. ~:-:}t_~:.~ ~~"':J:~ f •• -' - -/ ~~ L • • ;,....., .... Vol. XIX, No. 3 Winter, 1993 - ; ~--,.. - ~f~ :.1.:;_- - ~~:4 ~

Last School, Aspiration, Auroville, summer, 1993

In This Issue: Life in the USA After Auroville ______._ 'o[/(l/10ratim Table of Contents Patrons "-i,- New Aaimal lloopllal A Partnership of Half a Century 3 Banlow,CA Roben A.-. An:11'­ By Joseph Spanier Goldea. CO AnmV.Pallll llallilnClle. MD Mrs.M.M.Alota SU-Splap.MD "-I: Ila Plllel To Play My Part in the Lila 4-7 McElllaaaa.PA Bloomqaill A Aaoci11o1 An Interview With Tom O'Brien Jlerble1, CA H. Pilk l'belpo W.._Ocok,CA llodySlaM The Only Way to Leave Auroville Newpcnbceob.CA Terry,-_ is to Leave the Earth 8-9 Arlel8- As-...... By Constance Ali.a.GA n.-Booc:lal Being Where I Belong, s.a-.CA IIGlleftO...O Seyrll~ Nothing Else, Nothing Fancy 10-12 Jlerble1, CA SriAllroblndo.__.,C­ An Interview With Francis Neemberry c-co Oolwal\i"-'7 Tuca,a,AZ 111111onSJo'lil Old BridF, NI We Are Still Aurovilians-Just in a ...Goeeabeq T-.FL -.r... Sdlweizr ·1 Community a Little Farther Away 13-16 T...,..FL AmadR.­ By Jack Alexander ~City.MO J-R.Spr O ' • Ooll:Pllk.lL Jyocl~ ,__,CA lulBdl ~llSloiDMD. Moving With Mother 17 MID Volley, CA 1a-,o1 By Fanou Walton 8-klmlm MM:iolne- Spdaallold.VA MartMeyer Dealing With the Collective 18-20 APOS."'-llco Alldrea-deLoo Body-Mllld-Soal lnlOplll Hoo'-1 By David Wickenden ...._Marplay - wldl-Ac...-1:H~ ~WI S-Cna.CA (Q) 614-1314

llcllNelld E>dyn S. Wymaa Auroville Journal 1993 21-24 5-.we.MD Caahriclfe, MA By Gordon Korstange

The Parliament of World Religions 25 Next mue: The Last of the Original Sadhaks By Bill Moss With the passing of Madhav Pandit, Dyuman, and others, the number of "original sadhaks," those fortunate The Cry Of The Earth-The Vision souls who came to Sri Aurobindo and Mother before and Work of Sri Aurobindo 26-29 World War Il, has dwindled. We will feature an inter­ By C. V. Devan Nair view with Amal Kiran and a talk in Auroville by Nirodbaran. If you have reflections or experiences you Centers 29-30 would like to contribute to this topic, please contact us at (802) 869-2789. A.U.M. 1993 31

Collaboration (ISSN 0164-1522) is published by Sri Aurobindo Association, Inc., 2288 Fulton St, Suite 310, Berkeley, CA 94704 , a non-profit, tax-exempt organization. Copyright 1993 by Sri Aurobindo Association, Inc. All passages from the works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother arc copyrighted by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram unless otherwise noted and arc used here with the kind permission of the Ashram. Photographs of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother appearing on these pages arc also copyrighted by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and the Delhi Ashram. A one-year subscription to Colloboration andNaUS is $20; ainnail outside the USA and North America is $32. All foreign subscription must be paid with a US dollar draft on a New YOB: bank or an International Money Order. Patron subscription is $40 or more for one year. Larger contributions, all tax-deductible, arc welcome for the work ofthe Association. In addition, contributions for Auroville and the Sri Aurobindo Ashram may be made through Sri Aurobindo Association, Inc. Subscriptions should be sent to Sri Aurobindo Association. Inc., 2288 Fulton St, Suite 310, Berkeley, CA 94704. Any editorial material should be sent to Gordon Korstangc. P.O Box 297, Saxtons River, VT 05154. Printed in the United States of America. 1bc expressed opinions of the authors arc not necessarily those of 1bc Sri Aurobindo Association or the editors.

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fundamental values and A Partnership social and political orientations which, with the love we had for each other of Half a as man and woman, were factors in our decision to Century get married. We believed that our By Joseph Spanier children, yet to be born, should live in an atmo­ WAS THREE YEARS OF AGE sphere of love and openness the day my father, a physician, to ideas of growth and I brought a baby into this world freedom for all of human­ who, unbeknownst to me, would kind. We reasoned that one someday be Muriel, my beloved wife could not plant a rosebush and companion for over half a century. hoping for beautiful In early October Murial died in my blossoms if it was planted arms. I thought how logically meta­ in the Great Sand Dunes physical it was that my father was the rather than in soil that had Muriel Spanier, with Anie Nunnally and Joe Spanier first person to touch her and I the last. been properly cultivated. The journey of our lives, of more We therefore created an atmosphere in and I were co-founders of a collective than five decades, was a romantic love our home along those concepts. in Woodstock, New York which was affair and an adventure in conscious­ As the years went by we worked partly based on the social concept of ness-a series of materialized dreams. together in the areas that were substan­ human unity in diversity. During the Muriel and I believed that one with a tive and meaningful to the advance­ past twenty-five years of our lives, we dream could be open to the wonders of ment of the human condition. In those worked for the development of Auro­ the universe and able to develop the early years, the defeat of Fascism, both ville, the city which embodied in its capacity to keep an open and searching here and abroad, was the predominant charter all of our beliefs~ne of those mind for the ever evolving truth. issue beginning with the the Spanish dreams which has now materialized. I was fifteen years old when I met Civil War. We were also visibly active Muriel was essentially a quiet Muriel at a party. This unbelievably in the struggle against McCarthyism. activist and a highly evolved human beautiful twelve year old with her We picketed with black people, being. Her gentle nature, graciousness penetrating brown eyes, sweet smile together with our children in their baby and just that soft smile with a modest and gentle demeanor immediately carriages, to desegregate the Atlantic sense of humor attracted people to her. inundated by entire being with love. Coast beaches on Long Island which During her illness of eight years of She and I each had the kind of were closed to them. We organized the virtual incapacity and pain without family which existed during the early first human rights committee on Long complaint, many people came from all part of the 20th century, consisting of Island when a black man (a retired parts of the world to offer their respect. parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, colonel in the U.S. Army) wished to, Her death has left me with an uncles and .cousins-all of whom but was thwarted from buying a home appalling void. To ameliorate the played different but very important on our block in a middle class neigh­ anguish of my being, I now resort to roles in our lives. That kind of family borhood. the memory of the meaningful and structure is now a rare and endangered Muriel was a member of the non productive half century with which we social phenomenon. governmental organization group that were ble~e joys and sorrows We were thus raised with certain worked with the United Nations. She fully shared, the achievements and even some of the failures mutually endured. Certainly there are no regrets In Memorium: Muriel Spanier in those memories. Only a sense of Muriel Spanier came to Matagiri, with her husband Joe, around 1970. At first loss and great pain that it ended. Yet they visited only on weekends, but after returning from a visit to the Ashram in can anyone hope for more? Just a little 1971, she moved in to stay, with Joe coming on weekends. more time to keep away the inevitable? It was during this time that she kept suggesting to Eric Hughes that they start Our generation is fading away to a publication. Eric, however, thought that there were already too many Auro­ make room for the next. Muriel and I publications. Then, in 1973, during a morning meditation, Eric received the traveled the road less traveled and it message, "Now you can begin." In September of that year, the first issue of was together that we triumphed. The Collaboration came out. future was never ours to begin with but Muriel went on to dedicate herself to other projects in the Yoga, especially we surely lived the past and my book distribution and Auroville. There will be a memorial service for Muriel at memory of that will endure. Matagiri on July 3 at 10 a.m. during A.U.M. At that time, Joe will spread her ashes on Mother's mountain. Joseph Spanier Jives in Boulder, Colorado. ------lltliM#i%'1------

To Play My Part in the Lila 25 years after the founding of Auroville, Collaboration decided to An Interview With Tom O’Brien contact former and current residents of the physical/psychic Note: This was the first interview done was particularly painful. In a sense, I community to get their reflections for this issue, and it was subsequently left to get a better perspective on on their experience. If we missed sent around to about a dozen myself, yoga, and my own life direc- you or you didn’t have the time, Aurovilians in the USA as a touchstone tion. please be encouraged to send us for their responses. your thoughts on the questions Gordon: What difficulties did you that are addressed in the following Gordon: Wby did you leave face when you came back to the USA? articles and interviews. Auroville? Tom: I felt like a foreigner when I can see that it created a lot of confu- Tom: Well, I left being a resident of returned. I had traveled through sion confusion about values, Auroville in 1979, but Auroville is still Europe, The Middle East, and Asia priorities and social expectations. It within my heart and I feel deeply before reaching Auroville and was took years to sort out. connected to it. accustomed to being in foreign First of all, it was very difficult to countries. I had been away for about Gordon: Do you mean, returning and leave Auroville. It was a struggle to three years but was somewhat amazed trying to find how you can fit the make that decision because I felt so and surprized to get to New York and Auroville ideal into concrete contribu- hopeful and in love with Auroville to feel like a foreigner again-this just tions in this country? begin. There were obvious worldly didn’t seem like my culture. That was problems that contributed to my a bewildering experience, because I decision, such as that I missed my was raised in America. And yet, had I had been away for family; my father was in his mid-705 gone through such changes and soul• about three years but and I wanted to see him before he searching, living in India, that I didn’t was somewhat passed away. feel like an American. Out of that In addition, I had no money. In fact sprung a lot of difficulties: How am I amazed and I had spent the money I had put aside going to make a living? Where will I surprized to get to for my return fare and had to borrow live? What kind of life am I going to New York and feel from a brother-in-law just to fly back. live (now that I’m in this foreign As much as I wanted to give every- country)? like a foreigner thing to Auroville and did, I had no again-this just trust fund nor financial support to lean Gordon: Yes, I felt the same thing- on. During those years in Auroville, you arrived back and you were kind of didn’t seem like my there were a lot of financial crises a blank slate. One of the reasons I left culture. going on, but some people seemed to was that I had never done anything in have resources. I didn’t. I didn’t feel the USA, never held a job, and yet all Tom: That’s right. That’s right. When comfortable living in a state of poverty. my training, especially as a man, up I initially came back, I had no idea how Those were some of the practical until the age of 22, was that I would to do that-or how I could even begin. considerations. get a job one day. So there were those After a few months of being here and Another thing is that I’m a homo- inner expectations that I had to staying with friends and family and sexual, and I felt, when I went to somehow prove myself. working odd jobs, I decided to return Auroville, that I was going to be to Matagiri. The emotional and celebate. It seemed to be the most Tom: l can recall struggling with this spiritual support of other devotees of yogic thing I could do, and Yoga was/ issue when I was in Auroville and Sri Aurobindo and the Mother was is the central thread of my life. Also, I being quite confused. I was raised to very important. While living at didn’t feel a part of the gay scene in go to college and become a profes- Matagiri I landed a job teaching 70’s America. When I went to sional of some kind, and then I tabled emotionally disturbed children in Auroville it was with the intention that that approach to life. I was really a Woodstock and making an extremely this was my home and that I would try flower child of the 601s, and in the 70’s low salary by American standards. But to live a life of brahmacharaya. But I was a teacher, librarian, activist. given my mindset of poverty, it didn’t struggled with that. I still longed for lived at Matagiri, and basically did not matter. It was more than I had, and I some kind of relationship, and it didn’t get on this career spiral track, because I gave everything to Matagiri anyway. seem like it would happen in Auroville. felt that what was important was That was another very personal reason. consciousness and helping to create a Gordon: I had a similar experience. In addition, the collective process new world. On my first job I was offered a salary was quite chaotic then. I felt tossed But when I came back, I felt that I of $11,000, and I said, “Of course,” not around by factions and dizzy with the had to do something about those realizing instability-the split with the Ashram traditional goals. Looking back now, I

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Tom: That it was the bottom 25% of America or something lilce that. That it was barely out of poverty. I lived like that for a couple of years. In many ways Matagiri was another experiment. lilce Auroville, but after two years I realized again that I was somehow putting my personal life on hold, and that didn't seem correct. So I left.

