Date: February 22, 2025
Venue: Unity Pavilion, Auroville
As part of the week-long celebration of the Mother’s Birthday, the annual Auroville Festival of 2025 focused on the theme – Humility and its integration with Four Aspects of the Mother. On February 22, the specific theme of Humility and Power (Mahakali aspect of the Divine Mother) was taken up. Dr. Beloo Mehra, Director, BhāratShakti, was invited to be a part of a panel discussion which aimed to explore the deeper connection between these two values.
In addition to Dr. Mehra, the other two panelists were Ms. Uma Prajapati from Upasana, Auroville and Ms. Nilima Bhat from Shakti Leadership. The discussion was moderated by Mr. Lakshay Dharan, founder of Aware Auroville, the main body organising Auroville Festival.
The session began with Dr. Mehra sharing a few thoughts about how we can understand the deeper meaning of Humility when we look at some of the incidents from Sri Aurobindo’s life as reported by some of his disciples. She shared a couple of observations made by senior sadhaks in this regard.
She then also spoke of how Humility and Power or Courage/Valour were not considered contradictory values in Indian tradition, rather they were considered as complementary and essential qualities to be cultivated as part of the Aryan character. She shared an example from Valimiki Ramayan in this regard.
In response to a few comments and observations made by other panelists with regard to how we can explore the connection between Humility and Power when it comes to women’s realities and lived experiences, including women in leadership roles, Dr. Mehra elaborated that it is important we look at our tradition with a deeper understanding of our cultural history.
She said that all the examples that are casually thrown in the feminist discourse surrounding Sati-Sita-Savitri syndrome need to be re-examined thoroughly because in truth all these three women from Indian cultural tradition made strong choices, and did so independently. She gave specific examples for each of these women from scriptures and also from Sri Aurobindo’s works and translations.
Dr. Mehra also emphasised that according to the Mother humility is not something with regard to other men, but rather toward the Divine. Once we understand this important distinction, we also begin to grasp the deeper sense of humility which is way beyond the outer expression which at times can also be a pretense. She also added a few examples from the Mother’s conversation on this topic.
There was engaging question and answer session at the end of the panel discussion. In conclusion, Dr. Mehra read the beautiful poem ‘God’ by Sri Aurobindo which emphasises that only the Absolutely Perfect, the Absolutely Powerful, the Divine can be Absolutely Humble.
Dr. Mehra also presented to the interested members of the audience her book ‘Towards a New Renaissance: Cultivating Soul-values‘ which includes brief reflections on the Twelve Qualities of the Mother’s Symbol.