EWS #8: Auroville, the Call of The Mother
Feb 28, 2018
Topics:
Narad (00:00:37):
Welcome to our continuing series, Evenings with Sraddhalu. Today on Auroville's 50th birthday, the Golden Day for Auroville. We take up the subject of Auroville. I don't think we can do it in one session. Mother has said so much on Auroville. Where is Auroville today? On the physical, mental, social level before we begin to go deeper.
Sraddhalu (00:01:31):
Mother has set for us such a high ideal that however much we may progress, it seems to fall short. And so it's acceptable to say that we have fallen short both in the Ashram and in Auroville and even in the world situation for what was supposed to be. But having said that, one has to recognise what an extraordinary progress has been made and what Auroville and the Ashram represent today in the world and for the world. I mentioned last time that in all the places I've been to and I've been to many communities, spiritual, some religious, this is the one space in the whole world where you have the largest collection of people sensitive and conscious to the Spirit in one place, and as a community. There are religious communities who have religious forms, which in sheer numbers might have a larger scale, but it's not, the sensitivity of the spirit of the presence and of the ideal of spiritual progress. And so just to have assembled this is an extraordinary achievement to which credit we have to give to the Mother. We all came here for her, if not for her, none of us would be here. If somebody had just announced that here we are going to start a city that represents all these ideals and we are going to start it in a desert where there's no water, no infrastructure, no supply, chain of construction, food or other materials,
Narad (00:03:32):
No trees,
Sraddhalu (00:03:33):
No trees and no money, not even money to pay you and workers. You can imagine what a result it would have. And I still know of projects which aim to accomplish something similar to Auroville, better designed from a business perspective, better backing of finances, better environmental circumstances. And they've not moved forward because people don't come. And here what Mother did was in a desert space, she called people and they came and they started building. What? And if you see the photos of that period, what do you have as a picture? An ideal township, an utopia almost. And whatever the image they may have created in their minds, it is so far off from the physical reality, yet they're stuck on not only they persisted, not only they built, but over a couple of decades they inched forward literally, compared to whatever ideal they must have conceived of. And they didn't give up. And the entire credit for this goes to the Mother. I heard one of the stories of a family, a couple and two children. The children were barely in the three or five something in that range living in the USA. They saw a little news item that says, Auroville, city of the future, blah blah, city of dawn, whatever, can come in a little column in a newspaper. Human unity, human unity, and all the ideals. People have been speaking of all these ideals for 10,000 years. It's just there in a little column in a newspaper. And their first reaction was this is it. They sold their house, came lock stock barrel with their kids into this desert soil and then looking for a place to stay. And then they stayed. Okay? Eventually the parents did leave, but that was like 15 years down when the kids were older and things like that. But still, what is it that called them? And if you go deeper into this, it's almost as if Mother put out a call at the level of the soul, at the level of the soul. And she put out a call all over humanity. There were people who needed the physical external link point, that newspaper column, to trigger the soul's contact with the surface being to say, ah, this is it, the recognition. And then there were those who didn't even have that. They had no means to even recognise what it is the call was for. And hopefully eventually the soul would lead them to recognise it through some sign externally. Otherwise how would they know? And so those who did not have that kind of an external support, they ended up trying to recreate in their space the ideal that is Auroville. And one such is Walt Disney. It's a strange one. The one who is famous for all these cartoons. He was a visionary. He had a deep spiritual side, Freemason of a high order. And he caught this vision that Mother had beamed out, broadcasted in the soul space of the world. And he created in his environment what today is known as EPCOT, Experimental Prototype Community Of the Future. You see how accurately it describes Auroville, experimental prototype community of the future. And in that space, he has pavilions representing all the major cultures of the world.
Narad (00:07:51):
He did it in 1960 and I went there, I went there in 1960 and it was extraordinary. Japanese pavilion, so many different pavilions with the food and the dress and music and everything.
Sraddhalu (00:08:09):
And all these are arranged in a kind of a circular form. And then there are spaces for experiential growth, things relating to the air, water, earth and experiments on new sustainable living formats, new ways of growing food and et cetera. Everything oriented to future humanity. And then in the centre is this giant lake. And in the lake is this huge sphere. Everything is caught as if someone saw from far this picture of Auroville and tried to replicate it. And somehow that sphere in the lake was not it. So right at the beginning when you enter EPCOT, there is this gigantic sphere, which is the size of Matrimandir there by the way. And you enter into it in a little train which goes in a kind of a circular and zigzag form all the way to the top where suddenly it opens out into this vision of the cosmos, infinity of stars, and then it brings you back. And on the way up it's taking you through an exhibition of human evolution, technological mostly, but still human evolution opening out to this infinity. Certainly when you think about it, the elements, the key insights of Auroville are all captured there in the way his mind could articulate it and in the business framework that his space required. Now what I'm getting back to is what Mother broadcast is what drew people. And it started at the same time among people who did not come here, the same process. So we have to look at Auroville on two levels. There is the physical space where people were called to create, to manifest that which Mother had already formed. And then there is the psychological space that is Auroville, that is all over the world, which is in fact the world, which is in fact the future of the world. And the link between these two is what you have to recognise. This physical space is meant to embody in material limited circumstances, what eventually has to become or is a psychological truth all over the world. It's a miniature world.
Narad (00:10:40):
And replicated throughout the world
Sraddhalu (00:10:43):
And it's a miniature world, trying to capture the future or realise the future and the aspect of the unity of humanity in a small space. Now that being said, this being the direction of the ideal and the work Mother did, the progress we have made is small compared to the ideal because first of all, the circumstances were so difficult. You start in a desert, you're starting with no money, no resources, et cetera. Everything had to be built from scratch. And I see in this a profound symbol. Wherever something new has to be created, which is so different from the past, you cannot build it on a past infrastructure. Inevitably, the expectations and forms of the past will corrupt what is formed now. It's something which is little known at the Ashram in Pondicherry. When mother started the University Centre, she had set a similar high ideal. Again as a school, we are nowhere near, we are not even a university, but as a school we were on the cutting edge of education at one point, but we're nowhere near now. The rest of the world has caught up and even exceeded in certain ways. But at that time in the vision, she had planned for an entire space of buildings in the shape of the mother's symbol, which would be the framework of the university centre. The plans had been prepared and somehow it did not work because you were in the middle of a town and the existing infrastructure was so to say, the resistance. So to me, starting Auroville in what is a desert soil is almost profoundly significant for this reason that the new world can freely express itself only in a space which is entirely free of encumbrance of the past.