Gordon: This is an interesting point tha_t I hope others will comment on--how to make the transition from Auroville into regular American society. Matagiri was one way for you to do it. For me, it .was being in a community (at Wesleyan University) of people studying Indian music. Did other people gravitate toward similar transition vehicles? Tom: Perhaps. Even after I left Matagiri and I was teaching in a small town in Massachusetts, I looked for people who were Kama, Perunal, AuroPrem, and Tom O'Brien at a peace march. meditators or who were interested in Indian philosophy. I became close to regard. In the beginning I used to feel it. I think what's happened is a sense people in Siddha Yoga and was happy this urge to give slide shows and that life is a process-it's a verb, not a to go to their meditations where I felt a talks-and I still might do that for noun. So "geographical place" I see as sense of community. I needed that! friends or a particular group-but in temporary. On a funny note, at the school the beginning that seemed to be the where I was teaching, I took some only way I could communicate Gordon: I guess my question is that Ashram stationary and wrote a Auroville, to substantiate it through ... when did you decide you were description/invitation about forming a slides or maybe some literature. going to stay here. study group on The Bhagavad Gita­ Now, it's more informal ... with just wanting to get people together­ people who get to know me. If they're Tom: Again, it's very personal. I'm and not one person in that school ever close friends, thef ll get to know fairly involved in a long tenn relationship asked about the study group. The only soon. If they're colleagues or profes­ with a companion who's here. He is comment I got was how pretty the sionals whom I know through work, it now tied to a life here, his family and paper was. To me, that was a reflec­ might be six months or so before they career. That's a big piece of it. I also tion of how much of a foreigner I was find out I've been to India. And it have this sense that everything is to my fellow Americans, but eventu­ might be a statement or two, such as temporary, and that I'm here now, and ally I found a few who were interested that I lived at an experimental commu­ while I'm here I want to be as rooted as and together we created a cozy nucleus nity in India that has an internatio nal, I can be, whether here is for the next of seekers. evolutionary focus. Then if they ask ten years or next ten months-I don't me more about it. rn provide greater know. lnere is a real strong sense of Gordon: lnere's another theme here: details, but if they're not interested, temporariness about everything. I used the difficulty in communicating the that's as far as 111 go. to feel insecure with that thought, but Auroville experience to people with now I take comfort with it. There's this whom you find yourself in daily Gordon: When did you feel like ... I sense that one of these days I'm_going contact. That's another good question don't quite know how to put this, but back to Auroville, either for a few for everyone: Did you tty to communi­ either you had "made it" in this countty months or a few years. That sense of cate the Auroville experience to or you didn't need to go back or you returning has never left me. Americans whom you met on a day-to­ were on to something here-do you I did return once, in 1989, only for day basis. know what I mean? a few weeks because of work constric­ tions. It was both great and weird; Tom: If we were close, I would say to Tom: It's actually an ongoing, not an weird to go back for only a couple of this day; yes. However, I've gone answered, question. I still think of weeks having lived there for a couple through an evolutionary process in that Auroville as a part of me and I a part of of years. It was a bit of a shock. But it

5 ------411-@itki#ii@t-a~------

was still so sweet to see the growth of You see, I also lived in Matagiri for slides and talks at local colleges, as the community and the beauty of the a few years as well as Auroville, and I well as being always ready to talk to forest. experienced the same "pressure," if you visitors about Auroville. A few years So I can't say that a particular date will, by the collective that wants you to later, I started a newsletter for the occurred when I said, "Now I'm be married to it. Mother said that the Matrimandir that encouraged tithing. staying in America." That has never true marriage is in the spirit and not in Around 1983, it distressed me to happened; it's all been a transitive verb. any outer conformity. If one is not bear that the Matrimandir construction happy or growing in a relationship, not might have to stop for lack of funds, superficially but deeply, then perhaps and Arya Maloney and I felt like doing one should leave. something. He went to Auroville and, I still think of In many ways I didn't continue to from there, kept me abreast of what Auroville as a part grow in Auroville and finally felt that I was happening so it would appear in had to leave, and I am glad that I did. I the newsletter. Eventually the work of me and I a part of belive now that it has been right for me was taken up by AVI-USA, and the it. I think what's to return to the USA. It has been Matrimandir Newsletter came directly happened is a important for me to claim my gay from Auroville. identity, to struggle with that; I am I was involved with the Nexus sense that life is a trying to play my part in the Ii/a-world group which linked together devotees process-it's a play-as a man who seeks truth, the new of Mother and Sri Aurobindo. As a verb, not a noun. consciousness and is willing to accept group we collabc;>rated in helping to get my karma as a gay person. I didn't feel Nexus set up which in turn became the So "geographical that I could do that in Auroville. In no Sri Aurobindo Association over the place II I see as way does that diminish my allegiance years. I became quite involved in that temporary. to the Work, which is a Divine process and also helped A.U.M. get off the throughout the world. ground. Then, in the past few years, with Gordon: It was different for me. For Gordon: That leads me to another PeaceTrees, in welcoming the wonder­ five years I worked and did my question: besides coming into your ful young Tarnilians. It's been a real American thing. Then I reached the own as a gay person, what other ways joy for me to have many of these stage when I said, "That's it. I don't have you been able to grow here that young Aurovilians come and stay with want to do this regular job anymore," you might not have done in Auroville. us. I continue to support Auroville and took a job in a Quaker school, financially through donations for something more Aurovilian. At the Tom: One way is as a teacher. I felt a certain projects, read Aurovil~ Today same time I went to Auroville and certain futility in the use of my talents to keep up-to-date, talk to people who realized that I wasn't going to go back and gifts in Auroville. I did teach come from Auroville and host periodic permanently-that I wanted some kind some of the Tamil village people visitors. of relationship with Auroville that English, which I loved to do. But I didn't involve staying there. Because, worked on Matrimandir, in the plant the other aspect of Auroville is a nursery, cooked, did construction work commitment to the place and the ... I felt great doing that, but I also felt ideals, and this feeling that it would that my greatest gift was to be a There's this sense take such incredible dedication and teacher; and it didn't seem to me that perseverance. That's why breaking teachers were really wanted in that one of these away from it was so difficult-and in Auroville in the late 70's, even though I days I'm going some ways always will be-because of know now that there's been a tremen­ back to Auroville, the feeling that Auroville is the real dous growth in valuing education. I work. Being there is the real work. didn't know how to give myself either for a few integrally to the community; and it's months or a few Tom: Even when I lived there, I didn't only through giving that we grow. years. That sense quite feel that. I have an inate rebel­ Corning back to the USA and claiming lion against what to me is a fundamen­ my role as a teacher enabled me to of returning has talist attitude-that there's a "right" grow, both professionally and person­ never left me. way to do things, to be Aurovilian, to ally. be spiritual. I believe that it comes from a need, a collective need perhaps, Gordon: Did you continue to work for to feel a unity with others in the Auroville here? Gordon: What aspects of your process, whether it be in Auroville or a Auroville experience are still with you? particular religious denomination. Tom: Initially yes. I got Matagiri to However I rebel against that. Maybe import Encense D'Auroville, and for a Tom: I came to Auroville through the because of my strong upbringing which couple of years Matagiri became a Mother and Sri Aurobindo, and what was Irish Catholic. major importer. Informally I gave they have done for me is to revolution-

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flowers and foliag:e. These are little ways I might rem•~mber. Life here is a p,ressure cooker of time and money, and of course that's also bUe of anywhere in the world. But in the USA when you have a job and bills to pay, y,ou must conform to a certain lifestyle which is stressful. Then time becomc,s precious because you have so little free time. That's something I miss. I feel that I had much more time i1n Auroville. So this life that I'm leading now, well, I know that iit's what I need to do for this moment (and this moment might be another tten years), but I know in another part of my heart that I want to live a different way. I value having more freedom-being less busy than I am now. I'm not complaining about my life because I :feel grateful for what I have and ... fairlly fulfilled with what I'm doing ... but ~here's the wish for Muriel Spanier, Tom O'Brien, and Bina Chaudhuri something differeint. One of the main differences is to have more "time" in ize my perception of what is a human Gortloo: What about on the day-to-day the day. being; and in a nutshell what that is, is level? that we are all the divine though we might not be awake to our divinity. Tom: I meditate nearly every day. I Therefore the life process, both think my work as a psychotherapist is individually and collectively, is to largely based upon my view of what it I came tc• Auroville means to be a human being. For all through the eternity I'll be grateful to Mother and Mother- and Sri Sri Aurobindo for opening that awareness in me .. . Aurobindo, and But then there's the more banal, the what they have I have an inate memories that come back. We had rebellion against termites in our last house, and I was done fo1r me is to what to me is a reminded of how the white ants were a revolutiionize my regular feature of Auroville, while percepti<>n of what fundamentalist once in a while, here, there might have attitude-that to be a termite inspection. is a hum1an being. there's a "right" Gordon: It reminds me of what we way to do things, said earlier about poverty. We've lived Gordon: I agree with you, I think to be Aurovilian, in the "third world," and no matter about that aspect of time a lot. I didn't to be spiritual what happens here, that is always in mind taking the village bus to Pondy, the background, a reference point. even though it took 45 minutes to go 10 miles. You kn,ow, it's ... Tom: Here's a mundane way of awaken to that divine potential. The perhaps addressing that. There are Tom: OK, you ~~ the sights, the reason for Auroville is to have a times when I'm in awe of what most people, the animalls, the flow of life. It laboratory where that potential can be Americans take for granted, like hot is here too. We ju1st need to take time ... incubated... hastened along. water, a roof over my head, clean to see-and be. Auroville is a special place for the drinking water, a garden that's beauti­ collective process, but I don't feel that ful. Auroville is the only place where I'm a lover of beauty, and there's an evolution is happening-it is happen­ abundance of beauty in America. But Tom O'Brien Is a sccial worker and psychotherapist wflo lives in Upper there are still times, particularly in the ing throughout the globe. So I try to Saddle River, New Jersey. keep that evolutionary awareness alive winter, when I miss the beauty I knew in my heart and mind wherever I go. in south India-the proliferation of

'J ------...... i9'@@4§fo,@f■r------The Only Way to Leave Auroville is to Leave the Earth By Constance

1;' SEEMS TO ME THAT THE question why one leaves I Auroville----or what is the nature of life after Auroville-is one that assumes a rather conventional model of the universe. However, all questions concerning Auroville exceed the conventional and consensual dimen­ sions of human experience. I believe that. for an Aurovilian, the only way to leave Auroville is to leave the earth. In my experience, this is neither a fantasy, an idealization, nor a rational­ ization. And this belief is in no way affected by how the present "official" community of Auroville currently defines who is or who is not an Aurovilian or what does or does not constitute Auroville. Being an Aurovilian is an inevitabil­ ity for us. It is the tragic/comic fact of our existence on the earth at this time. 1bere is no getting out of it As long Remembering as we arc alive, we are unable to ignore the truth ofour purpose here-or to One evening in Mazatlan, Mexico, avoid our responsibilities to this Divine speaking with his soul (whether or not while crossing a street - I stepped into Work and to one another. he was aware of that fact). It was my eternity. I returned to a place where I This, of course, depends upon the first reunion with a member of what always am. In a diamond blue light, extent to which we remember who we another friend calls "the eternal where I always have been and always arc. family." In time, I met and recognized will be, I received my soul rising from many other persons whom I have the earth. When I returned to my body, My Personal known long before this birth. I had been changed forever. The Mother speaks of a "psychic witness self had become conscious. Awakening to Auroville family": a collectivity of souls who Purusha was separated from prakriti. Sadhana had begun. Before considering the significance, if take birth at approximately the same time - called to the earth for a From that point, I have been able to any, of living at some specific geo­ remember that I have a conscious life graphic distance from the Matrimandir common purpose. We are able to find (conscious lives) on other planes. and the banyan tree, I would like to each other here in our physical Since then, geography and nationality briefly outline my personal awakening existence, because, in more subtle have become meaningless. Somehow, to Auroville. Because, for me, the dimensions, we are always together. the body and the earth have become the primary question is: how can one be in Mother also speaks of the Supramental same. Where one is - is physical Auroville, in the first place? ship which is transporting souls to the new creation. It is symbolic of our existence itself. When I was twelve, I met "by I recall one day opening a copy of chance" a person who was to become a work - linking, through the transfor­ The SyntMsis of Yoga, reading a lifelong friend. When I first saw him, mation of our lives, the earth with the be was surrounded by a golden light new world. And, for me, it also sentence at random, and, in an intense The space in front of me seemed to symbolises the community of state of ananda, reali:zed that I had open and he appeared to be speaking to Auroville - a community which can found the voice of the one who had me from other dimensions. Later I only come into being here, because it revealed to me everything that I knew realized that I had been seeing and already exists. to be true. The fact that Sri Aurobindo

8 ------~111,&+Miii@■,------was real confinned that the sadhana Auroville. Aurovilians. The sacredness of the was also real, and that it was, indeed, a From the moment I arrived, I felt earth, the immediacy of Sri Aurobindo good time (the right time) to be alive. the fullness of Auroville. I had already and the Mother, remain unchanged. During a conversation with an become familiar with a subtle physical Life in America has been good for acquaintance in New Mexico, I heard city where we live together (regardless Iris and me. We have been able to the Mother mentioned for the first of where our physical bodies may be continue to work with and associate time. The room filled with a white located). The land of Auroville was with other Aurovilians. We have opalescent light and I saw her standing clearly the site where this subtle reality provided a healthy life and a quality on her balcony giving darshan. There was manifesting, externalizing. I education for our children (which, for was no doubt that I would be going to recognized it because (in a subtle us, takes priority over most other India. sense) I was already there. In a things). concrete way that I have not experi- Home enced elsewhere, I felt around me the Being an prescence of all the beings I knew and I arrived in Auroville in the summer of loved so intimately (though may never Aurovilian is an ‘68. The first part of my life’s journey have met). inevitability for us. was at an end. Even before birth, Often their faces and forms would Auroville had been my destination. I appear unexpectedly out of the akasha, It is the tragic/ was home. (I often marvelled at the and often I would later (sometimes comic fact of our people who, after making the pilgrim- years later) see them physically cycling existence on the age out to the Center, found that up the road to the Center, getting off landscape to be empty and disappoint- the bus, sitting in the Indian Coffee earth at this time. ing.) House. Old friends who had also There is no getting As in a fairy tale, where the hero found their way home. spends an adventurous life searching out of it. for the Sacred Mountain and one day Who Is An Aurovilian? arrives, only to face another truth: one I have returned to Auroville three must then make the ascent...1 soon It should be clear then that I feel it is in times in the past fifteen years, most realized that I needed to know my the nature of things that one either is or recently in August this year with my place within the creation of Auroville. is not an Aurovilian. It has nothing to son, Gopala. I do not feel that, being One morning in the fall of ‘68, I awoke do with whether or not one actually “outside,” I have fallen behind any in into a vision. I saw my life transform- resides physically in Auroville. (or the collective sadhana. ing, unfolding, expanding until it whether one has been “accepted”) The As a board member of Auroville became Auroville. And I saw innu- present people who live there are not International, I maintain some involve- merable other lives unfolding, inter- the community of Auroville-they are ment with Auroville’s development penetrating one another each an representatives of the community of (though, as such, I do not fool myself Auroville flowering into an integral, Auroville (though, one must add, they that I am fulfilling some indispensable rich and complex being. are the legitimate representatives). role). Most Aurovilians do not live there. In short, it is difficult to speak of The physical realization of the city life outside of Auroville, because I The room filled of Auroville is vitally important. It is have never really been outside of with a white inevitable. But we do not understand Auroville. As an Aurovilian, I am at opalescent light everything that needs to be done to home anywhere in the world I am a make that realization possible. Those citizen of the earth. On the other hand, and I saw her who live “outside” of Auroville are if Auroville did not exist life itself standing on her grateful to those who live there. On would be unbearable, impossible. balcony giving the other hand, life in Auroville is supported to a great extent by the Constance lives in Santa Cruz, darshan. There karmayoga of innumerable other California. was no doubt persons scattered about the earth. From what I have seen, I believe that, that would be for the time being, work done in Santa going to India. Cruz is at least as effective as work done in Kottakarai. This, then is the definition of “spiritual So ... to the question. Why after ten anarchy”. Each of us contains and years did I return to America? Hope- completes all of us. By faithfully fully, I am still following the true curve following the curve of our own lives, of my life. All other answers are we arrive at the common goal. One rationalizations. I have experienced no can never be out of place in Auroville discontinuity in my spiritual life. I do since each one of us is a place in not feel separated from other

