I was just about to post this chapter on love by Baba, it explains the relationship between the centers in a much more practical way than I’ve ever heard described before.
"Printed by permission of Avatar Meher Baba Public Perpetual Charitable Trust". and taken from http://www.discoursesbymeherbaba.org/v1-156.php
"Printed by permission of Avatar Meher Baba Public Perpetual Charitable Trust". and taken from http://www.discoursesbymeherbaba.org/v1-156.php
Love
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. Love pervades the universe 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 which one form has for another form.
The law of gravitation, to which all the planets and the stars are subject, is in its own way a dim reflection of the love which pervades every part of the universe. Even the forces of repulsion Reign of love in inanimate nature 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 a 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 which the magnet exercises for iron. All these forms of love are of the lowest type, since they are necessarilyconditioned by the rudimentary consciousness in which they appear.
In the animal world love becomes more explicit in the form of conscious impulses which are directed towards different objects in the surroundings. This love is instinctive and it takes Love in the animal kingdom the form of gratifying different desires through the appropriation of suitable objects. When the tiger seeks to devour the deer he is in a very real sense in love with the deer. Sex-attraction is another form of love at this level. All the expressions of love at this stage have one thing in common, viz., 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 the fully developed form of consciousness. Though human love is continuous with the lower Human love has to adjust to reason sub-human forms of love, in a 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 which is divorced from reason and runs parallel to it. Sometimes it manifests itself as a force which gets mixed up with reason and comes into conflict with it. Lastly, it expresses itself as a constituent of the harmonised 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. Three combinations of love and reason In the first type, the sphere of thought and the sphere of love are kept as separate as possible, i.e., the sphere of love is practically inaccessible to the operation of reason, and love is allowed little or no access to the objects ofthought. 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 a love which is unillumined by reason or a reason which is unenlivened 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 a real 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 as well as reason are so completely transformed that they precipitate the emergence of a new level of consciousness which, 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 coloured by these factors in many ways. Just as we get an ever changing variety Qualitative variety in love 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 psychic factors. And just as there are infinite shades of colour in different flowers, so 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. Lower forms of love 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 enamouredof 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 persons become 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 is the enemy of the higher. The lower is the enemy of the higher If consciousness is caught in the rhythm of the lower it cannot emancipate itself from its self-created ruts, finding it difficult to get out of them and advance further. Thus the lower form of love continues to interfere with the development of the higher form, and has to be given up in order to allow for the untramelled 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 Love and infatuation to be carefully distinguished from the obstructive factors of infatuation, lust, greed and anger. 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 is also different from lust. In lust there is reliance upon the object of sense and consequent spiritual subordination of the soul to it, but love puts the soul intothat 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, Pure love awakened through grace 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 the 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 spiritual preparation for grace is never Spiritual preparation for grace complete until the aspirant has built into his psychic make-up some divine attributes. When a person avoids backbiting and thinks more of the good points in others than of their bad points, and when he can practise supreme tolerance, and desires the good of others even at the cost of his own self, 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 which constitute the spiritual preparation of the disciple. As soon as the disciple is readythe grace of the Master descends, for the Master, who is the ocean of divine love, is always on the look-out for the soul in whom his grace will fructify.
The kind of love which 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 Pure love is very rare martyr who is prepared to give up his very life for his country are indeed supremely noble, but they have not necessarily tasted this pure love which is born through the grace of the Master. Even the great yogis with long beards who, sitting in caves and mountains, are completely absorbed in deep samadhi, do not necessarily have this precious love.
Pure love awakened through the grace of the Master is more valuable than any other stimulus which may be utilised by the aspirant. Such love not only Pure love the best discipline combines in itself the merits of all the disciplines but excels them all in its efficacy to lead the aspirant to his 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 centred on the Divine Beloved. Through the intensity of this evergrowing 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 humanlove. 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. Divine love higher than human love In divine love the personal and the impersonal aspects are equally balanced, but 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 sense of duty, love is predominantly impersonal, it often makes one cold, rigid and mechanical. 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, but 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 limitation of individual nature which persists till the seventh plane. Divine love arises after the disappearance of the individual mind and is free from the trammels of individual nature. In human love the duality of the lover and the beloved persists, In divine love the lover is united with Beloved but in divine love the lover and Beloved become one. At this stage the aspirant has stepped out of the domain of duality and become 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 ofHis own divinity. Universe came into existence for sake of love 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 role 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 is excluded from life, all the souls in the world assume Dynamics of love complete externality to each other and the only possible relations and contacts in such a loveless world are superficial and mechanical. It is because of love that the contacts and relations between individual souls become significant. It is love which 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.
