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 necessarily
conditioned 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 of