Fall 2005 Journal of the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother Vol. 30, no. 3

Inside the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives

Fall 2005 Collaboration • 1 Table of contents Collaboration, vol. 30, no. 3, Fall 2005

From the office of Collaboration Notes on this issue ...... 3

Current affairs About the cover AUM 2005: Breaking through barriers at Fort Warden ...... Grace Aroha 4 Shelves of documents cover the wall of a large ground floor room of the Sri Aurobindo AV almanac Ashram Archives. (Photo by Larry Seidlitz) Work on the Matrimandir progressing quickly ...... 6 The ultimate relief: the gift of peace ...... Bhavana Dee 7 The authors and poets A tapestry of the Divine ...... Sraddhalu Ranade 8 Grace Aroha ([email protected]) lives at Sri Aurobindo Sadhana Peetham in Lodi, Chronicles California. She is working to improve communi- cations among Sri Aurobindo centers. Inside the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives ...... Archives Team 11 Richard Carlson ([email protected]) is President/CEO of Pacific Weather Inc., and was the main organizer for AUM 2005. Essay Bhavana Dee (bhavana@auroville.org.in) di- rects the Village Action Project in Auroville, Technology and the titan (conclusion) ...... Richard Carlson 23 which assists villagers in the Auroville area devel- op their communities. Joseph Kent ([email protected]) is a member Source material of the Cultural Integration Fellowship in San Francisco and an author of two books of poetry. The problem of human disunity ...... Sri Aurobindo 30 Shyam Kumari, an Ashram member for 36 The collective and the individual in the supramental manifestation ...... years, is an author, poet, editor, and managing director of a Sanskrit school in Pondicherry ...... The Mother 30 ([email protected]). Rick Lipschutz ([email protected]) is a medical transcriptionist in San Francisco, The poetry room and a member of the Cultural Integration Fel- From Love and death ...... Sri Aurobindo 32 lowship. Navaja Llope ([email protected]), a long- She truly loved ...... Shyam Kumari 32 time devotee from the U.S., is a graphic artist A quarry lagoon ...... Joseph Kent 33 who lives in Pondicherry, India. Manas Pati ([email protected]) is Before dawn, at the sea ...... Navaja Llope 34 a graduate student at the University of Hydera- September ...... Larry Seidlitz 34 bad, India, and is a frequent visitor to the Perch fishing ...... Rick Lipschutz 35 Ashram in Pondicherry. Sraddhalu Ranade is a life-long member of When I look at Her ...... Manas Pati 35 the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, and a gifted speaker Trust the dream ...... Chandresh Patel 35 on the Integral Yoga ([email protected]). Larry Seidlitz ([email protected]) facilitates online coures for Sri Aurobindo Dar- shan: The University of Tomorrow, Pondicherry, Apropos ...... 36 and is editor of Collaboration.

2 • Collaboration Fall 2005 The artists and photographers From the office of Collaboration Lynda Lester ([email protected]) is a gifted speaker on the Integral Yoga and is former editor of Collaboration. Nilauro Markus ([email protected]) n this issue, we feature a lengthy interview with six of the members of the Sri Auro- is the former coordinator for Auroville Interna- bindo Ashram Archives and Research Library. Three of the members are American, tional-USA and an avid photographer. IBob Zwicker, Peter Heehs, and Richard Hartz; one is from The Netherlands and is Margaret Astrid Phanes ([email protected]) well-known in the U.S., Matthijs Cornelissen; and the other two are Indian, Ranganath teaches digital media at Maui Community Col- Raghavan and Raman Reddy. Despite their pressing work, they were very gracious in lege and uses her art as a focus for meditation. Larry Seidlitz ([email protected]) is granting my request for the interview and opening their doors and minds to our readers. editor for Collaboration. After some preliminary discussion on the idea for the interview and providing me with www.sxc.hu provided stock photographs. some background reading, we spent the latter part of a Friday afternoon in the Archives offices discussing the history and work of the Archives department. After my transcrip- Collaboration (ISSN 0164-1522) is pub- tion of the tape-recording and first pass in editing it, several of the members carefully lished by the Sri Aurobindo Association (SAA), went through it and clarified and elaborated on some of the dialogue. The result is, I a California nonprofit religious corporation, P.O. Box 163237, Sacramento, CA 95816 think, a very readable and interesting account of the history and work of the Archives. USA; e-mail: [email protected]; phone: The major project with which the Archives has been involved during the last eight 209-339-3710, ext. 6; fax: 916-451-9039. years is the publication of the Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, which is coming out a Copyright © 2005. few volumes at a time and is still underway. This edition differs from the previous collec- Photos of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, tion, The Sri Aurobindo Birth Cententary Library edition, in two main respects: it in- passages from their works, and excerpts from cludes more material, and all the material is being carefully examined for accuracy using the books published by the Sri Aurobindo all available manuscripts, typescripts, and printed editions. It is a huge job, and one that Ashram Trust are © Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust unless otherwise noted, and are used here is based on an enormous preliminary work of scrutinizing, organizing, and cataloging with the kind permission of the Ashram. The many thousands of documents. In the interview, we discussed this new edition at opinions expressed in Collaboration are not length—the work involved, how it is progressing, and some of the new material that it necessarily those of the editors or the SAA. contains. We also discussed the historical development of the Archives, the preserva- Staff for this issue: Larry Seidlitz, edi- tion of manuscripts, and other important projects that are underway or are planned for tor and layout; Kim Agrawal, proofreader. Subscriptions: A one-year subscription the future. (three issues) to Collaboration is $20 ($32 for We also feature the second and concluding part of Richard Carlson’s essay, “Tech- airmail outside the USA; in India only, Rs. 150 nology and the titan.” In the first part, Richard introduced us to the idea of technology as to Larry Seidlitz, 39 Vanniar St., Vaithikuppam, a “medium that allows us to flawlessly interface with phenomena that otherwise would Pondicherry 605012). A patron subscription is remain physically or psychologically distant.” We were shown an array of new technol- $40 or more for three issues; a sponsorship sub- scription for residents of India is $4. ogies from the frontiers of science that pose fascinating possibilities for good and evil. Submissions: Collaboration welcomes At its best, the medium of technology becomes virtually invisible, an extension of human writing, photos, and artwork relevant to the consciousness. But this invisibility has its dangers, in that technology can and has been Integral Yoga and spirituality. Submit material usurped by forces intent on power and profit. In the second part, Rich examines more by email to: [email protected]; by fax closely the relationship between technology and these forces aimed at power and profit, at 209-339-3715; or by post to Collaboration, P.O. Box 163237, Sacramento, CA 95816 and the future possibilities resulting from the misuse of technology. We are also shown, USA. Collaboration cannot be held responsible in contrast, the future possibility for mankind presented by Sri Aurobindo, and the assis- for loss or damage of unsolicited material. Let- tance that technology may provide in its realization. ters to the editor may be published unless you In addition to these feature articles we have a report on the AUM 2005 conference by indicate otherwise. Letters and articles may be Grace Aroha, and three essays pertaining to Auroville. The first of these later three es- edited for style and space considerations. About SAA: The Sri Aurobindo Associa- says gives an update on the work of the Matrimandir. The second, by Bhavana, relates an tion distributes information about Sri Auro- interesting and heart-warming account of one result of the relief efforts being made in bindo, the Mother, and Auroville and supports Auroville following the devastating tsunami. The third article is an inspiring opening various projects related to the Sri Aurobindo address made by Sraddhalu Ranade, a respected member of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, to Ashram, Auroville, and Integral Yoga activities the Auroville International Conference that was held earlier this year. In it, he helps us to in America. Current officers: Theresa Boschert, coordinator; Kalpana Patel, treasurer; Chand- see the significance of Auroville, its deeper nature and intent, and its connection with the resh Patel, secretary. divine work in the world outside. Contributions: Donations for the work As usual, we also present source material from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, a of the SAA, Auroville, and the Sri Aurobindo good selection of poetry, thought-provoking apropos quotations, many photographs, Ashram may be sent to SAA. Donations are tax and in this issue, a digital art piece by Margaret Phanes. exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. In- ternal Revenue Code.

Fall 2005 Collaboration • 3 Current Affairs

AUM 2005: Breaking through barriers at Fort Worden

By Grace Aroha

he All USA Meeting (AUM) is a collective gathering of devotees from the U.S. and abroad. It occurs in a Tdifferent city each year, hosted by the local Sri Auro- bindo center or study group in that locality. This year’s confer- ence was hosted by Rich Carlson and his delightful wife, Nishi, in Port Townsend, Washington, about a two-hour drive northwest Some of the Mother’s soldiers at AUM 2005. (Photo by Lynda Lester) of Seattle. This was my first AUM, so I don’t have a previous point of 19th century military fort. I found it interesting that even the his- reference for comparison. However, my first impression was that torical physical environment upon which our group had chosen the entire conference seemed to be carefully synchronized by to converge graciously lent itself to the orchestrated formation Mother and one might wonder, upon looking back at the event, if that we were to create over the days that followed. it was necessary to carefully plan and schedule all the activities at Our dormitory-style sleeping accommodations were housed all. In fact, the preset schedules magically reformulated them- in what used to be a military barracks—a cozy foundation for the selves to meet the mood of the moment, the lines between the sea- “Aurobindo troops” to rest, meditate and recharge before each soned speakers and the attendees blurred, and new presentations day’s busy schedule. and workshops were re-created on cue. Our wake-up call each morning, as opposed to the militant My experience of the event began at the Seattle airport. I ar- blare of a brass bugle, came in the form of the beautiful, melodi- rived expecting to find a car or perhaps a small mini-van waiting to ous sound of inspired traditional Indian music graciously offered carry me and a handful of people up to Port Townsend. Instead, I by Devi Karunamayee from the New Delhi Ashram. Her divine gift was greeted by a crowd of about thirty fellow “Aurobindo family nourished our souls in preparation for the day’s activities. members” patiently waiting as each flight arrived and added one The 100-year old Victorian building that became our main or more members to the troop of devotees queuing up to board the gathering abode contrasted nicely with the newly built dining luxury chartered bus arranged by Rich Carlson. hall and conference room facilities between which we alternated Many of the attendees and speakers were well acquainted; throughout each day. This daily alteration reflected the transition others, like me, were not. Nonetheless the whole clan seemed to that occurred in our discussions between the historical evolution merge together like instant family—a phenomena that was rein- of man and the evolutionary process that we face today as we forced by the cheery bus driver who repeatedly referred to us as move toward the future. the “Carlson family reunion” group as she graciously whisked us This year’s conference was entitled “Science & Spirituality: up the scenic winding path to our final destination. A community dialog on emerging culture.” According to the pro- As to be expected with the any carefully scheduled event, we gram, the purpose of its theme, “The Promise of the Future,” was arrived at the Fort Worden State Park Conference Center to find to “explore the promise of the future envisaged by Sri Aurobindo organizers and helpers frantically scurrying about as the busload and the evolution of consciousness as it manifests in culture, of “family members” exited the bus and searched for direction. science and our daily lives.” Wow. But how were we to take hold This temporary period of adjustment worked in our favour by al- of and conquer such an overpowering topic in only three days? lowing each member of the “family” to bond with others, and Fort Worden, along with the heavy batteries of Fort Flagler small groups to disperse in various directions to map out the area and Fort Casey, once guarded a nautical entrance to Puget and create what would become our “nest” for the next few days. Sound. These posts, established in the 1890s, became the first Our nesting ground, Fort Worden State Park, is a 433-acre line of a fortification designed to prevent a hostile fleet from multi-use park with 11,020 feet of saltwater shoreline and a wide reaching such targets as the Bremerton Naval Yard and the cities variety of services and facilities. The park rests on a high bluff of Seattle, Tacoma and Everett. Similarly, the “Aurobindo troops” overlooking Puget Sound. Many historic buildings remain at this battled away within the safety of the conference room, putting

4 • Collaboration Fall 2005 heads and hearts together to discuss, debate and aspire toward • The future is always present and the past is always present. understanding, solutions and collaboration around the complex • We are what we know and we know what we are. topics put before us. • The psychic being is the divine kernel in us. It is here where Fortunately, we had been well-armed with a winning line-up the transformation will take place. The supermind cannot be of sincere devotees cum speakers well-equipped to unload their based in the sense mind. The sense mind is made up of reflec- knowledge, experience and aspiration with the troops. Presenters tions. Knowledge of reality comes from within. and panellists from the more well-known “Sri Aurobindo family” • How does the exponential advance of scientific/technolog- included: Debashish Banerji, Aster Patel, Alok Pandey, Matthijs ical evolution complement or contrast with integral yoga for the Cornelissen, Lynda Lester, Rod Hemsell, Neeltje Huppes, David future evolution of the species? Hutchinson, Ameeta Mehra, Michael Miovic, Savitra (Alan Lith- • We are the ones we are waiting for. We need to survive long man) and Lakshman Sehgal. In addition, we welcomed special enough to transform. guests Allan Combs, author of The Radiance of Being, and Joe • What is it that matter is telling us? Subbiondo, President of the California Institute of Integral • The secret of harmony is union in the Mother. Organize col- Studies. lective life around Her (not the concept of her). The conference theme was strategically divided into sub- • Remember the Mother in every activity, consecrating each topics that were presented by speakers and panel groups. The act to the Mother with a will to surrender. line-up included: The promise of the future: Sri Aurobindo’s epis- • Science separated from spirituality is a very dangerous temology and cognitive science, Integral Yoga and the ecology of thing. The will to power and omniscience drives science. speed, Future community, The psychic being and the evolving To further insure that all aspects of our being received train- body, The body in its search for the future, Structures of the brain ing towards the divine transformation to come, we were also sup- and evolution of the psychic being, Integral Yoga and the future plied with a creative array of mini-workshops to choose from: cre- paradigm of science, Integral education, and Science—the new ative dance, art and meditation, devotional vocal music, hatha paradigm: mind to supermind. yoga, integral education, exploration of the planes and parts of The emphasis of the conference format was on café-style the being, and Savitri for the post-modern consciousness. conversations of small groups and panel discussions. Unlike a All this in three days! Perhaps we had overcome the “eco- typical military unit, this allowed the “commanders and chiefs” to logy of speed,” or perhaps we had reached the point of no return. merge with the “soldiers” and all became one smooth functioning Certainly, like the massive fortifications that had once dominated machine. In tune with our historical setting, we militarily divided the landscape of Fort Worden, we had managed to further break ourselves into smaller units by sounding off a number from one to through the barriers to human unity and conscious evolution. ten and obediently rendezvousing with our assigned group. I Until next year, I leave you with a battle cry from the words of share with you Richard’s view of this less traditional conference Sri Aurobindo written in Bande Mataram, “The little that is done format. “What I believe the small groups did besides breaking up seems nothing when we look forward and see how much we have the natural tendency to form cliques with people you already yet to do.” know was to distribute the responsibility for providing insights to the whole community who were present. Everyone’s thoughts, ideas and feelings were given honor and value. I believe that the break-out into randomly organized groups both adds to more in- timate relationships of the community and, in an integrative man- ner, honors everyone’s experience of doing the integral yoga.” The knowledge-sharing, ideas and inspirations that came out of this could fill a book (or several books). I share with you here only a few of the ideas and questions that my logical brain will allow me to coherently discharge two weeks after the event. • We are now in the “Common Era” where the world of God is all around us and there is no longer a need to become a priest to experience God. • We reside in an intelligent universe with a new spirituality which is also a new materiality. Is there another future that co- exists with this? • What is the future? The future is not the present extending itself. We are not the creators of the future, we are beings created in the image of the future. Going over battle plans at Fort Worden. (Photo by Lynda Lester)

Fall 2005 Collaboration • 5 AV almanac Work on the Matrimandir progressing quickly