9 ------.■ 'ol/abomtim ■....------Being Where I Belong, Nothing Else, Nothing Fancy

An Interview with said, "What's going on here?" and they Then I drove through the park in Francis Neemberry in said, "It's the Sri Aurobindo Ashram," Pondicherry, and the one thing that and I said, "The what?" made me fall in love with Pondicherry Auroville I had been on the road for awhile was when I drove by the governor's and was kind of weary. I figured I house on a bicycle and both the guards Editor's Note: I interviewed Francis on needed a clean place to stay, some saluted me. So here I had two police a hot Aurovil/e afternoon at his house good food, the beach and everything officers saluting me. But then when I (which was buin by Joan Tomb) behind seemed nice and it was good to be turned into the park and I saw this Certitude. He looked fit, even though around westerners. So I went to the tower or whatever it is, it reminded me he had recently gone through Typhoid Ashram and asked them if I could stay of Juliet of the Spirits (a Fellini movie) fever for two months, wflen, he told me, there. Madhav Pandit was the one and I thought that for sure Fellini was he had spent days unable to do who I came in contact with, and in town and that he got his inspiration anything but stare out the window. The Madhav and I had an instant clash. We for both scenes from being here. fever had done nothing to shake his became friends over the years, but at When I decided to stay in Pondy I "at-oneness• with Aurov/1/e, nor his that particular moment, it was very went to Pare a Chabon and Daibai, delight and confidence in lffe. Probably trying. I didn't realize .... actually it who was running it, tried to give me no one in Aurovllle is more willing to WI!$ the first Ashram I was ever in, so one of those little rope beds-I mean I say what he thinks and feels in decep­ who knows what I realized, but it must have looked really ragged, tively simple terms. turned out that we were actually because everybody was trying to save yelling at each other, and Amrita came me money, so Daibai tried to pass me Gordon: We should start at the running in, wondering what all this beginning here. noise was about I said I wanted to Francis: 1940. stay in the Ashram and Madhav said I went to see the Gordon: Well ... how about 1968. that we had no money and we couldn't Why did you stay the first lime in stay. I had just come down from Mother with the Auroville. Calcutta where I did a lot of business same head as Francis: I was totally unaware of and I had a wad of hundred rupee notes going to see the Auroville when I came to India. that would choke a horse, so I just Gordon: lbose were the good old broke them out and said, "What do you Pyramids or days. People passing through-- mean I have no money." Angor Watt or waylaid by Mother. I was too. Then Amrita calmed Madhav down Francis: Well, let's see. I was sitting and sent us off to a guest house, and the Taj Mahal in Madras and looking around for good we were just hanging out here, being food, good French cooking, and it was among the westerners and eating nice off on this dormitory with all these 1968 and I was in the Connemara food. I thought that Fellini (Federico little rope beds, and then he tried to Hotel, and I was just looking. So they Fellini, the late Italian filmaker) was in pass me off on this little claustrophobic said, "Try Pondicherry," and I said, Pondy because I walked into the room with a bed, and then finally we "Where's Pondicherry," and they said, Samadhi area and there was all this walked by this big room, and be told ''Take the bus." incense and everybody in their white me it was a family room-5-6 people I think it was like 4 rupees at the envelopes and what not, and it looked could stay-so I gave him 6 months time or something. Actually, I was like a scene out of 8-112 and I was rent on a family room and became his travelling through India by taxi up to totally entranced by iL best buddy instantly. that point and 4 rupees didn't really I would sit at the Sarnadhi every He gave me a bicycle and basically seem like a great number, so I didn't evening and try to communicate with that's where I was living-a beautiful think it was a great distance. I got on Sri Aurobindo or anyone, just seeing it place because we had the sea right in this bus and every 15 minutes I would from the cinematic viewpoint of bow front of us, and we had our own little get up and say "Pondicherry?" and Fellini must have seen it. .... I liked the courtyard and our own piece of lawn they'd say, "No, no, sit down." whole movement, so I would sit there and it was unbelievably cool as far as Six hours later (because it was a and watch everybody in their white my head was concerned. I'd go to the local red bus) we pulled into envelopes carry their incense sticks Liberty Hotel and have a steak, french Pondicherry, and I wen·t to this "Hotel fries and a beer when I just couldn't do de Europe" and had a half-way decent back and forth and their little conversa­ the Ashram dining room anymore. meal actually. So I stayed in the Hotel tions going on and whispers and I just de Europe and looked around town and enjoyed that so much that I hung out And then I assisted Maggie Liddchi saw a whole bunch of foreigners. I there. with a problem that she had, and she ·------...... -----1l-i 1&@hii@i■------

the definition of culture shock and the ff degree of inflation. I also found it difficult to ear111 money. Mother had given me the 0111e thing that I could least afford-a cons,cience. All of a sudden, I would say, "No I can't do that. that's wrong." So that made earning a living a lot more diffi,cult actually. rm also not very good at jobs in the role of an employee. I'm much better as an employer or out on my own. I was trying to make some money and I got very hung up in the whole system. It sucked me in aind it held me. Like every other Americain, I was horrified on the first of tl~e month and that whole trip of making my monthly payments on this and that.. I made some: money, lost some money, went back aind forth. Florida is where I basically made money. I lived ~"-"":·':':"."----.:.._:..:..:. in Florida, Virginia, California, and IL ., what I was con1tinously looking for was Francis at home a place that I felt at home, and in the eight years that I was in America, I invited me to tea. We started talking somebody banging on a 55 gallon never found it. and she asked when my birthday was drum demanding water. So I had to The one or two times that I did come and I answered that it was two days learn how to start the pump and asked back to visit Auroville, it was like ago. And she said, "Oh, you should the workers what they did and so forth instant ... it just felt like I was at have seen the Mother!" and I said, and soon. home, and I wanted to find that in "Really?" She went into a whole At that time I never believed in the America, not Auroville, because I conversation about how great it was to concept of Auroville. In fact. I still thought this conflict in Auroville see the Mother and made arrangements have difficulty in its reality. But I was (between the Sli Aurobindo Society for me to go and see the her the next attracted to that and the afternoon. force of the Aurovilians) was I went to see the Mother with the Mother's like a all nonsense­ same head as going to see the Pyramids moth to a light. I Mother had given me the going down the or Angor Watt or the Taj Mahal or any wanted to get as one thing that I could hill, becoming other great things I was looking for close to that as I least afford-a more ridiculous while traveling. could. I always every day-the Gordon: She didn't make you read planned to leave conscience. Al I of a personalities and The Adventure ofConsciousness Auroville once sudden, I would say, "~lo the egos and the overnight? Mother had left I can't do that, that's power plays and Francis: No. She knew better. And her body, even the govern­ then I went up to see the Mother, and though I was wrong." ment-it was just basically from that moment on being told it way over my everything changed. wasn't going to head. People I was hanging out in Pondicherry happen. I was too cynical to think spoke high ideaJism with their mouths after that and then Gene Maslow asked otherwise. and basic materialism with their bodies. me to come out to Auroville to help So, month after month, year after So it was sort of discouraging. them build this house. And I did. and year. . When I was in America we moved one time I missed the jeep back in and Mother left her body and we still I 3 times. That's l 3 times we started off slept out at Gene's which was a pump stayed, and we stayed right up till '79, with what we oould put into a Honda house, and liked it so I stayed out a few March of '79. I was very low on station wagon aITTd the last time we more days, and Arindam came to me money and I was not agreeing with the moved we had :a gigantic U-Haul trailer and said, 'Tm going to New York movement that was happening in pulling a Honda station wagon plus a tomorrow." Auroville, so I thought it would be a Ford whatever-it-was. We acquired all I wasn't off the road so long that great time to step out for one year to this garbage. these quick changes seemed strange to earn some money. And that was in Then Lila came up to me in Florida me, and the next morning I had two 1979. one morning anid said to me, "Listen, I workers standing in front of me and Once back in the USA, I found out want you to do me a favor. fve

1 ------411-,1/&@iiiiii■------....------followed you around 13 moves in the last eight years without here, (gestures to the front of the house) and I stepped out of question, just packed my bag and moved wherever you the cab at 3:30 in the morning and the moment I stepped out wanted to move. Now I want to go somewhere and I want of the cab I knew I wasn't going anywhere. I knew I was you to come along." back. It was and is a sense of just being where I belong, I said, "Sure, great. where are nothing else, nothing fancy. I could we going." tell you about a certain mental realiza­ "Auroville." There's a strong feeling of tion in my lifo---enlightenment is about And I said no, I don't want to go to happen in the year 2010, but 11) let there, not yet So she used the wanting to express a you go. - same trick on me as I used on her gratitude towards the getting her out of Auroville. I said What keeps me here? If I look at it to her, let's go to America for a spirit of the Mother that with my logical mind, there's abso­ year so I can make some money. periodically comes lutely nothing. 1be one basic thing is a Here it is eight years later and she's through to me, that makes feeling it's where I belong at the saying to me, let's go to Auroville present time and I have no desire to go for a year, and then let's come back me tingle all over and anywhere else or to do anything else. I and make some money. I tried to brings tears to my eyes, always ask myself three questions, talk her out of it-how about a year from a joy center that's so where do I want to go, what do I want in Greece, how about a year in to do, and who do I want to do it with, Hawaii, how about a year here or deep that you don't even and as long as I come up with i.ero on there. No, no, let's go to Auroville. get excited. all three, rm happy where rm at. · We had a house in this develop­ 1be reason for being here is not ment, and I had made money on the any great spiritual aspiration. There's a house by building it and using strong feeling of wanting to express a different mortgage opportunities and so forth.. So I was trying gratitude towards the spirit of the Mother that periodically to sell it and it was a very bad market. I said to Lila, "Okay, comes through to me, that makes me tingle all over and brings we11 go right after we sell this house." It had been on the tears to my eye~. from a joy center that's so deep that you market for six months or something like lhaL don't even get excited. The next morning I went over to my brother-in-laws, and To be grateful is one thing-then I discovered that you he says to me, "You're going to lndi!t!" have to express your gratitude. lben by reading I found out "Don't worry about it." I said, "it all depends on whether that what she wants you to do is express it through work, so we sell the house or not." No more than 10 days later, my that's what I'm doing, hoping that she's taking care of my yoga doorbell rings. I open the door, and there's a guy standing like she said she would. But I can't question her because I'm there, and he says to me, "Do you own that house down the not into that level or what-not, so what I gotta do is believe. I block?" I almost closed the door right in his face. always have trouble doing that. so I just go ahead and do it If We gave this guy the nickname "Bookworm" and I put it works out. great. and if it doesn't. I have nothing else I every condition down, every stringent. hard-line situation I really want to do. could think of, and he bought the house. I had nothing else to do. Francis, one of the first W6Slemers to live in Aurovflle (in the We came back to Auroville and actually we pulled in right- community of Forecomers), now worlcs In the Aurovflle Bake,y.

