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To will it is a constant, sustained, concentrated aspiration, an almost exclusive occupation of the consciousness. This is the first step. There are many others: a very attentive observation, a very persistent analysis, a very keen discernment of what is pure in the movement and what is not. If you have an imaginative faculty, you may try to imagine and see if your imagination tallies with reality. There are people who believe that it is enough to wake up one day in a particular mood and say, "Ah! How I wish to be conscious of Divine Love, how I wish to manifest Divine Love...." Note, I don't know how many millions of times one feels within a little quivering of human instinct and imagines that if one had at one's disposal Divine Love, great things could be accomplished, and one says, "I am going to try and find Divine Love and we shall see the result." This is the worst possible way. Because, before having even touched the very beginning of realisation you have spoilt the result. You must take up your search with a purity of aspiration and surrender which in themselves are already difficult to acquire. You must have worked much on yourself only to be ''ready'' to aspire to this Love. If you look at yourself very sincerely, very straight, you will see that as soon as you begin to think of Love it is always your little inner tumult which starts whirling. All that aspires in you wants certain vibrations. It is almost impossible, without being far advanced on the yogic path, to separate the vital essence, the vital vibration from your conception of Love. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/24-march-1951#p21,p22,p23</ref>
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The true love for the Divine is a 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. In return the Divine Mother also gives herself, but freely—and this represents itself in an inner giving—her presence in your mind, your vital, your physical consciousness, her power re-creating you in the divine nature, taking up all the movements of your being and directing them towards perfection and fulfilment, her love enveloping you and carrying you in its arms Godwards. It is this that you must aspire to feel and possess in all your parts down to the very material, and here there is no limitation either of time or of completeness. If one truly aspires and gets it, there ought to be no room for any other claim or for any disappointed desire…
Keep your love pure of all selfish claim and desire; you will find that you are getting all the love that you can bear and absorb in answer.
<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/32/the-right-way-of-loving-the-mother#p3,p4</ref>
==By a Psychic Opening==
When the love goes towards the Divine, there is still this ordinary human element in it. There is the call for a return and if the return does not seem to come, the love may sink; there is the self-interest, the demand for the Divine as a giver of all that the human being wants and, if the demands are not acceded to, abhimana against the Divine, loss of faith, loss of fervour. Etc. etc. But the true love for the Divine is in its fundamental nature not of this kind, but psychic and spiritual. The psychic element is the need of the inmost being for self-giving, love, adoration, union which can only be fully satisfied by the Divine. The spiritual element is the need of the being for contact, merging, union with its own highest and whole self and source of being and consciousness and bliss, the Divine. These two are two sides of the same thing. The mind, vital, physical can be the supports and recipients of this love, but they can be fully that only when they become remoulded into harmony with the psychic and spiritual elements of the being and no longer bring in the lower insistences of the ego.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/divine-love-psychic-love-and-human-love#p29</ref>
The nature of Bhakti is adoration, worship, self-offering to what is greater than oneself; the nature of love is a feeling or a seeking for closeness and union. Self-giving is the character of both; both are necessary in the yoga and each gets its full force when supported by the other.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/sabcl/23/sadhana-through-love-and-devotion-ii#p1</ref>
<center>~</center> All love, indeed, that is adoration has a spiritual force behind it, and even when it is offered ignorantly and to a limited object, something of that splendour appears through the poverty of the rite and the smallness of its issues. For love that is worship is at once an aspiration and a preparation: it can bring even within its small limits in the Ignorance a glimpse of a still more or less blind and partial but surprising realisation; for there are moments when it is not we but the One who loves and is loved in us, and even a human passion can be uplifted and glorified by a slight glimpse of this infinite Love and Lover. It is for this reason that the worship of the god, the worship of the idol, the human magnet or ideal are not to be despised; for these are steps through which the human race moves towards that blissful passion and ecstasy of the Infinite which, even in limiting it, they yet represent for our imperfect vision when we have still to use the inferior steps Nature has hewn for our feet and admit the stages of our progress. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-ascent-of-the-sacrifice-ii#p3</ref> <center>~</center> ''Q. Sweet Mother, Sri Aurobindo has said that one can pass from human love to divine Love.''
''Sweet MotherA.'' He was speaking of human love manifesting as Bhakti, Sri Aurobindo has said as a force of devotion for the Divine, and he says that one can pass from at the beginning your love for the Divine is a very human love with all the characteristics of human love. Yet if you persist and make the necessary effort, it is not impossible for this human love to be transformed into divine Lovelove through identification with what you love. <ref>http://incarnateword.''in/cwm/06/16-june-1954#p61</ref>
=Love and Bhakti for Krishna=
=More on Love=
Love is the nature of the lover, courage the nature of the warrior; love and courage are impersonal and universal forces or formulations of the cosmic Force, they are the spirit's powers of its universal being and nature. The Person is the Being supporting what is thus impersonal, holding it in himself as his, his nature of self; he is that which is the lover and warrior. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/22/the-gnostic-being#p29</ref>
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Krishna with Radha is the symbol of the Divine Love. The flute is the call of the Divine Love; the peacock is victory. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/gods-goddesses-and-semi-divine-beings#p13</ref>
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Radha is the personification of the absolute love for the Divine, total and integral in all parts of the being from the highest spiritual to the physical, bringing the absolute self-giving and total consecration of all the being and calling down into the body and the most material Nature the supreme Ananda.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/bhakti-yoga-and-vaishnavism#p61</ref>
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The Divine has an equal love for all human beings, but the obscurity of consciousness of most men prevents them from perceiving this divine love.
<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/divine-love#p31</ref>
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You feel lonely because you feel the need to be loved. Learn to love without demand, to love just for the joy of loving (the most wonderful joy in the world!) and you will never again feel lonely.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/divine-love-and-human-love#p29</ref> <center>~</center>
The thirst for affection and love is a human need, but it can be quenched only if it turns towards the Divine. As long as it seeks satisfaction in human beings, it will always be disappointed or wounded.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/divine-love-and-human-love#p17</ref>
It is not the love that someone feels for you that can make you happy, it is the love you feel for others that makes you happy: for you receive the love that you give from the Divine, who loves eternally and unfailingly.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/divine-love-and-human-love#p38</ref>
True love, that which fulfils and illumines, is not the love one receives but the love one gives. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/divine-love-and-human-love#p52</ref> <center>~</center> ''Q. Are Divine Love and Grace the same thing?'' ''A.'' Essentially, all things are the same. In its essence everything is the same, it is a phenomenon of consciousness; but Love can exist without Grace and Grace can exist without Love. But for the human consciousness all manifestation of Grace is a manifestation of the supreme Love, inevitably. Only it goes beyond human consciousness. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/24-march-1951#p19,p20</ref> <center>~</center>
For God has not set me here merely to think, to philosophise, to weave metaphysical systems, to play with words and syllogisms, but to act, love and know. I must act divinely so that I may become divine in being and deed; I must learn to love God not only in Himself but in all beings, appearances, objects, enjoyments, events, whether men call them good or bad, real or mythical, fortunate or calamitous; and I must know Him with the same divine impartiality and completeness in order that I may come to be like Him, perfect, pure and unlimited—that which all sons of Man must one day be. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/12/philosophy#p2</ref>
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Thus if it be the divine Love that is the subject of concentration, it is on the essence of the idea of God as Love that the mind should concentrate in such a way that the various manifestations of the divine Love should arise luminously, not only to the thought, but in the heart and being and vision of the sadhaka.