This article is reprinted with permission from the June 2005 Matrimandir Newsletter

he Matrimandir is pushing ahead towards completion with an increasingly remarkable and visible speed. In the month Tof May, when the temperatures climb to 40 degrees Cel- sius. and the human beings on the scene tend to drip with sweat and droop in the blazing sun, it’s as if the Matrimandir itself had decided to counterbalance this season’s natural slowdown by The golden discs have been removed to enable waterproofing moving things ahead at an even faster pace. underneath.(Photo courtesy The Matrimandir Newsletter) Take, for example, the scene that is visible any morning from a via the ramp would not be possible until both ramps have been vantage point 100 meters from the main sphere on the North axis: sandblasted. This and the subsequent repainting of both ramps some 70 people, divided into three teams, can be seen busy at may take about four months . . . and only then will we be able to work up on the structure. They start work at 6 a.m. to beat the heat move on to the works which require a dust-free environment for of the day. One team, on the left, is putting the discs back up on their execution. the outer skin, for on that quadrant the new waterproofing layer The Inner Chamber is sealed off from this dust storm and has has been applied from top to bottom. Row by horizontal row, the its own temporary A/C machine to cool and dry the air inside shining golden discs are being remounted on their stainless steel while the work on the ceiling and the installation of the new A/C legs. ducts is going on. The Chamber’s center has been filled by the To their right, two other teams are at work: the one lower aluminum scaffolding, built up over the well-shielded crystal down is applying the fresh waterproofing coat to the outer skin, globe to reach the top of the ceiling where the modification work while a third team is busy, some ten meters higher, building the is proceeding smoothly. scaffolding and preparing platforms for the team that will remove On 3 May the original cone at the apex of the ceiling through the discs. which the sun’s ray has descended up to now was opened and As if one group were chasing the other, each team works the large lens used for focusing the ray was removed. The cone quickly to stay ahead of the one behind it, for nobody wants their has now been rebuilt in a new form to accommodate several team to be accused of holding up the work! These acrobatics on changes in the ceiling design. The new central opening will the Matrimandir are well coordinated now that we have the hang house not only the ray-focusing lens, but will also accommodate of it, and the progress of the work is very visible. the artificial light to be used when there is no sun, as well as al- Coming back to our position on the North axis, and listening, lowing the cooled A/C air to pass through space into the Cham- one can hear the steady rumble of a large diesel-fuelled air com- ber below. This job is quite complex and will take a few more pressor which sits on the West axis, just beyond the large petals months to complete. surrounding the Matrimandir. It is supplying air to the sand-blast- Returning to our station on the North axis outside the Matri- ing gun of a fourth team which is at work early today. This team is mandir, we cannot help but notice the other activity which is go- busy inside the Matrimandir, removing the paint from a section of ing on at this early morning hour: the constant back and forth one of the two spiral ramps that lead from the second level up to movement of tipper lorries (dump trucks) passing just behind us the Inner Chamber. Sandblasting is the first step in the process of on the Oval road that encircles the gardens area. The trucks are repainting the ramps. The project creates a huge amount of dust busy on the eastern edge of the Oval carrying loads of soil that a inside the building, despite the elaborate plastic-and-gunny bag powerful excavator is carving out of the earth on a section of the enclosures that have been set up around the work area to contain Oval road. it. It is urgent that this work is done now because it has to be com- Until recently this area was occupied by the old workshops pleted before finishing the work on the inner skin. In any case, it is and offices of Matrimandir. Over the last one year all these struc- clear now that the work on the Inner Chamber will not be complet- tures have been moved outside of the Oval, allowing the present ed before September, and even if it were ready sooner, the access operation to get underway. The excavator has been in action for

6 • Collaboration Fall 2005 The ultimate relief: the gift of peace

by Bhavana Dee

The two fishing villages of Thanthirayankuppam and Nadukuppam are located next to each other on the coast. They have been feuding for years—the young people refuse to speak to anyone from the other village, just like their elders. After the tsunami of last December, all the fishermen up and down the coast decided they would not go fishing until the gov- ernment paid the compensation – they didn’t want them to say it was all fine now, and back to normal, and delay forever their re- ceiving all the money which they know has been collected in their favour. That gave those of us in the rehabilitation scene quite a Amidst work on the apex, the stateliness of the inner chamber challenge: it has not been possible to just go ahead with getting remains unperturbed. (Photo courtesy The Matrimandir Newsletter) everyone back on their feet, to get over the trauma by getting on three weeks to bring the ground down to the “zero” level, the av- with life as usual, to work off the shock with lots of hard work. erage horizontal level given for the whole ring road. On the west- Faced with so many healthy young men in enforced idleness, we ern end of the gardens, where the old Workers Camp used to be, took up their request to organise a cricket tournament between all the level of the ground is below this zero level, so the lorries are the cricket clubs of the 23 “kuppams” (fishing villages) which busy carrying the excavated earth to that area, to bring it up to the Auroville is working with. The elders promised that they would desired level. It is a huge work, one that would have taken hun- maintain law and order. dreds of men months to do by hand, as it was done 34 years ago Alas, when it looked like Thanthirayankuppam would win when the crater for Matrimandir’s foundation was excavated. against Nadukuppam (the home team) the youth and even the With this step completed, the gardens area will have been grown-ups couldn’t control their emotions, and a brawl broke brought roughly into the shape required by the original design. out. The game had to be called off, the tournament was stopped, Though there is still a lot of fine tuning of the levels to be done in and the elders felt embarrassed and disgraced. Thanthirayankup- this freshly excavated section, the bulk of the work is over. And pam leaders even drew up plans and an estimate to build a big the stage is thus set for the next phase: the laying down of the wall between the two communities. garden infrastructure, the water and power lines that will feed the But it didn’t end there. When Moris, the Coordinator of Vil- irrigation and lighting systems of the future gardens. The creation lage Action, went to discuss this with the elders, it came out that of this infrastructure is a big job which will be tackled in the com- they had been feuding for years and wanted to take the opportu- ing months, while continuing the many other works now under- nity of Auroville’s presence to settle it. Several preliminary meet- way to complete the structure by the end of next year. ings had to be held, and several postponements occurred, but eventually the elders of both villages, together with the respect- ed elders of the other villages as well, met. They brought up sto- ries from 10 years ago, they screamed and shouted. Moris was afraid the Kuilapalayam villagers, in whose Cultural Centre the meeting was being held, might come and protest, adding to the fire, but they didn’t. And finally, they agreed to bury the hatchet, give up their old resentments, and carry on freshly. It was won- derful to see the handshake between the two leaders, the sense of relief as if a great burden were being removed from their shoul- ders, and to see immediately the young men slapping each other on the back and talking animatedly together. A few days later, the headman of Chinnamudliarchavadi Kup- pam told Moris, “This is by far the most valuable thing you have given us, it is worth more than all the food and boats and hous- es.” We think so too, and feel that the mutual recognition of this High up on the scaffolding: Matrimandir “acrobats” at work. (Photo is a tiny step toward human unity, which is our Aurovilian goal. courtesy The Matrimandir Newsletter)

Fall 2005 Collaboration • 7 A tapestry even appear to be opposite, she brings may know of the Mother’s reference to an them all back together to unite them in a attempt in Egypt, which was ahead of its of the Divine richer, wider, larger harmony. In the present time, but which was necessary to keep the phase of human evolution all these lines ideal alive. People were drawn to that ideal, by Sraddhalu Ranade are being brought together. But precisely and became aligned to it. They had come because these lines often have specializ- together for that purpose and had to pass This talk was given by Sraddhalu on the ing, contradictory directions, the struggle through the pain of its failure. occasion of the opening session of the to find the harmony is greater. The Mother observed once that ev- Auroville International meeting in Auro- There is a certainty of a success be- eryone who has come here, be it the ville, on 14 January 2005. cause nature has drawn each line from an Ashram or Auroville, has been brought originating truth. But to tie them all togeth- here because they were promised, long wo years ago at the beginning of er and harmonize and unite them, Nature ago, that when the time came for the fulfil- the new year I was in the Tibetan has to struggle. It is as if Nature is weaving ment of the ideal they would be given a TPavilion to attend the “thousand together a tapestry with all these lines, and chance. All of us have been brought here. lights” ceremony. It wasn’t the first time I in that tapestry an image is to form, an im- We do not remember it, but something had come to Auroville, but somehow, the age of the Divine. But that image is not a deep in our hearts knows. When we ask moment seemed special. There was a feel- static image. That particularly unfolding ourselves why we came to Auroville, we ing of something achieved, something pattern will be one of divine delight and probably will find no rational reason, or alive. We were together, but somehow the freedom in which all these threads will not perhaps a chance event, but the event was individual faces didn’t matter. In the gener- be statically bound as in a carpet, but will only a trigger to bring forward something al outline of the silhouettes, one saw that continuously flow through each other, which knew. And even now it is that thing each person there presented a state of uniting, merging, playing, twisting, and that knows, that keeps us here, that makes consciousness linked to millions all over uncurling in a movement of constant, us struggle against the odds. It is that the world. In that gathering, I felt that all growing delight. promise that the Divine has kept with us. these different beings of different coun- If this is the future towards which hu- The time has come for that fulfilment. The tries, nationalities, cultures, types and manity is growing, nature has still one whole of evolution has waited for this mo- threads of human consciousness had been great challenge to surmount. Although the ment. The human age is about to dawn. drawn together by some divine presence, entire tapestry is woven around the globe, And here in Auroville a nucleus, a seed, and were tied up, bound together. I had the through some way she must bring these has been established. distinct sense that something had been threads together and bind them. Perhaps Why here? Long ago, long before accomplished, that for the future of the she concentrates on one small patch of the even the idea of Auroville had touched the world, unity is safe, is really accomplished carpet. It is a little like what we do in a human mind, when the Mother used to here. The rest is a question of “unfoldment” chemistry experiment in which in a liquid drive on what is now the East Coast road, in a certain sense. This is the purpose for where sugar is dissolved, one plants one she has on several occasions stopped and which Auroville has been established: to grain of sugar, around which all the mixed stared in this direction. When one of her manifest a practical, working human unity molecules coalesce to trigger off a reaction attendants asked what it was that she was well before its time, something that for the that leads to the granulation of all the sug- seeing, she said “One day a huge city will rest of the world is still impossible. ar dissolved in that water. It is as if the di- be established here.” At the time it was All these elements which have been vine sweetness, now fragmented in chaot- considered a strange idea because this gathered here, which are present here ic lines dispersed all around the world, was desert land, nothing was growing. through each of us, form part of a thread needs one tiny grain as a catalyst, which Why here? She saw it, she didn’t choose that has existed for thousands or even mil- will spark off so many such crystals of the it, she saw it. Because the divine will had lions of years. Nature has struggled for divine sweetness. That grain is Auroville. already chosen this space and prepared it ages to develop specialised lines of con- The ideal of Auroville, the Reality that for centuries. sciousness so that these lines could split it manifests, has been in existence ever Recall the Mother’s observation that into further specialisations. Sometimes since the universe was born. It has waited all the world’s problems have been they have merged to then split again. Sri through many billions of years. Every time brought to India because it is in this labo- Aurobindo refers to this constant princi- that it seemed as if the ideal might lose its ratory, where a spiritual culture already ex- ple of Nature that she takes a single trait hold on the possibility of manifesting it- ists, that a resolution to the problems of and opens from it many lines of specialised self, the Divine has precipitated it upon humanity has to be found. But if those development. When each line has been earth—even when circumstances were not problems of human nature have been fulfilled to its extreme, lines which may ready, simply to keep that ideal alive. You brought to India, there is a still greater

8 • Collaboration Fall 2005 problem, on a more external level, which is the problem of various cultures and na- tionalities. This is more complex than just the human type. How shall we bring to- gether so many distinct and even opposite cultures in a way that a larger harmony can be established—a dynamic unfolding har- mony—without letting one culture swal- low another, enabling the distinctiveness of each culture to co-exist and enrich each other, without dilution? So within India a special space had to be chosen: that is Auroville. But why then? Why not earlier, why not later? Again we find that there was a great preparation before Auroville could be established. The Sri Aurobindo Ashram was established first. In that concentrated atmosphere a space was created in the consciousness where the supramental consciousness could descend and commit to physical matter. Once the link to the su- permind was established in that concen- “The new age is not to be built from existing forms; it has to be built from scratch, from its trated space and the supramental mani- very foundation up. Only barren land would do. You have to begin by planting trees, by fested on earth, only then it was possible changing the climate, by bringing the water.” (Photo by Nilauro Markus) to work on Auroville. It still took the Moth- er a decade before that possibility could be she did not know, but the fact that it was treme?” But that’s the fulfilment, the chal- organised in external circumstances. The received by a human being was an indica- lenge, the adventure that our souls have right people had to be found to build the tion that the time had come for its founda- chosen. And those very extreme problems city of the new age, the catalyst, the seed tion. That thing waiting had managed to can be resolved here because the base of of the sweetness of the future. And the lo- touch the mind of a human being. And the this entire project is the spiritual con- cation had to be found, which had been work began soon thereafter. sciousness; it is the supramental con- prepared over thousands of years. Each individual here represents a fo- sciousness of unity. The new age is not to be built from cal point of humanity’s aspiration. And Yet, in our first efforts, as human be- existing forms; it has to be built from therefore, every problem one sees here is ings, we have to pass through a few layers scratch, from its very foundation up. Only also a problem that humanity has to re- in between. So we will try to solve our barren land would do. You have to begin solve after it has been resolved here. So problems by rules and regulations, by by planting trees, by changing the climate, even if you come with the best of inten- compulsion, by imposition, by conflict, by bringing the water. With not a single tions, with the clearest of consciousness, discussion, strategy, and we will have to rupee, you have to gather all from scratch. the fact that we come for this purpose exhaust those possibilities. We have to What will you create, where will people makes us a representative of humanity. come to a point where we feel “I just can’t live, what kinds of houses? Nothing of the Problems will manifest around us, whether solve it,” and that’s where one will turn to old is to be working, every step is new on we like it or not, because that is precisely something else, to someone else to solve earth, newly perceived, newly created. The the role Auroville has to play. The prob- it. As long as I think that I can do it, it first school that was established here lems in Auroville seem to be ever exagger- doesn’t work. When I give up and ask for Mother named “Last School”—the end of ated because they must be solved in the help, then I find that, miraculously, the sit- a mind-set, the beginning of a new line of most intense conditions. It doesn’t help uation will be solved; it will change and re- development. when the problem is solved when it is not cast itself. Immediately after that happens, Then the time came for Matrimandir to intense. If you look from this perspective I fall back into my old ways and illusions, I be made. You will recall, someone cycling at the problems in Auroville you may won- start believing in myself again. But after through had a vision of the Matrimandir der, “Is it worth living in a space where all this kind of thing repeatedly occurs, I learn and reiterated it to the Mother. Thus far problems are going to be in the most ex- to attune myself to this inner way and

