramental
transformation were already there. Both have to be in direct relation with the
Mother and in a total dependence on her and to
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see that that remains and that
nothing diminishes its totality or cuts across it in the least degree.
The only relation permissible between
a sadhak and sadhika here is the same as between a sadhak and sadhak or between
a sadhika and sadhika – a friendly relation as between followers of the same
path of yoga and children of the Mother.
In a general way the only method
for succeeding in having between a man and a woman the free and natural yogic
relations that should exist between a sadhak and a sadhika in this yoga is to
be able to meet each other without thinking at all that one is a man and
another a woman – both are simply human beings, both sadhaks, both striving to
serve the Divine and seeking the Divine alone and none else. Have that fully in
yourself and no difficulty is likely to come.
It is meant that you should have
the relation of sadhaks with each other, one of goodwill and friendly feeling,
but not any special relation of a vital character. If there is anyone you
cannot meet without such a vital relation coming up, then only it is not
advisable to meet him or her.
As for turning all to the Divine,
that is a counsel of perfection for those who don't care to carry any luggage.
But otherwise friendship between man and man or man and woman or woman and
woman is not forbidden, provided it is the true thing and sex does not come in
and also provided it does not turn one away from the goal. If the central aim
is strong, that is sufficient.... When I
spoke of personal relation, I certainly did not mean pure
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indifference, for indifference
does not create a relation: it tends to non-relation altogether. Emotional
friendship need not be an obstacle.
It is certainly easier to have
friendship between man and man or between woman and woman than between man and
woman, because there the sexual intrusion is normally absent. In a friendship between
man and woman the sexual turn can at any moment come in a subtle or in a direct
way and produce perturbations. But there is no impossibility of friendship
between man and woman pure of this element; such friendships can exist and have
always existed. All that is needed is that the lower vital should not look in
at the back door or be permitted to enter. There is often a harmony between a
masculine and a feminine nature, an attraction or an affinity which rests on
something other than any open or covert lower vital (sexual) basis – it depends
sometimes predominantly on the mental or the psychic or on the higher vital,
sometimes on a mixture of these for its substance. In such a case friendship is
natural and there is little chance of other elements coming in to pull it
downwards or break it.
It is also a
mistake to think that the vital alone has warmth and the psychic is something
frigid without any flame in it. A clear limpid goodwill is a very good and
desirable thing. But that is not what is meant by psychic love. Love is love
and not merely goodwill. Psychic love can have a warmth and a flame as intense
and more intense than the vital, only it is a pure fire, not dependent on the
satisfaction of ego-desire or on the eating up of the fuel it embraces. It is a
white flame, not a red one; but white heat is not inferior to the red variety
in its ardour. It is true that the psychic love does not usually get its full
play in human relations and human nature; it finds the fullness of its fire and
ecstasy more easily when it is lifted towards the Divine. In the human relation
the psychic love gets mixed up with other elements which seek at once to use it
and overshadow it. It gets an outlet for its own full intensities only at rare
moments. Otherwise it comes in only as an element, but even so it contributes
all the
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higher things in a love
fundamentally vital – all the finer sweetness, tenderness, fidelity,
self-giving, self-sacrifice, reachings of soul to
soul, idealising sublimations that lift up human love
beyond itself, come from the psychic. If it could dominate and govern and
transmute the other elements, mental, vital, physical, of human love, then love
could be on the earth some reflection or preparation of the real thing, an
integral union of the soul and its instruments in a dual life. But even some
imperfect appearance of that is rare.
Our view is that
the normal thing is in yoga for the entire flame of the nature to turn towards
the Divine and the rest must wait for the true basis: to build higher things on
the sand and mire of the ordinary consciousness is not safe. That does not
necessarily exclude friendships or comradeships, but these must be subordinate
altogether to the central fire. If anyone makes meanwhile the relation with the
Divine his one absorbing aim, that is quite natural and gives the full force to
the sadhana. Psychic love finds itself wholly when it is the radiation of the
diviner consciousness for which we are seeking; till then it is difficult for
it to put out its undimmed integral self and figure.
P.S. Mind, vital, physical are
properly instruments for the soul and spirit; when they work for themselves
then they produce ignorant and imperfect things – if they can be made into
conscious instruments of the psychic and the spirit, then they get their own
diviner fulfilment; that is the idea contained in what we call transformation
in this yoga.
