From Twilight to Light: The Sunlit Path, Talk 7: ‘Relationship with the Divine’
AuroYouth has been conducting a series of talks to help youth discuss and discover issues prevalent in recent times. Titled “From Twilight to light – The Sunlit Path”, these sessions are meant to provide the youth with inner strength and spiritual outlook that will help them in navigating through life.
In the seventh talk of the series, Shivakumar, Director, AuroYouth, interacted with about 100 youths on the topic “Relationship with the Divine” on August 02, 2020.
Shivakumar gave a beautiful description of how the journey to develop intimate relation with Divine can be. He went over each step and gave us glimpses which were enough to get the participants excited about this journey.
Overall the three sub-parts of the journey were
- What is intimate love? Shivakumar broke some myths and defined what intimate relationship is.
- How does intimacy feel like? He brought down the stories defining divine love from the highest ideals and shared it with the participants.
- How to reach this ideal? Finally, he shared with the participants how to attain this state, with the help of the words of The Mother of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Puducherry.
What is Intimate Love?
To understand about intimate love, it is important to first unlearn. And to this Shivakumar first discussed the common mistaken notion that it is the physical intimacy which consummates intimate relationships. Physical intimacy doesn’t attain the deep love which comes through the closeness of hearts.
Next, he introduced an interactive poll where he asked the participants to see if the relationships they have or had are based more on the “Love they receive” or Love they give”. Finally, all the participants realized that Secret is in the love we give not in the love we receive.
How Does Divine Intimacy Feel Like?
Why do we need Divine love? As discussed in the previous section the secret is in the love we give not in the one we receive. But how do we give love when the sources of love available to us are so limited. Naturally we will have to connect to a source which has infinite love.
Here comes in the divine love. India has been very fortunate to see this divine love in various times in history, and Shivakumar told us about the two ideals
- Attitude of Radha towards Krishna - Shivakumar discussed The Mother’s writing on the attitude of Radha towards Krishna
- Story from Mahabharata on how Krishna came to save Draupadi in a fraction of second (the writer of this summary must admit that this is one of the most heartfelt story and the reader should experience the story himself/herself in the YouTube session recording).
How to Practise this Ideal?
Finally, Shivakumar discussed the Mother’s guidance on developing the relationship with the Divine. We should always connect with the inner Divine and he discussed how we should do our everyday daily tasks while keeping the Divine in remembrance.
The video recording of the entire programme can be accessed here.
Next in the series, AuroYouth is coming up with a session on ‘Remain Motivated: Role of Will Power and Perseverance’ by Manoj Sharma, this Sunday, August 09, 2020. All youth are invited; spread the news and participate in the programme!
