EWS #9: Mother’s Auroville and Sri Aurobindo’s Ashram
Mar 14, 2018
Topics:
Narad (00:00:48):
Welcome to our continuing series, Evenings with Sraddhalu. Today we continue on Auroville. We've just had a visit from the Prime Minister, and I must say it's a joy to travel on the roads, but what else do we need?
Sraddhalu (00:01:18):
You can explain that comment perhaps, a joy to travel on the roads.
Narad (00:01:24):
Well, the government did all the roads, so the Prime Minister would travel comfortably. The speed breakers were removed, so there would be no impediment stopping and starting at any point. And two main access areas to Savitri Bhavan and to the Matri Mandir are complete. So it's so much faster now. Have you been?
Sraddhalu (00:01:54):
No, not yet.
Narad (00:01:54):
Oh, it's excellent. Well, you had some questions from a friend.
Sraddhalu (00:02:04):
Yes, in continuation from what we were discussing last time. For me personally, the deeper connection between the Ashram and Auroville is extremely important. It's important to the success of the Mother's work. First and foremost, both her work in the Ashram, in Auroville, as well as her work in the world. And this link has been somewhat, I would say, neglected even by some actively reduced even attempts to break the link
Narad (00:02:47):
or opposed
Sraddhalu (00:02:48):
Opposed. And increasingly as that link forms, the fulfilment of the purpose of Auroville and the Ashram will be seen visibly more and their influence and impact on the world also will be seen visibly more. As that link weakens both Auroville and the ashram suffer. And we have to understand why this is so. I read last time two of Mother's quotations on what she said about the relationship between the Ashram and Auroville, and she said that Auroville represents much more the external expression of the work which has been developed first in the ashram. On a deeper level, the focus is more inner in the ashram and more outer in Auroville. But of course in both there is an inner and outer, but the emphasis is different. Now that being said, obviously the two are dependent on each other. If the inner foundation is weak or its influence not sufficiently strong in the outer work, then the outer work will not be what it's meant to be. And especially for a challenge like this where you're trying to harmonise contraries, it'll fail if the inner is not strong. The basis of that harmonisation is the inner,
Narad (00:04:13):
The inner being, the
Sraddhalu (00:04:15):
Change of the inner, of the consciousness
Narad (00:04:17):
In the ashram?
Sraddhalu (00:04:18):
Well in the ashram and in Auroville
Narad (00:04:20):
and in Auroville?
Sraddhalu (00:04:21):
Because both have an inner aspect. So the practice of the yoga by whatever name in whatever form in Auroville is critical to Auroville's success. But the occult connection with the ashram makes it such that if in the ashram there is that practice and the two are linked, the benefits of that practice equally will reflect in Auroville. Would help those who need to practise on the inner and allow their external focus to be supported by an inner push of consciousness without them consciously having to work internally. Let me explain this a little. Within a single community, if there is a core group that holds the consciousness, the external surface of the community where they're not really concerned with the inner work, but more focused on the outer would find this inner support spontaneously, effortlessly, sometimes not knowing where it's coming from. The fact that even there's a handful, five, let's say 10 even, who are in intense concentrated alignment, attunement with mother's consciousness makes it easy for everybody else to feel that connection, even though they seem to make no special effort. You remove this core and everybody will feel depleted and disconnected internally.
Narad (00:05:48):
Has this ever been attempted in the world before with this core group?
Sraddhalu (00:05:55):
I think it's always been the case in every community, that there's always a core, especially in matters of spiritual efforts or spiritual communities. The core is always small and it's holding the spiritual force. Let's say spiritual power makes for the success or failure of the rest of the work, effort, community. I've seen many spiritual communities which have lost that core. And very quickly it becomes hollow forms repeated mechanically. People feel something, some touch of the ideal when they read, but there's no force in the collectivity proper. I've seen other communities where the inner core is so strong, you enter the space and you can feel you have entered a field. I've seen as an example, the SRF Self-Realisation Fellowship in America at their headquarters. They are on a hill, approaching the hill. Perhaps one could feel there's something there, but as we approached the entrance, you could feel from the gates which were open, you could feel the power flowing out into the road. It was amazing to see that. And entering in, you could feel the entry into a field and working entire space lawns up to the external barriers. Everything was held with a dense power, presence. And I asked them about it. I said, who is, what's the basis for this?
Narad (00:07:30):
But this is after Haridas Choudary.
Sraddhalu (00:07:31):
No, this is the self-realisation fellowship. This is the, Paramahansa Yogananda
Narad (00:07:40):
Yogananda, I've been there, yes, and I know what you mean.
Sraddhalu (00:07:43):
Okay. And it was evenly everywhere. It was not that there was a physical, obvious centre, if there was, at least I was not taken there, but it was evenly felt everywhere, including the most external lawns. And so I wondered, I asked them what is the core of it? And they said they have about nearly a hundred monastics who are in deep concentration, meditation, practice, whatever it is they do who are isolated from the exposure to the world, totally dedicated to their spiritual pursuit, which is self-realisation. So it was clear that that was the core which was holding the power of the community and of the space. Now this being the point for a single community, when you have a single consciousness, which is the Mother's taking a double poise, the Ashram and Auroville, it's both are her consciousness.