There's a whole story to this also of the barren land of Auroville. There's a local legend that it used to be once quite rich as a forest and then there was a curse that it would become barren land. And then the undoing of the curse by a blessing that said one day people will come from all over the world and everything will be a forest again. So if you look back at the trajectory of preparing a space, it's almost as if the curse was used as a means to create a barren space and it's only in a desert space that you would not have too many people already coming and creating their infrastructure. So we had a couple of villages, but nominally present. The resistance also or the slow progress physically is because of the challenge of the ideal of human unity. To bring people of such disparate types and ways of thinking and then interests and then to get them to work together is not easy. And the requirement for that of course is a goodwill and a deeper alignment to the ideal which Mother made the very basis, the framework for someone to want to join Auroville. And we'll look at that perhaps later on. But there's the other aspect that in creating this space, Mother would be or has already, but in creating it, she would be committing the earth's evolutionary trajectory to a certain resolution. The unity of humanity, which was a hope for the future if it could be achieved in a local space with a limited representative humanity, if it could be achieved even among these few would be certain for the rest of the earth in future. And that's why it's also a prototype in that sense, it's a model. To some extent, she had worked on that at the Ashram, but it needed now to be done on a broader scale. And if it succeeded here, then the possibility of humanity's failure would have been avoided completely. And so there are enormous forces which want to prevent that, which want to prevent the success of a project like this.
It's a truth of the spiritual reality that as long as what you're trying to do is a repetition of the past more beautifully perhaps, it does not threaten the powers which want to hold status quo in evolution. The moment you seek to leap to something which has not been done yet, which hastens the future and hastens evolution, then the powers of status quo are deeply distressed and will do everything to prevent that progress. And so on a deeper level, we have to see how every person in that space, even as they're representing a culture, a mindset, certain human psychological types and problems becomes also at the same time a representative for certain interests, both positive and negative and sometimes within the same person. Both interests might collide.
Narad (00:16:32):
I might tell you that Mother said to us, do not think you are anything special. Each one of you represents a problem of the world to be worked out...good dose of humility!
Sraddhalu (00:16:56):
To be worked out by whom? Obviously you cannot solve your problem, especially when you're representing a whole type. It's suddenly as if your problem becomes that much more heavy. Remember, behind you are a thousand people, ten thousand people, a million people of the same problem type. So all the inertia of that million change is now bound in you and by the fact that you're present at that location and participating in the project, if you're suddenly withdrew, that burden is off because you're no more representing it. And the next guy who comes in who takes your place for that purpose, he has this huge heavy weight. If you think about it, it feels almost unfair.
By participating in something which is going to manifest the new world, the new future, you have to face all this internal struggle. But precisely it would never be possible for us to solve it. It is done by her and for her to be able to work on us, we have to fulfil the first prerequisite, which is to put ourselves in her hands, then only she can work in you and sort out your problem. Now, none of this is new in the sense that it was already being done in the Ashram. What it did in Auroville was to take it on a larger scale and a more complete representation of humanity with a special focus on the external form, organisation and structure. Within the Ashram, the external form and structure was limited and the scope for its development was limited. The primary work had been done on a psychospiritual level. Now this had to be taken to a more external and formed organisation and scale of a township, 50,000 people is the number given. We are at what, four, five thousand now? Something like that. A little less, little less. Well, when you have visitors in January and February, we become five, seven thousand sometimes, but still.
So what she was doing was she had built something in the Asham already and this like a seed, she was taking to a broader framework and structure. And that is, Auroville. If you think about it, the next step is still broader. Where would it go? So Mother made this comment to Kirit Joshi. She spoke of three steps of her work. She said the first step was what she was doing in the Ashram school. She didn't say the Ashram, that's how he said it to us. Okay, first step was in the Ashram school, second was Auroville, and third was India. So when Kirit Joshi left and went to Delhi and then worked with the Indian government, he took it in that spirit that he was now working on or preparing the way for the third step. And that's how he stayed there for almost two or three decades and preparing a certain ground. And interestingly, when it came to a critical transition in the development of Auroville, he was right there in Delhi to formulate the framework of the Auroville Act. If he was not there, we would not have got what was needed. So Mother had this extraordinary foresight to see the long-term work and literally like chess pieces arranged to put the right people at the right time. And then the result is suddenly seen when it is most needed. If you think of it in these terms, first this node that is the Ashram, the broader framework of India and the world, you see a clear path of something developing. But for the Mother, it's not separate steps, one after another. It is a simultaneous thing of which the primary focus might be here, but she's working on those things at the same time in a continuum. So what happens in Auroville between two individuals is in some sense symbolic of what will happen or what is happening on a deeper level in global affairs.
We used to see this in the Ashram. We see it now on a broader scale and more complex space in Auroville and to some extent even in the Indian space. And so everything is representative, everything is symbolic, everything is connected in her vision. If we begin to see things from this perspective, it all makes immense sense. And in that sense, when we come back to the question of what is Auroville today, in terms of the ideal, okay, we've fallen short. But in terms of what has been achieved, it's as if the future of humanity is sealed and the certainty of human unity has been realised, here in the symbolic space and therefore there in the psychospiritual space, which will turn out to be eventually the physical reality also.
Narad (00:22:47):
I remember when I was in close contact with the chief conservators of forests, they wrote a paper saying that Auroville would be a desert in 50 years because the soil was being washed into the sea every year and a farmer couldn't grow two bags of ground nuts on one acre, couldn't support a family. Look what happened. But there are also problems of governance now that have arisen very critically. Not everyone is expected to do the Integral yoga in Auroville, but do they need to know something of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother?
