Tapasya of Love

I chose this topic to understand Love in its truest and purest way. I also took this as an opportunity to work on my own emotions, as for quite sometime I was feeling the need in me to nurture and deepen my own relationships. Though outwardly everything was fine, there was dissatisfaction within. This dissatisfaction compelled me to look within and find the basis of satisfaction in myself. What was it that was lacking? What was it that I was looking for? I went through all my relationships; I found that though there was goodwill within, it lacked the depth that I aspired for. There were many relations that attracted me and there were many that forced me to go away. What was in those relations that attracted me – it was the purity, it was the equanimity, it was the unconditioned love that the people carried within them! It was this purity of love that I aspired for. Thus my journey to this love began… it was not easy as the whole paradigm of my actions and expressions had to be transformed and taken to a different level, for most of my actions and reactions were influenced by my own emotions and thoughts. It was a vast topic and there was a lot of possibility to explore it at different levels. As I began and before I could further focus and narrow down my aims and objectives, I started with reading books by the Mother and Sri Aurobindo on Love, as I wanted to understand and deal with this topic in their light. While reading I concentrated on my own specific needs which led me to choose this topic. Reading and contemplating on the Mother’s words helped me to bring clarity in understanding that it was the ‘Tapasya of Love’ that I wanted to work on. Through it I could not only understand what love was but also that there was a scope of working and purifying my own emotions by practising the austerity of feelings and emotions. Before beginning the project I had posed the following questions before me:

1) What is Love? What do I understand by Love? What has been my own experience vis-à-vis Love?

2) What is Tapasya, and what it means in this case? Why is Tapasya necessary?

3) What has been my own experience in doing this Tapasya?

4) What is meant by the austerity of feelings and emotions?

5) Helpful attitudes in realizing true love.

Later on, while I began with the project, based on my experience I further questioned:

6) How can one avoid dryness and nurture the element of Joy?

What is Love?

We all experience love in various forms in our lives – love between mother and child, love between friends, and families. This love that we are talking of doesn’t only exist in men but is also seen in animals for their babies – in some cases it is of exactly the same nature as in human beings, as the Mother says,

“like the same devotion, the same self-forgetfulness, the same self-denial, the same care for education, the same patience”.[1]

We all have experienced whether one loves somebody or is loved by somebody it brings a sense of joy with it. It opens up the being and evokes the sense of self-giving. Anyone and anything that is touched by love responds spontaneously to it. According to the Mother even the matter is receptive to this supremely powerful force of love. I call it supremely powerful force because it does not only have the power to move the human beings but also matter and animals.

The Mother says,

“Love is, in the essence, the joy of identity; it finds its supreme expression in the bliss of union. Between the two there are all the phases of its universal manifestation.”[2]

What does Mother mean by joy of identity, by supreme expression in the bliss of union? It is said that when the Consciousness threw itself into the Inconscience it got separated from its Origin and became Inconscience itself. Thus the Origin emanated Love to reawaken the Consciousness and take it back to its Origin. That is why it has the power to attract and awaken. In response to that attraction there is an irresistible need of self-giving. It is when one identifies with this Original Consciousness that one feels joy and there awakens the need to give oneself and unite with it.[3]

Personal Reflections

Personal experiences of love

1) Today as I began reading about love, I asked myself how would I define love, and what is love for me. The answer was ‘The Mother’. It is in the Mother that I experience love and it is for the Mother that I feel love. I strongly feel and there is a clear understanding within that I am born for Her and it is She who is leading and guiding me through this journey, leading me to Her and Her Love. It is for this love I aspire so that I may be able to manifest it in my day-to-day life.

2) At a personal level whenever I feel love for somebody I experience a great and a quiet sense of joy within and I experience a need to just give myself and whatever I have to the loved one. But then there are also times when it (the feeling of love) loses its purity and starts demanding and expecting. It bargains and sulks when it is not accepted or acknowledged by others. This, then, leads me to disappointment and suffering. It makes me dependent and leaves me with the feeling of insecurity. It is not easy – the vital[4] takes over and the psychic[5] withdraws. It is important to create a balance and purify the vital so that the psychic comes forward and permeates my being with Her presence. The Mother is my aim and aspiration, the only raison d’etre of my life.