The difference is only the emphasis: more inner, more outer. Then the relationship between these two is as critical. If the inner core is strong and connected with the outer work, then the Auroville community and its work will feel the sustaining power of the spiritual consciousness filling. Even if they're not conscious or consciously making that effort, it would allow them to dedicate themselves almost exclusively to an exterior action and work without necessarily needing to compensate for it by an interiorization or an inner focus. Now this is a critical issue here because the work requires you to throw yourself in. There's so much to be done and so difficulty with materially. And unless there is this support, it's very difficult to be able to do that. You have to, every time you get exteriorized too much, you would've to compensate for it with an inner and so on. It's very difficult. But if this was there and if the link is strong, it's easy, almost effortless.
Narad (00:09:47):
In the late sixties, up to 1972-73, you lived in her force there.
Sraddhalu (00:09:55):
Yes. And you were there. You experienced it. Yes.
Narad (00:09:58):
Absolutely.
Sraddhalu (00:09:59):
And you had to make no effort to feel her force.
Narad (00:10:02):
You were carried, so to speak. You carried along no matter how great the difficulty.
Sraddhalu (00:10:09):
And now suddenly, if that link is broken, imagine what would happen to your situation. This is what happened to Auroville when in the late seventies, there was this effort to divide Auroville separate it from the ashram and break that link, which was successful.
Narad (00:10:26):
and to control it.
Sraddhalu (00:10:27):
And to control it. And this was successfully done on an external level by the forces, people involved. The result was this sudden dissipation of the power and the people working there now had to struggle. They couldn't hold or they felt it was futile or impossible to proceed. And so many left.
Narad (00:10:50):
I'm one of them. It was impossible. There was no harmony, not a bit.
Sraddhalu (00:11:00):
And just compare it with, when you first came, everything was possible. You could feel the ideal within reach.
Narad (00:11:09):
Against the most extraordinary obstacles of the land, almost desertification of the area.
Sraddhalu (00:11:20):
So it was that severance of that connection, which led to this loss and the inevitable dissipation. And the result was the delay of the work of Auroville and its realisation, enormous delay, entirely avoidable. But if you take into account human nature and its inevitable tendencies, you would say, all right, it was to be expected. Now in between, there was an attempt again to reconnect, which happened, which began in the late nineties, mid nineties perhaps. And increasingly as that happened, everything began to accelerate. The Matrimandir's growth, which was going so slow, suddenly speeded up. The fund started coming, work started speeding up, and it was completed much more rapidly than they thought possible at the earlier rate. And again, there was an attempt to create separation by forces. We have to take it that way. But my point in this whole discussion is to bring attention to how critical this occult spiritual link between the ashram and Auroville is.
And if this can be reawakened in its more surface forms, it's always there spiritually that nobody could cut off because that's held by the Mother. And if that can be brought up more in its surface forms also then suddenly Auroville's working and growth would be enormously easier because of the Presence, which should be felt much more concretely. But also for the ashram. Something extremely important, the character of the external expression of the spiritual life and the forms of life which mother had developed in the ashram, they have got subdued, almost suppressed to the point of loss of creativity. We are in the, so-called downward passage, downward period of the fourfold cycle of development. And at that point, it's as if all the creativity is gone, nothing's happening. People are stuck in mechanical ruts, repeating certain forms. We have a few sparks of creativity on an individual level, individuals sustain, but the collective creativity is no more seen. If you recall going back 20 years, even every year, every section of the school had some major programme beginning with the kindergarten. Every year the kindergarten used to do an entire one hour or sometimes two hour programme with the children of the kindergarten. It stopped, I think it's almost 20 years, it stopped. And similarly for other levels, all the creative elements where we came together for the creativity are pretty much gone. A few forced elements remain, but they're more perfunctory. You do not feel that same enthusiasm. And this aspect, which is a problem for the ashram, would also be corrected with this linking, taking place with Auroville because the aspect of the external expression would be re-vivified. I would even conceive of a time, if this bond can be rebuilt externally, I would conceive of a time when there would be a more free exchange of people from between the ashram and Auroville as it used to be in the beginning, where those who want a period of greater inner work, would shift into the ashram space. Those who want to move into a space of manifesting their creativity and expression in life would move closer to the Auroville space. And there would be this constant dynamic exchange between the two communities because they're really one, they're one form of the Mother's work.
Narad (00:15:13):
You said ‘if’ so many times, I ask how?
