Universal Love

Some say that X had universal love which he used to share with others.

X is a man full of impulses of love and kindness which are spoilt by his excessive sensuousness and angers, but this is a very common combination. His nature has a great need of loving and being loved; it is quite natural that he should pull down the feeling of universal love and natural also that he should spill it and be unable to keep it.

X used to press the hands or shoulders of some of his friends. This was not in joke or play but as if something had descended in him which he could not contain in himself and therefore had to throw out through such a physical contact. We did feel some sensations of love and thrills.

There was no descent; but he felt the universal love and tried to express it in action instead of holding it in himself — so inevitably the vital took hold of it, as he had not yet the purification and the peace.

Is physical contact necessary to transmit universal love?

There is no need of physical contact.

As regards X’s misuse of the universal love, is it not a common error of most of the untransformed human creatures?

It is not a question of what untransformed human creatures do, but of a sadhak whose business is to transform himself and therefore to get rid of this lower mixture.

How to differentiate universal love from psychic love?

Universal love is always universal — psychic love can individualise itself.[1]

What is the connection between universal love and a special liking for some which X had?

It has nothing to do with special likings or dislikings.

That was exactly what X tried to do — to express the love in connection with this or that person. But the universal love is not personal — it has to be held within as a condition of the consciousness which will have its effects according to the Divine Will or be used by that Will if necessary, but to run about expressing it for one’s personal satisfaction or the satisfaction of others is only to spoil and lose it.

I fail to understand what is meant by universal love having to be “held within as a condition of consciousness.”

A state of consciousness, just as peace becomes a state of the consciousness, or wideness or anything else that is permanent.

Did he pull down that love before he was ready, and thus misuse it?

He did nothing to bring the feeling of love down — it came of itself. His misuse of what came was not a dangerous result of the descent; it was the result of his past nature.

My feeling of love and bhakti seem to be almost receding.

It is presumably because the intensity of resolution for it or the vital enthusiasm for it does not last and as soon as it relaxes the resistance comes up.

It would be the best thing for me to have an absolute and integral love for the Mother.

It is all right, but the knowledge is not enough, there must be the effective push to fulfilment — to love absolutely and integrally is not so easy.

[1] In another letter Sri Aurobindo wrote, “The psychic has its own more personal love, bhakti, surrender.”