One could fill books on this subject, and yet the mystery of love will still remain a wonder. We could only say that but for Love the universe would never could be saved. And if still there is hope for it to eventually arrive at its intended divine fulfilment it will be only due to the power of love. It is so because in its origin love is the power that unites the creation with the Creator and also holds all its diverse elements together. It is a power that has emerged straight from the very heart of God.
This is the origin but as with all Divine Powers, they suffer diminution and distortions, even a darkening and falsification as they enter the realms below step by step from the Supreme Consciousness to the Inconscience. Love which is a power of unity and union becomes a power of division and thereby hate and all else that passes in the name of love.
However, in human beings it is possible to recover this power as indeed all divine powers in their origin. It is only then that we can love unconditionally since it is only the Divine who loves thus. This is of course as much true of all other forms of energy and power within us such as knowledge, happiness, strength and everything else. We can either keep them moving within human limits which is quite a range from an asuric deformation through an animal-human diminution to a truly human level wherein one begins to aspire for something greater, truer, more beautiful and divine. This aspiration for perfection is the sign that man is marked for this. It is true that at present an average human being is very far from the ideal of love. Yet those who have reached a certain level of inner development can begin to seek something that is not yet here but feels that it should be so. It is an inner intuition, a faith in things that are not and yet can be.
The way to do it is precisely what is meant by yoga. Implicit within yoga is the faith that there are higher states of consciousness through which man can climb yet further beyond his humanity to reclaim his lost divinity. It is this which is the cause of his unease and restless dissatisfaction. It is for this reason that he is ever searching for something or the other under some kind of ideal or else rushes out into all kinds of activities to find what he has lost. But this Origin lies within himself. Whatever route through which you connect with this origin that power starts getting refined and augmented. With regard to love, it is through bhakti and devotion that we start connecting with the Origin of Love.
It is only in the measure of our union with the Divine that we can learn what true love is and learn to love truly. Then we realise that true love consists of giving oneself entirely and unconditionally to One whom we love because the Divine does indeed love that way. But human love is always full of give-and-take, wants and lusts and all else that flows from it. It is egoistic in nature so to say where one places one’s own interests above everyone else.
To help us arrive at this state of the highest form of love, the Mother reveals the following:
Love is, in its essence, the joy of identity; it finds its ultimate expression in the bliss of union. Between the two lie all the phases of its universal manifestation….
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The Rungs of Love
At first one loves only when one is loved.
Next, one loves spontaneously, but one wants to be loved in return.
Then one loves even if one is not loved, but one still wants one’s love to be accepted.
And finally one loves purely and simply, without any other need or joy than that of loving.
15 April 1966
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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 truly without demanding a return. If you are capable of that, then that is the highest and most satisfying way to love.
