Question:
How is it that ‘love’ and ‘life’ are inseparable?
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How is ‘love’ felt in the inanimate world? Why ‘inanimate love’ is considered the lowest type?
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What is ‘attraction’? What is ‘repulsion’?
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How is ‘love’ expressed in the animal world?
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Why seeking gratification of ‘bodily desires/impulses’ is considered animalistic?
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What is ‘instinctive love?’
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Why is ‘human love’ considered higher than all other sub-human forms of love? What makes it complicated?
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How does ‘human love’ differ from ‘animal love?’
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Can ‘love’ and ‘reason’ go hand in hand?
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What are the different types of combinations does ‘love’ and ‘reason’ can enter?
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What is ‘un-illumined love’ and ‘un enlivened reason’?
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What is ‘super-consciousness’? How come it is a product of integration of ‘love’ and ‘reason’?
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What are the ‘factors’ that obstruct the expression of ‘love’ in humans? How does these factors affect the quality of love?
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The capacity to love differs from person to person. Why so?
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What are the perverted and lower forms of love?
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Why isn’t our love, pure? What thwarts expression of ‘pure love’?
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What is the root cause of our ‘jealousy’ and ‘anger’?
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Why should one give up infatuation, lust and greed? Why are they considered sins?
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How come consciousness become bound by ‘lust’ and ‘greed’?
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Why constant exercise of ‘discrimination’ is necessary, in this business of ‘love’? How to distinguish between ‘love and infatuation’, ‘love and lust’, ‘love and greed’?
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Why ‘pure love’ cannot appear in the ordinary human life? How come it is a treasure meant only for ‘spiritual aspirants’?
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What are spiritual diseases?
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How come pure love is always a gift from a Perfect Master?
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Does Masters bestow their grace, unconditionally?
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What are ‘divine attributes’? What factor obstructs cultivation of these ‘divine attributes’?
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What sort of spiritual preparation invokes Master’s grace? When does ‘Master’s-grace’ descend on the aspirant?
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‘Pure love’ seems to be very rare, why so? What is the spiritual efficacy of ‘pure love’?
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How come ‘love’ awakened by the Master is a rare privilege? Why is it considered precious?
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When does ‘pure love’ become ‘divine love?’
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How is ‘divine love’ different from ‘human love?’
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How is ‘divine love’ different from ‘sense of duty?’
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When does ‘divine love’ arise, in the life of an aspirant? How come arising of ‘divine love’ culminates his search for the Ultimate?
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How come, even advanced aspirants are subjected to the limitations of human love?
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How does duality help the development of love?
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How come ‘universe’ is a tool in the God’s game of love? What roles does God play, in this divine game of His?
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Why God descends into the ‘realm of illusion’ or ‘domain of duality?’
Answer:
(Extracted from Meher Baba’s literature, which is a copyright of Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Charitable Trust (©AMBPPCT), Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, Bharat/India)
‘Life’ and ‘love’ are inseparable from each other. Where there is life, there is love! Even the most rudimentary consciousness is always trying to burst out of its limitations and experience some kind of unity with other forms. Though each form is separate from other forms, in Reality they are all forms of the same unity of life. The latent sense for this hidden inner reality indirectly makes itself felt even in the world of illusion through the ‘attraction’ that one form has for another form.
- The ‘law of gravitation,’ which all the planets and the stars are subject to, is in its own way a dim reflection of the love that pervades every part of the universe.
- Even the ‘forces of repulsion’ are in truth expressions of love, since things are repelled from each other because they are more powerfully attracted to some other things. ‘Repulsion’ is the negative consequence of positive attraction.
- The forces of ‘cohesion’ and ‘affinity’, which prevail in the very constitution of matter, are positive expressions of love. A striking example of love at this level is found in the attraction the magnet exercises for iron.
All these forms of love are of the lowest type, since they are necessarily conditioned by the rudimentary consciousness in which they appear.
In the animal world, ‘love’ becomes more explicit in the form of ‘conscious impulses that are directed toward different objects’ in the surroundings. This love is instinctive and it takes the form of gratifying different ‘desires’ through the appropriation of suitable objects.
- When a tiger seeks to devour a deer, it is in a very real sense in love with the deer.
- Sexual attraction is another form of love at this level.
All the expressions of love at this stage have one thing in common, namely they all seek to satisfy some ‘bodily impulse or desire’ through the object of love.
‘Human love’ is much higher than all these lower forms of love because human beings have fully developed consciousness. Though ‘human love’ is continuous with the lower sub human forms of love, in one way it is different from them. For henceforth its operations have to be carried on side by side with a new factor, which is ‘reason.’
- Sometimes ‘human love’ manifests itself as a force divorced from ‘reason’ and runs parallel to it.
- Sometimes it manifests itself as a force that gets mixed up with ‘reason’ and comes in conflict with it.
- Finally, it expresses itself as a constituent of the harmonized whole where ‘love’ and ‘reason’ have been balanced and fused into an integral unity.
