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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>
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.'' ''A.'' He was speaking of human love manifesting as Bhakti, as a force of devotion for the Divine, and he says that 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 love 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> <center>~</center> 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>
''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.