IFE AND LOVE are inseparable from each other. Where there is life, there is love. Even the most rudimentary type of consciousness is always trying to burst out of its limitations and experience some kind of unity with other forms. Though each form is separate from other forms, in reality, they are all forms of the same unity of life; and the latent sense of 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 are, in truth, expressions of love, since things are repelled from each other because they are more attracted to 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 over 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 this love becomes more explicit in the form of conscious impulses which are directed towards the different objects in the surroundings. This love is instinctive, and it takes 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 a fully developed form of consciousness. Though human love is continuous with the lower sub-human forms of love, it is, in

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—Reprinted by special permission from the MEHER BABA JOURNAL