Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 3
I enclose the letter of the poet Jatindra1 (friend of Birendra Kishore) whose poem on Suryamukhi you called “very beautiful”. Well, it is a sincere letter anyhow in this world of narrow interests. You know now that I have some sort of a position in the literary world (though it is worth nothing I fully realise that – since I truly want the Divine and not literary eminence, dash it all). I get flattering tributes from all sorts of people with interests of their own, etc. Here is at least a person not of that type. That is something.
Yes, it is a very sincere letter. It is one of the disadvantages of fame and position that human nature presents itself in a very unpleasant manner – it is then always refreshing if one comes across it in its finer movements.
Well re. the other thing I have seen myself a little clearly this time: all this expectation of good behaviour too must go. Last night I was reading Mother’s prayers and I was struck by this:ll (mon être) sait que cet état d’amour actif doit être constant et impersonnel, c’est-á-dire tout á fait indepéndant des circonstances et des personnes, puisqu’il ne peut et ne doit être concentré sur aucun en particulier2. Also, “... (car) l’amour se suffit à lui-même et n’a nul besoin de réciprocité”3...
I got as though some sort of key to the ever stormy trouble in my own nature: I always expect some sort of return when I do anything for anybody. That should go. 
I should neither have a clinging for such returns nor even any attachment to a human contact however soothing – for in human contacts the “état d’ amour” [state of love] is difficult to achieve – perhaps impossible without having first had the divine realisation – the state that is, which is independent of persons and circumstances. Therefore spring my constant fear and anxiety that I would fall out with all I like and love – with all I come into contact however soothing or delectable. I am quite fed up with this sort of narrowness within me. This must go: if only because without such repudiation of this human way of approach I can never establish any harmony within me which is “independent of persons and circumstances”. The difficulty is of course that Divine Love appears to me too impersonal and cold that is lacking in warmth though rich in a cold harmony. Perhaps Divine Love is not like that: I don’t know – but what I know is that human affections etc. are all rather tiresome at best and stifling at worst – and one has to rise out of their rut up into some sort of liberation. If only I could get a little peace and rasa in yoga – it might have been a little easier for me to bid final farewell to this clinging propensity in my nature clinging for what it can never get from human beings with the meilleure volonté in the world. Anyhow I will try to be more yogic and unattached henceforward: that is a good result of this last test which hasn’t at least unbalanced me as did so many others before.
Love cannot be cold – for there is no such thing as cold love, but the love of which the Mother speaks in that passage is something very pure, fixed and constant; it does not leap like fire and sink for want of fuel, but is steady and all-embracing and self-existent like the light of the sun. There is also a divine love that is personal, but it is not like the ordinary personal human love dependent on any return from the person – it is personal but not egoistic – it goes from the real being in the one to the real being in the other. But to find that, liberation from the ordinary human way of approach is necessary.