Sraddhalu (00:23:43):
The charter of Auroville in its very first statement, first focuses on who owns Auroville, 'belongs to nobody in particular but to humanity as a whole', putting it in the care of the totality of humanity. That is if you want to mess around with what's happening here, everyone should be involved in that decision. Okay, that's already compelling a unity. But then she says, ’but to participate in this, you have to be a willing servitor of the Divine’. And what that means, we have to look at more deeply. First requirement is a willing servitor, and that means you must want to do it not by default, by compulsion, but by conscious choice. It almost fulfils the requirement of what Sri Aurobindo described in the three efforts, aspiration, a conscious aspiration. And the second word is servitor, a willing servitor. And that fulfils the third requirement of surrender. You must be willing to serve what the Divine wants. And in that sense, and Mother used this word also, it's a space for karma yoga. In one of the messages she gave regarding Auroville, it's a space for karma yoga, everybody has to be involved in work and she uses the word karma yoga. So in that sense, yes, everybody is meant to be a conscious aspiring practitioner of yoga, at the very least of a karma yoga and ideally of a more complete and integral karma yoga, and even the integral yoga. Whether they know of Mother and Sri Aurobindo and their teaching is perhaps not so critical. If this condition is fulfilled, if they know of them and the teaching and have a deeper understanding of the yoga itself and its integrality, it becomes easier for them. But otherwise, this is certainly a requirement. And considering the nature of the challenge that you want to do something which has not been done before, against which there are forces opposed in which it requires each one to outgrow their narrowness and pettiness to become universal. How are you supposed to do that, if not by yoga? The very effort will compel on you, yoga. If you do not do it consciously and you're in that space, then you'll experience the squeezing pressure of circumstances, of the demand of circumstances. You'll experience this almost breaking..
Narad (00:26:28):
Crashing circumstances she said.
Sraddhalu (00:26:32):
But the whole pressure is oriented to free you from your narrowness and pettiness and open you to a greater universality. If you did it consciously, then suddenly that pressure is a help for you to speed up and you do not feel it as painful, but just a surge helping you to grow to widen. And that's part of the reason why things have moved slowly compared to what we would've wanted. Because at first there were not enough people who were consciously in the yoga.
Mother selected people initially when Auroville began, she herself chose who was to be and who was not. And we know for a fact that many people that she specifically said no, were later admitted and afterwards in a process which had broken down somewhat, a lot of people came in for the wrong reasons. And so there was a kind of confusion as a result. There was one case I remember who, where the Mother had specifically said that person would come and spoil the work, and then he was allowed in the very heart of the most sacred space and was the cause of major delays and problems later on. And when he was removed, things again started moving forward. So she had this extraordinary forward vision, but having accepted this, that there will be mixtures and these complexities when you look at it this way, that considering all these challenges in the very nature of the space, if a person is not consciously doing the yoga, you will experience enormous pressures which will squeeze you. And at some point or other, they will awaken to the need for a conscious progress. To the extent that in the collectivity there's a conscious attempt to grow spiritually, to practise the yoga, there will be greater harmony. To the extent that there is less conscious attempt, you will experience the squeezing, crushing pressure that compels change by breakdowns, by strife, by struggle, et cetera.
Narad (00:28:59):
That could be a long time because there are forces there who are still intent on delaying it.
Sraddhalu (00:29:09):
But it's the same thing in Ashram. You have to see the two in continuity. There's this very interesting letter. Someone asks, what is the difference between the Ashram and Auroville? And mother writes, this is June, 1968. Mother writes, the Ashram will retain its true role of pioneer, inspirer, and guide. Auroville is the attempt towards collective realisation. And of course then she says, unselfishness is the first need to participate in the creation of Auroville. Now, how do you expect to become unselfish? How do you expect to live in a place where you can be without conflict, without rivalries of nations, religions and ambitions where nothing will have the right to impose itself as the exclusive truth? You can't do that unless you are in a conscious yogic process and that's inevitable. Something similar happens in the Ashram and has been happening already that people who stay here without a conscious intention for a spiritual participation, they experience all kinds of distresses and internal conflicts and either they move quickly to some kind of a conscious participation, things break and they move or they leave. They leave.
There's another letter of the Mother again relating to the ashram in Auroville. Someone asks, what is the fundamental difference between the ideal of the ashram and that of Auroville? She says, there is no fundamental difference in the attitude towards the future and towards the service of the Divine, but the people of the ashram are considered to have consecrated their lives to yoga, except for the students. She says, whereas in Auroville, the simple goodwill to make a collective experiment for the progress of humanity is sufficient to gain admittance. Now she's so careful with her words, sufficient to gain admittance, but suggesting it's not sufficient to survive. You can get in with the simple goodwill to participate in the experiment for progress of humanity. Once you're in it, then the complexity of the challenge hits you and of course you have to grow. And it says as if you're led into the practice of the yoga.
Narad (00:31:52):
When we first began the work in 1969, many people wanted to work in the nursery- plants, the beautiful best environment there. At the time, there was nothing else. And I wrote to Mother and asked for her blessings for them and she says, she writes back, if people are willing to work in a collective harmony, there is no need to ask my blessings.
Sraddhalu (00:32:28):
Wow.
Narad (00:32:33):
So again, we are back to Auroville today. Can we speak a little bit about the Prime Minister's speech and visit? I think it could be good, especially since he mentions Divine Mother and Maharishi Sri Aurobindo a number of times. It gives many a great hope. Others are a bit against his visit.
Sraddhalu (00:33:18):
So I've heard from people living in Auroville that there are those in Auroville who have made a religion of saying no religion. So in 1993, I recall, we had a group of devotees who had come for Panditji's anniversary and we took them to Auroville to Matrimandir specifically. At that time, I think just the inner chamber had been made with the crystal and everything else was raw. And so we went as a group. And before entering, we had someone from Auroville introducing the space and the Matrimandir in particular. And the only thing she could repeat at least five or 10 times is, no religion, it's not a religion, it's not a religion, it's just a Matrimandir. It's a place where you will meditate, but it's not a religion, it's not a religion. And I was wondering, what's the problem here? And somehow that thing has come to a point where, alright, it's not a religion, but what is it then? It's a conscious effort to grow towards something, an ideal. And that ideal is there and Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have articulated that ideal, have embodied the ideal. Now you can certainly pursue the whole process without their names, without their forms and without their example or help. But on the other hand, you might as well accept that help and take it forward. So I'm not particularly attached to forms. There are people who don't like Mother's photo being somewhere and things like that, okay, if it helps them. But to refuse help does not make sense to me. And it represents rather the ego, which wants to say, I will do it, I will achieve it. And precisely lacking the humility of being a willing servitor to the divine. But I think eventually such people either get crushed by circumstances or they leave or get isolated in pockets. The Prime Minister's speech was beautifully structured. He particularly is significant because of the close contact he had with Dr. Kirit Joshi, who was as you know deeply involved also in Auroville's process and who formulated the Auroville Foundation Act, which was passed by parliament, who was always a benefactor for the Auroville project. And so he has given Modi a detailed understanding of what Auroville represents.