To Be a True Aurovilian

1. The first necessity is the inner discovery in order to know what one truly is behind social, moral, cultural, racial and hereditary appearances. At the centre there is a being free, vast and knowing, who awaits our discov­ ery and who ought to become the active centre of our being a nd our life in Auroville. 2. One lives in Auroville in order to be free from moral and social conventions; but this freedom must not be a new slavery to the ego, to its desires and ambi­ tions. The fulCtllment of one's desires bars the way to the inner discovery which can only be achieved in the peace and transparency of perfect disinterestedness. 3. The Aurovilian should lose the sense of personal possession. For our passage in the material world, what is indispensable to our life and to ou.r action is put at our disposal according to the place we must occupy. The more we are consciously in contact with our inner being, the more are the exact means given to us. The Mother

12 ------■ itM@hii&f-9.... ------We Are Still Aurovilians-Just in a Community a Little Farther Away

By Jack Alexander

HYDIDILEAVE parents that they were chipping in could be reused forever, and they look Auroville? I guess the jury together to purchase a ticket to bring great!" and carried them off the plane W is still out on this one. us back for a vacation. As we hadn't with us unwilling to permit them to. be Mostly it was a rumbling in our (Mary's been out at all in five years, this thrown away. and my) guts or somewhere that we seemed like the sort of answer we The next thing we discovered was needed to go back to the USA. It was were looking for and started to make that we had only the clothes on our rather free floating at first, with lots of preparations to take a vacation. backs and we needed to get working to repressing and denial. Before we departed in late August earn a living. I got a job as a cashier at Mary and I had been saying for years that year, we felt more and more sure a dump, working 11 hours per day 6 that we were there in Auroville to stay, we were not cut out for the type of days per week, earning a little over would "never" leave, and that made things we were seeing going on minimum wage (but great benefits - it responding to these feelings of departure politically, with lines being drawn in was like being first one at a garage less than convenient (One good thing to the community and relations with sale). come out of this discomfort was learning folks in Pondy deteriorating. We felt So from massive shock, to numbing the problems inherent in saying things quite possibly that we would be out labor - labor in a very strange environ­ like "never" and "always."). for awhile, given the previously ment of waste products made possible unavailable by a system of The Fortune Teller option of run-away international Evolution, new society, consumerism. I Interestingly enough, while shopping for travel. Even was tossed steel and tools on the back streets of though the and especially spirituality between feeling Madras, an unsolicited fortune teller got direction the or doing yoga were not really poor to my attention. I never had an interest in independence really rich by my fortune and kept all these sorts of movement in things one could discuss this milieu of things at arms length as a matter of Auroville took over lunch with mechanics commercial course. What I heard at the hands of a was quite or bulldozer jockeys perversity, funny little Sikh fellow shocked me repugnant to which was seen enough to consider the possibility our way of known as "Cat Skinners." by me through seriously which had been showing up in thinking, the my developing­ the back of our minds off and on. It inner need for nations-eyes as wasn't the type of fortune telling that the departure was really something either total madness or great big was vague but quite specific and made else within us finally getting our shopping sprees put on by the local me uneasy in its accuracy, sort of like attention. citizens for anyone who knew how the hearing that somebody had died or rest of the world actually lives. You equally shocking. Neat Clear Plastic could find anything you wanted or The fellow told of our leaving and a needed being thrown away in whole litany of events (which now have Cups America's dumps. all come true interestingly enough), but Culture shock was immense. Our Along with the shock of the material at the time, they were things which son, Satya was six and just needed to reality, we no longer felt the sustaining meant radical changes in my happy little space out and watch TV to assimilate group being that was so much a part of life. This was Spring of 1977 and the difference. I would go to our larger family and support group in somewhat before the political upheaval hardware stores and just marvel at all Auroville; we missed that very much. with Sri Aurobindo Society (SAS). As the things one could buy here. (I still Although it was refreshing not to be in we were accustomed to letting things of do.) The material world was too the fishbowl closeness and the.small this nature sit awhile before acting on much to imagine and the rupee to town attitude of Auroville of those them, we waited for some sort of dollar rate was making us delirious. days (we were 200 or so then), and it confirmation either outwardly or was pleasant not to have everyone inwardly. Permitting our leaving to We found our relatives amazed at our speaking the same Auroville jargon, simmer on the back burner and telling need to save the "neat clear plastic" nobody, it got easier to rationalize the cups we were served our drinks in we did miss the extended ties we departure as a vacation that was open while on the airplane home. We became a part of. Feeling the lack of ended. couldn't bring ourselves to have them community created a desire to have a Within weeks, we got word from our thrown away; we thought. "They larger nuclear family as now three felt

13 ------■ Hi&MhH@i ■------

So it was like that for years; more and more the feeling of separation from that which was our center, unable to make sense of our role or connection with what was going on in the states, doing numbing hard work, often in near poverty conditions and hardship as we sought our "fortunes" in places like Clairemont, California and Wichita, Kansas. Both Mary and I bad been able to take rather major turns in our life together at the same times without it being a concession or feeling forced (which was quite unique to us, as most of our acquaintances who had made similar moves and changes in their lives ended up going their separate ways). So it was interest­ ing at this time we both really felt "behind the veil" as it were. We knew the heights and clarity we bad felt in the Ashram and Auroville during those marvelous years, and now we couldn't tell the difference Mary; Jack, Jyoti; and Satya Alexander between a sadhak and a sandwich. And worst of all, we didn't seem to quite small, so we became four right were a hippie or perhaps if you were a care; we felt exhausted and lost. away with Jyoti. missionary. This meant that we soon This condition went on for what took a "pearls-before-swine" kind of seemed to be years with the culmina­ A Job attitude. Evolution, new society, and tion being our leaving Wichita and especially spirituality or doing yoga coming back to the West Coast where I studied a book on automechanics that were not things one could discuss over we had family and friends and we felt came through the dump on the back of lunch with mechanics or bulldozer more at home. We shortly became a pickup for something to do between jockeys known as "Cat Skinners." involved in the West Coast group that loads. Although I had been a mechanic became the nucleus of what now is of sorts in Aurovillc for the whole five Aurovillc International USA and got years, I had never really been a full Searching For Direction back in touch with our center. We had fledged automechanic and found the left Auroville five years earlier. reading interesting. As my job at the As we got better situated on the dump was a temporary one replacing material plane, we noticed that we still A Return Visit the owner's cousin who was having did not feel at home in America, nor surgery, I thought perhaps I would look did we feel like going back to On the West Coast, two years later, we for a job later as a mechanic. Auroville. This was a first for us, not finally had enough money to afford my Within weeks there were three jobs to have some rather clear direction or going back to Auroville for a short visit near our home and I applied as a goal which we were pushing for. We of two weeks. I felt that I bad to return, mechanic in the town we were living had come back from a very intense five even though I would run the risk of in. Due to the book and a little natural years that was easily five lifetimes and feeling tom to pieces at the specter of aptitude, I aced the test, wowed them now were slowed down to a crawl leaving again in such a short time. in the oral part and as all my references without any direction. We tried The importance of this trip back for in India were very hard to get on the unsuccessfully to reconnect with past me was twofold, as I received two phone, my scores placed me on top of a sources of strength and nurturing like major/capital experiences. On my heap of seasoned grease monkeys from the East-West Cultural Center which way, via the AVI meeting in Europe, I miles around. Thus I moved up to a had been our focal point when leaving. discovered the beauty of the French normal job and regular hours with We tried to contact the other Auro­ and their contribution to the whole slightly better pay. Americans that were finding them­ (while in Auroville I was unable to find The regular folks we came in selves back in the USA, but try as we any good reason for them to exist). contact with had very little ability to may, there was no energy available to understand why anyone would go to an make the connection stick or develop Secondly, I found out that in a very awful place like India unless perhaps into a mini-Auroville-in-the-Statcs; our real way I had not been disconnected at you were weird, interested in a cult, lives felt to be stuck on hold. all from my center in India. I felt ------41■6M004#-a------

completely at home and up to date with thwarted at every turn because we were ourselves: live in the Ashram or the lives of friends, the context of to be eithec alone for our growth or to Auroville. She said that we came to be Auroville, the Ashram, even though I scatter the word of Auroville more in Auroville and that was the place we had not written or spoken to them for evenly throughout America. Or, my were needed. much of the time. My command of inability to speak about Auroville with From that point onwards, the street Tamil was still as good as ever. Americans was because there were decisions have been made by watching More importantly, at the end of the two only 1% of the folks here who could the inner applause meter: Where do we weeks I felt no twinge at having to really hear or understand the beauty live? What do we do for a living? Do leave. and we rent or buy, work for a living or The wideness volunteer for Auroville, etc., etc. The realization of of Sri current living/working setup is now a this palpable We knew the heights and Aurobindo little over a decade old and sometimes bond between clarity we had felt in the and the I wonder if the applause meter is me and all of Mother.or hooked up anymore and I try it out and the parts of Ashram and Auroville during could it keeps pointing to the sometimes hard India, Ashram those marvelous years, and understand to appreciate "status quo" as the and Auroville now we couldn't tell the why appropriate answer. Having that I bad come Auroville been a bit of a radical during my youth, to love, could difference between a sadhak was and having made some rather breath­ not be lost by and a sandwich. important. taking and bold decisions in my time, leaving and "keeping on, keeping on" often looks a going back to Therefore, little like being rusted up or something. "normal" life in America. The part my common sense told me that we But apart from a mid-life crisis, "Status about the French is now flopped over were here for some work that would Quo" comes out the right thing for me the other way, and now I am practi­ become clear if we were patient to do, no matter how silly it looks to cally a Francophile with a great affinity enough and, when we found it, would some parts of me. developing despite their reputation for not necessarily look like anything we fiercely capricious tendencies and lack had imagined. Learning The Ropes of a wide sense of global fraternity, In a sense, our being here is as Another problem with being here in much a mystery as our departure. It is When I look at the way we American America has been that very few of the also amazing that the change occurred Aurovilians have been spread out all folks who have lived all this time in to us as a family unity, or at least a over the place, as if evenly scattered Auroville can understand what it is like couple with youngster in tow. In the across the "Fruited Plains," I feel that to live out of Auroville. They gener­ light of the Aurovilian propensity to we have been placed in our exact spot ally feel that to leave Auroville "interming,le" and swap partners, to for a reason. I have noticed that those physically is tantamount to wholesale change life work or vocations, to of us who have spent time learning the rejection and turning away from the experiment with all of the conventions ropes of creating a job or family or values that Auroville represents. and social norms, our feeling of whatever, have had to go through some Because of a Jack of experience of continuity and the sense of this rather difficult things that I feel in my having to leave for some inner reason, happening to both of us is quite own case, were for my soul growth. they cannot imagine how we feel as if noteworthy, and still amazes me to this Because these difficult things came at we are still Aurovilians-just in a day. the hands of impersonal circumstances community a little farther away, I say that during the most of the last rather than that of old friends and suffering from poor communications 20 or so years, I have followed my comrades from Auroville, we have due to the distance. They tend to feel nose in seeking direction of the proper been spared the animosity that would that they are the only Aurovilians and thing to do at any given moment. have been generated in the process. cannot perceive of anyone feeling like Following the energy flow and they really still belonged, thus com­ listening within, I feel that the work for Few of the folks pounding our sense of separation and me in the States is that of personal alienation. development and of working in who have lived America as a representative of all this time in Self-Evident Truths Auroville. Au roville can Auroville is a lifetime kind of I came to grips with being here in a connection for me and one that goes understand what "common sense" sort of way. My bl!Ck to a commitment to Mother I felt it is like to live mind created "self evident truths" for emanate from deep within me when I out of Auroville. dealing with the vast difference met her for the first and last time. I felt between our outlook and that of the that I would do anything she wanted One of my truisms about early person on the street. For instance, I me to do from then on. Shortly after Aurovilians is that they were a tough thought that our attempt to create an that meeting, we sought some guidance bunch with larger than normal egos American "mini-Auroville" was from her as to what we should do with and vitals that were needed to do the

15 ______,. ______...... a,wwum@t■,-...... ,---__,,~=- S-=~~~~~~---

pioneering. This headstrong quality have learned some basic truths of assessing: how can this be used in was a boon to Auroville in terms of discipline and perseverance. Perhaps Auroville? How is this of benefit and getting things started, but a bit of a bar this would have also taten place in how can I get it there? No other when faced with creating a Gnostic Auroville at its own pace, but this is involvement in my life holds this kind community or in actualizing an one way oflooking at it. of attraction or power. effective human unity, if you see what I mean. To get these rough places The Auroville Filter What I Miss smoothed up, we have been placed in difficult situations, required to pay our One of the interesting realizations I I miss it all- that is, I love it there. I dues without lots of outer support and have noticed was that we seem to be love the friends and being able to have made to face the music. (Sorry for all linked on many levels with the group discussions that deal with the whole the cliches.) I feel that having this of Aurovilians in terms of the subtle being, knowing that my "silly" notions process kept more impersonal was and even some of the overt. We seem will be taken seriously by at least my actually a very "humane" thing for the inexorably linked with Auroville/lndia, closest associates if not the average Divine to do. and our possibilities and abilities seem person on the street. I can go to Because we can't blame X or Y for to share the same governing of the Auroville and be more completely some untoward thing that happened to Time Spirit. As needs and abilities myself than I can any place I have ever us, we have basically remained friends change, new possibilities are created been. within the community and bad compas­ and manifest in our daily lives that I also miss the Auroville that you sion on seem often to don't see, but sense behind the surface those ofus the casual hustle and bustle of red dust and who went Auro- motorbikes, the Auroville which is a through lean Auroville is a power moving American power moving like an enigmatic Being times like an enigmatic being just observer to be just under the ground, giving the truth without a a mirror of and the background force supporting job. under the ground, giving the each other's our feeble steps on the surface. I can I feel that truth and the background worlds, both notice this Being on walks at dusk applying individually around the Malrimandir or off in one of ourselves to force supporting our feeble and the Greenbelt areas that has become a surviving in steps on the surface collectively. little primeval in its density of under­ the USA has This is growth, where one can be quiet and made us . sometimes inward. skilled in maddening or This second Auroville is there the pragmatic function of getting things inconvenient, but more and more this constantly humming its vibration of done. In Auroville there was lots of linkage is made clearly a reality we perfection, its mantra of the future scope but very little accountability have to learn to deal with. humanity that is trying to happen in the requiring folks to focus on a job and The fact that I now can say that it daily Auroville on the surface. They keep up with demand. This may have really does not seem to matter where I are both marvelous and I would be changed in today's Auroville, but in the live is the best indication of my lying if I said speaking of them both outside world of paying rent and connection to the Auroville experience. didn't bring tears to my eyes. grocery bills, we had to keep our nose I feel Aurovilian wherever I go and to the grindstone or face the abyss. whatever I do. Everything I see or Jack Alexander is th6 president of This rather simple but unrelenting come in contact with goes through an Aurovflle lntematlonal USA and lives In Sacramento, Califom/a. fact has made us shake out the ta.mas; "Auroville filter." As I bear about new at least enough to survive, and some of products, watch TV programs, or read us have even excelled in the process. I newspaper articles, I am always