Human Love

“…The vital element in human love is especially dominated by ego and desire. It is full of craving and demand; its continuance depends upon the satisfaction of its demands. If it does not get what it craves or even imagines that it is not being treated as it deserves – for it is full of imaginations, misunderstandings, jealousies, misinterpretations – it at once turns to sorrow, wounded feeling, anger, all kinds of disorder, finally cessation and departure. A love of this kind is only a source of suffering, trouble, disappointment, disillusion and disunion and in its very nature ephemeral and unreliable.” [6]

Way to transform the Human Love

How can one transform[7] and purify this human love so that the pure divine love can freely express itself in us?

Firstly one must have the will to purify it and secondly one must gather all one's energies and focus them to act towards realizing it. It is this conscious act that is called Tapasya or a yogic discipline. Tapasya is the effort or austerity of the will for self-control or self-transformation.

“When the will and energy are concentrated and used to control the mind, vital and physical and change them or to bring down the higher consciousness or for any other yogic purpose or high purpose, that is called Tapasya.”[8]

Tapasya of Love

The Tapasya of Love is to transform the human love into the love divine, by practising the austerity of feelings and emotions. It leads us to express love in its full splendour in our life. In this process there is a gradual progression and stages that one goes through. They are:

“At first one loves only when one is loved.

Next, one loves spontaneously but one wants to be loved in return.

Further on, 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.”[9]

For practising the austerity of feelings and emotions, the Mother says,

"No effort, therefore, is too arduous, no austerity too rigorous, if it can illumine, purify, perfect and transform the physical substance so that it may no longer conceal the Divine, when the Divine takes in it an outward form. For the marvel of love will then freely express itself in the world, the love divine which has the power of changing life into a paradise of sweet joy.”[10]

How does one go about it? What are the steps to follow?

Practical Guidelines

Step1) Replace human love by whole-hearted, unchanging, constant and egoless kindness and goodwill in our personal relations with others.

Step2) Do not expect any reward, gratitude or even recognition from others.

Step3) Do not get carried away by resentment when others mistreat, instead, with the pure love turn towards the Divine allowing Him to do what He considers to be the best.

Personal Reflections

Personal reflections: Practising the above steps

1) …. though I aspire for this inner strength, at times it is difficult. Absence of people with whom I longed to be… has almost taken away the entire energy from me. I feel low, insecure and unprotected when they are not there or when they don’t acknowledge my feeling. When I feel this, I keep the Mother in the focus and explain to myself She knows me and She loves me and there can be nothing more important than that. I also tell myself that when I like or love someone – actually I love the divine in that person, so why should I feel any need for acceptance, as the Mother has already accepted me. This helps.

2) Element of Joy: While practising the austerity of feelings and emotions there came a time when I started feeling very dry. As the Mother says,

“… human love as human beings experience it, if one makes an effort to reject it, one usually rejects the entire capacity of feeling love and becomes like a stone.”[11]

I realized that I was making the same mistake; instead of trying to understand the basis of my feelings and then deal sensitively without being too harsh on myself, I became very strict and almost tried to suppress my feelings and dry up my heart by rejecting my feelings of love for others. The feeling of dryness became too overwhelming and very difficult to handle as I had almost cut off myself from all relations. I started feeling lonely and that forced me to introspect and think whether what I was doing was right – I knew something was not right otherwise I would not have felt dry and depressed. I found my answer in the Mother’s following words,

“You feel lonely because you want to be loved. Learn the joy of loving without demand, just for the joy of loving (the most wonderful joy in the world!) and you will never more feel lonely.”[12]

Secondly, this whole task of changing the nature was too difficult and I had taken it on my little shoulders forgetting to surrender it to the Mother. Though at every step I remembered her and called her to help me but I never gave Her the complete responsibility to complete this task. After realizing this I changed my attitude and at once felt very light and experienced joy in my actions and efforts.