Thus ‘human love’ can enter into three types of combination with ‘reason.’
- In the first type, the ‘sphere of thought’ and the ‘sphere of love’ are kept as separate as possible. That is, the ‘sphere of love’ is practically inaccessible to the operation of reason, and love is allowed little or no access to the sphere of thought. Complete separation between these two aspects of the spirit is of course never possible. But, when there is an alternate functioning of love and reason (oscillating in their predominance), we have– ‘love’ that is unillumined by reason or reason that is un-enlivened by love.
- In the second type, ‘love’ and ‘reason’ are both simultaneously operative, but they do not work in harmony with each other.Though this conflict creates confusion, it is a necessary phase in the evolution of the higher state where there is synthesis of love and reason.
- In the third type of love, this synthesis between ‘love’ and ‘reason’ is an accomplished fact with the result that both love and reason are so completely transformed that they precipitate the emergence of a new level of consciousness that, compared to the normal human consciousness, is best described as ‘super-consciousness.’
Human love makes its appearance in the matrix of ego consciousness, which has countless desires. Love is colored by these factors in many ways. Just as we get an ever-changing variety of designs in a kaleidoscope by the various combinations of simpler elements, we find an almost limitless qualitative variety in the ‘range of love’ owing to novel combinations of factors. And just as there are infinite shades of colour in different flowers, there are diverse, delicate differences in human love.
‘Human love’ is encircled by a number of obstructive factors such as
- infatuation,
- lust,
- greed,
- anger, and
- jealousy.
In one sense, even these obstructive factors are either forms of lower love or the inevitable side results of these lower forms of love.
Infatuation, lust and greed might be looked upon as perverted and lower forms of love.
- In infatuation, a person is enamoured of a sensual object;
- in lust, he develops a craving for sensations in relation to it; and,
- in greed, he desires to possess it.
Of these three forms of lower love, greed has a tendency to extend from the ‘original object’ to the ‘means’ of obtaining it. Thus a person becomes greedy for money or power or fame, which can be instruments for possessing the different objects that are craved. ‘Anger’ and ‘jealousy’ come into existence when these lower forms of love are thwarted or threatened to be thwarted.
These lower forms of love obstruct the release of pure love. The stream of love can never become clear and steady until it is disentangled from these limiting and perverting forms of lower love. The lower forms are the enemy of the higher.
If consciousness is caught in the rhythm of the lower, it cannot emancipate itself from the self-created ruts, finding it difficult to get out of them and advance further. Thus the lower forms of love continue to interfere with the development of the higher form and have to be given up in order to allow for the un-trammelled appearance of the higher form of love.
The emergence of higher love from the shell of lower love is helped by the constant exercise of discrimination. Therefore, love has to be carefully distinguished from the obstructive factors of– infatuation, lust, greed and anger.
Love & Infatuation:
In infatuation, the person is a passive victim of the spell of conceived attraction for the object. In love, there is an active appreciation of the intrinsic worth of the object of love.
Love & lust:
Love is also different from lust. In lust, there is reliance upon a sensual object and consequent spiritual subordination of oneself to it, whereas ‘love’ puts one into direct and coordinate relation with the reality behind the ‘form’. Therefore, lust is experienced as being heavy, and love is experienced as being light. In lust, there is narrowing down of life, and in love, there is an expansion of being.
To have loved someone is like adding another life to your own. Your life is as it were multiplied and you virtually live in two centers. If you love the whole world, you vicariously live in the whole world; but in lust, there is an ebbing down of life and a general sense of hopeless-dependence upon a ‘form’ regarded as another. Thus, in lust– there is accentuation of separateness and suffering, while in love– there is the feeling of unity and joy.
Lust is dissipation; Love is restoration!
Lust is a craving of the senses; Love is the expression of the spirit.
Lust seeks fulfilment, but, love experiences fulfilment.
In lust, there is excitement; and in love, there is tranquility.
Love & Greed:
Love is equally different from greed. Greed is possessiveness in all its gross and subtle forms. It seeks to appropriate persons and gross objects as well as such abstract and intangible things as fame and power. In love, the annexation of another person to one’s individual life is out of question, and there is a free and creative out pouring that enlivens and replenishes the being of the beloved independently of any expectations for the self.
We have the paradox that greed, which seeks the appropriation of another object, in fact leads to the opposite result of bringing the self under the tutelage of the object. Whereas love, which aims at giving away the self to the object, in fact leads to a spiritual incorporation of the beloved in the very being of the lover.
In greed, the self tries to possess the object but is itself possessed by the object. In love, the self offers itself to the beloved without any reservations, but in that very act it finds that it has included the beloved in its own being.
Infatuation, lust, and greed constitute a spiritual malady, which is often rendered more virulent by the aggravating symptoms of anger and jealousy. Pure love, in sharp contradistinction, is the bloom of spiritual Perfection. Human love is so tethered by these limiting conditions that the spontaneous appearance of ‘pure love’ from within becomes impossible. So, when such ‘pure love’ arises in the aspirant, it is always a gift.