To Be A True Aurovilian 4. Work, even manual work, is something iodispemable for the inner discovery. U one does not work, if one does not put bis or her consciousness into matter, the latter will never develop. To let the consciousness organise a bit of matter by means of one's body is very good. To establish order around oneself helps to bring order within oneself. One should organise one's life not according to outer and artificial rules, but according to an organised inner consciousness, for ifon e lets life go on without subjecting it to the control of the higher consciousness, it becomes fickle and inexpressive. It is to waste one's time in the sense that matter remains without any conscious utilisation. 5. The whole earth must prepare itself for the advent of the new species, and Auroville wants to work consciously to hasten this advent. 6. Little by little it will be revealed to us what this new species must be, and meanwhile the best course is to conse­ crate oneself entirely to the Divine. The Mother

16 ______....,..,...... , _..-... .. _ ,,....,;, ..,...___ __.■ dt&iibii&h91-:------u••...· !liiiel!!.---i::i=m=~~==

Ind­ mils Moving With am­ ing Mother fnm Fra­ ter­ By Fanou Walton nity LEFT AUROVll.LE AS I and came to Auroville: really other knowing from inside that it was \\Uk­ I ihp;. what I had to do. So in a way it was very easy. When I visited Auroville We for the first time in 1970 for only one also day, I had this very clear and surprising l<ll thought that if ever I had a child, that to child should be born in Auroville. So do when I got pregnant later on in Paris, I eth­ knew I had to go back to Auroville, nic and it was very easy to leave Paris. fes­ Brian, Malichi, Aurelia, Fanou, and Leo outside their house in Wisconsin in 1983 A year before we left Auroville, I ti­ knew with the same clarity that we had vals to leave Auroville the following year. during the summer. Several years in a karma , progress and reincarnation, which from the very beginning of my It was 1980, a time of struggles inside row, we did a Festival of India which stay in Auroville made complete sense the community, and Bryan and I felt gave us a lot of joy and was well to me. This is still the center of my life that our time in Fraternity (a handi­ appreciated. It included flute and here. crafts unit and community) was over Krishna stories by Jean and Gordon In the USA I found some very anyway. We left thinking that we Korstange and Indian dancers on a stage efficient tools to help me deal on a would be back in a few months, and in the yard. Our children went to the psychological level with a dramatic that we would start anew in a different local school, and we had a new child. and paralyzing event from my community. It is now more than ten We loved the rural life of Wisconsin. childhood. Something that has blocked years, and we have still not been back. Later on we got more and more uneasy with the way the shop was run, part of me since it happened ruld from and finally, in 1989, we left that shop. which at the time in Auroville I could Transition And then what next? We knew we get no help for. It took me more than We came to the USA just to visit wanted to stay where we were because ten years to resolve that, but now I feel Bryan's family and some old we were happy there and our children I have resolved this part of my life, and Aurovilian friends here and there. We loved it too. So we found two part-time I am not so surprised that the visited Wisconsin where the Nelsons, jobs, and Bryan began to work more possibility to go back to Auroville for a who we had met first as customers in with his lecture slide presentations on few months arises now. Fraternity, lived. We literally fell in art history and world religions, some of In my daily life my contact with the love with the beauty of this splendid which I also contributed to. Mother stays at the center. I still feel part of Wisconsin, and ten years later We still live in a way that is far from the need to meditate every morning we still are in love with it. main stream, career-oriented America, and my vision of life has not changed Marion and Duane Nelson offered and we like it. We have three children: since my days in Auroville. In many us a place to stay with our two young Marichi, a junior in college; Aurelia, a ways I feel more free here to go my children and a job for both of us in the 9th grader; and Leo, a 5th grader. own pace and to do what I am inspired new, very unusual shop they were Bryan has been working on a grant to to do--that is to do Mother's work here opening in their remodeled barn, bring artists from the USA to Auroville in the West and to go back to Auroville selling mainly, at that time, handicrafts in January of 1995 for a period of 3 for short periods of time to "refill" my from Auroville and some other places months. If the grant comes through, we inner strengths. of India. For us it was really Mother's will all go to Auroville, an exciting In 1991 we hosted the A.U.M. with gift: a beautiful place to stay, a job perspective for us. a small group of "ex" Aurovilians here which in so many ways was an in Madison. It was the most rewarding extension of our work in Fraternity, The Center of My Life and inspiring experience. I always felt and still feel, with or without rights, an and a small, intentional community of My stay in the USA has definitely been Aurovilian. seekers with whom we felt in harmony. very important and fulfilling. In That was our transition from Auroville, where I lived for eight years, Fanou Walton lives in Spring Green, Auroville to America, an easy and I built up my inner basis, a strong Wisconsin. fulfilling period. With the shop we connection with the Mothere and a could talk about Auroville through the vision of life based on the philosophy of

11 ------IIPt&hh@i■...... ------Dealing With the Collective By David Wickenden

LIVED IN AUROVIll.E FOR ten years ago, the non-Indian something psychologically constrictive eight years, from 1975 to 1983. population was dominated by about it. At least for me, personally, I The process then was chaotic, Europeans, and I believe that trend has that was certainly the case. with constant upheavals, factional continued. My own feeling is that The sense of personal suffocation infighting and chronic instability in there is something in the American came out not only in community every area of collective life. It was a character that resists the kind of politics, but more basically in the work difficult time. pressure toward collectiviz.ed thinking itself-people not having the freedom I suppose like most who lived there and acting that so often gets brought to and responsibility to simply do their and came back. I found it almost bear on issues there. work without impossible to relate the experience I'd I think there's a being subjected gone through or even to describe fundamentally to the constant Auroville in any way that would make different I think there's a imposition of sense to people. It seemed to be too relationship fundamentally different the mores and exotic, too far out. Just mention the between the social dictates of word "India" and you see the eyes order and the relationship between the various glare over; they don't have any individual in social order and the committees and concept. So you learn to talk about it Auroville than the individual in Auroville councils and in a general, non-threatening way: " .. one many of us work groups . a kind of international rural instinctively feel than the one many of us and oversight development project ... ," or," .. . comfortable with. instinctively feel groups and so kind of like the Peace Corps ... " In Auroville, the comfortable with. on. That's about it. about as much as most balance between the The people can absorb. needs of the collective But on the other hand, because it individual for personal initiative, exerted in many cases a very strong was such a major part of my life, it's expression and fulfillment and the controlling force over the ability of an made the coMection with others here needs of the collectivity for structure, individual to get things done. And it who share that experience very strong. cohesivesness and conformity bas did so inevitably with a lowest­ You really value those with whom you always tended to weigh on the side of common-denominator mindset. share something that powerful and the collective. For Americans, whose Excellence, among other things, unique. national character is stamped by the suffered. In fact, personal excellence Even though distance and peoples' ethic of the individualist-the pioneer, seemed to be cause for special schedules here make contact irregular, the explorer, the entrepreneur-the persecution simply because, by the A.U.M.'s and other meetings are balance wilt always tend to weigh on definition, such individuals stood out very important because they reaffirm the side of the individual. from the rest. This kind of forced not only your bond with the people you American culture by definition is leveling became for me, after a time, feel close to, but they also nourish and diverse and multicultural. In its more terribly oppressive and personally affirm a certain part of your own extreme moments, Auroville has constricting. history, your own background, your attempted to define as a supreme value At a certain point I felt suffocated own experience. I suppose it's like the uniform application of a single by that pressure, and began to feel that what happens to some people who've "correct" mode of thinking and the individual aspect of the work-the gone to college together, but in a much behaving. Uniformity is not a value unfoldment of the psychic being with more profound and telling way: there's that goes far in U.S. soci,ety; but the full engagement of the mental and this special life-long bond with other tolerance and pluralism, and the vital-was being held down by the Americans, regardless of the different attitude of "live and let live," or "to needs of the collective. In retrospect, paths we've all gone. I'm really each his/her own," are fundamental. my decision to leave Auroville was grateful for that. It adds a certain The persecution of individuals and less a decision per se than an inner richness and dimension to my life here groups for supposedly wayward affirmation of a need for greater space that others I work with, for example, thinking (like the mad attempt in and freedom, to move and stretch and don't have. Auroville in the late '70's to purge the grow. community of "Tantrism) instinctively The Individual and The strikes most Americans, it seems to A Certain Aspect of the Collective me, as repugnant Work Anyway, I've come to think there's We often wonder why there are so few something built into the Auroville Auroville for me represents a certain Americans, relatively speaking, who dynamic that is intrinsicaJly difficult aspect of the work-very important, go to Aurovitle and stay there. Even for Americans to deal with. 1bere's but only a part. It's a process that ------~-2,-=•· ...,...z .... , .------~------.....---1 ■@@@Jhii@i-a...... ------needs a large group of people from different countries. It's a collective sadhana. To be happy there, one needs to be part of the collective process. That's not higher or lower, better or worse, and it's certainly not for everyone, it's just a particular type of manifestation. That's how I view it. Collective process aside, Auroville didn't have the infrastructure at the time to give me the chance to expand in my outer work in the ways I needed to. Since coming back, I've had the chance to do things that would have been impossible there, just because the system didn't exist to support them. I've been given a huge amount of personal freedom and responsibility in my work and have been able to grow in a truly fantastic way, both inwardly and outwardly. Trade Offs

Of course there are trade offs. There David Wlckenden (right) and friends at the Chldambaram Temple, circa 1975 are certain things that were made possible by the Auroville environment metabolism and way of working have feminine side of the circle. India, at that we lose here and which I miss to accelerate if you're to survive. So least from the vantage point of the enormously. Time, for example, is a you're pushed forward, in a sense, and USA, seemed much more yin oriented huge issue-the feeling here that that kind of acceleration has, for me in in a way that I hadn't actually tuned there's never enough time to do even a positive way, forced a certain kind of into when I was living there. There, the most basic kinds of things, not interior acceleration of the sadhana. It sitting in meditation and talking about eno1Jgh time to read, to think, to puts a kind of pressure on to adapt and one's inner experience is normal; here, process information, to spend with move and change and grow that in a it's still a bit wierd. I missed that people close to you, almost even to way that's challenging and stimulating, supportive ambience, and still miss it breathe. if you can find the right balance. But very much. In Auroville there was much more that can certainly feel stressful; you I also miss watching the sunrise, breathing time. But it's also more than miss the opportunity to read and reflect watching the day begin, which was that-it's almost as if the nature of time and absorb, which you could do in always a special time for me there: the itself is different in India. When I Auroville. light sparkling over this incredible came back Energy, as landscape, the flowers coming alive, after being well as time, the dew on the jasmine bushes, the away for so Everything moved faster (in is anpther scent of the fruit trees and red earth long it seemed the USA), as if even the very thing that's and sand ... all of that sensory to me that time different in an experience. moves molecules in the atmosphere important - The Matrirnandir on New Year's or differently were spinning more rapidly way. Whenl Auroville's birthday morning. The here, that it's than they were in India. first came absolute quietude ( except at times of accelerated to back I was village festivals!). I miss that a lot. an almost struck by the I miss taking walks along the incredible degree. Everything moved extent to which American culture is Auroville dirt roads during full moon faster, as if even the very molecules in yang oriented-this incredible times, that giant moon hanging in the the atmosphere were spinning more outward- oriented, rajasic culture empty sky and the cool coming to the rapidly than they were in India. Things based on the expenditure of massive hot sand and the hot wind dying down got compacted, activity got pressed and amounts of vitalistic energy. A certain and peace settling in. That experience squeezed and packed into an hour or a kind of balance was being lost there. of coolness and quietude at night day that would have stretched out over What I missed was the yin side of during at moonrise. a much longer period of time in India. the equation-a respect for and And all the other stuff, from Everything is so much faster in this understanding of the need for quietude, stopping by a tea stall for great cup of time zone-fast cars, fast food, fast inwardness, solitude, and other things chai to taking a day to go to Pondy to video, fast everything-that your own we traditionally associate with the sit quietly at the Samadhi for three