Sraddhalu (00:15:21):
A large part of it would begin with this recognition of the need for this and the importance of it. And this is why I'm speaking of it with so much force. In between peoples projected the two as separate communities with separate objectives and separate administrative structures, et cetera, et cetera, all of which is partly true. Of course they're separating their focus in their governance frameworks, et cetera. But the recognition of the interdependence and their continuity, continuum on a deeper level was completely set aside. And this must be brought back into the awareness of people first. Once we recognise the value of this, we will start exploring means of reconnecting. And that which is currently happening more on a personal level. People do go through that exchange on a personal level, would gradually take forms on a collective scale in some group structures. That is how it would begin, I think. But just first, as a first step, becoming aware, I want to... Narad himself has been a significant force in bringing this unity through the Om Choir, isn't it? That's one of the collective structures where Aurovilliians come to the ashram for the Om choir, ashramites go to Auroville for the Om choir. Both are taking place on different days of the week, but it makes people come together across, and as far as I'm aware right now, it's the only external form of this bond linking the two.
Narad (00:17:12):
It seems to me then to be incumbent upon those in the ashram to initiate this perhaps?
Sraddhalu (00:17:23):
Yes, on both sides,
Narad (00:17:25):
When Gerard went to Mother with that question, I think I mentioned to you, 'could you tell me the difference in the ashram and Auroville', and Mother said, 'the ashram will always be here, for those who wish to practise the integral yoga and Auroville, it is so wide', so it must originate here.
Sraddhalu (00:17:54):
Both sides. Both sides. So this thing of what it represents in terms of the link has a still deeper aspect, which is the understanding of it. What are the facets or aspects of that link of the work being done in the ashram and in Auroville and how it relates to the larger work in the world. It's like a three-step process. I want to read from something that the Mother has shared with us. It's something that she wrote. It was published in 1954, but what it represents is something which was a deep reality of her consciousness long before the ashram was started. So it's titled a Dream.
Now before I read, for those who are familiar with it, they have associated it with Auroville, but it's not, it's not. It has been wrongly projected as describing Auroville separate from the ashram, you see, and this was the error, in fact, the text, as you'll see, Mother says, this is being done here in the ashram, and this is long before Auroville was started. So let's go through the elements, but I will point out as we go through how close this formulation is to the charter of Auroville. And you'll see in this dream that mother wrote 1954, all the key elements of the Auroville charter.
So first she says, 'there should be somewhere on earth, a place which no nation could claim as its own, where all human beings of goodwill who have a sincere aspiration could live freely as citizens of the world and obey one single authority that of the supreme Truth'. A straightaway, 'Auroville belongs to nobody but to humanity as a whole. But to live in Auroville, one should be a willing servitor of the divine'. It's all there. The concept is same, the wording is slightly different.
Second, she says, 'a place of peace, concord and harmony, where all the fighting instincts of man would be used exclusively to conquer the causes of his suffering and miseries, to surmount his weaknesses and ignorance, to triumph over his limitations and incapacities'. So 'place for constant progress, growth', that element of the Auroville charter, 'A place where the needs of the spirit and the concern for progress would take precedence over the satisfaction of desires and passions, the search for pleasure and material enjoyment'.
So it's again this idea of a continuing evolution, 'In this place, children would be able to grow and develop integrally without losing contact with their souls. Education would be given not for passing examinations or obtaining certificates and posts, but to enrich existing faculties and bring forth new ones'. Now this is all about the education aspect where Mother uses this term ‘a place of unending education’, but the idea is unending begins with the children and then grows into the adult space. So you'll see here the same idea. She speaks of children, but in those principles she extends all the way to the adult education, 'Non-formal education, life itself has an educational space. In this space, titles and positions would be replaced by opportunities to serve and organise the bodily needs of each one would be provided for. And intellectual, moral, and spiritual superiority would be expressed in the general organisation, not by an increase in the pleasures and powers of life, but by increased duties and responsibilities'.
And straightaway, the entire governance structure is articulated. It has to be based on consciousness. Those with a more evolved, more developed, more wide consciousness would be given a position commensurate to their development of consciousness. Now this principle, if it had been followed both in the ashram and Auroville, all of our problems would've been reduced to a hundredth perhaps. And I don't think I'm exaggerating. Almost all of our problems are so avoidable, and it's only because of this, and this is so critical. She says, 'positions and the general organisation will be reflected by the growth, intellectual, moral, and spiritual superiority. And that would be represented in the duties and responsibilities. The more you have the growth, the more you have responsibilities and duties.
Then the artistic side, 'beauty in all its artistic forms, painting, sculpture, music, literature would be equally accessible to all'. Now, when she says equally accessible, it means it'll be a constant part of the life. It's not like you have an art section and you go to it, okay, it's open to everybody, only a few go. It's not like that. It's literally its impact would spread into the whole community. And we see some of this in the early days of the ashram. You will be able to tell us about when you had a programme where you worked for it. It was not a separate section. Everybody somehow got pulled into it. Yes, very true. And when a performance was made, everybody came to participate to listen and to appreciate. In the organisation of the Ashram theatre, for example, the way the Mother had done it, there was no one person in charge. She put one person in charge of the stage, one person in charge of the makeup room, one person in charge of the audience and reception, one person in charge of the courtyard, one person in charge of the scheduling. They all had to come together to make any programme happen. In a way, it's frustrating, but on the other hand, you realise what she was trying to do. Every event, and this was only for the theatre. It was not so far, let's say Ashram gate or dining room. There, she had one person in charge. It's like everybody had to be pulled in for a collective event and everybody had to put their best and nobody was left out. And these are the events which bond and give an opportunity for the lift in consciousness.
