The Glory and Greatness of Love, pp. 397-398

Opening Remarks
Love is the greatness and glory of the Lord labouring here to uplift and transform earthly life.

Our lives are not aliens
On the dumb bosom of this oblivious globe
Although as unknown beings we seem to meet,
Our lives are not aliens nor as strangers join,
Moved to each other by a causeless force.

Although we seem to meet as strangers upon this oblivious field of earth, yet there is a link running through our lives that moves us closer to each other.

Answering soul
The soul can recognise its answering soul
Across dividing Time and, on life’s roads
Absorbed wrapped traveller, turning it recovers
Familiar splendours in an unknown face
And touched by the warning finger of swift love
It thrills again to an immortal joy
Wearing a mortal body for delight.

Our soul has the capacity to recognise its complimentary soul across long spaces of Time. A seemingly chance meeting and yet one discovers an old familiarity in an unknown face and touched by the swift finger of love it feels an immortal joy in a mortal’s body.

A Power that knows
There is a Power within that knows beyond
Our knowings; we are greater than our thoughts,
And sometimes earth unveils that vision here.

There is a power within us that knows beyond what our surface mind and thoughts can conceive. Sometimes this greater and deeper vision is unveiled here.

Love is a glory
To live, to love are signs of infinite things,
Love is a glory from eternity’s spheres.

To live and love are signs of the touch of infinity. Love is a glory that comes to us from the sphere of eternity.

Still the godhead
Abased, disfigured, mocked by baser mights
That steal his name and shape and ecstasy,
He is still the godhead by which all can change.

Though he is abased and disfigured by the lower forces that imitate his name and joy, Love is still the godhead by which all can change.

A mystery wakes
A mystery wakes in our inconscient stuff,
A bliss is born that can remake our life.

Love brings with it the sense of a mystery in our unconscious body and life. It gives birth to a bliss that can remake our life.

The child-god
Love dwells in us like an unopened flower
Awaiting a rapid moment of the soul,
Or he roams in his charmed sleep mid thoughts and things;
The child-god is at play, he seeks himself
In many hearts and minds and living forms:
He lingers for a sign that he can know
And, when it comes, wakes blindly to a voice,
A look, a touch, the meaning of a face.

Love is a child-god full of wonder and delight. He is ever looking towards the future. It dwells in us as a bud that awaits its hour when a soul moment opens it suddenly and swiftly. He moves upon earth through many hearts and minds lingering for an inner sign and when the sign comes he wakes blindly to a voice, a look, a touch, the meaning of a face.

Seizes upon some outward charm
His instrument the dim corporeal mind,
Of celestial insight now forgetful grown,
He seizes on some sign of outward charm
To guide him mid the throng of Nature’s hints,
Reads heavenly truths into earth’s semblances,
Desires the image for the godhead’s sake,
Divines the immortalities of form
And takes the body for the sculptured soul.

Since our corporeal mind is blind to deeper movements, Love seizes upon some outward charm for the needed hint. Once the sign arrives the heart touched by love begins to feel a heavenly sense in earthly things. It desires the body for the sake of the soul, to experience the godhead’s touch.

Mystic seer
Love’s adoration like a mystic seer
Through vision looks at the invisible,
In earth’s alphabet finds a godlike sense;
But the mind only thinks, “Behold the one
For whom my life has waited long unfilled,
Behold the sudden sovereign of my days.”

Love’s adoration is like a mystic seer that sees what is hidden to the outer eyes reading godlike sense in earthly forms. But the mind is ignorant and thinks that here is the person for whom I have waited so long, the sovereign of my days.

The striving for Unity
Heart feels for heart, limb cries for answering limb;
All strives to enforce the unity all is.

By its very nature love strives for union with the object of love. Heart and body and mind cry for this union that is already established within.

Too far from the Divine
Too far from the Divine, Love seeks his truth
And Life is blind and the instruments deceive
And Powers are there that labour to debase.

Too far from its home in the Divine, Love seeks his truth here upon earth. But the instruments of nature deceive us and there are powers that debase its truth.

Still can the vision come
Still can the vision come, the joy arrive.

In spite of everything the vision and the joy arrive.

The cup of love
Rare is the cup fit for love’s nectar wine,
As rare the vessel that can hold God’s birth;
A soul made ready through a thousand years
Is the living mould of a supreme Descent.

The human vessel that can hold the nectar wine of love is as rare as a soul that can hold the birth of God. Many births are needed before a soul is ready for receiving the divine forces of a higher order such as Love.

Closing Remarks
Sri Aurobindo introduces us to the mystery and magic of Love.