19 ------...... -___._.b%4iiM@ ■t----~- ~--~---~-'"-"!"!'------~~-- hours. All of those things and more. experience of real austerity and the pressure to toe the line politically or constant scrabbling for everything intelleccually, or any odler way that The Unfoldment of the from was deemed acceptable, would become paper unbearable. Day to soap I didn't feel I miss the way the day unfolded in to ...the light sparkling over this that I could Auroville in a way that doesn't happen bread put myself in here. Everything here, at least as it's to incredible landscape, the flowers the position been for the past several years, is so bicycle coming alive, the dew on the of being crammed in and scheduled and blocked parts jasmine bushes, the scent of the dependent. to the minute. My day planner is was fruit trees and red earth and sand both scheduled in 15 minute intervals. My sobering ~ entire day and night is scheduled; my and, and literally, entire week month is scheduled. From after a on others in the moment I get up until the moment I time, really hard to sustain. that way. It was a real issue, and it go to bed, it's boom-boom-boom­ I remember a period of a week or certainly accelerated my decision to boom, and still I can't get done half the two when my sandals were broken and leave Auroville. urgent things I need to do. And I literally did not have enough money friendships and personal commitments to buy a new pair-probably about Collaboration: Do you regret suffer. $2.50. I finally had to ask a friend if I spending so much time in Auroville? In Auroville, the days unfolded could borrow some money to buy a differently. There were no day­ pair. It was a humiliating and David: No, but ... I say it with planners, no calendars, no making degrading experience, something I still ambivalance. It gave me an appointments in micro-blocks three carry with me. But it did force me to opportunity for a kind of inner growth over that time, a kind of slow unfolding of things in myself that probably never would have been possible in the United States. And so I'm very grateful to Auroville for giving me the chance to grow inwardly and outwardly in ways that were incredibly valuable and helpful. It was like an incubator in ways for me. The ambivalance comes about in that I Jost a lot. I was out of the work force and economy here for nearly a decade, and it set me back. As it turned out. I was very fortunate in what happened after my return, but it certainly put me in a hole financially. It put me behind the eight ball in terms of becoming an integrated member of the culture, and I still haven't made that up yet. There were certain things that were lost, mosdy from a material point of view, that you can say, "Gosh, that's too bad." That's a Matrimandlr In early morning mist good chunk of my life that I can't go back and recapture from a material weeks in advance, no incessant confront the truth that I bad not been point of view, but the gain that telephones and fax machines and fully dealing with: I was living in happened from a spiritual point of view beepers and cellular phones and all the poverty and dependent on the charity was so great that it makes the material rest. It was all much more organic. of others to eat and live arid do my loss insignificant and not worth Of course, there are things I don't work. Noble in theory, maybe, but regretting. miss, too. Like Tom and others, I had there was nothing noble about feeling no means of independent financial impoverished and dependent. David Wlckenden livf!JS In Silver support, and had to rely on the The choice there was rather stark. If Spring, Maryland. collectivity or other funding bodies for I had to depend totally on the collective even the most basic necessities. 'The or others for sustenance, then the

20 'ollahoratio,

Los Angeles, July 4: Yesterday we woman from South Africa, dressed in a Auroville missed the plane. I really felt like a trendy leather jacket, was way over the dumb American who hadn't ever taken limit, so they kept her standing by the an international flight and didn't know counter until she finally paid for 17 Journal: 1993 that you had to be there two hours kilograms. early. A huge surge of panic went The flight was full of young Tamil By Gordon Korstange through me like a cyclone. This is men lugging back televisions, VCR's, America--

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Spiritual anarchy by committee. Ok, monkey mind thought it. No street, even just the onrush of the sea Up the spiral staircase with lightning. The crystal didn’t break. It’s breeze at 4 p.m. in the afternoon, or the Dhanalakshmi’s daughter, Achana, in still there, glowing. Just sit and look sight of a rice paddy-some special front playing hide and seek in the moment or feeling that made up for-the construction niches. Halfway up we Later, coming back down to land, dust and heat. Perhaps I ran through leave our sandals. The million green Achana is hiding again and here comes my quota of those moments. Perhaps trees of Auroville are out there, seen Shyamsundar, taking his nightly living in the USA and “growing up” between openings in the cement skin. constitutional. The man who took my has squeezed my romanticism into a We’re silent now. photo to Mother so I could be ap- tiny corner of my consciousness. But At the top, we are given strange proved; the man who signed my that which formerly seemed strangely socks to put on-of official orange and wonderful in India and Auroville no course-to keep the white Auroville longer does so. red Auroville dirt As ;I watch, the light membership card; the off the marble floor. fades. It’s evening man who is still the July 24: We return to "Udayam," the We walk in and it’s center of so much house we built to live in with 16 Tamil an echo chamber, “a and overhead lights controversy for his children. The compound is now musical are switched on. As role in the Sri overgrown, dusty jungle. Hey, did we instrument,” watch, for a moment, Aurobindo Society plant that mango tree? Maybe. But someone called it. vs. Auroville battles. where is the tree, the Bo tree tl1at was More like a the crystal seems to Of course, says the center of our house? Finally we microphone. The expand and the Auroville mind, he find part of the cement floor, all that’s slightest sound has to come along left. The tree has been cut down. reverberates. I put a chamber move. now, right after your This was going to be our cushion on the first visit to the room. educational environment, along with marble, and its "whump" roils around He recognizes me. We clasp hands. the Tibetan house next door, a place the walls like a rumbled whisper. “After a long time,” is all I can think of where education and life were not Then I look up and it’s true: a thin to say. separated. That was before the big shaft of light pierces the center of the split, before the Aspiration school was chamber and the crystal which rests on Aspiration, July 22: In search of a tom apart to keep Sri Aurobindo Sri Aurobindo’s symbol-or seems to past, I pause in the heat. On my bed, at Society people from teaching there, rest there. It appears to be lit from mid-day, after yet another shower, before our kids’ parents, who were beneath, or from within. letting the fan dry me, before the brought into Auroville by the Society, It’s hot. No air-conditioning yet. stickiness begins again, before the little claimed the tamarind trees next door Small sounds enter the chamber and ticks on the skin begin, the twinges that and spent three days in a stand-off with ping-pong around it. I can’t take my mean mosquito-or fly-or sand the French people who wouldn’t let eyes off the crystal, so dark and light at grain-or. nothing. them harvest the sour brown tamarind the same time, like a planet in a movie. How did I do this, hot season after fruits. There seems to be a thin layer of dust hot season, March to November; There is a bitterness here that won’t on it. Why not, this is a construction months of watching clouds roll in and go away, the taste of idealism and hard site. roll out, hoping somehow that the work not fully realized. I’ve never As I watch, the light fades. It’s magic cloud would come to drop rain really forgiven certain Aurovilians for evening and overhead lights are that would make it cool forever? How the loss of that garden and that switched on. As I watch, for a did I make it through the heat? educational experiment. And I’ve moment, the crystal seems to expand Somehow. Just barely. It flattened me never quite forgiven myself for letting and the chamber move. My eyes have again and again until I could hardly it happen. lost their focus. make it back from Pondy on my I look at the pillars-a little bicycle-like today, coming back. July 25: In search of myself, it’s been, artificial somehow alongside the This was my life, and I slip back perhaps, too long-1 can’t find me exquisiteness of the marble and crystal. into it so easily. The Tamil language anymore because then I was a shadow But hey, it’s here, says Auroville mind. returns as does the knowledge of small looking for form. The shadow that I Let’s not think about the huge tricks of living in Auroville. Like was didn’t know how to talk in contraption of cement that has been shaking your towel out to clear it of red meetings and couldn’t take a stand. built to go around it, to protect it. Ok, ants; or where to buy a fold-up mat in Now I go to a teacher’s meeting at says American monkey mind, let’s Pondy; or get the best kulfi (Indian ice Transition and am willing to talk too think about it. Why couldn’t they have cream). much. Now my American mind knows started with just this room in a simple But what doesn’t return is that spark what I think about things in Auroville structure. Done. Completed. Maybe that sustained me through the heat, that that, when I was here, were too new the crystal is already here for 15 years. spark of discovery or curiosity, or and mysterious. Millions of rupees saved. No tourist whatever it was. Before, there was In search of myself it’s really two inundation. Just a room to concentrate always a minor epiphany, the magic of questions: (1) “Why did you leave?“- in, and gardens full of flowers. a moonlit night, the quiet of an Ashram this from westerners who are

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wondering if my answers will be the were religious zealots; the French were Society vs. Auroville confrontation of same as their own secret reasons that fanatics. Everyone gravitated to their the 70’s and 80’s. tug at them (Tamilians don’t ask caste and circled the wagon trains. So we go to see Maggi Liddchi. because they know why one would Not again. I write a letter to the Maggi who brought me to see Mother leave-theirs is only a sadness of a Auroville News expressing my refusal for the first time and who has been kind); (2) “Will you come back?” to be a part of this division between involved with numerous Auroville and Come back to be “somebody in pure and impure. It’s August 15th, I Ashram projects. We sit in her particular,” as Johnny says to me, note, the birthday of an Ashramite, not courtyard at dusk and she looks long standing in his rolled up dhoti, an Aurovilian. and deeply at us. Perhaps it’s my bearded, turbaned, barefooted, And there are many Aurovilians imagination, but she herself looks more plunging a crowbar into the red earth to who agree with me. Yet, the decision like Mother as the years pass. My dig yet another tree pit. to stop the chanting was made and monkey mind expects some The old romantic Auroville accepted. Big question: who’s in conversation, but there is none. “I say archetype-leading a life beyond the charge around here? There is the less and less all the time,” she explains, limits of west and east, forging some working committee that is supposed to before we settle into a long silence. new identity in the heat and dust. It’s make decisions, but everyone in the The Ashram streets are still relatively the last question that skulks in some community is free to ignore them, and quiet at night. My monkey mind finds comer of my consciousness and comes there is no enforcement. When X a branch to cling to and stay put for a out at night, so that many of my blocks a road saying the tourist traffic while. I remember why I’m here. dreams still take place in some strange is too dangerous, the working approximation of Auroville. Even committee goes there to convince him July 30: Aurovihtis: Noun (1) The though the answer is no for now, the to unblock it. He ignores them and urge to drop everything and go to question will be there for as long as finally the Indian government’s chief Auroville in order to finish some Auroville is. secretary for Auroville comes along, undefined things not previously tears down the barricade, and there is a completed, (2) The feeling that time July 27: The last thing I expected was shouting match. X winds up in jail, the spent in Auroville is more real (and yet to be involved chief secretary magical) than time spent elsewhere; (3) in a political winds up A variation of ‘Raj nostalgia’; (4) A issue, vet I am. Come back to be, insulted, and sincere aspiration for a new Asked-to play “somebody in particular,” Aurovilians consciousness. the flute at the shake their heads opening of the Johrmy says to me, and go "tch, tch.” August 1: Maybe I left Auroville Darshan standing in his rolled up Is this total because I ran out of reasons to stay. program at the dhoti. bearded., turbaneb. freedom what There are always plenty of excuses to amphitheater Mother wanted leave. Returning, they seem to leap out on August 15, bar&footed, plunging a for Auroville, a at me around every curve of the road. I I agreed.- Then crowbar into the red earth spiritual anarchy ran into one of these minor demons I found out to dig yet another tree pit. that would lead to yesterday in Shamga: the curse of neo- that the the rule of a colonialism. woman who higher Even though I will extol1 Auroville taught me to chant “Om Namo consciousness? A handful of people as perhaps the only place in the world Bhagavate” years ago, an Ashramite, can work their will on the majority. To where first and third worlders are who was to lead a group of Aurovilians my American monkey mind, this thrown together in a community soup, in chanting on the 15th, has been asked seems like immaturity, seems like and even though I speak Tamil well not to because. well, because she is Auroville not wanting to undertake the enough not be a typical Auroville an Ashramite and this is an Auroville difficult task of community building, saheb, in practice I can’t tolerate affair. The guardians of orthodoxy which involves compromise and having to deal with Tamilians as decided, somehow, that I was submitting to an authority one may servants and workers. I can’t quite Aurovilian enough to still be able to disagree with. accept the big white houses with ponds play. If you can’t govern yourself, then next to them (Don’t I have a swimming Even though a friend tells me that someone else will do it for you, and pool? Am I a hypocrite?) and ant by playing I will stand up for diversity that’s exactly what the chief secretary moats encircling them, with fair- and the right of “outsiders” to seems inclined to do. Many of the haired, naked babies playing under the participate in Auroville, it doesn’t take Indian residents of Auroville silently watchful eyes of Tamil ammas. my monkey mind long to decide: I appreciate his decisions and say This is truly my American monkey refuse to be a part of religious sectari- privately that Auroville has to accept mind at work, I know, but I can’t stop anism like this that divides us into its ties to the Indian government. But a it. There are 2000 servants and castes. This is what happened in the lot of westerners want to live free or workers in Auroville (excluding the 70's. Aurovilians were unspiritual, die. This is deja vu for me, a 700 workers who turn the Matrimandir materialistic westerners; Ashramites reincarnation of some of the same into what looks like a set for a issues behind the Sri Aurobindo Hollywood Biblical epic during the