'So the ability to share in the joy it brings would be limited only by the capacities of each one and not by social or financial position. For, in this ideal place, money would no longer be the sovereign Lord'. This has been successfully realised in the ashram for a long time until recently when it was reversed. It's a strange thing. You see, we had no experience of money living in the ashram. We came, we gave everything to the mother, and that was it. I remember until the age of 25, practically I had never handled money. I didn't need to. And at that point I was forced to be able to engage with it. And it was almost something so new to think in terms of money and the whole perspective of people, events objects was so different because of the upbringing without money values. But something happened, and this happened around 1993, 94, maybe 95 in that period, those two, three years, I was working in the archives at that point, and there was a certain pressure to formalise certain structures of the accounts.
Till then, none of us in the ashram departments ever had to worry about money. We had to buy a computer for the archives, we put a chip, it went to someone, and the fellow who handled the money was outside our scope, and we just decided the technical specification, and then we got the machine and we worked with it. The money part was outside our purview. Suddenly a decision was taken. Every department would handle its own accounts. The result was every individual who had anything to do with some objects coming in or out had to be now handling the money aspect of things. And literally overnight, the old world of money crept in and subverted that whole work which Mother had built up.
And I remember an event where we were sitting in the archives, somebody from the audit department came and said, we are making a list of all the objects which belong to the ashram. Whose is this? Whose is this? At some point we had a few objects which we had brought from home. And so we said, ah, we brought this from home. And the man said, 'so how can you put it here? This is an ashram department. You should write your name on it'. And it was such a shock. I was so disturbed. Till then, home, ashram was one. Now suddenly we were told, what is in your home is different. What is in the ashram department belongs to ashram. It's the same relationship people have with the government. They go to a government office. This belongs to government. It's not me. I can do what I like. It doesn't matter. You come home, and this is mine, not yours. That fake artificial division was reintroduced. It was subtle, but it was widespread and it happened overnight. And the result I've seen now is that that value system we had has been mostly lost in most departments. In a few spaces where the need for money exchange is not yet strong, those still retain something of the old values. But the new people who have come in into those spaces, they've never had a chance to outgrow or get free of the fake values of money-based importance of things.
But still on a practical level, we can say the ashram does not involve internal exchange of money, which is a big deal. Auroville is still struggling with this and Mother foresaw that. She said, there'll be a passage where Money would be used as a temporary transitional means, but as quickly as possible, there's a need to outgrow it.
Narad (00:28:39):
There are a few who have tried to, for example, clothing, food that there would be no money exchanged.
Sraddhalu (00:28:49):
And it's been extremely successful as far as I'm aware. In Auroville, there are exceptional experiments on different kinds of financial structures, including, this is so outrageously unbelievable anywhere in the world that in a community within Auroville, everybody shares a single account. What money you earn goes straight into the account and anybody in the community can draw from it or put into it as they need. It's entirely based on trust and a deeper acceptance of a sense of family. I don't think even it can be done everywhere in Auroville that it's actually being done in certain pockets and it is something quite exceptional. There are also experiments with what is called local currency, which are extremely important. But now recently with this new GST framework, there's a crisis in Auroville, because every transaction is going to suck out some tax, and now they have a choice. It's actually this crisis, which is forcing a rethink. Can we get out of the money system and get out of the whole taxation? If they can catch this challenge, opportunity, then we could very quickly shift to a non-financially non-money based framework.
So then she says, 'there work would not be a way to earn one's living, but a way to express oneself and to develop one's capacities and possibilities while being of service to the community as a whole, which for its own part would provide for each individual's subsistence and sphere of action'. Now, this thing is, it's fascinating because I have experienced it in the ashram in the old days where if you felt the need, and this happened with me, I would like to experience what it's like to work in this space or in this kind of activity. I could just go to that person who's running the department or who's in charge and say, I'd like to work here for a while, for a few hours. And I go there because it gives me the sense of growth. And it was possible. And there was this very free exchange of mutual learning.
In my student days, it was something which my Mother had kind of awakened in me as a possibility. She said, every year when we have the annual holidays for the school for one and a half months to take up some work in the ashram. So I think quite early on, I must have been 10 or so, I was working in the cycle department and the electric workshop, watch repair department, refrigerator department, electronics department, anything that interested me. And every year I had to think, ah, this year where would I like to work? What would I like to learn that's new? And this scope was there that you could just move across boundaries of workspace and literally enrich yourself to develop skills or capacities that you felt you lacked. All that has been hardened. Now it's become much more rigid
Narad (00:32:02):
And who would help you also willingly?