Conclusion

Though I am concluding my journey on this paper, in reality it seems I have just begun my journey to love in my life. This whole exercise that I went through was like a preparation before I could embark on this very important journey of my life. The feeling that I experienced as love, through my limited human capacities has acted like a window opening its doors to the Divine. Now I know it is through this love that I will be led to my true Love, the goal of my existence – ‘The Mother’.

Yogita

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APPENDIX -1

THE STORY OF CREATION & THE ROLE OF LOVE

Long back in one of the workshops that I took for the kids, I told them the following story, which we created to explain the complex topic of creation in a very simplified way. I refer to that story here because I feel it may help us to understand Love and what She means by joy of identity and bliss of union.

Long back when there was nothing, nothing at all, no trees, no rivers, nobody of us was born, long before when there was no sky, no sun, no moon, not even earth there was only Light, light everywhere. There were big lights and small lights- we can call them Mamma Light, Papa Light and lots of baby lights. One day as you and I like playing, even these baby lights wanted to play. They decided to play hide and seek, but when they started playing they faced with a problem, and the problem was that they could not hide anywhere. They could not hide because there was no place behind which they could hide as everywhere there was only light. They tried hiding behind each other but everything was transparent. So they all go to the Mother light and share their problem with Her. Mother light and Father light think for a while and decide to create a place where the baby lights could hide and play hide and seek with each other. So then the beautiful universe was created – with the Earth, Moon, Sun and Stars in it, and gradually, the river, the mountains the animals and we all human beings were created. The Mother Light also created a lot of darkness so that the baby lights had no problem hiding in it. Baby lights were very happy and were ready to go and play. But before they rushed out to hide, the Mother Light called all the baby lights and asked them to listen to her carefully. She said, “I have created this beautiful universe for you all to hide, but be very careful as the game won’t be easy, there will be many difficulties on the way, while seeking or searching the light you may get tired but don’t get scared and keep patience. As I have created too much of darkness, at times you may get lost but don’t worry as I am giving you a very special power of mine. This is the power of ‘Love’ that I put in each one of you. It has a magical power- by using this power; even in the darkness you will be able to identify and find lights in everything and everywhere. This identification will bring joy and evoke the feeling of self-giving in you leading you to more union with lights till you all again reach back to me”. So the Mother light put a very special power of hers – ‘Her Love’ in all the baby lights so that it keeps them binding and together even in the darkest time. After they securely held the power within them at once they all rushed to hide in everything that was created – flowers, birds, mountains, rivers etc. Ever since then this game of hide and seek is going on and on and it is for this purpose that the Love which is the Supremes’ (Mother’s) force is at work, trying to unite all the lights till they reach their original source. Back to Contents

APPENDIX -2

ABOUT LOVE: ORIGIN AND PRUPOSE OF LOVE

“Love is a supreme force which the Eternal Consciousness sent down from itself into an obscure and darkened world that it might bring back that world and its beings to the Divine. The creation moves upward through love towards the Divine. This human movement of love is secretly seeking for something else than what it has yet found; but it does not know where to find it, it does not even know what it is. Once the creation is conscious, awakened, opened to love for the Divine, the Divine love pours itself without limit back into the creation; there is the joining of the extremes, supreme Spirit and manifesting Matter, and their divine union becomes constant and complete.”[13]

“At the beginning of this manifestation, love is, in the purity of its origin, composed of two movements, two complementary poles of the urge towards complete oneness. On one hand there is the supreme power of attraction and on the other the irresistible need for absolute self-giving. No other movement could have better bridged the abyss that was created when in the individual being consciousness was separated from its origin and became unconsciousness.”[14]

“Love at its origin is a self-existent force, an absolute, a transcendent, which does not depend upon the objects – it depends only on itself or only on the Divine; for it is a self-existent power of the Divine. If it were not self-existent, it would hardly be independent of the nature or reaction of its objects. It is partly what is meant when we speak of transcendent Love – though this is only one aspect of its transcendence. That self-existent transcendent Love spreading itself over all, turning everywhere to contain, embrace, unite, help, upraise towards love and bliss and oneness, becomes cosmic divine Love; intensely fixing itself on one or other to find itself, to achieve a dynamic unification or to reach here towards the union of the soul with The Divine, it becomes the individual divine Love.”[15]