Fall 2005 Collaboration • 9 when enough of us can be conscious of time a separation occurs, the graph falls. ates the kind of communication, commun- this attunement, then within Auroville the And it is astonishing to see that whenever ion, by which this consciousness spreads crystallisation of truth in concrete physi- there is a global event in which the mind of out to other hearts, other minds. You may cal form will take root. humanity connects to a single idea the not speak it in so many words, you may I find new possibilities constantly graph rises. In the world of football, just not give out literature, “Here, this is Au- emerging in the struggle for the new con- when someone is about the kick the goal, roville, read about it.” But what you are sciousness to gain its grip on matter. It is and the attention of a million people are on somehow sprinkles into their hearts and happening here. In the light of Auroville’s a single idea, the graph rises. Or in the minds like a possibility for them, a new- ideals, new homes have to be created. How world of the Oscars, when the speaker an- ness. do we relate to each other? How do we nounces, “and the winner is . . . ” and During these last few years one can greet each other? How do we relate to Na- pauses a moment, the graph rises. The see the ideal of human unity concretely ture? How do we organise the layout of the graph moves. It was at its highest just after taking form on a vast level in the mind of township? New forms have to be found. It September 11th. That day gave a shock to humanity. The worldwide response to the is a continual adventure where the Divine the world, and for a few days it stayed high tsunami relief is an example of that. Many does not give you a preset form. It is not as when the world connected, united in its people simply took the first plane to come if the Divine has a concrete plan, a master revulsion to terrorism. Perhaps after the and see how they could help. There is no plan which we just have to look at and recent tsunami something like that will comparison with that; this never has be- copy its features. The truth which is mani- happen, it will be interesting to see. fore happened in human history. We are at festing in space and time casts itself into What is important about this rising of a transition period in human history. The form, and its form changes constantly until the graph is that it represents the harmon- Divine has promised us the chance to be it comes to the point where it can settle. In isation of the vibrations of the atoms of the part of the fulfilment of this ideal. Let us the first shock of that contact there is a re- universe. It means actually that every atom keep this big picture in mind when over the sistance from matter and the truth has to on earth is somehow vibrating in harmony, next few days we discuss plans, problems, change its form, mould itself to the needs that the mind of humanity is united in a sin- initiatives, strategies. It is not what we and capacity of matter to receive it. If we gle idea. Matter itself is morphous to our plan, what solutions we strategize that will are conscious instruments and help it to thoughts, to our collective aspiration. In matter. That is not Auroville. It is the con- manifest, it can mould itself more easily. If Auroville, in this special field, that re- sciousness with which we approach the there is resistance, it needs to draw back sponse of matter is in itself more con- problem, the consciousness with which and come back with a modified form. So scious. When we unite our aspirations for we stick to the solution. That is Auroville. there is no form that is pre-set. Our task is the success of this ideal, even matter re- We are bound together; it is such a to discover the new forms and the seed to sponds. Every atom here throbs, shares in thread, this one consciousness. If there’s unfoldment. A form that was created and that aspiration, and the effect of that radi- anything that creates human aspirations, it tried out ten years ago and partly succeed- ates out into the world. is this thread around the world, this ed is not necessarily the same form that is Mother spoke of Auroville as one of boundless communion of consciousness needed now. her steps to manifest the future. This worldwide. It does not matter if you are not “Auroville is a field”, as Sonia Dyne project, the small nucleus that already has physically represented here in physical said earlier. It is a field in which the concen- been established, is a new beginning. Au- space. One does not need to think of it as a tration of that consciousness has been roville is a consciousness, is a revolution. ritual, and yet, that concretisation of the projected upon earth. The fact that we live Those of you who live elsewhere in the physical space ensures the connection of here, the fact that we struggle here, have world but are part of this consciousness the spiritual truth in matter. Every person results; our efforts automatically “ripple are also living in Auroville. What you do, here serves the same purpose—connect- out” and affect humanity. the way you live, the way you think, have ing that ideal with one more link to matter. A very interesting experiment that is their effects on the world as if you were With each passing event of such focal going on is called the “global conscious- here. They have their effects on situations points linked to matter, the ideal of Au- ness project,” in which computers around here, because you are part of the con- roville establishes itself more strongly on the world are connected to a single com- sciousness, and for this consciousness earth. The future comes nearer. puter at Princeton. Each of those comput- distance does not matter. Let us sit for a few minutes, con- ers measures the vibration of a single pat- It is this larger identity of Auroville sciously aspiring, collectively, that during tern, the vibration of the atom, and all that I want to emphasize, because those of the discussions of the coming days the those random pulses are brought together you who have gone out from here also ideal may inspire us with the forms that it in alliance. Each time the vibrations of have an effect on the world. Your constant seeks. those atoms harmonise, a graph rises, each contact with your inner beliefs in life cre-

10 • Collaboration Fall 2005 Chronicles Inside the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives

Editor Larry Seidlitz interviews Peter Heehs, Bob Zwicker, Richard Hartz, Mat- thijs Cornelissen, Ranganath Raghavan, and Raman Reddy of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives and Research Library, Pondicherry. The interview took place on a hot afternoon in June 2005 around the table shown at right in the central room at the Archives office.

The start of the Archives

Collaboration: When did the Ar- chives start? All in white. Seated: Matthijs, Peter, Richard. Standing: Bob, Ranganath, Raman. (Photo by Peter: We don’t have a founding Larry Seidlitz) date, but it probably started in 1973. From 1971, I and later Shipra and others were were just reprinting things that had al- Then they would come to me, because working under Jayantilal, and that seam- ready appeared. In a few cases they had to we had to find out what was there and lessly evolved into the Archives. But there put volumes together. For example, The what was not, and some sort of numbering was no Archives when we joined. Harmony of Virtue had to be put together. and labeling had to be done. Then we Raman: Kiran and Kamal came in 1972. But the texts were taken straight out of found things that hadn’t been published. Peter: Right, and then Ashwin came wherever they had appeared before. So things began to evolve. the next year, I think. Jayantilal was look- Ranganath: There was no reference In a sense, the Archives editorial work ing for people. He had the idea, and he to the manuscripts at that stage. began with volume 27 of the SABCL, the needed people. He had a good organizing Peter: There were no manuscripts Supplement. A few manuscripts had be- mind. available, most of them were kept by gun to come, and people were tearing their Collaboration: I am interested in how Nolini-da. Actually, the idea of just an ar- hair out. The Motilal letters had already it developed out of the previous work for chives was what Jayantilal started off been published in an SABCL volume, and the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Li- with; it was to preserve the manuscripts then we got the original letters, which were brary (SABCL). physically and also photographically. about 100 pages. That had to go in the Peter: We were here and doing that, What happened was that Kiran and Kamal Supplement because some of the material working on the SABCL, and that work had were supposed to do microfilming of Sri had not been published. The other work of not yet finished. There was an office in ex- Aurobindo’s documents, and there was receiving manuscripts for preservation istence. nothing to microfilm at first. Kiran and purposes was going on around the same Collaboration: But that work must Kamal went up to Delhi to learn about mi- time, and we realized that there were more have taken a long time? crofilming. Then we went to Nolini for the things that needed to be published. Peter: The printing of the SABCL manuscripts, but he wasn’t so willing to Finally, Jayantilal said we would have took three years, from 1970 to 1972, an ex- give them. It was Ashwin Barai who said, a continued supplement, and that was the traordinary thing, if you think about it. The “We need the stuff, we need the stuff.” birth of the journal, Sri Aurobindo: whole Ashram press was doing nothing Then finally Nolini just started sending Archives and Research. That is why but that at the time, and everyone was boxes full of manuscripts. The idea was Archives and Research has the same proofreading and all. There wasn’t much that we would prepare them for microfilm- physical format as the SABCL. Because editorial work for the SABCL because they ing. This was probably in 1973. printing technology was not very ad-

Fall 2005 Collaboration • 11 vanced then, the idea was that we would 1970s a large portion of Sri Aurobindo’s tion. Purani had made a partial glossary, just photographically reproduce the pages manuscripts came to us. Peter took two but collecting and compiling all the trans- in Archives and Research and use them years to organize them. Then in August lations that Sri Aurobindo had done, and when the time came for later editions of 1975, he became editor of the Bulletin of finding the English equivalent of each books. So that project for the Supplement the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Sanskrit word, had not been done. So Jay- evolved into the Archives and Research, Education, and from that time on—he was antilal recruited Richard for that because which subsequently evolved into the editor for five years—the Bulletin was that was another pending project. Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo which packed with new material, especially new Richard: In the end it was good that currently is being published. So there is a writings from Sri Aurobindo. the Vedic glossary didn’t get published at continuity there. Peter: In between, we started the jour- that time, because it included a lot of mate- Bob: Regarding the founding of the nal Archives and Research, because we rial that only now is going to be published. Archives, there is a document we have, were being called upon by all the Ashram Since it is based largely on unpublished dated 25 October 1971, in which Jayantilal journals to give this and that new writing, materials, it makes more sense for it to wrote to the Mother: and it was becoming very chaotic. So in come out after we finish publishing all of “I have long thought of writing to you 1976 we decided to start the new journal, Sri Aurobindo’s Vedic translations. that it has become necessary to make a se- and we started publishing in April 1977. It rious and organized effort to collect all the was decided that we would no longer give The Complete Works manuscripts of Sri Auro- bindo, make photographic Collaboration: Would copies of them, prepare a cat- you describe the general pro- alogue of all the writings, and cess of editing that you went finalize copies which all can through for publishing the refer to in the future. If this is Complete Works? not done, many mistakes will Peter: First something was begin to creep in. This pro- identified as needing publica- cess of deterioration has tion—a new letter, or a new es- already started, and if it is not say, or a version of something checked, one does not know that is obviously a later revi- where it will end.” sion of something that had Bob: We don’t have any been published. And this was record of whether Mother re- based on a very large work of plied to this letter, but it inventory that had already tak- shows what was in Jayanti- en many years. The first thing lal’s mind. Then he wrote her we did was to go through and again on 15 January 1973: identify the material, and see Raman and Ranganath checking the text of the Vedic Studies. “Mother, I have often what its relationship was to (Photo by Larry Seidlitz) suggested that we build up a things already published and kind of archives where microfilms of all of material to other journals. And that’s when see whether it was new and ought to be Sri Aurobindo’s and Mother’s manu- our editorial career really began. In each published. So that was the first thing: to scripts, photoprints of the various edi- issue we would do about 100 pages, and find something that needed to be pub- tions of their works, and important letters that was done with the specific idea of car- lished. and documents are preserved. To this rying on the SABCL. Historically speaking, what generally must be attached a library of the books of Richard: I joined in 1980, but at first I would happen is that we would first pre- Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. I wonder was working on a Vedic glossary. I had pare it for publication in the Archives and what the Mother thinks about such a done some work for Archives and Re- Research journal. So it meant typing a project.” search already when I came on a visit in copy of it, in those days on a typewriter, Bob: To this request the Mother said, 1978. When I joined in 1980 it was specifi- and checking it, and checking it, and “All right, yes.” We have it in the hand of cally for doing Sanskrit work, and at first I checking it. That is actually what we do, the secretary who took Jayantilal’s letter to didn’t do much work in the Archives itself. we check. There are a few people who tran- the Mother. It might be taken as the date of Peter: The Vedic glossary was anoth- scribe directly from the manuscript, some the founding of the Archives. er project that Jayantilal was pushing for- people who are very good at this. Sue But the big thing is this: in the early ward, though it still has not come to frui- Crothers, an Australian, is perhaps the

12 • Collaboration Fall 2005 best. Then the thing would be on paper. Synthesis of Yoga, part of it is like that, through scanning the best available ver- And then it is just a matter of reading it Parts Three and Four are straight from the sion of the text. So it is kind of a straight- over and over again. Arya, but other parts Sri Aurobindo re- forward thing, we just check text A against Richard: We have this system of one vised very extensively and rewrote. Part of text B; but there are a multitude of difficul- person reading to another, that is, reading that was published during his own lifetime. ties and complexities that can enter in. the manuscript to the person who is hold- So each text has its own history. But if Collaboration: Can you give a timeline ing the transcript in order to check the there is a manuscript written by Sri Auro- for completion of the Complete Works? transcript. bindo in his own hand, then we generally Peter: Everyone is smiling because it Collaboration: So this is for the pub- read from that, taking into account the later is difficult to do. lications that came out in Archives and Re- stages in which he revised the typescript Matthijs: There is a sliding timeline. search? of it. Peter: We would have liked there to Peter: Historically, most of it came out Collaboration: So it is not the case be no timeline at all, and those of us who in Archives and Research before it went that for everything there is a written manu- were involved in editing knew that it would into the Complete Works. But it is a typical script? stretch out. On the other hand, Jayantilal case of how things that had not yet been Richard: There is not always a manu- wanted the whole Complete Works done in published ended up in printed form. script, no. There are many books for which three years! And so that three years has Collaboration: But what about for the beginning of the text is the Arya, but gradually stretched out. There is a kind of something like The Synthesis of Yoga or then many of the works published in the tension between the need that we all rec- The Life Divine? Arya were revised by Sri Aurobindo on ognize of getting the thing done— the Peter: Then it is kind of similar in that pages torn out of the Arya. And so we read needs of the press, the needs of the dis- you still have to identify what is the most against the revised Arya. tributors, the demands of the readers to reliable version or combination of versions Peter: It often means that there is not have their final product—and then our rec- to use for this particular text, with Sri Au- one single set of papers that is the manu- ognition that a great deal of work is needed robindo’s latest revision. So, again, there script for a given book. For part of it we for any text. is an identification of the correct manu- have to rely on one source and for another Richard: In fact, the whole difference script or printed edition to follow. part we have to rely on something else. between this edition and the SABCL is due Richard: Work on the major books When Sri Aurobindo revised something to the fact that we are taking a lot more was actually started with scanned texts. and didn’t see it all the way through to time. Peter: In other words, we didn’t have print, sometimes problems arise. In a sim- Bob: Our general situation is this. We to type them. By this time we had comput- ple case he might not have put a period at started the Complete Works in 1997. It is ers. Instead of reading from the base text to the end of a sentence. Editorially, you have now eight years later. We have put 25 a typed copy, we’ll read to a computer to put the period at the end of a sentence, books into the press. We have a dozen print-out that had been produced through but that’s already an editorial decision. more to go, and we have done a lot of work scanning. Richard: Even if he did see it all the on almost all of them. Whereas in the That is just verification of the accura- way through to print there is the problem SABCL there was one volume On Himself, cy of our new copy. Simultaneously, we are of what to do if we discover that the very there will now be two volumes: Letters on looking and seeing whether everything is first typescript that he revised already Himself and the Ashram and Autobio- the way it should be. For that you have to contained a mistyping of what he had writ- graphical Notes and Writings of Histori- use your judgment. That is where you get ten in his original manuscript. Then we cal Interest. One volume of that is among into the very difficult part of editing. have to decide whether to go back to the the next things coming. Collected Poems Richard: Actually we don’t do what manuscript or accept whatever was incor- will also come soon because we have read most people think of as “editing.” We are porated in the revised version even most of the poems twice and they need only concerned with establishing the au- though it began as a transmission error. just a finalization. Then the book The thentic text and we don’t try to improve on Peter: This has been explained in Mother with Letters on the Mother will what Sri Aurobindo wrote. We get into dif- something like a hundred pages in Ar- come. Then the four Letters on Yoga vol- ficult situations, though. Sometimes we chives and Research where we talk about umes will come; there won’t just be three don’t have anything to read against except various editorial difficulties. But essential- volumes, there will be four, and they are so the Arya, for example. So if there seems to ly it is a matter of confirming the text by packed that each volume will run to 700 or be a misprint in the Arya, there is no manu- having the material on one side, having a 800 pages. Then will come Hymns to the script to check for the correct reading. The transcript on the other, and confirming the Mystic Fire and Vedic Studies with Writ- Secret of the Veda, for example, was just text of the transcript. Nowadays we check ings on Philology. printed in the Arya and that’s that. For The a laser print that has been produced Collaboration: Will the latter works