Sraddhalu (00:32:05):
Exactly. Yes, it's amazing. You could go to someone like Parichand-da, and he will give you all his time as if it's the most important thing in the world to spend time answering your trivial basic questions about flowers or horticulture. But that level of commitment was there to mutual support in learning and growth. That's feeling its gone. The culture is gone. It can be revived, but it'll mean again, changing the balance of what she has described here as the responsibilities given to those who have a broad consciousness rather than those who are merely in a hierarchy of authority. So this is an extraordinary part and it's element of this is present again in Auroville's charter, where Mother speaks of how all the spaces of work being part of an educational process and also this concept of the past knowledge and the future possibilities being bridged. And something of that is captured in this description. In short, she says, 'it would be a place where human relationships, which are normally based almost exclusively on competition and strife would be replaced by relationships of emulation in doing well of collaboration and real brotherhood'. This brotherhood, mutuality, and the emulation in doing well. We have seen in the ashram, you have lived it, you've experienced it, not for a few days, not for a few years, but for decades.
And it was so established, we felt we could never lose it. And in a sense, we neglected the things needed to protect what was created there. And at some point, this is all in the mid nineties when the old world began to creep in through some of the forms which I mentioned earlier. We did not stop to think, question what was happening as a collective. I mean individuals did, but as a collective there was no vehicle to have a collective discussion on these issues. And very quickly the dilution took place. I remember one of the very senior teachers, now she's head of the whole college section of the ashram. I remember a conversation with her in the mid nineties and something was discussed about how there was a dilution. It was just beginning at that time, but that was already shocking to experience that. And she said, I never imagined that we could lose it so easily. She was conscious of what was being lost and she did nothing. Even now it's like that. So the fact that it could be done to me is a promise that we can recover it. We cannot lose it forever. We can recover it if we make that effort just a little bit.
Now, all of this, which Mother has described here, was actually done in the ashram to a scale which is way beyond the human imagination. And then Mother is extremely practical. She says earth is not ready. Although all this she had achieved, she still knew earth was not ready. And so she says here, the earth is certainly not ready to realise such an ideal for, and the reason given 'for mankind does not yet possess sufficient knowledge to understand and adopt it'. There's an ideal, how do you understand the ideal? How do you adopt it? That knowledge is missing or some element of that knowledge is missing. And she's speaking of general humanity. 'Nor the conscious force that is indispensable in order to execute the ideal, execute it'. So there are two aspects, the knowledge and the conscious force, this knowledge the Mother and Sri Aurobindo gave us, that's not gone, that's available. It's still there. The imprint of their work and the content of their experience, it's still there. This aspect of the force that is indispensable, you cannot just do with the knowledge. This particular aspect of the force was what she was pouring into the community every day. When in the old days, every morning the whole community came to the Mother for darshan. The day started with the darshan, she would come to the balcony and she would bring down this downpour of force. You received it and you went to the work straight from there. And what was her intention? This force which you receive is what will carry you and sustain you into the work and through the work for the rest of the day, not just for the energy to do the work, but to lift the consciousness that you can do it as an active consecration, as part of a karma yoga. And the feel of it was so important. I perhaps mentioned in one of the earlier discussions we had, how there was a lady who was a super fast typist, mother wanted some work done, she typed it out and sent it, and my teacher came with the papers, gave it to the Mother. Mother held the paper and instantly commented, ah, mere labour.
Narad (00:37:50):
Mere labour…
Sraddhalu (00:37:52):
Meaning the consciousness of consecration was not there in the typing in the work for her that had zero value and to give this push to the whole community, this was the power she brought down every day for years, for decades.
Narad (00:38:09):
I remember the opposite also. I believe it was someone who was embroidering a saree or something, and Mother said, 'she took my name with every stitch'.