1) HUMAN FORM OF LOVE

“… The human feeling of love is always either based on or strongly mixed with ego, - that is why it cannot be pure. It is said in the Upanishad, “One does not love the wife for the sake of the wife, but for one’s self’s sake one loves the wife.” There is usually a hope of return, of benefit or advantage of some kind, or of certain pleasures gratifications, mental, vital or physical that the loved can give. Remove these things and love very soon sinks, diminishes or turns into anger, reproach, indifference or even hatred. The vital element in human love is especially dominated by ego and desire. It is full of craving and demand; its continuance depends upon the satisfaction of its demands. If it does not get what it craves or even imagines that it is not being treated as it deserves – for it is full of imaginations, misunderstandings, jealousies, misinterpretations – it at once turns to sorrow, wounded feeling, anger, all kinds of disorder, finally cessation and departure. A love of this kind is only a source of suffering, trouble, disappointment, disillusion and disunion and in its very nature ephemeral and unreliable.” [16]

“Is human love always of this kind? Can it not take a purer and nobler form?

Human love is usually a mixture of ignorance, attachment, passion and desire but it can take an unselfish, noble and pure form and expression if it is touched by the psychic. There is in the highest or deepest kind of love this psychic element which comes from the inmost heart and soul. It is a kind of inner union or self-giving or at least a seeking for that, a tie or an urge independent of other conditions or elements, existing for its own sake and not for any mental, vital or physical pleasure, satisfaction, interest or habit. But usually the psychic element in human love, even when present, is not left pure; it is so much mixed, overloaded and hidden under the other elements that it gets little chance of fulfilling itself or achieving its own natural purity and fullness. What is called love is therefore sometimes one thing, sometimes another, most often a confused mixture.”[17]

“There are in the vital itself two kinds of love, - one full of joy and confidence and abandon, generous, unbargaining, ungrudging and very absolute in its dedication and this is akin to the psychic love. But there is another way of vital love which is the usual way of human nature which is made up of ego and desire and which is mostly a cause of trouble and suffering. It neither satisfies nor lasts.”[18]

2) WAY TO TRUE LOVE

Austerity of feeling and emotions

“Since we have decided to reserve love in its full splendour for our personal relation with the Divine, we shall, in our relation with others, replace it by a wholehearted, unchanging, constant and egoless kindness and goodwill. It shall not expect any reward or gratitude or even recognition. Whatever the way others treat you, you will not allow yourself to be carried away by resentment: and in your pure unmixed love for the Divine you shall leave him the sole judge as to how he is to protect you and defend you against the non-understanding and ill-will of others.

Your joys and your pleasures you will expect from the Divine alone. In him alone you will seek and find help and support. He will comfort you in all your pain, lead you on the path, lift you up if you stumble, and if there are moments of faintness and exhaustion, he will take you in his strong arms of love and wrap you in hios soothing sweetness.

…..The austerity of feeling consists in rejecting all emotional attachment, of whatever kind it may be, whether for a person, for the family, for the country or any other object, and concentrating exclusively on the attachment for the Divine Reality. This concentration will culminate in the integral identification and serve as an instrument for the supramental realisation upon earth.”[19]

Right Attitude for Love

“It is said that to become conscious of divine Love all other love has to be abandoned. What is the best way of rejecting the other love which clings so obstinately (laughter) and does not easily leave us?

To go through it. Ah!

To go through, to see what is behind it, not to stop at the appearance, not to be satisfied with the outer form, to look for the principle which is behind this love, and not be content until one has found the origin of the feeling in oneself. Then the outer form will crumble of itself and you will be in contact with the divine Love which is behind all things.

That is the best way.