Fall 2005 Collaboration • 13 be substantially enlarged? Peter: In a way we have a kind of bal- ences between this edition and any previ- Peter: Whereas before there were two ance now, because things are going for- ous edition. For previous editions, all we volumes, Secret of the Veda and Hymns to ward on different books at different have is what was printed; we can only the Mystic Fire, now we have three. Secret speeds and in different ways. So maybe we guess how it came about. Whereas in this of the Veda is made up entirely of things could use more people for proofreading, edition, we have a record of how every- that were published by Sri Aurobindo in but then someone here would have to pro- thing happened and it is all there in com- the Arya, and the new edition is pretty duce something to feed them text to proof- puter files. much like the old one. That has been out read, and that person is busy with some- Peter: As well as on all the paper that for some time. Hymns to the Mystic Fire thing else. It is not like having huge num- we have produced; we are saving a huge was partly published by Sri Aurobindo bers of people doing one thing. collection with the various stages of our and partly not. What identifies it is that the Richard: And most aspects of the editorial work. hymns in that book are addressed to Agni. work take a lot of experience. You can’t just Matthijs: For most books that go to We also have a lot of other Vedic material bring in anybody new. the press, we have about five versions that needs to be published. That would Bob: The truth is that the general or- here, with all our notations in the margins. have properly gone into one volume that ganization and final editing of all the vol- And the file format is plain text, so it will we are going to call Vedic Studies, but it umes is done by our two main editors, Pe- also be readable after 20 years when all just became too big. It would have been ter Heehs and Richard Hartz. They are these programs are not available any more. over a 1000 pages. So we are reducing the both superb organizers, readers, and edi- If you do everything in Microsoft Word, size of it by putting anything from Sri tors. The work of the rest of us is largely to after 10 years you are lost. But these are Aurobindo’s notebooks that has to do support them, give them time to work, and very simple text files. with Agni in with the other material in assist them in every way we can. And they, Peter: To get away again from the ed- Hymns to the Mystic Fire. in turn, put on us every responsibility they itorial-star approach, I may mention that to Bob: So we have a dozen volumes to can, realizing that they only have a certain identify the proper text takes an enormous go. It is 2005. Sri Aurobindo enters the amount of time. amount of inventory work and study that public domain in 2010. After that point, Peter: That makes it too “editor-cen- is done beforehand. The best example of anyone can use his works the way they tric.” The one factor you haven’t brought that is the Letters. Raman has done a lot of want to. By 2010 we would like to have into this is the technical side. I said that we work over the years to organize the Let- everything wrapped up, so that when Sri started with typed sheets and ink, and now ters, and it is a very vital thing, but the kind Aurobindo does go into the public do- we have scanners and computers. When of thing that doesn’t attract anybody’s at- main, it is all accurate, orderly, and as com- Matthijs came in 1992, we really didn’t tention. plete as possible. have a computer program or an idea about Now when we go to a letter, say a let- Peter: He doesn’t go completely into how we were going to handle all the elec- ter written on 3 July 1936, we have a record the public domain. For anything that was tronic text that we were producing. With containing every version of the letter, ev- published after his passing, it would be 60 his experience in this sort of thing, he was ery handwritten copy, typewritten copy, years from that point, and not from 1950. able not only to set up the particular pro- and printed version of that letter. And may- That is how I understand it. But anyhow, gram that we were going to use, but also to be there was a letter that was written by Sri yes, we want to get it finished. fit it in into the whole publishing program Aurobindo and revised for one purpose Bob: So we hope to wrap it up in five that the press had. and then revised by him for another pur- years. We should be able to do that. Bob: When a book goes to the pose. All those things have been brought Richard: We certainly will have 35 Ashram Press for publication, it has been together from various sources—from so volumes out, which is what we promised not just edited here and proofread, but and so’s manuscripts, from typed copies people. There may be a couple of volumes also completely laid out down to where the over here, and the proofs of a book over still to go. hyphens appear on the page. there. All of this material has been brought Peter: We had to add two volumes to Matthijs: I’ve mainly been contribut- together through years of work. There are what we originally thought—a volume of ing to the typesetting of the book, and try- at least 6000 letters. letters on yoga and a volume of material on ing to keep all the editorial information as Raman: There are 5966. (Laughter) himself and the Ashram. part of the texts. So we have a program that Bob: When Peter takes a decision to- allows us to keep all the editorial history in day, persons like Raman have been work- Behind the scenes the text without it affecting the final type- ing for 25 years to prepare the background. set pages that go to the press. So it will all Raman: It is not only me, there have Collaboration: Do you have enough be there, even though it doesn’t print. been so many people like me working as people and resources in the Archives? Richard: That is one of the big differ- storekeepers, organizers, arrangers. I have

14 • Collaboration Fall 2005 personally worked on this data- Matthijs: There were base of letters since the very others who contributed to first day I came here in 1976. I that database before me. was looking for work and Peter said, “Give him the letters.” So Sri Aurobindo’s corre- he gave me the letters, and I spondence didn’t even know what it meant. (Laughter) Collaboration: How do So you had to try find the the letters in this edition of original letters that went into the Complete Works differ the many volumes of Sri Auro- from those in previous edi- bindo’s printed letters. The tions—in terms of publishing Centenary Edition had been more letters, or publishing published. There were five or more of the questions? six volumes, and you had to Raman: Each letter has find the original letter. It was re- been checked against the ally difficult to find. You either manuscripts. had to read the entire thing and Peter working at his desk in the Archives office. (Photo by Larry Bob: There will be about keep it in memory or you had to Seidlitz) 25 to 30 percent new letters, have a practical arrangement. and with the old ones, we are So the first thing that came to mind where the letter is in the SABCL and where checking each letter to make sure it is accu- was to make a card index. I wrote on plain it will be in the Complete Works. rate. And sometimes we are including por- chit pads the first line of every letter. I had Raman: There are often several manu- tions that had been left out previously. As 6000 cards and I put them in alphabetical scripts of a single letter. So all these had to for questions, they will go in some vol- order. It became a kind of finding game. be collated together. umes and not in others. In the four Letters Then gradually the cards got typed, so we Matthijs: For each of the 6000 letters, on Yoga volumes we won’t have ques- had a typed index. Then we put it on the there is a folder which contains a copy of tions, but in the volume The Mother with computer. I learned the elements of data- all the manuscripts related to that one Letters on the Mother, for example, there base and created a plain database pro- letter. will be questions. Also in the two volumes gram. It worked, and then in time this data- Peter: Now it takes only a tenth of a containing letters of Sri Aurobindo on him- base became more and more sophisticated, second to bring up the record on that let- self there will be questions. In the Letters and we eventually got control over all the ter. But to produce that took 20 years or so on Poetry and Art, which is about 750 pag- data. to go through all the hundreds of boxes, es long, certain sections have questions. Now, in this database we have the first and say, “Ah, this is a version of A1,” and Collaboration: Have there been sys- line of every letter, its date, and the source then put it in the computer and have it tematic attempts to solicit letters? of that date—how we know it was that available. So now this is on our computers Peter: Routinely, people have given date. It will refer to a certain manuscript (if and any of us can consult it. It would be their letters to the Ashram authorities and we have it), to the person to whom the let- absolutely impossible to do work on these then they have come to us. I don’t know ter was written, whether there are early letters without this information. Actually, that any advertisement had to be done. typed copies of it, where it is published, this is a database of all our holdings, not Bob: We have put notices on the bul- and other things. With this information the just things related to manuscripts. letin board in the Ashram, but it hasn’t database becomes a very powerful tool, Raman: It is an inventory of the Ar- brought us much. It is more often the case able to do anything. Now we can play chives. There are about 10,000 items in the that when people pass away the trustees about with this database and we will be Archives. When Matthijs came, he went send their manuscripts to us, or when peo- able to produce a whole new reedited edi- through all the items, listed them, and ple know that our work is good, they vol- tion of Letters. dumped them into one big database. Now untarily come and say, “Here are my let- Peter: The database contains any- we have access to every item. We know at ters.” Madhav Pandit did that, for example, thing that might be of interest when we are once whether Moni Chakravarty has six he brought his whole collection of letters. trying to finalize the text. There are cross- boxes or five boxes, where they are, and Peter: This is a major portion of what references if a letter has been published in what sort of material, whether it is primary we have. Many things either came from more than one volume—often they were material kept in the cold storage, or sec- Nolini or from Madhav Pandit. Nolini-da duplicated—and of course, mention of ondary material stored elsewhere. gave all his papers, all his letters, all his

Fall 2005 Collaboration • 15 manuscripts. Madhav Pandit entrusted his Peter: I’ll do the early history, then Ri- search. At first we would select from a giv- collection to Jayantilal and the team he chard can take it up. The notebooks in en period things that seemed interesting. built up. which the Record is contained include And this was a time at which anyone who Collaboration: Do you think there about 30 that are primarily or only Record had objections could object, but no one are a lot of letters out there that still that material, and portions of other notebooks. did. And Jayantilal said, “Well, it seems all have not been collected? These came along with all the other note- right. We can’t really say that Sri Auro- Bob: I don’t think there are a lot, no. books from Nolini in the mid-1970s. This bindo didn’t want it to be published along Peter: For the major correspondents, was the main discovery when we were go- with all his other unpublished material.” So who were just a dozen or so, their material ing through those notebooks. There had we went ahead, and finally, without too is with us. A lot of letters never left the been rumors about this material, but no much outcry, we got to the end of it, in a Ashram, because if it went outside, what one really knew if it existed. They didn’t good nine years. Sri Aurobindo wrote by hand would re- know there were almost 1500 pages of ma- Collaboration: Was it a fairly main with Nolini, and only a typed copy terial. Finally, when the inventory of the straightforward project in terms of gather- went out. So all those things were with notebooks was done, a certain number ing the material and putting it in chrono- Nolini. And there were no great losses, I were set aside as being only or primarily logical order? think, because they were treated as some- Record notebooks. They were numbered Peter: Fortunately, there were two as- thing sacred. and put aside as being a different category pects that made it easier than some things. Raman: For some correspondences, of things. Then a typed transcript was First, it was all dated, or largely dated. And we do not have the correspondent’s ques- made, just because we wondered what was the undated pieces, with only a little work, tions—the questions were destroyed by there. There was some question about could be fitted in with the dated ones. Sec- the person after receiving Sri Aurobindo’s whether it ought to be published at all. Sri ond, there is only one version. He hardly replies. Aurobindo certainly didn’t write it for pub- rewrote anything. So it was just a matter of Peter: There are a number of corre- lication. On the other hand, there were reading it. Of course, there are difficult por- spondences where all we have is signa- plenty of things he didn’t write for publica- tions—we are talking now just about read- tures, or “yes,” “no,” because people tion that had been published. That in- ing the words on the page. Actually, he would cut that out from the letter, which cludes drafts of essays that never got wrote rather slowly, so that the words are they then destroyed. worked up. pretty well-formed. So producing a tran- Collaboration: Is there more corre- Collaboration: Who made the deci- script wasn’t all that difficult on the whole. spondence on literature and poetry and sion? It was prepared for publication in the things like that that you have collected? Peter: We wanted to publish it our- way we did everything: making a typed Bob: Yes. In the SABCL, the letters on selves. We thought this was great stuff. copy, checking that, rechecking, getting it poetry came out in four different volumes: But we had to ask Jayantilal what he printed in Archives and Research. We now some in On Himself, some in the back of thought about the idea. A characteristic of had 1500 pages in print. Most of this was The Future Poetry, the Savitri letters in the Jayantilal that was remarkable is that he being done by Richard; for a while that back of Savitri, and some letters in the would never push anything. He would sort was his primary job in the Archives be- Supplement. We brought them all together of suggest. He knew everyone in the sides Savitri, to produce the two install- and added many new letters in the volume Ashram, he was well-respected. He would ments of the Record of Yoga that would called Letters on Poetry and Art. just kind of say, “Well, this seems like this come out every year. By the end of 1994 it Some of the great collections of letters might be a good thing to do.” I sometimes had all pretty much come out. More materi- had been fragmented, like the letters to contrast it to Satprem’s approach with the al was added mainly near the beginning Amal Kiran. So although this book is orga- Agenda, which is that you take it and ram- and the end when it was published as two nized by subject, there also has been an bash and push it through, and damn what volumes of the Complete Works in 2001. effort to keep the sadhaks’ letters together anybody thinks. Jayantilal just very slow- Collaboration: I would like to ask within the subject. This book came out ly brought the idea forward. I think he about the substantive contents of the about two years ago and was organized by might have published one or two pieces of Record. Are there important elements of Peter. it and nobody seemed to object. He talked the Integral Yoga that are described only about the project to Nolini who would there and not in The Synthesis of Yoga or The Record of Yoga make the decision, and also to other peo- the Letters on Yoga? Are there some im- ple who might conceivably have opposed portant elements of the yoga for which one Collaboration: Can you tell us about it. He prepared the groundwork. It wasn’t has to go to the Record? the Record of Yoga? I would be interested until 1986 that we began to bring out little Richard: It depends upon how much in hearing about the history of that. pieces of the Record in Archives and Re- you want to know. There are certain as-

16 • Collaboration Fall 2005 pects which Sri Aurobindo discussed in a Richard: In the last part of the Syn- thaya. The second member of that is general way in the Synthesis, about which thesis, “The Yoga of Self-Perfection,” Sri trikaladrishti, the triple-time-vision— there is much more detail in the Record. Aurobindo started to go very systemati- meaning the knowledge of the past, Also, there is the fact that he did not com- cally through what he called the sapta present, and future. And that is where the plete Part Four of The Synthesis of Yoga, chatusthaya, although he didn’t call it that Arya stopped. That means that he was less “The Yoga of Self-Perfection,” which is the in the Synthesis. For his own purposes he than half way through, or about half way part that corresponds most closely to the was calling it the sapta chatusthaya, the since he had already talked about the last Record. He explains a lot of the terminolo- seven tetrads. These formed the struc- chatusthaya. gy of the Record in the portion of Part Four ture—he called it the program—of his of the Synthesis that he did complete. For sadhana, which he received soon after he Reference material the topics that were to be covered in the came to Pondicherry. “The Yoga of Self- unfinished remainder of the Synthesis, in Perfection” starts off with the last of the Collaboration: One of the tasks of some cases all we have is the Record, seven chatusthayas, the siddhi chatust- the Archives, as I understood from the where, because he was only writing for haya. There are chapters on shuddhi and background reading you gave me, was himself, he didn’t really explain some mukti, that is, purification and liberation, gathering biographical information on Sri things. We know, for exam- Aurobindo, some of which was ple, that he was experiencing done for the SABCL. five different kinds of physi- Peter: As far as the SABCL cal ananda, which he hardly went, it was Jayantilal who sug- talks about elsewhere. There gested that we have at least a are other aspects of the chronology of Sri Aurobindo’s sadhana that he was record- life to be published with the in- ing in the Record, which he dex and glossary in volume 30 didn’t write about anywhere just as basic information. For else in such detail, but these that, someone got some material are mostly quite advanced from Delhi at the National Ar- and probably not of much chives, and Jayantilal encour- practical importance for most aged me to get material from oth- of us. er Archives. I did a lot of that Peter: I see it as different sort of work in the 1970s and forms of presentation of his 1980s. It is not, strictly speak- experience and his concep- ing, one of the main projects of tion of the thing. In the the Archives. Record he was writing for An urgent meeting of some key Archives personnel. The person Collaboration: Is there seated in front with has his back to the camera is Mr. Pattegar, one of himself, just straightforward- more of that kind of material in the administrative heads. (Photo by Larry Seidlitz) ly, what he had experienced this edition? that day. In the Synthesis it was a public and a general explanation of what he meant Peter: Actually, we are letting Sri knowledge that he was creating. And then by siddhi, integral perfection. He more or Aurobindo speak for himself, because one in the Letters he was writing to his disci- less skipped over bhukti, liberated enjoy- of the volumes is going to be called Auto- ples. So if you look at these three presenta- ment, which in the Record is the third mem- biographical Notes with Writings of His- tions, they are all quite different in a way, ber of the siddhi chatusthaya, but in the torical Interest. That corresponds to a cer- but of course they are all based on the Synthesis is listed last and he may have in- tain type of material that was published in same body of experience. tended to come back to it at the very end. On Himself, part of which was a collection Richard: One of the most interesting Then there is a chapter called “The Ele- of biographical documents. So more bio- things is to put these side by side. We see ments of Perfection,” in which he summa- graphical material is coming out, gathered how what he was writing in the Synthesis rizes the first six chatusthayas. He doesn’t from different places. Also, letters of the and even The Life Divine, which some- use the word chatusthaya, but it is very 1930s in which Sri Aurobindo referred in times sounds rather abstract, corresponds clear, because he talks in several places passing to himself, some of which had also to concrete, day-to-day experiences. about the four elements of each chatust- appeared in On Himself, are coming out in Collaboration: Can you tell us what haya. Then he takes them up systematical- another volume called Letters on Himself was left unfinished in The Synthesis of ly, and he gets to the second member of the and the Ashram. So that is part of the work Yoga that he wrote about in the Record? third chatusthaya, the vijnana chatus- with the letters—to isolate those letters on

