Two Movements of Love




At the beginning of this manifestation, Love is, in the purity of its origin, composed of two movements, two complementary poles of the impulsion towards complete fusion. On one side, it is the supreme power of attraction and on the other the irresistible need of absolute self-giving. ...What was projected into space had to be brought back to itself without, however, destroying the universe so created. Therefore Love burst forth, the irresistible power of union.

Is it not love, under an erring and obscure form, that is associated with all the impulsions of the physical and vital nature as the push towards every movement and every grouping? This has become quite visible in the plant world. In the plant and the tree, it is the need of growth to get more light, more air , more space; in the flower it is the gift of beauty and fragrance in a loving efflorescence. And in the animal is it not there behind hunger and thirst, the need for appropriation, expansion, procreation, in brief behind all desire, whether conscious or not? And, among the higher orders, in the self-sacrificing devotion of the female for her young ones ? This naturally leads us to the human species where, with the triumphant advent of mental activity this association attains its climax, for it is there conscious and deliberate.

It is also from this very moment that there has clearly appeared in Nature's works her will to build up again, by stages and degrees, the primordial unity through groupings more and more complex and numerous. She used the power of love for bringing two human beings together and creating the dual group, the origin of family. Once she had broken the narrow limits of personal egoism by changing it into a dual egoism, she brought into being, with the appearance of the child, a more complex unit, the family. In course of time through manifold association between families, interchange between individuals and blood mixture, larger groupings appeared: the clan, the tribe, the caste and the class to end in the creation of the nation. The work of group formation proceeded simulta neously in different parts of the world; it has crystallised in the formation of different races. Even these races Nature will by degrees fuse together in her endeavour to build a material and real basis for human unity.


THE MOTHER, The Four Austerities and the Four Liberations, III

Humanity has the sexual impulse; that is altogether natural, spontaneous, and, if I may say, legitimate. This impulse will naturally and spontaneously disappear with animality [in man] The most conscious impulse in a superior humanity, that which has persisted as a source of- bliss is too big a word -joy, delight, is certainly the sexual activity.

It will have absolutely no reason for existence in the functions of nature, when the need to create in that way will no longer exist. ...But what the ancient spiritual aspirants had sought on principle - sexual negation - is an absurd thing, because this must be only for those who have gone beyond that stage and have no longer animality in them. And it must drop naturally without effort and without struggle.

It is only when the consciousness ceases to be human that it drops off naturally. Here also there is a transition that may be somewhat difficult, because beings of transition are always in an unstable equilibrium; but within there is a kind of flame and a need which makes it not painful -it is not painful effort, it is something that one can do with a smile. But to seek to impose it upon those who are not ready for this transition is absurd.


THE MOTHER, Notes on the Way, Bulletin, Feb. 1966

This world was built by cruelty that she might love. Wilt thou abolish cruelty? Then love too will perish, but thou mayst tranfigure it into its opposite, into a fierce love and delightfulness.


To feel and love the God of beauty and good in the ugly and the evil, and still yearn in utter love to heal it of its ugliness and its evil, this is real virtue and morality.

God has opened my eyes; for I saw the nobility of the vulgar, the attractiveness of the repellent, the perfection of the maimed and the beauty of the hideous.

SRI AUROBINDO