23 II-LMtid@-111,------day). There are about 550 adult running this part of the system are by a wonderful tanpura and an Aurovilians. Auroville is a colonial having a good time, walking up and Aurovilian couple clearly running on creature pulling in more and more down, guiding people in, having urgent ecstasy plus. The lights were very Tamil villagers all the time. People discussions about how the thing should bright, too bright to see the audience say that Tamilians are moving into the work. ‘OM Namo Bhagavate, OM who remained so respectfully silent surrounding villages so that they can Namo Bhagavate.’ that I hardly knew they were out there. work for Auroville. I remember all the other queues for The bugs loved the lights and crawled I can understand the reasons for Darshan I’ve been in, all the on my neck and, at one point, almost this, can even appreciate it as expectations of queue life: that into my mouth. Afterwards, no one potentially beneficial for the workers, something of Mother and Sri said a word. In the semi-darkness I but something in me can’t deal with the Aurobindo, those two extraordinary recognized barely five people in the descrepancies between the big houses beings, will flow from their rooms into place and realized that I’d been going and mud huts, can’t deal with someone my body as I walk through. ‘OM around visiting those known from who’s paid 30 rupees (one dollar) a Namo Bhagavate, OM Namo before and had missed all of these day. It’s just me and one more of my Bhagavate.’ people. But it was good to play. demons herding me toward the Madras All these faces seem so familiar, are Something else dropped away. airport. so familiar. Even though we’ve never spoken, our eyes have met for a split Saxtons River, August 18: I’m here, August 11: Free writing: Ahem, second years ago, maybe lives ago, glad to be back, glad the heat’s over, aham, a hum, a throb, am off running, then again, and now. This could be the glad, yes, that I don’t live in ranting, raving, wondering, waving, same queue I was in outside Mother’s Auroville-for now. As for all those waking. . . the taste of all my days room that very first time; or the huge years well, maybe we still do live lingers in this evening, here on a road queue on Sri Aurobindo’s centenial; or in Auroville on some occult plane, the in Auroville, the road I’ve been down Mother’s centenial. Maybe my life in level that keeps invading my dreams so many times, and the same trees go India was an innummerable queue, with strange houses, dusty roads and by the red parched earth so prayed waiting through the heat for the familiar faces. over, now planted with trees, yet still moment when the effect of the heat But we definitely live in Auroville barren of cover. How the rain would drops away. ‘OM Namo Bhagavate, on the human plane, when we are with wash it, bathe it, prepare it; how the OM Namo Bhagavate.’ Something people we’ve known for 25 years. rain that rumbles away to the edges of drops away. Most of them are absent from this the world. What can I make of time Here on the mat, waiting, with the published version of the journal, but forgotten, lost on this road, scattered help of the mantra, something drops they are the reason we returned to beside it like seeds not watered? away. ‘OM Namo Bhagavate, OM Auroville and will continue to return. Discarded days of drowsy heat. Namo Bhagavate.’ Monkey mind stops They are the reason we go to A.U.M.'s Discarded moments unattended. Time chewing on itself and something drops and will continue to go-they and all that throws up shapes and ghosts who away. I’m in a wide space where of that “Auroness,” all that time and flit among the trees along this road, everything is the same and yet not. consciousness spent together in various mocking, “You were here, you were Suddenly, everything is accepted: stages of aspiration, that wraps around here.” whatever I did or didn’t do in us an invisible filiment too strong to Auroville; whatever I did or didn’t do ever break. August 15: There’s a new, organized in the USA. ‘OM Namo Bhagavate, system in the Ashram this year to OM Namo Bhagavate.’ The monkey’s alleviate the long queues for entrance off my back. Gordon Korstange is the Editor of to Sri Aurobindo’s room. You sign up It stays off all morning. I file into Collaboration and lives in Saxtons for a certain half-hour time slot along the thronged courtyard, hand my chit to River, Vermont. with a limited number of devotees. a familiar face, go up the familiar Ours is from 9:30-10, just before the stairs, and through his room. The chair meditation. We’re here on time, sitting has been reappolstered, the room in a line on the mats that completely arranged in a way that Champaklal cover the street behind the Ashram, remembered more clearly. Before protected from the sun by canopies. descending, Nirodbaran hands me the My American monkey mind is Darshan birthday card. On it is working hard, watching the elderly written, “OM Namo Bhagavate Sri Tamil lady in front of us whose son Aravindaiya.” went off some time ago to buy flowers to take up. She’s getting anxious. August 16, Madras Airport: Leaving. There seem to be more and more Innumerable security checks. The final Tamilians at Darshan. Is this part of a queues. Last night they asked me trend? ‘OM Namo Bhagavate, OM suddenly to play flute on the roof at Namo Bhagavate.’ It’s still hot. The Pitanga, as part of the Darshan arts Ashram school students who are program, and I accepted, accompanied

24 ______...... ______.■&Mhiiiki■.------The Parliament of World Religions By Bill Moss

HE PARLIAMENT OF THE World's Religions, he. Id at the T end of August in Chicago, was the 100th Anniversary of the Parliament at which Swami Vivekananda, and through him, Hinduism, was introduced to the West in 1893. This gathering consisted of an even wider diversity of religious and spiritual groups than the original, and the Sri Aurobindo Association took the opportunity to sponsor several talks and workshops, as well as to have a booth which we shared with AVI­ USA. To quote from Ariel Browne, who attended the Parliament and also presented a very successful workshop, " .. .It was an enormously successful, stimulating, pilgrimag~gathering of religious and spiritual people from all over the world. Six thousand people gathered in one venue, the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago. The schedule, listing all the offerings during the nine day period was a large book in itself. In addition to other events going on in the Chicago area, there was a large booth area, and there was a large exhibition of sacred art. The groups ranged from Wiccan Hemsell gave a lecture/reading on inspired and inspiring, and very well Earth Goddess worshipers and Native mantric poetry in Savitri, and Seyril received. American medicine-teachers to Schoeben gave a powerful reading of It is always very difficult to do Orthodox Jews. Kashmiri Muslims and Savitri to a large audience in one of the justice to a powerful experience in the Roman Catholic Vatican plenary sessions. The SAA written word - more so once some time representatives. It was a huge range of collaborated with AVI-USA to enable has passed. I only spent four days in perspectives and, obviously, included them to present a wonderful panel Chicago [and I was not able to stay for theists and non-theists. Conflicts discussion and slide show on Devan's talk], but those days were developed almost immediately: old Auroville. Also, the SAA hosted a paced with an intensity, both outer and battles were remembered; old wounds hospitality hour for interested inner, which I have rarely experienced. were opened. Parliament attendees and local Our group meditations, whether formal The miracle of grace, however, is devotees, which was very well or informal, were filled with the power that out of these potential battles and attended. Our booth, run by Surama of Spirit-Light, and during Seyril's struggles many remarkable unifying and Wayne Bloomquist of the Berkeley reading, Sri Aurobindo's Presence was dialogues were begun and explored, SAA office, as well as by June Maher tangible, filUng the auditorium with a new bonds were formed across ancient and others from AVI, was visited by dense-packed Joy. barriers, and many miracles of healing several hundred people. We may never know the full effects occurred between old, and potential The centerpiece of our SAA of The Parliament of the World's enemies. Somehow after that program, in addition to the other fine Religions - all we can truly know is experience, when I came home to the programs, was a riveting talk by our that it was significant that. thanks to news of the Palestine-Israeli peace friend, C.V. Devan Nair. It is no small the Divine Grace; Sri Aurobindo, accord, I could imagine the feat for Devan, or anyone, to squeeze Mother, and Auroville were unimaginable." an introduction to Sri Aurobindo and represented there. In addition to Ariel's "Sacred Cells" Mother into a 45 minute time slot, but BIii Mloa is Pf9Sident of the Sri workshop, which was ·so popular the the end result was worth it His fine Auroblndo Association and fives In room's walls were bulging, Rod presentation, reprinted below, was both Watertown, Massachuaetts.

25 The Cry Of The Earth- The Vision and Work of Sri Aurobindo (Address to the Parliament of World Religions, Chicago, September 2, 1993)

By C. V. Devan Nair “[words] no longer have any vital in tbe stomach, as arises from severe significance for me. Words have killed colic, and made me feel like rushing to 'M NOT THE ONLY ONE images or are concealing them. A poor Jesus with a bottle of gripped by unease wben civilization of words is a civilization Bismol. I expected to explain Sri distraught. . . The fact is that words Alas no mould of dogma or Aurobindo. Asked to write a twelve say nothing There are no words for denomination fits tbe Great Experience page article on tbe subject, Satprem, a the deepest experience.” tbat once walked our earth in the body disciple of Sri Aurobmdo’s great George Steiner drove tbe point and vesture of Christ. Nor other such exemplar, the Mother, bad approached home “We live in a culture which is, great experiences. None possibly can. her with similar disquiet. The Motber’s increasingly, a wind-tunnel of gossip; With stunning clarity, Sri Aurobindo reply : “They want twelve pages? I gossip that reaches from theology and tells us why : “The secret of the lotus,” would say it in one sentence: ‘Because politics to an unprecedented noising of he cabnly observed, “is not to be found it’s the Truth of my being.’ To start private concerns (the psychoanalytic by analysing the mud from which it writing pages on that is pure chatter.” process is tbe high rhetoric of gossip). grows.” Mother would understand if I ...... In bow much of what is now Mud, air, water, some rays of sun, simply read her seven-word sentence pouring forth do words become tbe plus a mysterious something else and walked off tbis platform. I’m afraid word and where is the silence combine in an unknown alchemy to you wouldn’t. Neither would the needed if we are to hear that metamor- create what Satprem called a site of conveners of this Parliament. But I phosis?” convergence, a point of transmutation know she appreciates the singular Other persons of great learning, who and the lotus blooms in an incred- dfticulty which faces anybody who bad begun with the belief that Truth ible harmony of form, color, beauty seeks to express a truth of experience, resides in our libraries, have also ended a living message from an unseen in tbe linear logic of work-a-day in impotent despair. We know that Glory. language. One recalls an aphorism of most of our media vie with one another But, as is natural to specialists of Sri Aurobindo’s: “Science talks and to excel as chroniclers of chaos; they mud, we revel in slush. And, not behaves as if it bad conquered all have knowledge. Wisdom, as she walks, forgotten bears her solitary tread echoing on the bow to I had come in just at the point an actor margin of immeasurable Oceans.” chronicle was portraying Christ’s agony in the We encounter that truth of being anything only on our inner roads. And there are else. We garden of Gethsamane. It turned out to as many inner roads as there are human note that be a remarkably convincing depiction of beings. In Sri Aurobindo’s words a good "Earth's million roads struggled number an excruciating cramp in the stomach, towards deity.” of our as arises from severe colic, and made And, one sees, quite naturally, tbe best- me feel like rushing to poor Jesus with a abysmal folly of bigotries of dogma selling and creed which continue to blight the autbors bottle of Pepto-Bismol. roads of spiritual endeavor on our cater to planet. an ever-growing market of surprisingly, we do to spiritual experi- connoisseurs of catastrophe external ence what a herd of buffalos do to a A Wind Tunnel of and internal. tranquil lotus pool. They stir all the Or, what you had considered mud up, and the lotuses are thrasbed in Gossip sublime is rendered ridiculous, as the mire. The almost universal devaluation of happened to me one evening. I bad Many of us succumb to despair. Or words and language in our times does walked into tbe family room when my we spin cocoons of cynicism around not make our predicament any easier. children were watching an American ourselves as defense against a capri- Even poetry is sometimes supplanted film on TV. I had come in just at tbe cious Infinite. But often, through some by sound-bytes. Some of the last words point an actor was portraying Christ’s crack in the cocoon, we bear the sound jotted down by a distinguisbed man of agony in tbe garden of Getbsamane. It of laughter in Heaven, as in an amus- modem European letters come to mind. turned out to be a remarkably convinc- ing parable of the great Sri I quote from Ionesco’s Journal: ing depiction of an excruciating cramp Ramakrisbna “Once a salt doll went

26 ------,l-itM@Mi@f-1111~------to measure the depth of the ocean. But it could not come back to give a report.” We are just as transient Does Sri Aurobindo have a Truth for us, a as that salt doll. Truth not only with eyes closed and seated cross-legged in the classical lotus position “A Little Soul Carrying although that too might be part of the a Corpse” process but a palpable, living Truth of I am expected to summarize the vision consciousness, HERE, on Earth? and work of Sri Aurobindo. But, please, do bear in mind that there is nothing to buy or to sell on the roads of the Spirit. Propaganda is puerile. sole means of renewal and further asphyxiation. Quietly, but firmly, Sri Aurobindo held growth? Not, mind you, that we A few came upon a magic leverage his ground against a persistent disciple, ourselves, as we are, would really want in their cells, right in the midst of their who considered himself a public immortality for relentlessly aging and agonising lives. They evolved wings relations expert. He wrote creaking bags of skin and bones, as birds and secured release from I don’t believe in advertisement hosting a horde of maladies. Nor can rapidly dehydrating swamps. The except for books etc., and in we bear to think that some human immense journey of life on our planet propaganda except for politics and monsters might eternally inflict seems governed by a secret beatitude patent medicines. But for serious themselves on earth and men. Blessed are those who suffocate, for work it is a poison. It means either a Desperate hearts and minds in an they shall have release. The walls of stunt or a boom and stunts and increasingly benighted age, in spite of the most stifling prisons will one day all our electronic wizardries, have topple to reveal new dimensions of booms exhaust the thing they carry every right to ask Does Sri Aurobindo on their crest and leave it lifeless being and consciousness. have a Truth for us, a Truth not only We are in the midst of an evolution- and broken high and dry on the shores of nowhere or it means a with eyes closed and seated cross- ary Time-shift as radical as the one movement. A movement in the case legged in the classical lotus position from mineral to plant. Sri Aurobindo of a work like mine means the although that too might be part of the gave us the rationale, as it were, of the founding of a school or a sect or process but a palpable, living Truth crisis of our Age: “The end of a stage some other damned nonsense. It of consciousness, HERE, on Earth? A of evolution,” he said, “is usually means that hundreds of thousands of Truth of Life please not a Truth marked by a powerful recrudescence of useless people join in and corrupt of Death, usually accompanied by what all that has to go out of the evolution.” the work or reduce it to a pompous Sri Aurobindo called The Mother put it in her own unique unprovisioned cheques on the Be- farce from which the Truth that was manner the entire species seems coming down recedes into secrecy yond.” to have reached a point where it must and silence. We need, so desperately, some break through and emerge into a new glimmer of hope that the destiny of our consciousness, or else fall back into an Sri Aurobindo is a vision which saw species is not to wriggle and rot abyss of darkness and inertia. We can the fulfillment of the yet beneath the stars. take this as a sure sign of the infusion unaccomplished Ages. “Man is a tran- We will not find the answer in our into Matter of a new principle of force, sitional animal;” he said. “He is not heads. We recall Sri Aurobindo’s lines: of consciousnesss, of power which, final.” What is as yet unaccomplished? Or we may find when all the rest has through its very Pressure, is creating We recall the words of Epictetus, failed this acute state.” taken away to Rome as a slave “A Hid in ourselves the key of perfect What is this principle of power, little soul carrying a corpse.” It has change. consciousness, force? Einstein discov- always been so, since the first cry of ered a great truth E = mc2. All matter Life on Earth From primal microor- The Drive To Evolve in the universe resolves itself into one ganisms some four billion years ago, great Energy, not two. But, something through countless species of plant and To an extraterrestrial observer, our age is missing. There remains a further animal, right up to modem Man, Death must present the aspect of a tripod resolution to be effected, and modern has been the constant companion of teetering on one leg. He will see our physicists are looking for the ultimate Life. And we continue to inherit an species as enduring evolutionary equation they call the Unified Field, ever-mounting legacy of graves. All of suffocation from an incredible accel- and which they hope will explain us end up in one, or on a funeral pyre. eration of external and internal chaos everything. They will keep on looking And then, what? Does consciousness not unlike the extreme asphyxiation for it, until it dawns on them that the itself die? Was it ever really absent, suffered by the reptiles at the end of fundamental term of that ultimate even in inert stone and mineral? the Cretaceous Age. But, as always, equation is CONSCIOUSNESS Will the evolution of life on earth Mother Nature had a secret evolution- which equals E = mc2 • eventually result in a conscious being ary intent in that suffocation. Not all All consciousness, whether of jelly who will dispense with Death as the reptiles consented to extinction by fish or of mathematicians must, willy-