Sraddhalu (00:38:24):
And she could feel it. That level of commitment is not there. Now. A lot of people who are involved in that kind of work, they're gossiping, chatting, that focus, it's not there. Now I'm saying this not to rue what is lost, but to point to that which was achieved for decades. You can lose it for a few years, you can lose it for a couple of decades, but it still makes it possible for you to go back to recover it because the power she brought down, she's still bringing it down today. What it needs is for us to open and attune to receive. And this must become a conscious part of the collective work if it has to recover this aspect of the force, the conscious force that is indispensable in order to execute it. That is the ideal. And then she says, 'that is why I call it a dream for humanity. It's a dream'. But in the ashram, she had made it a reality, even if partially and so of this, she speaks now, and this is the last paragraph, 'and yet this dream is in the course of becoming a reality. That is what we are striving for in Sri Aurobindo's Ashram'. Her wording is so beautiful. She didn't say ‘in Sri Aurobindo Ashram’. Sri Aurobindo Ashram is a title, it's a name, it's not Sri Aurobindo Ashram. It is Sri Aurobindo's Ashram. You see, and we have forgotten that if you look at the Ashram website now, they declare themselves as a spiritual community in South India or something. No, we are not just a spiritual community. There are many spiritual communities in the world, and we are not just one of them. This is Sri Aurobindo's ashram. It is not a spiritual community. It is Sri Aurobindo's ashram. And this changes everything. It means he presides over, he owns everything. We belong to him. Everything we do is for him and to fulfil the ideals that he showed us and the way that he taught us. And if we're not doing that, we should not be here. It is Sri Aurobindo's Ashram. 'And yet this dream is in the course of becoming a reality. That is what we are striving for in Sri Aurobindo's Ashram on a very small scale'. 1954, it was what, 800 people, something like that? 'A small scale, very small scale in proportion to our limited means. The realisation is certainly far from perfect'. That we have seen also, 'but it is progressive. Little by little, we are advancing towards our goal, which we hope we may one day be able to present to the world'. You see, the goal was not just to create a space, but it must have a practical impact in the world. It's meant to be an experimental model. Community, township, Auroville equally, yes, 'that we hope we may one day be able to present to the world as a practical and effective way to emerge from the present chaos'. And so again, the goal is how we will come out of the current chaos of humanity into this ideal. And we are meant to create here a framework which is a model, put into practice the means so that others can see, ah, yes, this is how we could do it, 'to be born into a new life that is more harmonious and true'.
This text was then taken when Auroville was started. They remove the last paragraph where it refers to striving for in Sri Aurobindo's ashram. And that is why I call it a dream. It stops there and they put it as the framework for promoting Auroville as Mother's dream. The result was in presenting it like this, so many who came to Auroville who were attracted to Auroville saw it as separate from the Asham, saw it as something which was Mother's real dream. And the ashram itself was only a temporary support and discarding the focus from it or keeping it only nominally to the extent that mother was physically present in the ashram. And I remember still, it was for me a surprise once when I had written something about the ashram as Mother's dream. Somebody read that article and said, ‘but this text is for Auroville. It has nothing to do with the ashram’. And I said, where does this idea come from? And so the sense of the division was begun at that point when they disconnected the work done in the ashram from the work to be done in Auroville. And so I come back to that idea that two are deeply linked, and you can see what this text spiritually, the whole framework of Auroville is built on this and is only taking it to a greater level of articulation and organisation in the external forms of life. So increasingly as the ashram and Auroville reconnect themselves spiritually, both the ashram will get revivified in its forms of expression and growth, and Auroville will be revivified in its spirit in which its forms have to be, can be realised and harmonised.
So a critical component of this for Auroville is this concept which Sri Aurobindo speaks of in the Ideal of Human Unity. He speaks of the three terms of the French revolution, and he puts it in this context. He explains how there is this human ideal to want to experience equality. And it is an ideal because this is the nature of the self. It is the one self in all beings. And so the yearning to have the experience of equality is only a yearning to find that oneness in the self. And so he says in the communist effort, they tried to create equality by suppressing liberty. The result was you had attempted to create, realise one ideal by destroying another ideal, and that never works. And so it had to fail. On the other side, in the capitalist framework, they tried to realise the ideal of liberty but suppressing or destroying equality. And the result was you have the fake liberty of being a willing slave in a capitalist system.
You sign on the dotted line because you'll get paid, but the job you have is a job you hate to do and you're a slave to a system. You're bound to the machine. You only have the illusion of liberty. So neither of these ideals can exist without the other. You remove the other, the first one will be destroyed. On the other hand, neither of these can be forced together. If you try to bring equality and liberty, somehow humanity is not succeeded in it. And he explains why. He says there's a third ideal, which needs to be at the foundation for these two to coexist. And that is fraternity, a deeper sense of oneness, which unites us as a collective when that is there, as in a family, we can be free and we can be equal at the same time and there's no conflict. But if you remove the fraternity, then both these ideals separate and one of them is destroyed in favour of the other. Now, for Auroville, which is intended to bring this into forms that can be a prototype for the world, this aspect of the fraternity is critical. What is it that unites people? So at first there's an ideal, there's a form of the ideal ecosystem, eco living, sustainable new education, whatever new technologies, whatever name you give to it, but they're all okay up to a point. The thing which would unite everybody would be on the basis of a deeper sense of unity, which can only be spiritual, and it is here, that support that comes from the framework in the ashram would have filled that gap. The removal of that, the separation of that is what led to the fragmentation and the breakup into subgroups and the clashes between groups and the disharmonies, which you spoke of.
Narad (00:47:33):
That's interesting because so many people came from so many different countries with different ideals. Is that also not a contributing factor?
Sraddhalu (00:47:48):
Yes. Our concept or the idea form of the ideal would be different necessarily because we are different in our makeup. But when that underlying sense of fraternity is there, then the collaboration becomes almost spontaneous and we feel as if your different idea and my different idea only compliment to broaden our understanding of what the ideal should be. You remove that component of fraternity and suddenly your idea is different from mine, so it's mine versus yours. I have to suppress yours to push forward mine. And the whole thing breaks apart. It is this, which is at the basis of Auroville's success or failure, the underlying fraternity. And that can only come from a spiritual base, and it needs this spiritual energy which was gathered or which was supposed to be provided from the ashram.