Fall 2005 Collaboration • 17 Sri Aurobindo and the Ashram and bring some of the definitions of the most com- want to rush it. Once it is done it will be them together. plex terms come to almost half a page. And there for all time. I feel that it should be I don’t know that we have any plans there are between two and three thousand done as well as possible. to do much in the way of biography in the terms, including compound expressions Collaboration: What is the timeline reference volumes of the Complete Works. which sometimes need to be defined apart for getting it out? Inherently, writing a biography is interpre- from the separate words they are com- Richard: Recently a problem has tive, and I have personally taken on that posed of. come up with regard to the publication of work, which I do apart from the Archives Peter: We should also explain that the glossary, in addition to the fact that it is work. Collecting materials is another thing. there are two parts to the glossary. taking longer than expected and is delay- Something that I would like to publish is a Richard: Besides the glossary proper, ing other work. Many quotations from Sri series called “Documents in the Life of Sri there will be an outline of the terminology Aurobindo’s writings occur in the defini- Aurobindo.” Much of it has already ap- of the Record of Yoga. Peter had already tions—I try to use his own words as much peared in Archives and Research, which prepared something he called a Structural as possible because it is the only way to has about 150 pages of straight historical Outline, and I took that up and elaborated bridge the gap between his consciousness documents. A project to be taken up is to on it. It is an outline of a few hundred of the and ours. Some of the writings quoted complete that, to print the raw data without important terms based on the structure of have not yet been published in the Com- any historical interpretation, just as they the sapta chatusthaya. One can go plete Works. In order to give proper refer- came, and leave it for the reader to make through it and familiarize oneself with the ences, those volumes should be published use of. That is something we will do in the terminology, before trying to grapple with before the glossary which contains quota- somewhat distant future. the Record itself. Or it can be used in con- tions from them. So at a meeting with the Collaboration: Regarding reference junction with the alphabetical glossary, Publication Department it has been decid- material, I understand that there is going to which refers to the outline by the numbers ed to give priority to completing the regu- be some reference work pertaining to the of the items. The problem with a glossary lar volumes of the Complete Works. The Record of Yoga? is that you can’t read through it, because glossary to the Record will be brought out Richard: Yes, there will be a fairly ex- there is no meaningful sequence; you can along with other reference material at the tensive glossary. No other volume of the only look up individual words. With the end. Meanwhile it has been proposed that Complete Works will have its own glossa- outline, you can glance through it and see a simpler glossary could be put on the ry, but the Record poses unusual prob- the relations of the different terms for any Ashram’s website for those who cannot lems for readers. Peter had already done a aspect of the yoga you are particularly in- read the Record without a glossary. The lot of work on the technical terminology of terested in. Then if you want to go into it Ashram doesn’t want to print and publish the Record before I joined the Archives. more deeply you can find the terms in the something that is only a stopgap, but put- Then when we began to publish it serially glossary. ting it on the Internet would be a tempo- in Archives and Research, I took over the Peter: The outline follows Sri Auro- rary solution until the definitive glossary job of preparing for each issue a glossary bindo’s own structure. is available. This possibility has just been defining the Sanskrit terms that occurred Richard: Yes. We have simply filled in suggested and is being considered. in that installment. The definitions in those that structure with related terms so that it glossaries were just the minimum that was has become more detailed. But he himself Perceptions of the Archives necessary to have some idea of what the laid out the seven chatusthayas and their words meant. When the Record finally members—the elements of the Yoga of Peter: There is something that is in- came out in two volumes, ideally there Self-Perfection as he called it in the Syn- teresting to me that I would like to discuss. should have been a glossary along with it, thesis—in a kind of outline form. Ranganath has been in the Ashram a long but we didn’t want to delay publication Collaboration: The glossary will be a time, he has been here since he was a child. until the glossary was ready. So as soon as volume of the Complete Works? He saw the Archives taking shape, but those two volumes were published, I start- Richard: It will be part of the set, yes, joined it only recently. At first the Archives ed working on the glossary (besides my but it won’t be numbered as a volume. wasn’t much in view and now it seems other work). At first the idea was essential- Peter: It will be an appendix as it were, sometimes too much in view. Ranganath, ly to combine the glossaries that had ap- so it can sit on the shelf next to the Record as someone who has seen developments peared in Archives and Research and add of Yoga. It will be sold separately also, so in the Ashram over a long period of time, some definitions of terms occurring in new that people who have bought the Record how does the Archives appear to people material that had been included. But grad- of Yoga separately can obtain it. outside the department? ually the scope of it has expanded and I Richard: The fact that it will be part of Ranganath: I think the Archives is have started going into more depth. Now the Complete Works is one reason I don’t doing a very important job. For one thing,

18 • Collaboration Fall 2005 there were imperfections in the printed Generally, there is a recognition here towards us. books, mistakes you can call them, so all that the Archives is doing good work. Ranganath: That is because it is gen- that is now being corrected. We are trying There are pockets of resistance here and erally recognized that whatever is being to produce an accurate edition for the fu- there, which are largely, I think, ignorant, done is very legitimate, and there is no ture so that this work doesn’t have to be ill-informed, but that also slowly is chang- tampering with the texts. There was this redone. I think that there is a recognition in ing. There have even been court cases and misunderstanding: some people thought the Ashram that the Archives is doing an all that. But I think the Archives has taken that now it is not Sri Aurobindo, but what important work. that very well in its stride. somebody else has substituted. But that Peter: For a while, back in the early Collaboration: Are the court cases idea was very ignorant and ill-informed. days when Jayantilal was here, nobody an ongoing problem? Bob: Yes. Our main work at the Ar- knew that anything was going on here. Peter: We don’t really feel it that chives is to remove any mistakes acciden- Ranganath: Nobody knew the details much. Richard, if he is called upon, has to tally made by people while transcribing of what was being done. I was working at explain one thing or another, for some rea- and publishing Sri Aurobindo’s works in the press, but even I did not know so many son or another. the past. We simply restore what Sri projects were going on. Richard: At one point it was taking up Aurobindo actually wrote. Peter: Did it seem strange When Jayantilal passed that some relative newcomers away, Manoj-da came for- had come along and were given ward and took his place. work like this? Manoj-da is a respected mem- Ranganath: In certain ber of the community who quarters there may have been trusted and appreciated our that feeling, it may be there work. He wanted to be in- even now. But overall, I think formed of all that we were do- that the perception is good. ing, and we invited him and Bob: When the Record the other trustees, regularly, came out, did you hear any for briefings on what we were comments like, “Oh, how could doing. Especially Manoj-da they publish it?” and Dr. Dutta showed real in- Ranganath: Yes, that, of terest. We would sit here at course, because, as you rightly this same table and spend a asked, “Who took the deci- whole afternoon together. Pe- sion?” There was some ques- ter and Richard would make tion of whether it should be presentations, show the published at all or not. I person- Shanta, one of many behind-the-scene workers at the Archives, manuscripts, explain what we ally feel that a principle of keep- works on the volume of Vedic Studies. (Photo by Larry Seidlitz) do. They appreciated that we ing private what Sri Aurobindo were open with them. We wrote, which was not intended for public quite a bit of my time and slowing down have always had their support. It hasn’t viewing, would have had a relevance when our work. Actually the legal harassment been easy for them to support us when he was in his body. That is how I see it. has been by fundamentalists outside the there was misunderstanding and opposi- Now when you see the texts, it could help a Ashram, though it stirred up controversy tion, but they have always given us full lot of people. So how could it not be pub- in the Ashram too. Most of it has been di- support—moral support, legal support, lished? And that is what Jayantilal told me. rected against the 1993 edition of Savitri, and financial support. It is a very beautiful I asked him, “How did you get the permis- whose text was finally decided not by the thing to have the support of your respect- sion to publish this?” He said, “How can Archives but by Nirodbaran and Amal Ki- ed elders. we not publish it? How can it remain hid- ran, just like previous editions. Peter: I think that generally people den forever? At some point in time it has to Peter: Basically we do our work just think that the Archives is doing a good come out.” And I think I agree with that. In like we have done from the 1970s. We were job. Most people in the Ashram aren’t fact, I was very happy that it was pub- first shielded by Jayantilal, and even now busy-body types. As long as there is a lished, because I got to go through the after his passing the trustees are 100 per- general feeling that we are members of the whole thing and enjoyed it very much. cent behind us. They have wanted to Ashram, are doing our work, and we are There are a lot of things that are just so in- know what is going on, but they have nev- supported by the authorities, they let us teresting. er taken a hostile or prosecutorial attitude go about our business, for the most part.

Fall 2005 Collaboration • 19 There is a vocal minority, of course, and not being accountable to any- and vocal minorities tend to get body. We feel we are accountable to heard. everybody, in fact. On the other Raman: I think it is the general hand, we have to do our work too. atmosphere of the Ashram that is re- Matthijs: It doesn’t go in any sponsible for everything that goes way against what has been said well here. We don’t realize that we about the Mother’s protection, and have a special environment of the that everybody is basically working Ashram. In the Ashram you have the for the Mother. But the work is also Archives, which is not different, ba- solid in its own way. sically, from the other departments. It gets a protection. And it is the Preservation of manuscripts Mother who is running it. Maybe I am being a little sentimental and Collaboration: Would you de- The Mother resided for a time in the back of the present emotional, but basically it is that. Ev- scribe the present state of Sri Aurob- Archives, where Bob now stays. (Photo by Larry Seidlitz) erybody is working for the Mother. indo’s manuscripts with regard to That is something concrete. If you take all that. He wanted to start right away. We their preservation? that element out, we will just fall apart. I started in 1997, Sri Aurobindo’s 125th birth- Matthijs: I think we do what is techni- have seen other centers where this feeling day. Jayantilal passed away in 1999. By cally state-of-the-art at the moment. This is not strong, and they just fall apart. And then, things were well under way. Up until climate is the worst you can have, and so this is very concrete. It is fine to say I am then, it was he who protected us and de- the manuscripts are now stored in a place working for the Mother and all that, just to fended us. And soon after he passed away, where they are kept as well as anybody say it, but to feel it and do it is different. there was criticism of our editorial methods could keep them. They are kept at a totally Peter: No one here feels that he or she and even court cases against our work. regulated temperature and humidity. is working under somebody else. We really Yet, by then, things were so well underway Peter: They are kept in a place that don’t have a head of the department in that that there was no going back. If we had Matthijs helped to deign with a custom- way. Legally, Manoj, the Managing Trust- waited until 2000 and there had been many made air conditioning and dehumidifying ee, is the head. objections against our editorial methods system, and it is very impressive. Richard: I don’t think there is another or what we planned to do, the project Matthijs: It is interesting in that the department that is so decentralized. might not even have gotten off the trustees gave us their meeting room for Peter: We have Bob and Mr. Pattegar ground. Jayantilal got the thing going in storing the manuscripts, which by itself is as administrative heads. Some people give 1997; now we will continue our work and very sweet; they are kept in the old room work to other people, but nobody has the complete it. where the trustees used to meet. sense that they are working for another. Matthijs: It needs to be mentioned Collaboration: How do the manu- Bob: That is one of Jayantilal’s great that all those court cases fall flat because scripts look now? What condition is the contributions. He gave us freedom and our methods are so meticulous. The whole paper and the ink in? support and encouragement. editing process is one of sticking strictly Matthijs: They deteriorated quite a bit Peter: And then he just let things de- to what Sri Aurobindo wrote himself. We in the early years. Many of the pages from velop, so that before he passed away in are not doing fancy work. And finally it the Arya, for example, are completely brit- 1999, we had 25 years of just doing what goes smoothly because our work is solid tle. With the loose editions of the Arya we were doing, with his encouragement and transparent and we keep detailed which are kept outside, you cannot turn and behind-the-scenes direction. So the records of all the things we do. the pages without breaking them. But the thing had developed as a kind of self-start- Peter: We can’t be criticized for trying ones that have been kept in cold storage ing proposition, and continued that way. to pull something over on anybody be- are in better condition. That is impressive. Bob: Jayantilal decided to start pub- cause we are perfectly clear about what we For every five degrees that you bring the lishing the Complete Works in 1997. We are doing. We have written hundreds of temperature down, the life of the paper thought, give us a little more time, let us pages in Archives and Research and else- doubles, more or less. If you bring the tem- develop a larger body of books so that where explaining everything about our ed- perature down from 35 to say 20 Celsius, when we begin we will have more material itorial method, and now we write these then the life becomes eight times as long. ready. I thought, and a few others thought, notes in the back of every book telling So that is a considerable improvement. that 2000 would be a good starting date for what is going on. So it is not as if there is a Collaboration: Are all the handwrit- publication, with the new millennium and mysterious little cabal producing things ten manuscripts in the cold storage?