27 11-Mtl&i#f-111 nilly be part of the Unified Field. shall seize, But he also knew of the unforgettable Four thousand years ago the Mundaka Widening his soul-spark to an divine response to the human soul Upanishad already knew that Matter epiphany enshrined in some imperishable lines was secret Energy, or Of the timeless of Savitri: what they termed vastness of Infinity. My hidden presence led thee Consciousness- unknowing on Energy. “By energism The immense Like others before From thy beginning in earths of Consciousness him, Sri Aurobindo voiceless bosom (tapas) Brahman is journey of life on had known, in Through life and pain and time and massed; from that our planet seems conscious experience, will and death. Matter is born and the timeless condition Through outer shocks and inner from Matter, Life and governed by a of Nirvana. In two silences Mind and the worlds.” secret beatitude memorable lines of Along the mystic roads of Space and Even much earlier, Blessed are those his epic spiritual Time the Rig-Veda had testament, Savitri, he To the experience which all nature referred to the original who suffocate, for captured a further hides. and ultimate they shall have marvel : Consiciousness-Fire as release. So flashing out of the Sceptics may scoff, but seemingly Agni of which it Timeless leaped the inconscient material Nature did come said: “Flame with his worlds; out, successively, with several startling hundred treasures. . .O knower of all An eternal instant is the cause of the secrets it hid in that voiceless bosom. things born (I.59))." And again “He years We remember the imaginary logician is the child of the waters, the child of at the beginning of earth history, as the forests, the child of things stable He did not choose to remain in the conjured by Sri Aurobindo and the child of things that move. Even Timeless, to fall asleep in the Infinite, in the stone he is there (1.70.2)." For When only matter was there and as he put it with incomparable humor. there was no life, if [that logician Agni is also " . . . the Sun dwelling in That eternal instant must be recovered the darkness (111.39.5) “the One had been] told that there would soon in conscious life and experience, here be life on earth embodied in matter, conscious in unconscious things.” on earth. For if eternity is not also here, The tantrics figured and worshipped he would have cried out, “It is it cannot be anywhere else. William impossible, it cannot be done. What! it as Shakti, or The Divine Mother. Blake intuited this Call it what you like but it is the one this mass of electrons, gases, and only power. chemical elements, this heap of mud To see a World in a Grain of Sand, and water and stones and inert And a Heaven in a wild Flower metals, how are you going to get life The Big Bang Hold Infinity in the palm of your in that? Will the metal walk? The current favorite among phycisists hand, is the theory that the Universe began, And Eternity in an hour. The metal not only walked. It went on several billions of years ago, with what to run and fly, feel and think, write they call The Big Bang. But, at least in Clearly, there is more to the poetry and work out equations, and to private, some scientists muse that adventure of consciousness on Earth emerge, among other humans, as perhaps an all-seeing Eye not only than to vaporise on some supernal Buddha, Plato, Shakespeare, watched, but was itself the Big Bang. Height. I will echo here the harrowing Beethoven and Einstein. Some startling lines in a poem of Sri cry which begins a chapter in Aurobindo’s, titled “Electron,” might Satprem’s latest and most powerful A Power that Shatters nourish that wonder : book, Evolution II: “Four billion years and sorrows to vanish on high? Prisons The electron on which forms and But that is monstrous. And all these We are all fond of our separate worlds are built, graves are monstrous.” Leaped into being, a particle of God, prisons. Throughout history, previous A spark from the eternal energy species have been spilt, equally attached to It is the Infinite’s blind minute their's . Nonetheless, a abode. Central to Sri Aurobindo’s vision relentless evolutionary are two perceptions. First . power shattered all Atom and molecule in their unseen kinds of more or less “Nothing can evolve out of Matter tolerable enclosures Plan Buttress an edifice of strange which is not therein already skins, cocoons, shells onenesses, -carapaces of all contained.” Second “The soul kinds. She is due to Crystal and plant, insect and beast had a prehuman past, it has a and man, shatter still more, Man on whom the World-Unity superhuman future.” beginning with our

28 ■ ffi&@hmki ■ mental cages, until she finds conscious has always occurred since that first map. I might give just one hint he tenements in terrestrial time for the protoplasm - in the cells. Which is offered in an extraordinary poem: experience which all Nature hides. why, beginning as Pilgrims of the I have been digging deep and long Central to Sri Aurobindo's vision Light, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother Mid a horror of filth and mire are two perceptions. First : "Nothing also became Pilgrims of the Night A A bed for the golden river's song, can evolve out of Matter which is not very physical Night, nursing in its A home for the deathless fire. therein already contained." Second: bosom that Sun dwelling in the "The soul had a prehuman past, it has a darkness of the Vedic rishis. We also seem to hear the first superhuman future." He also gave an "Salvation is physical," said the stammerings of a new being in thirteen uniquely non-linear response to that Mother. The adventure of conscious­ volumes of Mother's conversations ancient conundrum : which came first, ness which began aeons ago in a single recorded by Satprem, with the title : the hen or the egg? His answer : Both throbbing cell in the shallows of some Mother's Agenda ofThe Supramental - and the cockerel! ancient sea is not fulfilled until, as Sri Action Upon Earth. And we land in a Simultaneity, not Aurobindo put it : "The high meets the Nothing more can, nor need be said, unknown to modem physics. We learn low, all is a single plan." in forty odd minutes. The work from Einstein's equations that a change continues, consciously in a few, of speed results in a change of time. Here's a random sampling from unconsciously in the rest of us. For Sri We recall the familiar story of the Savitri's fields of wonder: Aurobindo had said: "All life is yoga;" space traveler who returns to earth "The truth above shall awake a nether and "Nobody is saved unless all are having aged Jess than those who truth." saved." remained there. But at the speed of Next : "Even the body shall remember We conclude with two lines from light, our human scale of time vanishes God." Savitri: altogether. Here too, the Indian rishis Further : "The Spirit shall look out A few shall see what none yet spoke of the simultaneous vision of the through Matter's gaze understands; three times - past, present and future And Matter shall reveal the God shall grow up while the wise - which they called trikala drishti. Spirit's face." men talk and sleep ... All this is mind-boggling. And God Sri Aurobindo left only the barest knows that our minds deserve to be C. V. Devan Nair, former President of hints about his own descent into Night boggled. the Republic of Singapore, now lives in The evolutionary Future will not Obviously, the language of a new Bloomington, Indiana. take shape in our heads, but where it species is not yet on any linguistic

Centers

August 15, 1993 Darshan gathering at Mataglri

29 ------...... ------9ii&@hii@i ■------£-¢... ____ ,, . .,~

ORE THAN 100 PEOPLE holds weekly meditations on Thursday attended the observance of evenings and special gatherings as well AVI-USA is planning a retn~ at Sri Aurobindo's birthday as its library and bookstore. Shenoah in Booneville, Cal~fomia andM Matagiri's 25th anniversary on After the meditation and talk, a on February 26-7. The cost is $55 August 15. They came from as far as lavish collective picnic was enjoyed· a night, including meals. Sp+ace is Kansas, Canada and France, and kept under a tent behind the main house. limited. Call the Sacramento appearing.all day even though the Those attending all brought food to office for more details. event started at 11 a.m. A large share. Later, John Schlorholtz from AVI is also offering again this number of Russian emigres attended, Boston gave a slide show of the year the beautiful AuroviUe including a group of Russian teenagers. Ashram and Auroville, and then Greenwork Calendar to bene:fit Since the day was warm and sunny, the Dhanya, a Dutch Aurovilian, led afforestation in Auroville. lbe meditation was held outdoors on the people in chanting on the lookout cost is $12.90 including ship1ping. lookout point near the main building point. People visited the library where before a special flower-decked altar. there were special displays including Sri Aurobindo's poem "A God's rare books, a photographic history of Labour" was read followed by a tape of Matagiri, several albums of Ashram music and a powerful photographs of Sri Aurobindo and the meditation in the shade of the trees Mother, letters from well-wishers, All-USA-Meeting: 1!>94 facing a majestic mountain vista. including Dr. Karan Singh, and a wall Afterwards both Sam and Eric, the hanging made by the Sri Aurobindo Where: Pathworks Center, founders of Matagiri, spoke briefly Center in Tavignano, Italy. The Phoenicia, New York before introducing Rudy Phillips, bookstore and gift shop were also busy When: June 30-July 4 president of~ Foundation for World all afternoon. Contact: Julian Lines,Aurov'ille Education, which now owns the It was an extraordinary day and it Information Office, 23 Mill Hill Matagiri property. He spoke of the was gratifying to see so many old Road, Woodstock, NY 12498, Foundation's plans to construct a friends and former residents, some who (914) 679-2926 for informati:on on meditation and retreat facility on the had not been to Matagiri in 20 years. presenting or if you wish to c:ome mountainside and showed aerial Matagiri welcomes visitors. If you early and/or stay longer for a. photographs of the property and would like to visit or to be notified of retreat. tentative plans for the new structures. special events here, please write to The present buildings will continue to Matagiri, 1218 Wittenberg Road, Mt. be used as a center and Matagiri still Tremper, NY 12457 or call (914) 679- 8322.

Sri Aurobindo Centers, Study Groups, Contact Persons and Affiliates, USA & Canada.

AVI-USA Cultural Integration Fellowship Matagiri Sri Auroblndo S~udy P.O. Box 162489 360 Cumberland 1218 Wittenberg Road Group 3112 'O' St., Suite 13 Sao Fnncisco, CA 94114 Mt. Tremper, NY 12457 25 East 21st St. Sacramento, CA 95816 (415) 626-2442 (914) 679-8322 Hamilton, Ontarl.o, Canada (916) 452-4013 Dush_yaot Desai Paclftc Northwest/Puget Sound L8V 2T3 (416) 383-5743 Aurovllle Information Office Sri Auroblodo Center 2020 Roosevelt 23 Mill Hill Road 25 Hill Street Enumclaw, WA 98022 Wilmot Center Woodstock, NY 12498 Bloomfield, NJ 07003 (206) 825-3413 33719 116th Stre.et (914) 679-2926 (201) 748-e639 Sri Auroblndo Association Twin Lakes, WI !53181 Boston Study Group East Bay Center 2288 Fulton St., Suite 310 (414) 889-8561 91 Kilmarnock St. 2288 Fulton St., Suite 310 Berkeley, CA 94704 Boston, MA 02215 Berkeley, CA 94704 (510) 848-1841 (617)262-6390 (510) 848-1841 Sri Auroblodo Center-Southeast California Institute of The Integral Knowledge do JllM Enterprises, P.O. Box 8375 Integral Studies Study Center Greenville, SC 29604 765 Ashbury Street Sri Auroblndo Circle (803) 232-9944 Sao Franclsco, CA 94117 221 Clematis St. Sri Auroblndo Learning Center, Inc. (415) 753-6100 Pensacola, FL 32503 Savitrl Hoose (904) 433-3435 Le Centre Sri Auroblndo & Savltri Solar VIUage Jyoti Ashram 4125 Rue St. Denis Baca Grande, P.O. Box 80 1291 Weber St. Montreal, Quebec, Canada Crestone, CO 81131 Pomona CA 91768 H2W 2M7 (514) 845-2786 (719) 256-4917 (909) 629--0108

30 -....-..--2 0-----1■ 'ullaboratio,

Meditation at the East-West Center Mrs. Aurora and Manoj Das, Ashram Trustee A.U.M. 1993 Los Angeles, California

Altemative lunch by the roadside

Sam Graves, Marlo Santonastaso, Bob Dane

Dennis Ha,gi8s and friends Jean Korstange and Bill Sullivan wave goodbye

31 1 1'

·Auroville Landscape in the 1970’s

Sri Aurobindo Association Non-Profit Organization Collaboration U.S. Postage Paid 2288 Fulton St. #310 Berkeley, California Berkeley, CA 94704 Permit# 55