The law of gravitation, to which all the planets and the stars are subject, is in its own way a dim reflection of the love which pervades every part of the universe. Even the forces of repulsion Reign of love in inanimate nature 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 a 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 which the magnet exercises for iron. All these forms of love are of the lowest type, since they are necessarilyconditioned by the rudimentary consciousness in which they appear.
In the animal world love becomes more explicit in the form of conscious impulses which are directed towards different objects in the surroundings. This love is instinctive and it takes Love in the animal kingdom the form of gratifying different desires through the appropriation of suitable objects. When the tiger seeks to devour the deer he is in a very real sense in love with the deer. Sex-attraction is another form of love at this level. All the expressions of love at this stage have one thing in common, viz., 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 the fully developed form of consciousness. Though human love is continuous with the lower Human love has to adjust to reason sub-human forms of love, in a 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 which is divorced from reason and runs parallel to it. Sometimes it manifests itself as a force which gets mixed up with reason and comes into conflict with it. Lastly, it expresses itself as a constituent of the harmonised 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. Three combinations of love and reason In the first type, the sphere of thought and the sphere of love are kept as separate as possible, i.e., the sphere of love is practically inaccessible to the operation of reason, and love is allowed little or no access to the objects ofthought. 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 a love which is unillumined by reason or a reason which is unenlivened 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 a real 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 as well as reason are so completely transformed that they precipitate the emergence of a new level of consciousness which, 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 coloured by these factors in many ways. Just as we get an ever changing variety Qualitative variety in love 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 psychic factors. And just as there are infinite shades of colour in different flowers, so 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. Lower forms of love 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 enamouredof 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 persons become 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 is the enemy of the higher. The lower is the enemy of the higher If consciousness is caught in the rhythm of the lower it cannot emancipate itself from its self-created ruts, finding it difficult to get out of them and advance further. Thus the lower form of love continues to interfere with the development of the higher form, and has to be given up in order to allow for the untramelled 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 Love and infatuation to be carefully distinguished from the obstructive factors of infatuation, lust, greed and anger. 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 is also different from lust. In lust there is reliance upon the object of sense and consequent spiritual subordination of the soul to it, but love puts the soul intothat 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, Pure love awakened through grace 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 the 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 spiritual preparation for grace is never Spiritual preparation for grace complete until the aspirant has built into his psychic make-up some divine attributes. When a person avoids backbiting and thinks more of the good points in others than of their bad points, and when he can practise supreme tolerance, and desires the good of others even at the cost of his own self, 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 which constitute the spiritual preparation of the disciple. As soon as the disciple is readythe grace of the Master descends, for the Master, who is the ocean of divine love, is always on the look-out for the soul in whom his grace will fructify.
The kind of love which 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 Pure love is very rare martyr who is prepared to give up his very life for his country are indeed supremely noble, but they have not necessarily tasted this pure love which is born through the grace of the Master. Even the great yogis with long beards who, sitting in caves and mountains, are completely absorbed in deep samadhi, do not necessarily have this precious love.
Pure love awakened through the grace of the Master is more valuable than any other stimulus which may be utilised by the aspirant. Such love not only Pure love the best discipline combines in itself the merits of all the disciplines but excels them all in its efficacy to lead the aspirant to his 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 centred on the Divine Beloved. Through the intensity of this evergrowing 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 humanlove. 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. Divine love higher than human love In divine love the personal and the impersonal aspects are equally balanced, but 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 sense of duty, love is predominantly impersonal, it often makes one cold, rigid and mechanical. 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, but 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 limitation of individual nature which persists till the seventh plane. Divine love arises after the disappearance of the individual mind and is free from the trammels of individual nature. In human love the duality of the lover and the beloved persists, In divine love the lover is united with Beloved but in divine love the lover and Beloved become one. At this stage the aspirant has stepped out of the domain of duality and become 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 ofHis own divinity. Universe came into existence for sake of love 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 role 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 is excluded from life, all the souls in the world assume Dynamics of love complete externality to each other and the only possible relations and contacts in such a loveless world are superficial and mechanical. It is because of love that the contacts and relations between individual souls become significant. It is love which 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.
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