Date: January 11, 2025
Venue: Sri Aurobindo Society
As part of the Annual Youth Camp 2025 organised by AuroYouth, Dr. Beloo Mehra, Director, BhāratShakti, was invited to conduct an interactive session with the participants. The 1.5-hour-long session on January 11, 2025 focused on the topic ‘Love and Human Relationships’.
The purpose of this interactive session was to highlight that significance of examining the nature of human love and relationships using a deeper psycho-spiritual view of human nature, given to us by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother who had not only explored the depths of human nature but had also raised themselves to the highest heights of consciousness.
Dr. Mehra opened her session by reading selected lines from Sri Aurobindo’s epic mantric poem, Savitri. These lines were selected to highlight on one side the eternal and divine basis of Love as a Force, and on the other the human deformations that enter into Love which make all human ties fragile and temporary. Dr. Mehra briefly explained the context in which these lines appear in the poem.
She then briefly recounted the Mother’s description of the story of creation which explains the descent of Love as a Force of the Supreme which hides itself deep down in the Inconscient. This story, she explained, highlights how Love is at the very foundation of entire manifestation and what we human experience as individual love is an expression of this universal force which is looking to manifest in an instrument that is open and receptive.
Some relevant quotes from Sri Aurobindo’s and Mother’s writings were also shared with the participants to stimulate some reflections and discussions. A couple of short clips from some popular films were shown to emphasise that no human experience is insignificant in Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s integral view of life and existence. And that is why we can find relevant insights on almost all aspects of life in their writings and teachings.
Discussions also focused around the fact that love and relationships are the root of all human life as lived in our familial and societal contexts. But ordinarily, most people do not take the trouble to examine and understand the nature of these two things. We go through life experiencing several aspects of human love and relationships, in the process going through a variety of emotions, ranging all the way from pleasure to pain, from passion to indifference, from happiness to sadness, from calmness to rage, and so on. Such ups and downs cause much turmoil in people’s lives – outer and inner, and also lead to strained and troubled relationships.
Based on the questions raised by the participants, Dr. Mehra also brought in relevant examples and stories from Indian cultural traditions, which throw some deeper insights on love and human relationships. She also focused on the Mother’s discussion on the various rungs of love, and highlighted how through our experiences in life and in our relations with others we slowly work our way up through the different rungs of love.
The session also brought to light that by becoming deeply aware of the nature of human love and becoming more conscious of how this human love expresses through different relationships in our lives we can prepare ourselves more effectively to deal with the changing life situations which are inevitable. The role of egoism in human relationships was discussed, and several examples were brought in to keep the discussion more practical and relatable.
Through a wide range of questions put forth by the participants, the discussion spanned from concerns related to parental love, romantic love and friendships, challenges faced in present times due to societal and peer pressure, to deeper topics related to Divine Love and its relation to human love, and more.