What is happy to see is from the very beginning, the Auroville project has always had the support of the Indian government and even the United Nations to the extent that they were supposed to participate, everywhere there has been only goodwill. It is, if anything, we have missed opportunities to draw the best of that goodwill, mostly because of internal conflicts. If all of us came together with the enormous wealth of goodwill we have, things could move so much faster and smoother. And this was seen early on even when Auroville had not physically begun when, and this was told to me by somebody who was working with the Mother directly, they were preparing a report to file to, I believe it was the Ford Foundation at the time. And the arrangement was that with this report, the foundation would fund the entire project, everything would be taken care of financially. The team had prepared under her guidance and Mother herself signed the report as in her authority as President of the Sri Aurobindo Society, which was to gather the funds and initiate the project. At the same time, another senior member of the society, not President obviously, because she was President and much lower in authority, but with a big sounding designation, he prepared a separate report, signed it on his authority, and sent it at the same time to the Ford Foundation. They received two reports, one signed by the President and one signed by this whatever his designation. And they said, well, we don't want to get involved in politics. And they withdrew and you can imagine what a disappointment that could be. The person who had helped to prepare the report, who narrated this to me, he said, I went weeping to Mother, and Mother was consoling him, "don't cry, don't cry, it's not your problem, it's my problem", she said.
Narad (00:38:52):
Yes.
Sraddhalu (00:38:54):
And at a biological age of nearly 90, she took on this extraordinary project and with the full responsibility of everything, including the financial and other burdens. And so if on the human level, if there was just a little bit of collaboration, cooperation, everything would've been so much smoother. But precisely because we are what we are as a humanity, all these conflicts get exposed in such a space and in the very effort to outgrow our limitations as we grow, there is this huge impact on humanity. And so you can think of it as a large collective yoga taking place within the space of the Auroville community, which is much more demanding than what is happening in the Ashram space. Much more demanding precisely because of the scope that we have described and its demand of being materially realised, the end result being all the way into material circumstances and governance structures and everything else.
Narad (00:40:14):
Why has there been so little funding from the world?
Sraddhalu (00:40:22):
Mother commented on this on a couple of occasions in the Ashram context. She said in part it was because of the waste, that the money power, she said she has seen the money power come all the way to the gates of the Ashram and then withdraw. And this is one of those examples which I've narrated of how the opportunity was there for the finances. Udar-da narrates an incident where the Mother assigned to him to get money from somebody in America, somebody written saying he wanted to come and he wanted to visit. And Mother said to that, well write to him to come with a million dollars. And Udar was hesitant. How can I just tell somebody, he doesn't have a million dollars, how can I tell him to bring a million dollars? And after a few weeks, Mother asked, did you write to him? Did you tell him? And he said, no I didn't. And mother said, oh, it's a pity because I saw a million dollars waiting to come and he was the assigned instrument for it.
Narad (00:41:35):
I remember when I was working for the handmade paper department and we had an opportunity to earn millions of dollars for the Mother, the famous Watman papers had gone out of business and there was only one Italian handmade paper for watercolour artists. I asked Mother for a name, she named it Arvind Papers. And I brought them to the senior man at Watman papers and when he saw it, he said, send this out to watercolour artists. Praise after praise came back and it never happened because the first shipment was waterlogged. They didn't pack it properly. The second shipment had black marks throughout. And they said to me, that's the way it is, accept it or not. So I found a man in Long Island who made fantastically beautiful handmade paper, watercolour paper, and he said, if you take me to the Ashram at your expense and return, he said, I will teach them. I sent it to Mother immediately. You won't believe what she wrote back. This is all a dream in the air and cannot be realised. And the whole thing fell through.
Sraddhalu (00:43:08):
Whoa.
Narad (00:43:13):
We have to grow.
Sraddhalu (00:43:19):
Yes.
Narad (00:43:20):
Auroville's governance now is in the hands of the Secretary and there's not really a hierarchical structure as yet. Isn't it necessary?
Sraddhalu (00:43:41):
Fortunately, the way Dr. Kirit Joshi structured it, the secretary's role is almost secondary. He's there only to ensure that finances are not misused and there's a huge freedom internally for local and decentralised governance. So Auroville has all the means needed to create its own governance structures. Mother gave her advice on the governance, which is, she said that, I dunno if I can find the exact thing here. She said that at the centre should be always the most enlightened individuals and around that an organisation and a discipline, a collective discipline, that was the reference she gave. And that part is always tricky when you look at group work. Nobody wants to accept a higher authority if they have within themselves a strong, powerful or aggressive vital. So this is one of the problems of governance for the future generally, for the world even, generally, how are we to allow for a higher standard of consciousness to lead and for the more dynamic and effective elements to follow? If you look at conventional business, you will find in most cases the business is led by those with the strongest, vital. If they also have a developed mind and a vision or some kind of an ideal, then that power is enormously made effective. But in most cases that's not always there. If you have a strong vital, you do not always have a higher light. Ah, this is it:
She is asked, what should be the organisation for the present and future? She answers, "Organisation is a discipline of action. And for Auroville, we aspire to go beyond arbitrary and artificial organisation", which is fine, you're just saying what you want to go beyond, but what do you get to? "We want an organisation which is an expression of a higher consciousness working to manifest the truth of the future". So again, she has articulated as an ideal. So how do you do that practically? She says, what should we do? She says, "A hierarchical organisation grouped around the most enlightened centre and submitting to a collective discipline". That's difficult to attain. And the problem here is we are looking at a new governance framework. Look at the human body, the mind, the higher vital, the lower vital, and then the physical skills. These are the four gradations broadly which one will lead.
And even in the mind, if it turns to a higher ideal, that would be perfect, but if the mind submits to the vital, higher or lower, then well you will have very effective results, but not necessarily in the direction that we want. Now you look at the same thing in a collective body. We have individuals representing broadly certain state of consciousness or certain skills, what should lead? Ideally the centre which is the most aware, the most awake, may not be the most effective if it had to do the work. But as a light, it can enlighten those who are more effective in action. So it means, again, submitting it means being sincere enough to recognise, oh, that person actually has a deeper sense of things. And to accept that as a reference.