To want to get rid of the one in order to find the other is very difficult. It is almost impossible. For human nature is so limited, so full of contradictions and so exclusive in its movements that if one wants to reject love in its lower form, that is to say, human love as human beings experience it, if one makes an inner effort to reject it, one usually rejects the entire capacity of feeling love and becomes like a stone. And then sometimes one has to wait for years or centuries before there is a reawakening in oneself of the capacity to receive and manifest love.

Therefore, the best way when love comes, in whatever form it may be, is to try and pierce through its outer appearance and find the divine principle which is behind and which gives it existence. Naturally, it is full of snares and difficulties, but it is more effective. That is to say, instead of ceasing to love because one loves wrongly, one must cease to love wrongly and want to love well.

For instance, love between human beings, in all its forms, the love of parents for children, of children for parents, of brothers and sisters, of friends and lovers, is all tainted with ignorance, selfishness and all the other defects which are man’s ordinary drawbacks; so instead of completely ceasing to love – which, besides is very difficult as Sri Aurobindo says, which would simple dry up the heart and serve no end – one must learn how to love better: to love with devotion, with self-giving, self-abnegation, and to struggle, not against love itself, but against its distorted forms : against all forms of monopolising, of attachment, possessiveness, jealousy, and all the feelings which accompany these main movements. Not to want to posses, to dominate; and not to want to impose one’s will, one’s whims, one’s desires; not to want to take, to receive, but to give; not to insist on the other’s response, but be content with one’s own love; not to seek one’s personal interest and joy and the fulfillment of one’s personal desire, but to be satisfied with the giving of one’s love and affection; and not to ask for any response. Simply to be happy to love, nothing more.

As for yoga we may add something else: it is as I said in the beginning, the will to pierce through this limited and human form of love and discover the principle of divine Love which is behind it. Then one is sure to get a result. This is better than drying up one’s heart. It is perhaps a little more difficult but it is better in every way, for like this, instead of egoistically making others suffer, well, one may leave them quiet in their own movement and only make an effort to transform oneself without imposing one’s will on others, which even in ordinary life is a step towards something higher and a little more harmonious.”[20]

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APPENDIX -3

Questionnaire: AN Introspection

1) What is Love for me?

2) When and how do I experience Love?

3) Is my love dependent on the other person's behaviour / responses?

4) How do I feel when my love is not accepted?

5) When I truly love someone what effect does it leave me with?

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[1] True Love, Aim booklet, Sri Aurobindo Society (April 2005) The Mother, pg 24

[2] The Mother and Sri Aurobindo on Education, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondy, pg 153

[3] See Appendix to read the story on the Origin and purpose of Love

[4]Vital: The Life-nature made up of desires, sensations, feeling, passion, energies of action, will of desire, reactions of the desire-soul and of all the play of possessive and other related instincts, such as anger, fear, greed, lust, etc.

[5] Psychic Being: The evolving soul of the individual; whereas the psychic essence is present in every thing and creature, it is only in the human being that it becomes individualized and is then called the psychic being.

[6] Kishore Gandhi (Compiled from Sri Aurobindo’s Writings) Lights on Life Problem. p. 8-9

[7] Transformation: a state in which the higher consciousness or nature is brought down into the mind, vital and body and takes the place of the lower

[8] Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga –II, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Pondicherry, p. 596

[9]The Mother, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother on Love, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Pondicherry, p. 29

[10] The Mother, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother on Education, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Pondicherry, p.158

[11] The Mother, True Love, AIM booklet, Sri Aurobindo Society, p. 34

[12] The Mother, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother on Love, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Pondicherry, p. 29

[13] The Mother, A Practical Guide to Integral Yoga, pp. 254-55

[14] The Mother, Education Part-I, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Pondicherry, pp.56-57

[15] Sri Aurobindo, Lights on Life Problem, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Pondicherry, p. 8-9

[19] The Mother, Sri Aurobindo and The Mother on Education, Sri Aaurobindo Ashram Pondicherry, p. 159

[20] The Mother, True Love - All India Magazine, Sri Aurobindo Society pp. 34-36.