Friendship or affection is not
excluded from the yoga. Friendship with the Divine is a recognised
relation in the sadhana. Friendships between the sadhaks exist and are
encouraged by the Mother. Only, we seek to found them on a surer basis than
that on which the bulk of human friendships are insecurely founded. It is
precisely because we hold friendship, brotherhood, love to be sacred things
that we want this change – because we do not want to see them broken at every
moment by the movements of
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the ego, soiled and spoiled and
destroyed by the passions, jealousies, treacheries to which the vital is prone
– it is to make them truly sacred and secure that we want them rooted in the
soul, founded on the rock of the Divine. Our yoga is not an ascetic yoga: it
aims at purity, but not at a cold austerity. Friendship and love are
indispensable notes in the harmony to which we aspire. It is not a vain dream,
for we have seen that even in imperfect conditions, when a little of the
indispensable element is there at the very root, the thing is possible. It is
difficult and the old obstacles still cling obstinately? But no victory can be
won without a fixed fidelity to the aim and a long effort. There is no other
way than to persevere.
In yoga friendship can remain but
attachment has to fall away or any such engrossing affection as would keep one
tied to the ordinary life and consciousness.
All attachment is a hindrance to
sadhana. Goodwill you should have for all, psychic kindness for all, but no
vital attachment.
If you expect a return for your kindness,
you are bound to be disappointed. It is only those who give love or kindness
for its own sake without expecting a return who escape from this experience. A
relation also can be established on a sure basis only when it is free from
attachment or when it is predominantly psychic on both sides.
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.
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No – psychic love does not
exclude discrimination.
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.
Even in the world there have been
relations between man and woman in which sex could not intervene – purely
psychic relations. The consciousness of sex difference would be there no doubt,
but without coming in as a source of desire or disturbance into the relation.
But naturally it needs a certain psychic development before that is possible.
It is difficult to define its
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.
Our experience is that it is only
when both are in the true consciousness centred round the Divine that there is
some chance of a true meeting in the Divine. Otherwise, with the personal
relation that forms there comes in either disappointment and alienation or else
reactions that are not pure.
But that is the nature of human
vital affection, it is all selfishness
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disguised as love. Sometimes when
there is a strong vital passion, need or tie, then the person is ready to do
anything to retain the affection of the other. But it is only when the psychic
is able to get into the movement that there is real unselfish affection or at
least some element of it.
The phenomenon of which you speak
is normal to human nature. People are drawn together or one is drawn to another
by a certain feeling of affinity, of agreement or of attraction between some
part of one's own nature and some part of the other's nature. At first this
only is felt; one sees all that is good or pleasant to one in the other's
nature and even attributes, perhaps, qualities to him that are not there or not
so much there as one thinks. But with closer acquaintance other parts of the
nature are felt with which one is not in affinity – perhaps there is a clash of
ideas or opposition of feelings or conflict of two egos. If there is a strong
love or friendship of a lasting character, then one may overcome these
difficulties of contact and arrive at a harmonising or accommodation; but very
often this is not there or the disagreement is so acute as to counteract the
tendency of accommodation or else the ego gets so hurt as to recoil. Then it is
quite possible for one to begin to see too much and exaggerate the faults of
the other or to attribute things to him of a bad or unpleasant character that
are not there. The whole view can change, the good feeling change into
ill-feeling, alienation, even enmity or antipathy. This is always happening in
human life. The opposite also happens, but less easily – i.e. the change from
ill-feeling to good feeling, from opposition to harmony. But of course
ill-opinion or ill-feeling towards a person need not arise from this cause
alone. It happens from many causes, instinctive dislike, jealousy, conflicting
interests, etc.
One must try to
look calmly on others, not overstress either virtues or defects, without
ill-feeling or misunderstanding or injustice, with a calm mind and vision.
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It is the way that vital love
usually takes when there is no strong psychic force to correct and uphold it.
After the first vital glow is over, the incompatibility of the two egos begins
to show itself and there is more and more strain in the relations – for one or
both the demands of the other become intolerable to the vital part, there is
constant irritation and the claim is felt as a burden and a yoke. Naturally in
a life of sadhana there is no room for vital relations – they are a
stumbling-block preventing the wholesale turning of the nature towards the
Divine.
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