20 • Collaboration Fall 2005 Matthijs: All the handwritten manu- volves pesticides, but we try to do it en- lished, but not a huge amount. scripts of Sri Aurobindo are in the cold tirely without pesticides. And this works. Peter: Many of the texts are oral, so it storage and kept in acid-free handmade- This is absolutely the minimum you can do is a different thing, and many of the texts paper folders. The main enemy of paper is to the manuscripts and still remove the are written in French, so we have to have a the acidity in the paper itself, so if you bugs. different set of people doing the editing. keep them protected from each other, inter- Collaboration: But this is only for Collaboration: Regarding the oral leaved with acid-free paper, they last longer. new manuscripts that are coming in? texts, what is the condition of the tapes, of Peter: Incidentally, we don’t touch Matthijs: Yes. Whatever we already the recordings? Is that part of the Ar- the manuscripts anymore ourselves. All have is free of bugs. chives? the work that we are doing is done with xe- Peter: It is more for books that we are Bob: No, it is done by the Projector roxes or scanned copies, so now those going to use this solar chamber. Anything Room, the Ashram department in charge of manuscripts in principle will remain there that sits on a bookshelf in India tends to audio recordings. I believe Steve Webman forever without being touched again. get infected with insects. So now, say, we has been working with Arunkumar to put Collaboration: Is there anything get a nice early edition of one of Sri Auro- the old tapes onto CDs. more being done with the manuscripts? bindo’s books; it will probably be infested Matthijs: It has all been digitized, so it Matthijs: There are methods to pre- with bugs, so we can’t put it in our library is all there digitally. And it has also been serve them, more aggressive methods, to without first killing the bugs. put onto analog tapes. But the original an- deacidify the paper. But not all of the meth- Matthijs: And even if we don’t see alog tapes are in an amazingly good state, ods are 100 percent reversible, so we are that a book or piece of paper is infected, it much better than anybody could expect. not using them, because we try to be as is safer to treat it, because you don’t want Collaboration: You say they have cautious as possible. Anything you do to to introduce bugs into the general storage. been digitized, but have they also been the paper involves a risk, so we don’t do cleaned up in terms of removing static and anything aggressive or irreversible. Collected works of the Mother extraneous noise? I imagine the original Collaboration: So now they are stored recordings were of pretty poor quality. and nobody is doing much with them? Collaboration: My understanding is Peter: They are studying that prob- Matthijs: Yes, we are still in the pro- that when The Complete Works of Sri Au- lem. cess of storing them a little more carefully robindo are finished the Archives will be- Matthijs: First you copy it exactly as it with still more acid-free and acid-absor- gin work on the Mother’s Collected is. Then you make secondary copies on bent paper in between. But that will be ba- Works? which you do the cleaning. sically it. Bob: Yes, we will try to do the same Collaboration: Are they doing that? Bob: Barbie does manual repair of the thing with the Mother’s works that we did Matthijs: You have to talk to Steve pages, but there is not a wholesale attempt with Sri Aurobindo’s works. Webman or Arunkumar about that. They to deacidify them. Peter: But that has been going on also have state-of-the-art equipment. Peter: If the technology improves, we concurrently for a long time. It is not like Collaboration: If you were checking might at some point take that up. one will finish and the other will start. against originals, presumably you would Matthijs: But we have learned to be Bob: Yes, that’s right, but I would say be checking against these recordings? extremely cautious with active preserva- that the Mother’s works are on the back Matthijs: Yes, but for a lot of the texts tion, because what has happened very of- burner at the moment. We publish some there is no recording anymore. ten in history is that people found a fantas- things of the Mother which come out in Peter: Transcripts were made and that tic method to keep things, and then ten the Bulletin, but we really haven’t taken is all we have. years later discovered that it was a disaster up the Mother’s works with the idea of Matthijs: Because they used the same that you cannot reverse. checking everything for accuracy, check- tapes again and again. They would make Collaboration: What is this new ma- ing the translations, and incorporating the transcript of a talk and then use that chine you showed me for destroying in- new material. We are too busy finishing up same tape again. sects? The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Bob: We have got boxes of early tran- Peter: It is a glass chamber that re- Collaboration: It sounds like that scripts, including many that were edited ceives the sun’s rays, and then holds the could be a work of similar scope to that of by Satprem. They haven’t been looked at heat in, and you keep it at a level of 60 de- The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo? carefully, but they will become very valu- grees centigrade. It produces extreme heat Bob: The scope will not be as large, able primary material. But we have Mri- that kills the bugs through the heat itself but it would involve a similar treatment. tyunjoy’s collection of typescripts of the and through desiccation. We will have to look at each text.There is Mother’s Entretiens. They are very valu- Matthijs: The traditional method in- some material that has not yet been pub- able. We also have Sanat Banerjee’s col-

Fall 2005 Collaboration • 21 lection, which is fairly extensive, and oth- Collaboration: All of that is stored volumes. ers. We have a copy of the Entretiens in here? Collaboration: So that is what you which Satprem has made his revisions, so Peter: Yes. More and more we are try- envision doing? by studying it you can see his method of ing to put things in the cold storage. Bob: Absolutely. editing the Mother’s talks for publication Matthijs: We have a lot of collections, Matthijs: That should be done. But in the Bulletin and for publication as they but some collections are spread out. They we have first to finish what we are doing. have come out in the Entretiens series. are not all in one place. Bob: In the Bulletin, we now have a Peter: And his work would be quite le- Collaboration: Do you have access policy of editing the correspondences in gitimate, because oral things do need to be to them? this way. We are doing Dr. Naik at the mo- edited. You don’t speak in full sentences. Matthijs: The Archives has good rela- ment, his questions with Sri Aurobindo’s So there is nothing wrong with that work tions with all the people in charge of them. answers. But we cannot put much in an is- having being done, but it can be checked Bob: Here is another thing. In the sue of the Bulletin. So we will start bring- now. Complete Works we will have altogether ing out the correspondences in separate Collaboration: So you will go over seven volumes of letters. Some, like the books, disciple by disciple; but again, it those things again? Letters on Yoga, won’t have the questions will take years because it is a large work. Bob: Yes, we will. That is the work. of the disciples with them. In the future, we Collaboration: What does the Ar- Whether we change it is something we will want to bring out these letters in their chives do for researchers who come and have to decide when we see. chronological order with the disciple’s want to do research on Sri Aurobindo? Do Peter: But it would be French speakers questions and comments. Nirodbaran has you make things available? Do you have who would be doing the decision-making. done a good job of that with his own corre- people coming to do research? Richard: The translations also need spondence in two volumes. In the same Peter: If they come and they want to be looked at. way there are many other valuable corre- printed material, we will tell them where Bob: The translations are often awk- spondences: Dilip Kumar Roy, for example, they can get it. If what they want is material ward; they are not fluid. and Dr. Naik, whom nobody even knows that is archival, we will make it available to Collaboration: So new translations about—these are major correspondences. them if they are bonafide researchers— would be made of all these things for the We would like to bring out all of them in a usually in the form of xeroxes. Say it is new edition? question-answer format in the natural day- someone researching a particular disciple, Bob: We will look at everything and to-day order, because then you get a feel- we will give them access to that disciple’s see if it needs revision and retranslation. ing for the person, for the difficulties they papers and correspondences. But often But this is still years down the line. First we have, and Sri Aurobindo’s answers take on we don’t allow people to work here itself will finish up the Complete Works. more texture and appropriateness than because we don’t have room and it is a bit when they are divorced from the question of a distraction. But we help people if they Other work of the Archives or the comment. It is a large work. It will have a legitimate need. So long as it is ma- take a long time to do this rightly because terial that only we can supply, we’ll help Collaboration: Is there other work we will follow the same process that we them out. being done by the Archives that we have have for the Complete Works. Each letter Bob: You see at the moment, our main not touched on? will be read two times carefully. work is publishing Sri Aurobindo’s Com- Matthijs: There is the digitization of Matthijs: And it involves a lot of edi- plete Works. It takes all our time and atten- the manuscripts. We are making images of torial decisions, because for most of the tion. We try to help people who do come. each and every one. That has started, but correspondences you cannot simply pub- In editing the works, we are organizing all it is still in its early stages. lish them exactly verbatim as they are. this information that later will be available Raman: There is also Kiran’s photog- Bob: You have to take only the rele- on a larger scale to more people. But that raphy. vant part of the question. organization work takes time and is being Bob: We are doing the same with the Peter: The questions are often terribly done slowly. We’re not in a position where photographs—digitization and storage. long, rambling, and written in bad English, we can advertise ourselves as a service for Matthijs: All the photos of Sri Auro- which isn’t surprising because English anything people want to know. Each ques- bindo have been done, but the photos of was not the correspondent’s native tongue. tion takes the time of an important person. the Mother are still in the process of being Matthijs: There are often five or ten Jayantilal used to say that ours is a quiet done. That is a huge job. pages of question and just one or two work, and it is to our benefit that it is quiet Peter: Also historical photographs, words by Sri Aurobindo. so that we can do the foundational work. photographs of the Ashram, photographs Peter: If you took a good selection of Then later on we will be able to help more of disciples will be done. the questions, it might come to 15 or 20 people.

22 • Collaboration Fall 2005 absorbed in video images. Essay We download these imag- es daily from our local In- ternet server, CNN, Fox, Technology and the Comcast, or one of other titan: Reflections on multi-national media cor- porations. These commer- Sri Aurobindo’s cial sources of information observations of civil- mainline images edited for consumption directly into ization and barbarism our passive brains so as to (conclusion) make pattern recognition of desired products or pre- ferred political agendas an by Richard Carlson unconscious affair. These unceasing im- hen speaking the language of ages have been well-di- digital technology one must gested by us all: the World Wnot become too reliant on Trade Center, Osama, words and text but must be prepared to Terminator, McDonalds, adopt the current planetary language. Al- Coca Cola, Nike, and the though software programming languages ten thousand others, all are also an international idiom, the new are streamed through fiber language referred to here is that of images. optics or satellite into the These images confront us wherever we comfortable viewing turn, on billboards, magazines, television, space of our living rooms. Envision. (Digital Art by Margaret Phanes) film, and the Internet. In fact, a human be- Our emersion in the con- ing living today digests as many images in tent of these media broad- a single day as did a person in the Victorian casts has allowed us all to share a plane- era during an entire lifetime. the “Will to Power” as spoken by Zara- tary language encrypted in the digital Es- thustra’s disciple, Nietzsche. Only now Images are a form of digital Esperanto peranto of images. that the world’s population instantly com- this is not the divine will but the vulgar Therefore, when considering how the human will to rule. As an instrument of the prehends. Images are a language whose vital will to power incarnates in techno- every frame, each of the billions upon bil- vulgar will to power, technology becomes logy, using an image from a Hollywood a tool of domination. This should surprise lions of them, is worth a thousand words. movie only seems fitting. The image here is Due to the trans-alphabetic nature of imag- no one, because technology as an efficient from the opening scene of the movie weapon has determined the course of hu- es globally, we all have come to share 2001: A Space Odyssey. The image is of an similar reference points regardless of geo- man history. ape pondering a skeleton of a dead animal Many major advances in technology graphical separation because identical im- before the mysterious monolith; he picks ages are fed to us all, no matter where we have been funded by researching its utility up a jaw-bone questioningly, unsure of as a military application. The greatest in- live. In fact, we all reside in a global village what to do with it, and then, there is in which our relationships are mediated by ventors have all added something to the an abrupt flash in monkey consciousness, inventory of destruction. For example, the twenty-four hour coverage of a shared and presto, the bone is a tool. It is a weap- electronic grid. This grid is the central ner- genius of Da Vinci’s was most often en- on! And it is the weapon that proves effec- gaged in dreaming up inventions meant for vous system of our planet, a global com- tive in killing other apes. The dominant mons of information that transcends any military applications. Although a pacifist, apes will survive into the next generation, Albert Einstein contributed to the knowl- terrestrial limit set by national boarders. and thus, it is the weapon that annun- This global commons of information edge needed to create the most horrific ciates the evolution of consciousness! weapon in human history. The space pro- burns the signs, symbols, simulations and This is to say that as fundamental as, simulacra of mass media into the shared gram, which itself was largely an instru- or even simultaneous with, the cunning of ment of military expansion, has given us screens of our collective consciousness; a the ratiocinating mind that creates consciousness whose gaze is increasingly thousands of inventions with consumer technology, is technology as a vehicle of applications. The most famous of all con-

Fall 2005 Collaboration • 23 sumer inventions, first developed for mili- Michael West, the president of the bio- laboratory and run amok into the environ- tary application by the United States De- tech firm “Advanced Cell Technology” ment, could reduce the biosphere to a gray partment of Defense, is the Internet. (www.advancecell.com), had this to say goo in a matter of days. Today, in this age of hyper-capitalism, about the production of disabled embryos. Just as technologies of physical self- global corporations drive this ferocious “The trick will be to do just enough dam- replication threaten to create cancerous will to power as well as the power of the age to preclude cells developing into a via- organisms in the human body and the state. Therefore, when locating the will ble being, but not so much to interfere with body of the planet, the all-pervasive elec- that animates technology today, we must the growth of stem cells for harvest.” tronic video screen often serves to widen turn to one whose expertise in wedding (West in Kroker, 2004, p. 183) the empathetic gulf which distances us both state and industry is well-known. Although stem cell research may hold emotionally from each other. The influence Thus, Benito Mussolini’s dictum needs to the promise of providing cures for some of of video technology is felt not only men- be remembered: “fascism is the marriage of the most disabling conditions besetting tally but throughout our whole being. corporate wealth to state military power.” humanity such as Parkinson’s disease, Although the cybernetic translation of If the proposition be true that the power of one must not be a fundamentalist Christian planetary communication signals into technology is largely the servant of a new minister to argue that the preceding state- electronic impulses which race through form of fascism, then we are witness to a ment by C.E.O. West poses serious ethical the brain at light speed no doubt affect mutation of fascism, one which can be questions to matters concerning life and post-modern thought processes, these called “virtual fascism.” (Kroker, 2004, p. the “common good.” electronic technologies also reach deep 41) It can be called virtual fascism because If the intention of some stem cell re- into the vital being. this variety of fascism works out A sense of alienation has be- its will to power in a reality not de- come profoundly apparent in our termined by the three dimensions increasingly urban species. A of physical experience, but rather Heideggerian boredom permeates in the non-localized sphere of cy- the sentient qualities of post-mod- berspace, or the recombinant and ern existence. The consequence of transgenic life forms of the petri such alienation and boredom can dish. be enormous. For example: the In one way, this new form of World Health Organization reports fascism is enacted by “battlefield that in the last 45 years—a period managers” (the new buzz word for with unprecedented advances in military command) who in a man- science and technology—suicide ner reminiscent of video games, rates have increased 60 percent. direct smart bombs, and GPS- (www.befrienders.org/suicide/ guided cruise missiles into pixel statistics.htm) images of whole villages and with one searchers sounds ominous, the uninten- In considering how a future humanity press of a button wipe them out entirely. tional consequences of biotechnology can maintain psychological fitness and In yet another way, the power of tech- gone awry can have even more harrowing still keep its co-evolutionary fit with an nology follows an insatiable lust for cor- implications. These were described by Bill ever-accelerating, socially chaotic global porate profits. This is the will to technolo- Joy of Sun Microsystems: environment, which James Joyce called a gy which exploits medicine, genetic engi- “The twenty first century technolo- “chaosmology” (Joyce, 1939), an interest- neering, recombinant DNA, computer net- gies—genetics nano-technology and ing comparison to make is between the works, and the World Wide Web to facili- robotics—are so powerful because they pessimistic boredom of Heidegger, and the tate the quarterly profits of Fortune 500 spawn whole new classes of accidents and boredom of enlightenment as defined in corporations, irrespective of the ethical abuses. While replication in a computer Zen and other traditions of meditation. boundaries such profit-taking may cross. network can be a nuisance, at worst it dis- Post-modern humanity is in desperate Consider the following: “Researchers ables a machine or takes down a network need to know the technique by which the at a small biotech company in Boston want service, uncontrolled self-replication in alienation of boredom can be transmuted to produce a disabled human embryo— these newer technologies runs a much into the boredom of enlightenment. fatally flawed but capable of living for sev- greater risk: a risk of substantial damage to Although enormous expanses of the eral weeks—just long enough for scien- the physical world.” (Joy, 2000) Joy was planet have been fiber-optically traversed, tists to harvest the primitive stem cells so referring to nanotechnology which, if in the physical separation between us as au- coveted for brain and heart research. pathogen form were to escape from the dience and the action we view still leaves