In the old days in India, we had the structure formally organised where the king was asked to refer to a higher authority when he did not know what had to be done. The authority of the king itself was described like this. He's not the person who owns, he's not the person who rules unlike what you see in the Middle East or in Europe where the king owned the land, owned the people. In India, the king was the protector of dharma. His job is the higher vital protecting, what, something which is higher than him, dharma. And if he does not understand what is the right dharma here or what is the means to protect it, he has to approach somebody who has that knowledge, the Rishi or the yogi who would tell him this is the way to do it. And then the king would go and execute. And so this is ideally the framework in which collective governance would be most effective, but it means for people to already orient themselves sufficiently that they set aside their personal ego and especially the vital ego. And that's always difficult, but eventually it'll happen.
Narad (00:49:41):
I have seen in the early morning when I go out with the Golden Chain group to work at the Matrimandir, whether it's raking leaves or whatever, I have seen Aurovillians going to the chamber, many so sincere, so deep, go in six, seven in the morning, then come out. And it gave me a great sense of joy actually, that there are those there and not a small amount, but there are forces that are so strong against that.
Sraddhalu (00:50:26):
In fact, I think most of the, it would make a huge difference in the collective evolution, if more people living in Auroville were to visit the chamber regularly. Because the chamber represents not only the consciousness, it holds physically, it represents the soul of Auroville and your entry into that space is an acceptance of your alignment to the soul of Auroville. And of course the impact that the consciousness has in moulding you. If people had that, most of the problem spots you will notice are people who do not have that alignment and that's why there are problem spots. I can say all this because I have been very closely, I've been very close to the Auroville internal processes from my childhood when I was going there at the age of 12, spending entire day, sometimes a month or two at Aurolec. And I saw people from Auroville working with people from the villages, working with employees, and it was one of the hubs of many developments in Auroville.
So we had almost everybody coming there at some time or other, and I would see them at close hand and see the dynamics of these things. It was very interesting and educative. What Mother had done as an example about the finance, what Mother had done was she had created something which was a pioneer. The same standard she set in the Ashram. She said, do not do things this way because others are doing it. Try to do it in a way that others cannot imagine is possible. So literally you have to look at the future. The same thing in Auroville. And when Mother's great grandson had completed his studies and he wanted to go for further studies for engineering because that was the in thing. Mother concentrated for a while and then she said, not engineering, you go for computers. And he did. He came back and started in Auroville what was at that time a pioneering computer company.
And I've seen there the technology evolve from big refrigerator sized computers to what became eventually the microprocessor and desktop computers. And it was at that time on the cutting edge in the whole of India and in certain areas it was on the cutting edge of the world. I used to sit in the research and development room, which was forbidden for anybody because they had so many secrets and because I was so much into their thing, I would sit there and watch them and know even what they were doing and even helped in certain things. They developed a technology which allowed you through what was known as a parallel port, the printer port, to connect everything in the computer through the printer port. This had not been done anywhere else in the world. It was developed in-house by the engineers at Aurolec. They were creating computers which were the cutting edge in the whole of India at prices, which beat anybody else with service which was as good or better than anybody else. And so on. Had this continued, it would've been perhaps one of the major financial units for Auroville's sustenance. And somewhere along the way there was a tension between Auroville administration and the people running this and they decided to break away. They shifted all their resources out of Auroville, eventually became a separate company outside and then shut down this whole thing. And then what they had taken out, they sold off and it fizzled out literally, maybe some of them made money, but in terms of what could have been for Auroville, it was a lost opportunity. So there are many such incidents which point to the failure at a very human level, at the level of the potential Mother poured everything. And I believe the same thing is happening even now.
Narad (00:54:53):
There are some 54 nations in Auroville today, but we had a question about the Tamil population and the difficulties that they are facing.
Sraddhalu (00:55:13):
When Mother was asked what happens to the two villages which were in the space, which is designated as Auroville, she said they're the first Aurovillians. So in that sense, the problem is solved. Then comes the problem at the material level. How do you integrate considering that these are the values we have for the Auroville project and will existing villagers participate in those ideals? Interestingly, the children from these villages who grew up in Auroville schools often are very deeply aligned to these ideals. I've had interaction with some of them of and on at random. So I take it as a random sampling, deeply aligned to Auroville's ideals. Some of them, even they yearn to work in Matrimandir, this space or that and to put their creativity to service. I think the very fact that the space was designated as Auroville and Mother put her consciousness into that space, has worked on the children, especially in their growing minds, even if it might not be so of their parents. It is so of the children at least, who have had the opportunity to grow up in Auroville. And I think what is needed is simply to recognise that and give it a chance to integrate. The other problems which exist and often they exist with the older people can be worked at in a different way through a different kind of education and social engagement, and which is based on compassion and not from keeping a distance or some form of isolation.
What one sees in the whole development of the project, many things which could have been done early on would've prevented later problems. When not done early on, they have only exaggerated in time as a problem. One such was the question of land acquisition. And the same story happened in the Ashram. There was a time when Mother wanted all the buildings around the Ashram to be taken up, to be made a part of the Ashram so that the physical space would act as a buffer and a protection for the spiritual consciousness which is established in the centre. And she said, I don't mind if you pay more but get as much of the land as you can, buy up the land before the prices go up. Now the same guidelines she gave for Auroville, she said, first you get the land,
Narad (00:57:51):
I'd love to. <laughs>
Sraddhalu (00:57:52):
And she said, you don't know the limits of human greed.
Narad (00:57:55):
That's exactly. I wrote to Mother, or actually I gave a letter to Mr. Andre and he took it to Mother because there were two different camps, if you will. One said, these people have been here for thousands of years, pay them whatever they want. And the other side which I represented, I guess, was that we need to buy the land at this point. So I wrote to Mother and Mr. Andre actually took it to her and brought her answer to Auroville where we had a collective meeting and Mother's words - buy the land now. You do not know the power of greed. One crore for one acre of useless land in Bommayapalayam now.
Sraddhalu (00:58:55):
And with that money, imagine how many houses could be built and that money is being sunk in just buying a patch of land. It's ridiculous. And all of this could have been avoided with a little foresight and it was not a very big foresight. If you look at it, it doesn't need much. I remember once as a child, I was at that time maybe in my teens, standing on Mothers, before entering Mother's room. That space where we used to sit earlier. I looked at all the buildings around and it was so obvious to me, here is the physical centre of the world now. That's how I articulated. It's the spiritual centre and the physical centre for the spiritual power. All of this space, all of this land. One day humanity will be scrambling to come here. It was so obvious that we had to do that quickly. And that's around the time when the ashram trustees were giving up land, which had been on rent in Mother's time, and they were withdrawing from the rented houses, not purchasing. So if you have rented for so many 20 or 30 years, I don't know the exact number, then you have the first right to buy. They abandoned that, right, literally by stepping out of it. And I could see what a huge loss it would be today. The same houses, nobody will sell them because they will earn far more by renting it than they would by selling it for the rest of their lives. It's never going to happen. Now it's sad that you can see the opportunity slipping out. The tree, the banyon tree, the cotton tree...
