Works of Sri Aurobindo

open all | close all

-27_Love-and-Sexual-Desire.htm

LOVE AND SEXUAL DESIRE 

 

Love is not sexual intercourse.

Love is not vital attraction and interchange.

Love is not the heart’s hunger for affection.

Love is a mighty vibration coming straight from the One, and only the very pure and very strong are capable of receiving and manifesting it.

            To be pure is to be open only to the Supreme’s influence and to no other.  

Page 131


 

Page – 132


I do not like that the word love should be polluted to speak of sexual desire, the human inheritance of the animal.

 

You are making a great confusion between maternal sentiment which is, in the physical, an expression of the force of the universal Mother, and the physical act of procreation which is something wholly animal, most often even bestial, and which is only a means that Nature has found to perpetuate the different species.

 6 October 1952

 

Sexual relations belong to the past, when man was closer to the animal than to the Divine. All depends on what you expect from life, but if you sincerely want to do the Yoga, you must abstain from all sexual activities.

 23 March 1968

A decisive choice has to be made between lending the body to nature’s ends in obedience to her demand to perpetuate the race as it is, and preparing this very body to become a step towards the creation of a new race. The two cannot go together; at every minute you have to decide whether you wish to remain within the manhood of yesterday or belong to the supermanhood of tomorrow.

 

Somebody has said, “Sex is of the mind. The act is no problem. Sex is a problem to us because we are not sufficiently creative.”

Is not sex a thing not only of the mind but also  

Page 133


of the vital being and the physical? What is it essentially and intrinsically? And how is the attraction between the sexes to be completely erased from the being?

 

Sex seems rather to be more of the body. It is only when you pass from the lower to the higher hemisphere that you can completely erase the thing. Sex belongs to Nature in her lower working and as long as you belong to that Nature, her working will be there automatically in you.

 

At present I am much disturbed by sex difficulty. My rejection is not of much value, and I feel confused.

 

You have to persevere until it is valid.

 1933

When you will think no more of sex at all and see no more women as women but only as human beings, then and then only I will know that you are beginning to get cured.

 

Sexual desires do not come from eating well but from thinking wrongly and concentrating on that. The less you think about it, the better it is. You should not concentrate on what you do not want to be, but on the contrary on what you want to become.

 7 June 1964

Instead of being dominated by the sexual impulsions, they  

Page 134


must be put under the domination of the highest will.

 

Passion: it is a force, but is dangerous and cannot be used unless it is perfectly surrendered to the Divine.

 

Human passions changed into love for the Divine: may they become a real fact, and their abundance will save the world.

 

Perfect attachment to the Divine replaces all vital attractions and passions.

 

LOVE FOR THE DIVINE 

 

Greed, greed, always greed… is the response of material nature.

In whatever way the Divine manifests there, it becomes at once an object of covetousness. A rush to appropriate, an endeavour to rob, exploit, squeeze, swallow and in the end crush down the Divine, this is the receptivity of matter to the divine touch.

O my Lord, Thou comest as the redeemer and these would make of Thee a dupe! Thou comest for union, for transformation, for realisation, and they think only of absorption and selfish increase.

 9 March 1932  

Page 135


No half-measure would be enough to please you.

In short, what you want is a Divine for yourself, who would have no other occupation than to satisfy you, a Divine whom you could see physically at every hour of the day or night, whom you could argue with at your leisure, whom you could live with, marry for in its ideal principle, marriage is nothing else but that.

But for it to be so, this Divine would have to be of your own size, your own stature.

And towards what could He lead you if not towards yourself as you are. Is this what you really want in the truth of your being?

I refuse to believe it.

 

Child, you say to me, “To love me is to do what I want.”

But I say to you that for the Divine to love truly is to do what is best for the one He loves.

 May 1946

 

Each and every one, when he turns to the Divine, demands that He should do for him exactly what he asks. Whereas the Divine does for each one what is best for him from all points of view. But man, in his ignorance and blindness, revolts against the Divine when his desire is not satisfied, and says to Him, “You do not love me.”

 28 May 1946

 

            You say of your God: “I have loved Him so much and yet He did not remain with me!” But what kind of love have you given Him? In its essence, love is one, just as consciousness is one; but in the manifestation, it is coloured and differentiated  

Page 136


by each individual nature. If you are impure and egoistic, love in you will become impure and egoistic, narrow, sectarian, limited, ambitious and possessive, violent, jealous, vulgar, brutal and cruel. Is this the kind of love that can be offered to God? If you want your love to be worthy of the one you love, if you want to enjoy love in its eternal perfection, become perfect, break out of the limitations of your ego, partake of eternity. And then you will always be close to the object of your love, for you will grow into his likeness.

 27 November 1952

It is said that one grows into the likeness of what one loves; but with regard to God it is also true that one can remain always with Him only when one grows into His likeness.

 

It is not through human love that one can learn to love the Divine, for the love is of quite a different nature. First learn to give yourself sincerely to the Divine and then the joy of love will come afterwards. By giving yourself sincerely all your difficulties will disappear.

 28 December 1955  

The true love for the Divine is self-giving, free of demand, full of submission and surrender. It makes no claim, imposes no condition, strikes no bargain, indulges in no violences of jealousy or pride or anger for these things are not in its composition.

 

When the true and sacred love is there (love from the  

Page 137


Divine and  for the Divine), whatever happens is always utilised as a means for increasing and perfecting the union. This leaves no place for worry, regret and depression, but, on the contrary, fills the consciousness with the certitude of victory.

 

Integral love for the Divine: pure, complete and irrevocable, it is a love that gives itself for ever.

 

Flaming love for the Divine: ready for all heroism and all sacrifice.

 

To love truly the Divine we must rise above attachments.

GENERAL

 

Love is with all, working for the progress of each one equally but it triumphs in those who care for it.

 

(Message for the World Vegetarian Congress) 

 

Love alone can overcome hate and violence.

Let the divine compassion express itself through you always and in all circumstances.        

Page 138


The divine compassion reaches out not only to the one who is eaten but also to the one who eats, not only to the one who is tortured but also the one who tortures.

 1957

Divine Love can overcome the evil and the cruel the tiger does not attack the yogi.

 

Unmanifest Divine Love: the splendour of the marvellous love which the Divine keeps for the pure heart.

 

Indeed, all life is love if we know how to live it.

 13 July 1963

Sweetness is within every heart.

Bitterness is an illusion that melts in the Sun of Divine Love.

 July 1966  

Page 139