24 • Collaboration Fall 2005 us a buffer of a few milliseconds between sustenance and support by appealing to ogy, both informational and biological, ul- the transmission of the signal to the server the dispossessed who have been left out timately fulfills the project of a perverse and the viewer. This is not much time, but it of the technologically enabled global form of Nietzschean “completed nihilism,” is enough to maintain a psychological economy. Many anti-modernist move- of “the will to power” manifesting a reac- boundary layer and shield us from the ments that appeal to ethnocentric ideals of tionary vision of the “ubermensch” in the swirl of electrons and the phenomena they culture and community are swelling in their marriage of multi-national corporations represent coming at us from distant places ranks. This movement is due in part to a re- and military power? What is the future at speeds approaching light. actionary opposition to a perceived cultur- promise of the will to technology? Indeed the virtual realms of cyber- al imperialism, largely imported through Before considering this question lets space are not only illumined by a Ni- technological advances of the hyper-capi- explore the future as conceived by Sri etzchean “will” in vulgar form but, by a talist enterprise. Aurobindo. The future promise which is Berkleyian “idealism” as well, in that what The digital divide is not the only made to us by Sri Aurobino and Mother or we apprehend with the aid of our optical byproduct of technology that separates the promise de l’Avenir can be succinctly devices are signal, source code and simu- humankind, an emotional divide also put in a few lines from Savitri: lation, and not the flesh and bone exist- looms large on the horizon. The mediation ence embodying our present. Therefore, of technology in human affairs has also When superman is born as Nature’s king one suspects that cyberspace or virtual increased the emotional distances be- His presence shall transfigure Matter’s reality cannot be an authentic arbiter of the tween us. This emotional distance is re- world: here and now, its very design may facilitate flected in the exponential rise of violence He shall light up Truth’s fire in alienation. Nature’s night, Moreover, our ability to empa- He shall lay upon the earth thize with our fellow beings is often Truth’s greater law; undone by the video game manner Man too shall turn towards the in which we come into virtual con- Spirit’s call. tact with most of them. For example, Awake to his hidden possibility, Hollywood films allow us to watch Awake to all that slept within his scores of people going to their heart slaughter without it ever deterring the next handful of popcorn in The hidden possibility in route to our mouths. We set our mankind to surpass its own hu- children in front of the TV or com- manity is made possible by the puter screen to pacify them so they manifestation of a gnostic being will not bother us with their vital who is endowed with a con- three-dimensional demands. We sciousness superior to mind, are barraged by an endless stream of pro- and mental illness of the past century. known aptly as the supermind. Sri Aurob- paganda meant to sell us everything from While technology grew at its fastest, sub- indo describes the traits of the gnostic be- political affiliation, to religious conver- duing us with its utopian promise while ing, and cautions against confusing this sions, to unending sexual performance. having its greatest successes, it out-paced new type of individual with other prophe- This disconnect between human be- our ethical reflections and overwhelmed cies of supermanhood: ings is also manifest in the rapidly growing our emotional perceptions. division of the world’s population into During the century of unprecedented A life of gnostic beings carrying the groups of haves and have-nots, which in- technological advance, when science fa- evolution to a higher supramental creasingly means those with access to cilitated an increase in our life expectancy status might fitly be characterized technology and those without. The gap in and our level of comfort, from out of the as a divine life; for it would be a life wealth between the world’s richest and blind spot of human history the shadowy in the Divine, a life of beginnings of poorest citizens is at its greatest disparity projection of the will to power, of the will to a spiritual divine light and power in recorded history. technology, reached out to wreak carnage and joy manifested in material Nature. That might be described, This disparity of wealth has not only over most of the planet to ensure that this since it surpasses the mental human resulted in third-world deprivation, but last century would be the most murderous. level, as a life of spiritual and supra- has caused a backlash, often sponsored So what happens now at the dawn of a mental supermanhood. But this by fundamentalist religious terrorism. new millennium? What is our promised must not be confused with past and These reactionary movements often draw future? Will it be a future in which technol- present ideas of supermanhood; for

Fall 2005 Collaboration • 25 supermanhood in the mental idea twenty-first century engineering with In single Nature multitudinous lives, consists of an overtopping of the nineteenth century ethics and asks what All that imagination can conceive normal human level, not in kind but will be the consequences of the hype sur- In mind intangible, remould anew in degree of the same kind, by an rounding the human genome project and In Matter’s plastic solid and concrete. enlarged personality, a magnified other big science endeavors: “in the field No magic can surpass my magic’s skill. and exaggerated ego, an increased power of mind, an increased power of biotechnology and bio-pharmacology There is no miracle I shall not achieve. of vital force, a refined or dense and with their delirious schemes for the post- What God imperfect left, I will complete, massive exaggeration of the forces human body in a post-evolutionary time,” Out of a tangled mind and half-made soul of the human ignorance; it carries and asks “are we really ready for the cul- His sin and error I will eliminate; also, commonly implied in it, the ture of the double? [i.e., clone]” and “do What he invented not, I shall invent: idea of a forceful domination over we really understand the fate of the trans- He was the first creator, I am the last. humanity by the superman. That genic body?” (Kroker, 2004, p. 209) I have found the atoms from which he would mean a supermanhood of the Keeping in mind that Sri Aurobindo built the worlds: Nietzchean type . . . But earth has has written that the advent of the supra- The first tremendous cosmic energy had enough of this kind in her past mental consciousness may also transcend Missioned shall leap to slay my enemy and its repetition can only prolong many moral and ethical values that we cur- kin, the old lines; she can get no true profit for her future, no power of rently hold, we should expect the un- Expunge a nation or abolish a race, self-exceeding from the Titan, the expected. In considering the moral ambi- Death’s silence leave where there was Asura: even a great or supernormal guity that may surround the coming of the laughter and joy. power in it could only carry her on future, we should remember the lines from Or the fissured invisible shall spend larger circles of her old orbit. (The the haunting poem, The Hour of God: God’s force Life Divine, 1949, pp. 1067-68) To extend my comforts and expand my Nor let worldly prudence whisper wealth, In considering the future evolution of too closely in thy ear, for it is the To speed my car which now the lightings consciousness and which track humanity Hour of the unexpected. drive may take, one must be cognizant of the And turn the engines of my miracles. types of future biological mutations that In Savitri, Sri Aurobindo reveals the I will take his means of sorcery from his may be in store for humanity. In addition, chilling voice of the will to power in the hands one must also consider the historical and voice of the titanic ego whose unbridled And do with them greater wonders than contemporary attempts that have been vital being merges with a cunning mind to his best. made to enhance the human condition. glorify itself, through its mastery of tech- Yet through it all I have kept my bal- The first wave of eugenics was deter- nology and its domination over the physi- anced thought; mined biologically by Darwin and socially cal life on earth. Always at the mercy of an I have studied my being, I have examined by Spenser as a survival of the fittest. The insatiable hunger for power, this exagger- the world, second wave of eugenics coupled racial ated ego—like the ubermensch overcom- I have grown a master of the arts of life. theories to the notion of survival of the fit- ing mere humanity—sets its sights on the I have tamed the wild beast, trained to be test in the pure blood of the Aryan Nazi, or heavens. Have we yet to encounter such a my friend; in the practices of killing or sterilizing peo- being? He guards my house, looks up waiting ple thought to be inferior, be they Jews, my will. aboriginals, lower castes, or the mentally “I have grown greater than Nature, wiser I have taught my kind to serve and to ill. The question now is what will the third than God. obey. wave of eugenics bring? The difference I have made real what she never dreamed, I have used the mystery of the cosmic between humanity’s prior experience of I have seized her powers and harnessed waves eugenics and its next incarnation will be for my work, To see far distance and to hear far that previously it has been the tool of au- I have shaped her metals and new metals words; thoritative science and ideological re- made; I have conquered Space and knitted gimes, whereas the next wave of eugenics I will make glass and raiment out of milk, close all earth. is certain to be driven by neo-liberal eco- Make iron velvet, water unbreakable Soon I shall know the secrets of the nomics following the incentive of profit. stone, Mind; Arthur Kroker has thought through Like God in his astuce of artist skill, I play with knowledge and with igno- the Nietzschean implications of eugenics Mould from one primal plasm protean rance and wonders if the world today is facing forms, And sin and virtue my inventions are

26 • Collaboration Fall 2005 I can transcend or sovereignly use. pugnant to us now, for all we know, these still incompletely understood and I shall know mystic truths, seize occult or similar inventions may determine the fu- accepted by the surface mentality; powers. ture passages that the evolution of con- but one day it may understand, go I shall slay my enemies with a look or sciousness will take in exceeding the bio- deeper within itself and discover the means, the secret energy, the thought, logical constraints placed upon it by intended operation of Conscious- I shall sense the unspoken feelings of all dwelling in the body of the human species. ness-Force within which is the hearts One can even ask: Would the fulfill- hidden reality of what we call And see and hear the hidden thoughts of ment of nihilism in the deconstruction of Nature. (p. 844) men. transcendent values and the triumph of When earth is mastered, I shall conquer the Nietzschean superman, or the super- Among major western philosophers, heaven; organization through technological con- none have thought more about technolo- The gods shall be my aides or menial folk, quest of global commerce and the cultural gy and its implications than has Martin No wish I harbor unfulfilled shall die: Noosphere, be a necessary stage in the Heidegger. In his view, technology opened Omnipotence and omniscience shall be transition to the supramental manifesta- itself to diametric polarities of promise and mine.” (Savitri, pp. 512-513) tion? Or would it provide a counterpoint to peril. While perceiving the assault to our a more spiritually ordered mutation? feeling life and our ability to care for the The promises of some future technol- Whatever the answers, the techno- things of the world, he condemned tech- ogies seem to come right out of the pages logical future is in some respects challeng- nology as a vehicle of fascist propaganda, of Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein. These ing our notion of what it means to be hu- military domination, and the hyper-capital- technologies are poised to perversely dis- man. In fact, the current idiom in contem- ist enterprise of power and subjugation. tort nature, much like Victor Frankenstein’s porary culture used to describe the phe- He also realized that it was difficult for any creature. It is only normal to cringe at the nomena of transcending the definition of of us not to participate in its ideological thought of silicon embedded in human humanity is referred to as “post-human.” program. flesh, of crossing human genes with those How might humanity itself assist nature in Heidegger nonetheless perceived of animals, or cloning a human being. All of creating this new species of post-humans? that technology could retain the promise these very possible productions of future In addition to the simple ethical ques- given to it in the original Greek term, technologies seem to embody evil itself. tions raised by the thought of humans cre- techne. The term was once synonymous But then again, we should expect the unex- ating their successor species, there are real with art as well as with technique. In fact, pected. implications here for the integral yoga ideally, techne was considered to be the Cultural historian William Irwin Thomp- community. The following quote from The vehicle by which truth manifested beauty. son writes that what we perceive as evil Life Divine suggests that on the surface Techne was entwined with poesis, artistic may well annunciate the next stage of glo- technology will play an important role in creativity and meaning-making. Technolo- bal evolution (Thompson, 1980). Think the future evolution of consciousness as gy was the vehicle that revealed the artis- again about the ape and the weapon, or envisaged by Sri Aurobindo: tic aspiration for truth and beauty. “Once about how the Greeks, the Romans, the there was a time when the bringing forth of Vikings, and then the colonial powers de- Consciousness itself by its muta- the true into the beautiful was called stroyed many indigenous cultures, yet tion will necessitate and operate techne, . . . Once that revealing that brings through the roads they built and the trade whatever mutation is needed for the forth truth into the splendor of radiant ap- routes they initiated, they facilitated a glo- body. It has to be noted that the pearing also was called techne.” (Heideg- human mind has already shown the bal culture of trade and interaction which ger, 1977, p. 36) As an example, think again capacity to aid nature in the ultimately spread western philosophy evolution of new types of plant and about the skillful use of the technology of eastward and eastern philosophy west- animal; it has created new forms of photography in the photographs of Sri ward—in other words, they furthered the its environment, developed by Aurobindo taken by Cartier-Bresson. evolution of consciousness. knowledge and discipline There you have it, with its ability to tran- This is not to rationalize or excuse the considerable changes in its own scend mere simulation or reproduction, the violence that makes imperialism or the mentality. It is not an impossibility Cartier-Bresson photographs have be- transfer of culture possible, but merely to that man should aid nature come technological vehicles of revelation! state that the evolution of consciousness consciously also in his own Beyond the ability of technology to proceeds by means that often transcend spiritual and physical evolution prove revelatory and a vehicle for the force our notions of good and evil. Although the and transformation [emphasis of truth, it can also enhance and extend added]. The urge to do it is already prospect of cloned human flesh or silicon human life itself. Indeed, technology has there and partly effective though chips embedded in the brain may seem re- improved the quality of life for most of the

Fall 2005 Collaboration • 27 world. Even those left out of the techno- science as a new type of barbarism: “Sci- the speed of thought.” (Gates, 2000) logical gold rush, who are on the other side ence pursuing its cold and even way has In reaction to the deconstruction of of the digital divide, are beneficiaries in made discoveries which have served on indigenous social value systems, no some manner or other of the wonders of one side a practical humanitarianism, on doubt the poor and those disenfranchised technology. The extension of life expect- the other supplied monstrous weapons to by the lack of technology, subjugated by ancy made possible by such advances in egoism and mutual destruction; it has cultural imperialism, exploited as economic medicine as the small pox and polio vac- made possible a gigantic efficiency of or- serfs, will become ever more stridently mil- cines, or the cures it has made available for ganization which has been used on one itant. In reaction to the mounting poverty, dysentery, malaria, influenza and a host of side for the economic and social ameliora- the perceived servitude to the world’s other ailments that have beset humankind tion of the nations and on the other for wealthiest nations, and the threat to cul- from its inception, are testaments to the mi- turning each into a colossal battering-ram tural and religious values, those whose raculous advances of science. of aggression, ruin and slaughter. It has situation appears hopeless will surely at- Sri Aurobindo has written that the hu- given rise on the one side to a large ratio- tempt to hold on to those ideals and values man mind can aid in the evolution of con- nalistic and altruistic humanitarianism, on transcendent to their experience of the sciousness, and has said: “Science has al- the other it has justified a godless egoism, world. The world given to them by the glo- ready enlarged for good the intellectual vitalism, vulgar will to power and suc- bal economy and technology will seem horizons of the race and raised, sharpened cess.” (The Human Cycle, 1972, p. 111) profane and a threat to their indigenous and intensified powerfully the general in- So just what are the social implica- cultural existence. tellectual capacity of mankind.” (The Hu- tions for integral yoga in an age of Some who hold fast to the law of the man Cycle, 1972, p. 70) However, Sri Nietzschean nihilism? In writing the Will to word or the book will be motivated by Aurobindo was also a those whose own vul- keen observer of society gar will to power seeks and economics and was The vulgar will to power intent on insuring its to express itself through well aware of the hidden the fundamentalism of agendas that could drive domination fetishes technology, whether the their faith, and will sure- scientific research. He metallurgy of the sword in days gone by or the ly strike back. Septem- knew that science is nanotechnology of the terrorist yet to come. ber 11, 2001 may only be a production of culture only the first of a series and not solely a dispas- of blows wrought upon sionate enterprise. He the first world by tech- termed the use of science driven by the Power a century ago, Nietzsche said that nologies of their creation. On September motivations of economic self-aggrandize- he was writing prophecy for the next two 11th it was jet planes that inflicted the dam- ment as a recurrent form of “barbarism,” hundred years. (Kroker, 2004, p. 84) In this age. There are, however, technologies which in earlier epochs had manifested in prophecy, metaphysics completes itself in whose potential for destruction dwarf the the rule of the dictator and the power of the the pure will of the Nietzschen superman. damage done on that day in 2001. conquering nomadic clan. In this will to power, the asuric qualities of Science can have many unintended Science that is funded by the market- the vital being enforce their will on a world consequences. Think of the intention of place with its lust for profit, or by military stripped of any and all referents to being, the Internet first as tool of the defense de- interests that view populations in terms of values, or qualities. In this inversion of partment and which now has become a body counts, gives rise to today’s recur- metaphysics, rationality serves the will in planetary communication system, or how rent barbarism. Science as vehicle for the its domination. biological research has morphed into an manifestation of the asuric force has beset Driven by the forces of control and instrument for creating weapons of mass humanity with the plague of technologies power, imagination will effectuate its cre- destruction. This is an especially disquiet- that threaten its own existence. The vulgar ations in worlds of simulations, worlds ing thought in that “today anything is will to power intent on insuring its domina- where the map of the propagandist pre- possible. As soon as you get beyond hi- tion fetishes technology, whether the met- cedes the reality of actual territory. These jackings and car bombs, and things like allurgy of the sword in days gone by or the worlds will be defined by the conditions of that you entertain the possibility of nucle- nanotechnology of the terrorist yet to the marketplace. All reference to eternal ar, bacteriological, or chemical terrorism. come. The will to power quite naturally ideas will be banished in the pure light The door is wide open, September 11 manifests itself in a will to technology. speed of fiber optics as the pure circula- opened Pandora’s box.” (Virilio, 2002, p. In the following passage, Sri Auro- tion of power merges man and machine 178) Advances in science and their effect bindo defines this cultural phenomena of into a species governed by “business at on culture may either support or deter an