Narad (01:00:46):
The silk cotton tree.
Sraddhalu (01:00:47):
Yes, Silk cotton tree, Silk cotton tree.
Narad (01:00:48):
Opposite where Sri Aurobindo used to stay.
Sraddhalu (01:00:50):
You can see it from Mother's room like that. And there's a huge beautiful dome of greenery. And every year it would burst out in these cotton puffs, which would float all over. It was like snow literally. And the land below that was a garden. And then there was some buildings which was being used by the ashram. That whole thing was sold off for 20 lakhs. And the ashram trustee then, Counouma, refused to buy it, saying It's too much. And just a little application of mind, 20 lakhs today it's going to be worth that much later. This is a bargain, he didn't have that. And it was bought by somebody who then sold it for triple the price who sold it subsequently for double of that. And then of course it'll never get sold again. But the people who bought it, the first thing they wanted to do was to cut the tree. Again, the way I saw it, looking from there from Mother's room, this is a tree that Mother has seen and has communed with the Mother, that has been here for a few thousand years perhaps, it was so big, that has participated in the ashram spiritual life and an idiot human comes and cuts it off because he wants to make an ugly building. It's so shocking.
Narad (01:02:14):
That room where Sri Aurobindo walked, he looked directly at the tree...
Sraddhalu (01:02:18):
He looked at the tree, you commune with it, the tree. This inner perspective of things, I found, has been lacking in the decision makers. Let's put it this way ,if that was there, if that had led the decision making, all of these problems that have been avoided, that's what Mother's saying here. It has to be led by the centres which have the light. And if you lead instead by blind sight, then you will end up with this problem. In practice, what happened was they built houses right around. There was a reaction, some people stopped the tree from being cut. So they built their house just around it and the tree suffocating. It doesn't get the nourishment it wants. And you can see its branches have dried up. Concrete, concrete, all that.
Narad (01:03:09):
There’s not much room.
Sraddhalu (01:03:12):
But all of that happened because the Ashram gave up the land, after having had it for almost 40 or 50 years. Just left it like that. We had similarly a huge garden which was called Nandaman, into which Mother had poured so much to develop it and they just gave it up. The owner of Nandanam had asked for a certain price. Now the story is like this. Mother agreed to take the land on lease. If she had bought it outright, the owner would've got less money and he was in need. So Mother agreed to a lease because it would help him. So at some point, time came, he wanted to sell it off, he made an offer, the managing trustee then, Counouma said, this is too much. So the owner went away, came back again and said, okay, I agree to your price. And Counouma said, once I have said no, I will not say yes. I am sorry, I'm taking a name. But it has to be said. These were people who had grown up with the Mother but had not opened to the deeper feel of things. And so when blind sight or blind ego makes a decision, it's an ego decision. And who am I? If I have said no, I will not say yes. Who are you? It's Mother's property. It's Mother's Ashram. It's Mother's work and you have to set aside your petty ego. But it didn't happen. And so we lost the garden. And then today if you go there, you cannot see it. It's just been washed out by building colonies. Nothing is left of it. It's a bit like that. So it's a bit of a sad story and I'm always trying to see is there a way we can get around this one day? I don't see it happening.
The only way it could happen is eventually the people who live in those houses that we have abandoned, their children would grow up as devotees. And one day because of the consciousness, it would merge. But that's like looking down three generations, it's not going to happen. But why is this so important? Why am I making a big deal of it? Because of the nature of the work that the Ashram represents in terms of concentration of consciousness. In the 1930s, the presence was so concrete, so dense, so intense. Because you're working on the physical consciousness, you need to bring down the spiritual consciousness to a material density. Okay? At that level, it is going to be impacted by physical things and physical circumstances and people.
So when Mother started the construction of Ashram, the original plan was to finish it within six months. It involved bringing 500 workers about, and in six months it would be done. Sri Aurobindo said no, he put a limit of 50 workers because he said it would spoil the work being done. It would dilute the consciousness too much to have 500 people working there for six months. Which consciousness would it dilute? That entire space going four or five blocks around the Ashram main building, which was being held in this way. And so the result was the Golconde construction took six years about. They were willing to have cost escalation and delay in construction to protect this, which was so much more valuable spiritually. And today when you've allowed all these invasions of crude businesses, cooking food and selling meat, one block down from the ashram, a political party opening their centre, one block away from the ashram, all kinds of other such activities. You can feel the dilution, the invasion of the world, the old world coming into spoil things. Similar thing has happened in Auroville, many patches of land which were not acquired. Now the prices having shot up, you have these interests coming in and trying to do things which are out of alignment with the larger objective. Speculators, speculators, but also those who have bought the land in the middle of green belt, you suddenly have this college.
Narad (01:07:39):
Yes.
Sraddhalu (01:07:40):
And in terms of consciousness, nothing very uplifting, nothing in alignment with Auroville. And what does it do to the green belt now? In the short term you will say, oh, not much. There's just a path. People coming, doing their work and going back. No, it's that short-term thinking. You have to see the consequences of what follows, subsequently around the college. So these are questions which unfortunately now maybe too late to resolve, but if we learn from the past errors and act now at least where we can, maybe we can avoid more extreme such cases. We drifted into a bit of a negative space..<laughs>
Narad (01:08:27):
I want to end on a positive space and that is Mother's conversation of three hours with Sri Aurobindo telling him what will be happening in Auroville, speaking about food and cuisine. Can you imagine? no, but it was so beautiful because Sri Aurobindo was putting his force into all of that as she was talking with him. And you know, this gives such great hope, such as how she saw all of this, how far in the future we don't know, but she saw it.
Sraddhalu (01:09:13):
Yes, there is one way this might still happen, the lands being acquired, and that is if there's a government intervention. The government has the right for the purpose of a project to acquire lands, a fair price, means at a fair price, but literally forcing their way. Yes, that can still happen.
Narad (01:09:30):
And there's a lot of talk about giving the landowner a house and some land outside. So there is that discussion going on.
