Usually this is based
on vital affinities, nothing else. There are vital vibrations
which harmonise and vital vibrations which don't. It is usually
this, nothing else. It is vital chemistry.
One would have to
be in a much deeper and more clear-sighted consciousness for
it to be otherwise. There is an inner perception based on a
psychic consciousness, which makes you feel which people have
the same aspiration, the same aim, and can be your companions
on the way; and this perception also makes you clear-sighted
about those who follow a very different way or carry in them
forces which are hostile to you and may harm you in your development.
But to attain such a perception one must oneself be exclusively
occupied with one's own spiritual progress and integral realisation.
Now, that is not often the case. And usually too, when one has
attained this inner clear-sightedness, it is not expressed by
attraction and repulsion, but by a very "objective"
knowledge, it might be said, and a kind of inner certainty which
makes you act calmly and reasonably, and without attractions
and repulsions.
Therefore, it may
be said in a general and almost absolute way that those who
have very definite and impulsive likes and dislikes live in
a vital consciousness. Mixed with this, there may be mental
affinities; that is, some minds like to have relationships in
common activities, but here too, these are people on a much
higher level intellectually, and this is also expressed even
more by a comparative ease in relationships and by something
much more calm and detached. One takes pleasure in speaking
with certain people, for others there is no attraction, one
gains nothing from it. It is a little more distant and quiet;
it belongs more to the field of reason.
But likes and dislikes
clearly belong to the vital world. Well, there is a vital chemistry
just as there is physical chemistry: there are bodies which
repel each other and others which attract; there are substances
which combine and others which explode, and it is like that.
There are some vital vibrations which harmonise, and harmonise
to such an extent that ninety-nine times out of a hundred these
sympathies are taken for what men call love, and suddenly people
feel, "Oh! He is the one I was waiting for", "Oh!
she is the one I was seeking!" and they rush towards each
other, till they find out that it was something very superficial
and that these things can't last.
So the first advice
given to those who want to do yoga: "Rise above likes and
dislikes." This is something without any deeper reality
and it can at the very least lead you into difficulties which
are at times quite hard to overcome. You can ruin your life
with these things. And the best thing is not to take any notice
of them - to draw back a little into yourself and ask yourself
why - it's nothing very mysterious - you like to meet this person,
don't like to meet that one.
But, as I say, there
comes a moment when one is exclusively occupied with one's sadhana,
when one can feel - but both more subtly and much more quietly
- that a particular contact is favourable to sadhana and another
harmful. But that always takes a much more "detached"
form, so to say, and often it even contradicts the so-called
attractions and repulsions of the vital; very often it has nothing
to do with them.
So, the best thing
is to look at all that from a little distance and to lecture
yourself a little on the futility of these things.
Obviously there are
some natures which are almost fundamentally bad, beings who
are born wicked and love to do harm; and logically, if one is
quite natural, not perverted, natural as animals are - for from
this point of view they are far superior to men; perversion
begins with humanity - then one keeps out of the way, as one
would stand aside from something fundamentally harmful. But
happily these cases are not very frequent; what one meets in
life are usually very mixed natures where there is a kind of
balance, so to say, between the good and the bad, and one may
expect to have both good and bad relations. There is no reason
to feel any deep dislike, for, as one is quite mixed oneself,
like meets like!
It is also said that
some people are like vampires, and when they come near a person
they spontaneously suck up his vitality and energy, and that
one should beware of them as of a very serious danger. But that
also… Not that it doesn't exist, but it is not very frequent,
and certainly not so total that one need run away when one meets
such a person.
So, essentially,
if one wants to develop spiritually, the first thing to do is
to overcome one's dislikes and one's likes… Look at all
that with a smile.