Narad (00:48:51):
How will it renew or regenerate in the ashram itself?
Sraddhalu (00:48:59):
For Auroville, the physical completion of the Matri mandir was one of the critical stages that has given a physical base for this uniting power. And so at least within Auroville, for the Aurovilliians to recognise and look upon the mat, not only as a physical centre, but as the spiritual centre of their life would be the unifying factor, which would bring the community together and deepen the spiritual foundations. A similar thing has to happen within the ashram. And then a similar relationship between the ashram and Auroville has to be recognised. In the ashram something similar happened around that period where I spoke of the dispersion mid nineties. When somebody from the ashram went to the government at the centre in Chennai and Pondicherry asking to put the Sri Aurobindo Ashram on the tourist map of their tours, asking, begging for this invasion. It's so ridiculous. And he came back so happy with what he had achieved. And I remember at that point there were some of those in positions of authority who also celebrated the achievement. And I said, this is going to be disastrous. The practical result was suddenly you had these busloads of people coming to the ashram, being thrust into queues made to walk around the samadhi, not caring for where they were, not caring for what it represented. They're walking around looking here, okay, oh, there's white colour, or that's green. Oh, look at that flower, look at the bird, walk through, come out, buy a few books, and that's it. And suddenly there was this dilution.
And I remember until that point, many of us used to go to the ashram in the middle of the day because first of all, it was the hub of the work also. Many things for which we had to go again and again back and forth. We'd come by cycle, stop the cycle at the gate of the ashram, park it, rush in, do our work incidentally, also connect to the presence, come out and go back. Some of us I knew were doing it consciously two or three times a day. When this suddenly started, you couldn't do it. You entered the ashram. You had to struggle with these crowds. You couldn't feel the connection easily. And then suddenly they made a new rule, no cycles to be parked. All the cycles were pushed away so that the cars of the tourists could be parked there. And later even that became inconvenient. So the cars were parked out and the whole space was kept for tourists to mill around before they enter or exit. And it's been invaded now by sellers, sellers of toys, drums, making tweeting sounds. So you've suddenly created a public space for the public to have entertainment and sales buying and selling things in what was earlier the focal point of a sacred consciousness. And you cut that off from the community. And I remember the day when it happened, when the people around me who used to go to the ashram regularly, they stopped going, because you could not take your cycle all the way to the gate. You had to park far away and then walk and go through this milling crowd. And people stopped it, and I knew that it was a great loss. The result of it was the collective life of the ashram was spiritually cut off from its spiritual centre. We need to reconnect to that again, just as I spoke of Auroville needing to reconnect with the Matri Mandir, there is a physical and spiritual centre. We need to do that for the ashram, for the whole community, life to reconnect to the ashram and the presence in the ashram and around the samadhi as our physical and spiritual centre, the hub of the workspace itself.
Narad (00:52:57):
A daunting task
Sraddhalu (00:53:00):
But if we have to bring back the community life and its values, it has to be done. I don't think it's daunting. We just undo, undo the tourist influx. It can be done in many ways. I see. Oh yes, it can be done. First of all, you can have it removed from the tourist map or you can redirect it now if you don't think you can remove it, if you have an exhibition somewhere, let them go and watch the exhibition, and this place you say, ah, this is for meditation only. Okay, most people won't care to go there. There are ways to manage. It's not such a big deal. You can remove the hawkers selling things, making noises. Can you believe as you enter the ashram gate, you have people thrusting drums and squeaking devices on your face. You can easily tell them, sorry, in this space, no, they can do their stuff outside. There are ways to manage it, but it means we take responsibility for the space around the ashram. I remember until recently, there were some people who used to sweep the ashram footpath and the roads around the ashram early in the morning. And you could feel they were doing it as a sacred space which was being cleaned from mother's consciousness
Narad (00:54:16):
When the old stones were there that were removed.
Sraddhalu (00:54:20):
Yes, symbolically something happened. This was soon after this phase, late nineties, early two thousands, that somebody proposed that the entire road around the ashram be re-laid and the space in which Mother used to bring down all her power. You could feel it in this solid stone rock that was going to be dug out, the sand thrown away to be replaced by fresh river sand to put some kind of tiles, concrete tiles. And it was such a painful thing to see that being done. And then the brilliant person with that idea pushed it a step further. If you're putting these concrete bricks on the road, well, why not bring it to the ashram footpath? And the ashram authorities accepted it. The entire footpath was dug out and replaced. It was such a beautiful soft texture of material placed by the mother in those days. Beautifully done.