Sraddhalu (01:09:42):
But something like that might still happen. And I'm hoping with this visit of the Prime Minister, if there's a closer engagement and with the government participation, things like that could happen. Spiritually though there's the point here is, spiritually there has to be a protective space which can hold the power and the presence that is invoked. For, if you recall the Mother's observation, that she said, build the Matrimandir. The sooner it is built, the better it will be. Why? Because it would manifest physically, the soul, the soul of if in the collective consciousness. There is an awareness of what collective measures are needed and there is a conscious aspiration calling for help for that correction. Not only the knowledge, but the means will be given to achieve it. And I believe that increasingly we will find the resolution for some of these sticky problems will be when we gather collectively as one. The problem itself came because we were divided. The resolution will compel on us the unification in consciousness at least for the purpose of that problem, that altogether irrespective of any other differences on other areas, that together we align for this resolution and we work for it. And it'll be similar both in the Ashram and in Auroville.
Mother said, thankfully, that the project does not depend on people, but we have to understand what that means. People's alignment, people's conscious participation can speed up, but the unconscious participation or the refusal to align will delay, but it'll still happen. And she saw things a few hundred years ahead. 'As a place of unending progress and a place of constant ongoing education'. Auroville is growing in that direction very clearly. The experience I had, and I think it was last year during the January / February when we have the largest number of visitors. I think the number of visitors exceeds the number of residents at that time. It's the coolest period and that's why. So I had been to a couple of programmes in the evening, just to get a feel of what it's like. And sitting in one of the programmes, I suddenly had this experience of a widening in which I felt all the other programmes going on in the whole space of Auroville and the direction that it was moving. And I saw it's as if every style of art, every style of music, every style of culture and form was gradually being drawn and represented in that space. Sometimes some of the most mixed to the most pure, spiritually full range. And I saw that it would grow to be a hub of one of the most creative cultural spaces in the world. There is no other place on earth where such a large diversity has an opportunity to represent itself, as here in Auroville.
And things are already moving in that direction. There's nobody to tell you, oh, this is not good. This should not be done. So it allows for everybody to step in and then the rest happens according to people's interest. If people don't find it worthwhile, they just don't come and that thing fades out. But in that space, when all this full richness is represented, there'll also be an interaction and exchange and a cross-fertilization of the richness of the artistic forms. And some of that we are beginning to see in certain unusual programmes. There was this year, a few days ago, what was called SEAS, something like soul exploration. Something in which many different, it's all there on the Internet. One can see it on YouTube. Many different kinds of things were placed, in a bit of a patchwork, but many different forms of artistic expression brought together, trying to hold it in a common thread. But that's possible. And the richness of the people and the consciousness that they represent allows for this kind of richness and for this gathering. Nowhere else in the world, it's possible in this way. So there are many such very positive indicators of the direction of the growth. And if we put our attention on that and try to strengthen that, I think these other problems will fade in importance.
Narad (01:15:22):
Any questions?
Audience (01:15:32):
In the case of a disputed property, which I understand is that house across from the dining room where Nishikanto used to live? Can government intervene in anything like that and take it over?
Sraddhalu (01:15:44):
In principle. In principle, the government can step in to take up by paying a sufficient amount, but there has to be a good reason for it. And that good reason won't exist unless all of us collaborate to make that good reason good enough.
Audience (01:16:05):
I had worked in that place when I used to work in the dining room years ago. It was nice. Yes, now it's all cemented up.
Audience (01:16:15):
So one of the problem of Auroville is that the Auroville community doesn't feel like welcoming more candidates because we don't have houses enough. But most of the people who come don't have 15, 20, 25 lakhs to invest in a house. So the community is swinging from forcing people to invest, but they don't have, to opening the gates because we need more people. So we go back and forth and we don't know how to handle that problem. So have you thoughts about how to deal with that question.
Sraddhalu (01:17:00):
Yeah, the question of housing has become one of the problems. What you said was you have to invest 25 lakhs to buy a house, and most people who are coming in don't have that. Maybe they wouldn't come if they had that in the first place,
Narad (01:17:17):
But also to support yourself for a year. There are all kinds of food and everything else is charged.
Sraddhalu (01:17:24):
And somehow internally, Auroville is not able to build the houses and so on. But to me, the problem is actually an artificial problem. It's a created problem. It's not a real problem. If you think of what happened when Auroville started, all these people who came in the desert land, where did they live? We didn't tell them, okay, we have built a hundred houses now we can have a hundred people come. They came in a barren land and then they put up these keeth roofs. Keeth roofs. Yes, it was hot. It was uncomfortable. What held them there in that discomfort? Again, I'm telling you this because I've seen those days, I've seen people living in that and I've seen the same people now shift to these very expensive, fancy buildings and the question is this, if the new people are willing to stay in the Keeth roof houses, what's the problem if they're willing to build it themselves at a nominal cost or even do it themselves? What's the problem? Start with what you have. Instead of saying first build the infrastructure, then you will allow, which is breaking the cycle. Instead allow people to come and they will create the infrastructure because they need it.
Audience (01:18:34):
They need...yes, yes, motivation.
Sraddhalu (01:18:35):
So you have reversed the priority first and second point, which now this is going to sound a bit weird, but this is the direction of the future economy. If you look at what's really happening when people build houses, the material is already there. It's the local soil which has been packed to make bricks or mud. Okay? The assembly of it is to be done by a few workers. What's the actual cost in terms of real expense is the effort you have to put to take the mud, make a brick, pile it up, set it up, et cetera. Where do you need physical money? Where do you need the rupees or dollars or whatever? Bitcoins, whatever it is, you don't need that. If people are willing to work with their hands, you can build all the houses you want. There'll be a nominal cost for the concrete which you have to buy. But even that, if you had your own industry for making concrete to take care of it, the nominal cost will be some less than one 10th of buying a ready-made house, which someone has made and is selling to you for a profit. And how would we do this? Well, the very people who want to live there, if they're young people, let them participate in the construction of their own house. Let them share in helping each other to build each other's houses. That's how the original houses of Auroville were made.
Narad (01:20:13):
We lived under Keeth roofs for years!