Pure love arises in the heart of the aspirant in response to the descent of grace from a Perfect Master. When pure love is first received as a gift of the Master, it becomes lodged in the consciousness of the aspirant like a seed in favourable soil; and in the course of time the seed develops into a plant and then into a full-grown tree.
The descent of the grace of the Master is conditioned, however, by the preliminary spiritual preparation of the aspirant. This preliminary preparation for grace is never complete until the aspirant has built into his spiritual makeup some divine attributes.
For example, when a person avoids back-biting and thinks more of the good points in others than of their bad-points, and when he can practice ‘supreme tolerance’ and desires good for others even at cost to himself– he is ready to receive the grace of the Master.
One of the greatest obstacles hindering this spiritual preparation of the aspirant is worry. When, with supreme effort, this obstacle of worry is overcome, a way is paved for the cultivation of the divine attributes that constitute the spiritual preparation of the disciple. As soon as the disciple is ready, the grace of the Master descends; for the Master, who is the ocean of divine love, is always on the lookout for the soul in whom His grace will fructify.
The kind of love that is awakened by the grace of the Master is a rare privilege. The mother who is willing to sacrifice all and to die for her child, and the martyr who is prepared to give up his very life for his country are indeed supremely noble; but they have not tasted this ‘pure love’ born through the grace of the Master. Even the great yogis who sit in caves and on mountain tops and are completely absorbed in deep samadhi (meditative trance)– do not necessarily have this precious love.
Pure love awakened through the grace of the Master is more valuable than any other stimulus that may be utilized by the aspirant. Such love not only combines in itself the merits of all disciplines, but excels them all in its efficacy to lead the aspirant to the goal.
When this love is born, the aspirant has only one desire, and that is to be united with the divine beloved. Such withdrawal of consciousness from all other desires leads to infinite purity; therefore nothing purifies the aspirant more completely than this love. The aspirant is always willing to offer everything for the divine Beloved, and no sacrifice is too difficult for him. All his thoughts are turned away from the self and come to be exclusively centered on the divine Beloved. Through the intensity of this ever growing love, he eventually breaks through the shackles of the self, and becomes united with the Beloved. This is the consummation of love. When love has thus found its fruition, it has become divine.
‘Divine love’ is qualitatively different from human love.
- Human love is for the many in the One, and divine love is for the One in the many.
- Human love leads to innumerable complications and tangles, but divine love leads to integration and freedom.
- In divine love, the ‘personal’ and ‘impersonal’ aspects are equally balanced; in human love, the two aspects are in alternating ascendency. When the personal note is predominant in human love, it leads to utter blindness to the intrinsic worth of other forms. When, as in a ‘sense of duty’, love is predominantly impersonal, it often makes one cold, rigid, and mechanical. A sense of duty comes to the individual as an external constraint on behaviour; but in divine love,there is unrestrained freedom and unbounded spontaneity.
- Human love in its personal and impersonal aspects is limited; divine love, with its fusion of the personal and the impersonal aspects is infinite in being and expression.
Even the highest type of human love is subject to the limitations of individual nature, which persists till the seventh plane of involution of consciousness. ‘Divine love’ arises after the disappearance of the ‘individual mind’ and is free from the trammels of the individual nature.
In human love, the duality of the ‘lover’ and the ‘beloved’ persists, but in divine love, the lover and the Beloved become one. At this stage, the aspirant has stepped out of the domain of duality and becomes one with God; for Divine Love is God. When the lover and the Beloved are one, that is the end and the beginning.
It is for love that the whole universe sprang into existence, and it is for the sake of love that it is kept going. God descends into the realm of Illusion because the apparent duality of the Beloved and the lover is eventually contributory to His conscious enjoyment of His own Divinity. The development of love is conditioned and sustained by the tension of duality.
God has to suffer apparent differentiation into a multiplicity of souls in order to carry on the game of love. They are His own forms, and in relation to them He at once assumes the roles of the ‘divine Lover’ and the ‘divine Beloved.’
- As the Beloved- He is the real and the ultimate object of their appreciation.
- As the divine Lover, He is their real and ultimate saviour, drawing them back to Himself.
Thus, though the whole world of duality is only an illusion, that ‘illusion’ has come into being for a significant purpose.
Love is the reflection of God’s unity in the world of duality. It constitutes the entire significance of creation. If love were excluded from life, all the souls in the world would assume complete externality to each other; and the only possible relations and contacts in such a loveless world would be superficial and mechanical. It is because of love that the contacts and relations between individual souls become significant.
It is love that gives meaning and value to all the happenings in the world of duality. But, while love gives meaning to the world of duality, it is at the same time a standing challenge to duality.
As ‘love’ gathers strength, it generates creative restlessness and becomes the main driving power of that spiritual dynamic, which ultimately succeeds in restoring to consciousness the original unity of Being.
– Meher Baba
Source ::
Discourses, Pg:: 110 -116
© AMBPPCT, Ahilyanagar, Maharashtra, India/Bharat