Sraddhalu (00:55:27):
The same texture as the walls of Golkonde all removed, dug out and replaced with this very ugly bricks. And I had this tremendous pain. I went to the back of the ashram where there was the gate through which the Mother came out, to go to play tennis where her car would be waiting. And I went there and I saw all those stones on which she has walked being broken and thrown away. And I went to the window and called the person living inside, one of the old sadhaks. He came and said, ‘what is it? Why are you disturbing me?’. I said, ‘these are the stones on which Mother walked. Can we not do something to protect these?’. He looked at me, he didn't know what to say. He walked away. And I spoke to another person who was responsible for things upstairs, and she said, ‘oh yeah, that's true. We didn't think about it. So she instructed the worker, okay, you see this stone, please keep this aside’. And then she went away and I don't think they did anything. Everything was, all those stones were taken and thrown away. It was so painful for me. What I did was, I picked up two of those stones, which were nearest to that gate, and I kept that, still have it somewhere. But it was strange to see how there was this invasion first at a psycho-spiritual level, which penetrated the community. And then physically it was followed by removing all the physical objects on which Mother had brought the force to have the old world values and energies replacing them. It went to the footpath of the ashram and then it went deeper. It was strange. It lasted for about a week. They cut all the footpath, dug out all the footpaths, then the same thing entered inside the ashram gate, followed the passage around the area where they have plants until it reaches the open courtyard.
The entire space, including the footpath and road was dug out and stayed for one week. I saw that and I said, ah, the force will enter all the way up to that point symbolically, I saw it that way, which did happen physically. I think 10 years later there were some goons, political goons who came and attacked ashram. They broke things and in a frenzy they entered as a group inside they went up to that point with vicious force destroying things. There suddenly they lost force and the whole thing fizzled out and they went away. But these were all physical consequences of something which had already begun at a deeper level. The question we need to review is to begin to value what we have. Not go for this shiny toys which are being offered. lollipops. Like someone says, oh, don't worry, I will pay for it. Let's break everything and replace with something which is better, flashier, newer. And that's not always the best. And the decision making needs to take into account the deeper things involved. More recently, they dug out sand, they dug out the place next to the samadhi to lay electrical pipes, cables, eight fat cables of this size dug out in the soil just around the samadhi. What happens to the mud you've taken out? This is samadhi sand where all the power has been held for the last 80 years. I don't play around with this. I don't know what the consequences will be. I see it only as symbolic of something shifting on other levels also. But all of that electrical wiring could have been an outside, could have been laid through the road, under the road, under the footpath, no problem. They had to do it passing through around the samadhi, digging up that soil. Something's wrong there. So it looks like in the decision making of things, the lack of the deeper sense, Mother was so particular about it. She said, not one brick in the ashram main building should be touched. Everything is connected to the larger connection there.
Narad (00:59:45):
She said it about the service tree also. She said, no branch should be cut unless it's endangering a building. And when I went to and said that the branches were bending low and you could go under them, I believe he sent it to Mother. And Mother said, they must learn how to bow.
Sraddhalu (01:00:18):
And when the storm came, I think 1971 and the branch broke, the branch of the service tree. Mother said it was a reflection of the level to which the ashrams collective consciousness had fallen.
Narad (01:00:33):
I was there and I pruned it, that branch. And it was a…
Sraddhalu (01:00:41):
So she saw in the physical symbols of the tree and the building, the connection of the spiritual, of the community life. And it's the same for Auroville and the Matrimandir also. And these are deeper truths which we must learn to recognise and reorient our perspective to see, look more deeply. The ashram and Auroville are not merely communities, even if spiritual, they are focal points for an evolutionary power and the supramental force to work on humanity and through humanity in the universe. It's not a trivial thing you're speaking of, it's something acting on the universe. We have spoken about this before in relation to other civilizations, other planets and beings. Something very special is happening on the earth with regard to the supramental forces action on matter. And here is the physical focal point of this. Nothing is trivial. Everything is deeply symbolic and by symbolic, not at the level of idea, but in terms of consequence of energy, of form, of external results. So this is Mother's dream in Aurobindo’s Ashram and Mother's Auroville. We should look at it that way, isn't it? In saying, in naming it, Auroville, she put Aurobindo’s name of course, city of Dawn, because Auro is also similar to Auror, but it is for her, it is a declaration, Sri Aurobindo’s city as much as Sri Aurobindo’s ashram. So if you look at the three step process Sri Aurobindo’s Ashram, Sri Aurobindo’s township, Sri Aurobindo’s Earth.
Medananda had this beautiful experience. He was out of the body, he was wandering in the universe somewhere. He didn't know how to get back. So he kept asking every being he met, how do I get back? And they said, where are you from? And he didn't know how to say it. He said Earth and no one understood. Finally he said, Sri Aurobindo’s planet. And instantly he was pulled back and he was back.
Narad (01:03:13):
And I believe it was, I don't know the wording, but someone wrote something to Mother and she said, you say that Auroville is a dream, but it is a dream (of the Lord), a realisation. Yes.
Sraddhalu (01:03:35):
That’s true. Thank you.