Sraddhalu (01:20:14):
And who made those Keeth roofs? Yeah, you made it yourself, maybe asked for help from a few people, but that's it. And the same can be done even with concrete houses. If you think about the component of money involved, it's less than one 10th, maybe far less. The rest is all labour. What we have done is we have broken into the false economy, which somebody comes with the money, buys things, hires people to build it, and then you pay him money, which he had brought and he takes this huge profit. If you look at the component of money put in and put out, there's only the difference that he has taken as a profit. Knock that out. The money he brought in is the money you've replaced. There's no money. You brought in money, you took out money. There's only effort and raw material. Raw material is free. Effort is free. You get my point. You have to think a bit differently. But when you start thinking like this, you suddenly realise all it requires is for all of us to get up every morning and say, I'm going to get, dedicate so many hours in helping physical construction of houses. And if everybody started doing that, okay, the young people at least, it would happen very quickly. Auroville had a problem with roads and somebody came and said, okay, let's just start making three or four metres of roads every day and in a year we will have this whole thing and that three metres is not much to do. And they started like that and they've made so many roads. Now the problem is when you start thinking like a capitalist, and that's not going to work here.
Audience (01:22:02):
May not be this main priority...So another question. So one of the aspects of Auroville, which has grown over the years is the administrative aspect. Even the building, new buildings, new services. The entry service now is composed of in these different subgroup of more than 20 people taking care of a hundred candidates. Quite a few years back it was six or seven people and more and more rules and more and more papers to be filled and more and more of what administration usually go about. So what is the strength? How much does it make sense or not sense? And also how much is it based on fear? Fear that some abuse the system. So we create rules and how much is based on control? We want to control that. Everybody respect the rule and this and so what is this influence and how can we counteract it?
Narad (01:23:06):
That's a very good question. <laughter> I personally have seen a lot of this and I have seen in previous cycles people who would feel that they had the right to judge this one and say no, and another one and say yes, based on some psychological decision making. Now I understand it's trying to open up more with this larger group, but you may know more than we do about what is happening. Can you tell us?
Sraddhalu (01:23:56):
In the selection of who you admit, Mother used to look at the photograph and say okay.
Narad (01:24:04):
Or no?
Sraddhalu (01:24:05):
Or, no, yes.I had a conversation once with Paru Patil. She was the only woman trustee in the Ashram at that time, and it was about this thing about decision making. She said, Mother used to decide, now we can't do that. So I said to her, well, do you know anybody in the Ashram whom you would respect enough? And I mentioned her name. She said, yes. Would you respect his decision? She said yes. I said, then why don't you just ask him Immediately she blanked out and said, No. And when you look at it more personally, said before, a dozen people who want to join Auroville or the Ashram have a brief interaction with them, not more than five minutes, 95% of the cases straight away you will know, yeah, it's okay. This is fine. Very few less than 5% you will say, I'm not sure. Certain things are so obvious whether they fit or they don't fit. And then there are those few which are, and you may give them a little more time. You say, all right, let's try it out for six months. But the others, in most cases you can just say Yes, it's obvious and it does not need a very high spiritual development. It just needs a basic inner sensitivity and openness of the heart to feel a person. And I believe like 50% of the current population of the Ashram or Auroville would have that kind of sensitivity already reasonably developed. Okay, some more, some less, but so it's not such a big deal to select. The rest is a question of procedure. You have certain requirements which are legal. Most of those can be finished within a few hours. It doesn't need more. All the rest will be for people to adapt, to learn, to work themselves through. And so the whole process can be so much simplified. When Mother assigned people to go to Auroville, she just said, you take care of this. You will start the school. You will look after the nursery. What did you do? Did you have paperwork to fill? You got to the work, you started doing the thing you were supposed to do. And we have to focus much more on that rather than this background documentation, which is understandable, you need something, but what you need is basic minimum. The rest.
Narad (01:26:38):
There was also the statement about rules. And I find there are so many rules in Auroville now
Sraddhalu (01:26:46):
Rules that come from fear, no, rules that come from a fear.
Narad (01:26:49):
From fear.
Sraddhalu (01:26:52):
Fear and need to control.
Audience (01:26:56):
I feel one fundamental problem is this concept of still wanting to be boss. I have a good friend in Auroville from Kerala, and he says clearly, I mean, he works with a lot of Tamil workers and he clearly tells them, I'm not your boss. We are just working together. Now this to me is the clear Auroville spirit. So if entry group could also take that attitude, it's not up to us to decide, we're going to let the mother decide. You would see that circumstances would arrange themselves and the right people would come, or if they came for a while, they would drop out if it didn't work. It's a lack of trust, I think in the higher power. If you try to regulate by mind, you're just making a knot that you can't untangle.
Sraddhalu (01:27:49):
In the 1940s when Vasanti came in and joined the Ashram, she was allocated work in one of the departments. I think it was a library at that time or the reading room. And the person in charge introduced her to the work and said, although I'm supposed to be the person responsible, I'm not your boss. We are all Mother's children and are answerable to her.
Audience (01:28:15):
Yes. That's the way
Sraddhalu (01:28:17):
If you take it up in that spirit and okay, if you don't like that particular form, no religion type thing, and you think that's a religion, then remember the willingness to serve the Divine. So your role is only to serve that. These are very basic things. Again, it aligns to the earlier question about practising the yoga, and these are very basic approaches of the yoga. If we take that attitude that we are here not to judge people, but to assist the process, which is led by a higher truth by the dharma, so to say, then the person would not have these issues and things could happen so much smoother. I remember once when I went to Germany the first time, there were a few people and one of the ladies told me she had applied to join Auroville and she was rejected. And looking at her, I could see that she would have made a perfect participant, but it was during that period when they had tightened the rules and fear and all that stuff. In the way Sri Aurobindo articulated it for the Ashram, he said, to be able to have a, to be able to grow freely, spiritually, one has to have the space to make mistakes. If you do not have the freedom to make mistakes, you can never grow freely and there cannot be a true spiritual growth. And this attempt to prevent mistakes from happening, this attempt to tighten too much, to block and thinking always in the worst case scenarios, that's what suffocates everything. And if we accept that, we will make mistakes and we will learn from them. And if we all do it in a spirit of mutuality, that we even allow others to make mistakes. We may warn them, we may say, watch out for this, but still you let them do it if they need to, then I think you do not need so many rules. You do not need so many regulations, and the space can be very trusting and open.
Audience (01:30:42):
To me, it's an insincerity. If an official says, we don't have the power of Mother and Sri Aurobindo to decide, but then they go ahead and make the rules. So they are in fact deciding.
Sraddhalu (01:30:51):
Exactly. You're right, you're right, it is. It is.
Narad (01:30:56):
Let's close with a moment of silence.