28 • Collaboration Fall 2005 environment receptive to the completion intensifies the aspiration for world har- If this is the case—keeping in mind of Integral Yoga. mony. The question can now be asked, the historical interventions in worldly af- Although the organizing ideas driv- how is all this a matter of concern for the fairs which Sri Aurobindo and the Mother ing research and technology will play a community of Integral Yoga? have previously taken—isn’t it incumbent decisive role in the outcome of how sci- Visualize again the film 2001: A Space on a community which seeks to fulfill the ence shapes culture and facilitates either Odyssey, in which a computer, Hal, has future promise of its founders, of a life di- spirituality or nihilism, one must not over- been so animated with a will to survive by vine, of the transformation of matter, to not look the role of the accident or catastrophe its human programmers that its own sur- only concentrate its practice on the inner in determining the course of evolution. vival threatens the existence of the hu- individual dimensions of the transforma- The potential of science and technology mans it was created to serve. Humans have tion of consciousness, but also, as a re- to facilitate the transformation of con- been reduced to servo-mechanisms for the flection of that practice, to acknowledge sciousness in its physical, vital, and men- machine. Or think of a more banal image, and critique the processes of science and tal formulations is likely to be determined that of the IBM calculating machines, technology that may either facilitate or by the conscious intent of the person or which were used by the Nazi’s to make thwart the realization of that promise? We the culture wielding it as a tool. However, possible the systematic round up, trans- can, of course, choose to ignore the yoga all the work of science could be undone by ference and slaughter of the Jews of Eu- in the world, but if we do, it would be best an accident, or a terrorist, who acts as the rope; a simple technology in the service of to remain on guard, so as not to be crushed cybernetic shadow of the will to techno- a society with a perverse eugenic agenda. when the titan falls. logy; as an agent of science’s unintended (http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com) consequence. When the fascist regimes of Europe in References With its focus on the evolution of the 1940s posed a threat to the evolution consciousness, no other yoga or spiritual of consciousness, with their lust for global Gates, B. Business at the Speed of practice has quite the same stake in the domination and its perversion of the Ni- Thought, New York, Warner Business future of the earth as does Integral Yoga. etzschean ideal of the superman, Sri Books (2000) The issue of the future and Integral Yoga Aurobindo and the Mother both materially Heidegger, M. The Question Con- raises some further questions: might a and occultly intervened to help halt its ad- cerning Technology and other Essays. Nietzschean future be a necessary transi- vance. Although a direct comparison be- New York, Harper and Row (1977) tion toward the superman which Sri Auro- tween world events of the 1940s and the Joy, B. “Why the Future Doesn’t bindo heralds? Or is the promise of the technological advances of the early twen- Need Us,” Wired Magazine (April 2000) future to be gained only by a conscious ty-first century certainly cannot be made, Joyce, J. Finnegan’s Wake. New York, effort to free ourselves from the barbarism the eras have certain occult correlations Penguin Books (1939) of the will to power manifest in the will to regarding their consequences for the evo- Kroker, A, The Will to Technology and technology? lution of consciousness. The hidden forc- the Culture of Nihilism. Toronto, Univer- Sri Aurobindo actively worked for the es driving events in both times share an sity of Toronto Press (2004) receptivity of the truth consciousness on insatiable lust for the will to power. Nietzsche, F. The Will to Power. W. the earth, and worked expressly against The current age of unconstrained glo- Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale, trans. those asuric forces and conditions of ig- bal capitalism driven by a hyper-vitality New York, Vintage Press (1968) norance that could deter the evolution of bears a striking correlation to the commer- Sri Aurobindo. The Hour of God, consciousness. As we find in the book cial age described in the chapter of The Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press Evening Conversations, Sri Aurobindo Human Cycle entitled “Civilization and (1972) engaged regularly in discussions about Barbarism.” Here Sri Aurobindo writes: “in Sri Aurobindo. The Human Cycle. world affairs and the course of history. In a commercial age with its ideal, vulgar and Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press his writings on culture and civilization, his- barbarous, of success, vitalistic satisfac- (1972) tory, culture, science, and art are all shown tion, productiveness and possession the Sri Aurobindo. The Life Divine, as having relevance for spiritual growth in soul of man may linger for a while for cer- Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press light of the yoga. tain gains and experiences, but cannot per- (1972) The future should be especially rele- manently rest. If it persisted too long, Life Sri Aurobindo. Savitri, Pondicherry, vant to a community whose yoga places would become clogged and perish of its Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press (1972) so high a stake in it. It matters to the extent own plethora or burst in its straining to a Thompson W.I. Evil and World Or- technology will facilitate or deter the gross expansion. Like the too massive Ti- der. New York, Harper Collins (1980) worldly conditions in which human con- tan it will collapse by its own mass, mole Virilio P., Crepuscular Dawn, Cam- sciousness evolves, and detracts from or ruet sua.” (The Human Cycle, 1972, p. 73) bridge MA, MIT Press (2002)

Fall 2005 Collaboration • 29 knowledge, mutual Source Material understanding, unity, a nature of true being and true The problem of life that the result human disunity can be a perfection of ourselves and our existence, a life by Sri Aurobindo of true being, a life of unity, mutuality, ur nature, our consciousness is harmony, a life of that of beings ignorant of each true happiness, a Oother, separated from each other, harmonious and rooted in a divided ego, who must strive to beautiful life. If our establish some kind of relation between nature is fixed in their embodied ignorances; for the urge to what it is, what it Sri Aurobindo. (photo courtesy Sri Aurobindo Ashram) union and forces making for union are has already be- there in Nature. Individual and group har- come, then no perfection, no real and en- monies of a comparative and qualified during happiness is possible in earthly The collective and completeness are created, a social cohe- life; we must seek it not at all and do the sion is accomplished; but in the mass the best we can with our imperfections, or we the individual in relations formed are constantly marred by must seek it elsewhere, in a supraterrestrial the supramental imperfect sympathy, imperfect under- hereafter, or we must go beyond all such standing, gross misunderstandings, strife, seeking and transcend life by an extinction manifestation discord, unhappiness. It cannot be other- of nature and ego in some Absolute from wise so long as there is no true union of which this strange and unsatisfactory be- by the Mother consciousness founded upon a nature of ing of ours has come into existence. But if self-knowledge, inner mutual knowledge, in us there is a spiritual being which is I think that [the manifestation of the inner realisation of unity, concord of our emerging and our present state is only an supramental] will happen the moment inner forces of being and inner forces of imperfection or half-emergence, if the In- there is a sufficiently large number of con- life. In our social building we labour to es- conscient is a starting-point containing in sciousnesses which feel absolutely that it tablish some approach to unity, mutuality, itself the potency of a Superconscience cannot be otherwise. Now, most people, harmony, because without these things and Supernature which has to evolve, a the immense majority among you have to there can be no perfect social living; but veil of apparent Nature in which that great- make an effort to imagine what it will be, what we build is a constructed unity, an er consciousness is concealed and from and at best, speculate upon it and perhaps association of interests and egos enforced which it has to unfold itself, if an evolution hope that the transformation will make by law and custom and imposing an artifi- of being is the law, then what we are seek- things more pleasing, more pleasant— cial constructed order in which the inter- ing for is not only possible but part of the something like that. But your conscious- ests of some prevail over the interests of eventual necessity of things. It is our spir- ness is so attached to what is, that it even others and only a half accepted half en- itual destiny to manifest and become that finds it difficult to imagine that things can forced, half natural half artificial accommo- Supernature,—for it is the nature of our be otherwise. And until what must be be- dation keeps the social whole in being. true self, our still occult, because une- comes for a sufficiently big group of con- Between community and community there volved, whole being. A nature of unity will sciousnesses an inevitable necessity, and is a still worse accommodation with a con- then bring inevitably its life-result of unity, all that has been and all that still is at stant recurrence of the strife of collective mutuality, harmony. An inner life awak- present appears like an absurdity which ego with collective ego. This is the best ened to a full consciousness and to a full cannot last . . . it is at that moment that this that we can do and all our persistent re- power of consciousness will bear its inev- [manifestation] can take place, not before. adjustments of the social order can bring itable fruit in all who have it, self-knowl- There remains a problem, namely, us nothing better than an imperfect struc- edge, a perfected existence, the joy of a whether it is something which can take ture of life. satisfied being, the happiness of a fulfilled place and will take place individually be- It is only if our nature develops be- nature. (The Life Divine, pp. 1034-1036) fore occurring collectively. It is probable. yond itself, if it becomes a nature of self- But no individual manifestation can be

30 • Collaboration Fall 2005 siderably. Well, in you elsewhere! This is worth the trouble of the same way, it is casting behind much luggage, of getting probable that the rid of many things in order to be able to supramental be- take that leap. That’s how I see the problem. ing, whatever it In fact it is the sublimest of adven- might be, will con- tures, and if one has in him in the slightest siderably change the true spirit of adventure, it is worth risk- the life of the ing all for all. But those who are afraid, who earth. In our heart wonder, “Am I not going to let go the sub- and our thought stance for the shadow?” according to the we hope that all most banal proverb one can imagine, those the evils the earth who tell themselves, “Bah! After all it is suffers from will be better to profit by what one has than to risk at least ameliorat- losing everything, we don’t know what is ed if not cured, going to happen tomorrow, let us take pre- The Mother. (photo courtesy Sri Aurobindo Ashram) and that the gener- cautions” . . . unfortunately this is very al conditions will widespread, extremely widespread . . . well, complete nor even approach this perfec- be more harmonious, in any case more tol- about those who are in this state of mind, I tion if it is not in harmony with at least a erable. This may happen, because it was can assure you of one thing: that even group of consciousnesses representative the very nature of the mental conscious- when the thing occurs before their very of a new world. In spite of everything there ness which incarnated in man,. Who acted nose, they will not perceive it. They will is so great an interdependence of the indi- for his own satisfaction, with his own de- say, “It is good, in this way I won’t regret vidual and the collectivity, that the indi- velopment in view, and without much con- anything.” It is possible. But perhaps later vidual realization, despite all, is limited, im- sideration for the consequences of his ac- they will; this we do not know. poverished by the irresponsive atmo- tions. Perhaps the Supermind will act more In any case what I call being sincere is sphere—if I may say so—of what sur- harmoniously. In any case we hope so. this: if one thinks that this new realisation rounds it. And it is certain that the entire That is how we conceive of it . . . is the only thing which is truly worth being terrestrial life has to follow a certain curve So, if it is the right time, this is how the lived; if what is, is intolerable—not only of progress, so that a new world and a new problem is put: there are people who are for oneself, perhaps not so much for one- consciousness can manifest. And that is ready or will become ready, and these pre- self . . . but still, if one is not absolutely why I said at the beginning that it depends cisely will be the first to start on the new selfish and mean, one feels that, truly, it at least partially on you. path. There are others who, perhaps, will has lasted long enough, that one has had Have you ever tried to picture what become aware of it too late, who will have enough of it, that it must change—well, this new consciousness could be and missed the opportunity; I think there will when one feels like that, one takes every- what a new race could be like, and finally be many of this kind. But in any case, my thing, all that one is, all that one can, all what a new world could be like? point of view is this: even if there should that one has, and one throws oneself into By analogy, it is quite obvious that be only half a chance, it would be worth it completely without ever looking behind, the arrival of man upon earth has changed the trouble of trying. For after all . . . I don’t and come what may! I indeed feel that it the earth-condition. I cannot say that from know . . . I told you just now, there is a would be preferable even to plunge into an a certain point of view this was for the moment when life such as it is, the human abyss in this way than to be on the shore, greatest of all, because there are many who consciousness such as it is, seems some- trembling and wondering, “What will hap- have suffered terribly from it, and here it is thing absolutely impossible to bear, it cre- pen tomorrow if I take this rather rash obvious that the complications the human ates a kind of disgust, repugnance; one step?” There we are. (From Questions and being has brought into life have not al- says, “No, it is not that, it is not that; it can’t Anwers, 24 November 1954) ways been very favorable either for him or be that, it can’t continue.” Well, when one for others. But from a certain point of view comes to this, there is only to throw in An entirely new consciousness in many this has brought about a considerable one’s all—all one’s effort, all one’s individuals transforming their whole be- progress, even in the lower species: man strength, all one’s life, all one’s being — ing . . . is needed for the new life to appear; meddled with the life of metals, of minerals; into this chance, if you like, or this excep- only such a transformation of the general as I said, it was not always for the greatest tional opportunity that is given to cross mind, life, body nature can bring into be- joy of those he dealt with, but still it cer- over to the other side. What a relief to set ing a new worthwhile collective exist- tainly changed their conditions of life con- foot on the new path, that which will lead ence. (The Life Divine, p. 1061)

Fall 2005 Collaboration • 31 The poetry room She truly loved A sea of serenity, none would suspect From Love and death That the worm of doubt could torment This pure petal of spirituality. In the woodlands of the bright and early world, Her fine face was haloed by a luminous grace. When love was to himself yet new and warm Command and humility were manifest in every gesture. And stainless, played like morning with a flower In her presence the stricken of the world felt Ruru with his young bride Priyumvada. Care fly, and their griefs melted at her merest touch. Fresh-cheeked and dew-eyed white Priyumvada A strange flood of joy coursed through their hearts Opened her budded heart of crimson bloom At a calm word of sage advice from her lips. To love, to Ruru; Ruru, a happy flood Alight with adoration, her eyes sparkled brighter Of passion round a lotus dancing thrilled, Than the many candles on different altars. Blinded with his soul’s waves Priyumvada. She whose arms had never clasped a lover or a son, To him the earth was a bed for this sole flower, Who had forsaken soft bed and epicurean delight, To her all the world was filled with his embrace. Her compassion wafted over all lives like a caress of incense, Wet with new rains the morning earth, released Desire she had none but coveted only to be worthy of Him, From her fierce centuries and burning suns, Self-abnegation’s monument and patience incarnate. Lavished her breath in greenness; poignant flowers This flower of Europe’s high nobility had been Thronged all her eager breast, and her young arms The belle of a season, the rage of a year, Cradled a childlike bounding life that played But bent on an upward path, on her Godward way And would not cease, nor ever weary grew Had conquered earthly temptations, renounced sin and virtue. Of her bright promise; for all was joy and breeze Today she stood devoid of peace and detachment, And perfume, colour and bloom and ardent rays For yesterday when she had gone to inspect the work Of living; and delight desired the world. Of the great painter of France invited by the church Then Earth was quick and pregnant timelessly; To sanctify further by beauty’s brush A free and unwalled race possessed her plains The sanctum sanctorum, she had stood transfixed Whose hearts uncramped by bonds, whose unspoiled thoughts At the sublime transformation wrought by his inspired work. At once replied to light. Foisoned the fields; Then she had advanced with a grateful heart to bless him. Lonely and rich the forests and the swaying The painter beholding her snow-white and delicate pure hands, Of those unnumbered tops affected men Due to deep veneration didn’t want them to be sullied With thoughts to their vast music kin. Undammed By a touch of his dust and cobweb-covered head. The virgin rivers moved towards the sea, And mountains yet unseen and peoples vague He also was a noble soul like those Winged young imagination like an eagle Painters and sculptors of India who gave their lives Top strange beauty remote. And Ruru felt To the Lord’s adoration, leaving no name for posterity The sweetness of the early earth as sap To remember. Day after day he visited the great cathedrals All through him, and short life an aeon made To get inspiration and strength for this noble work. By boundless possibility, and love, During these months nothing passed his lips except a monk’s fare. Sweetest of all unfathomable love, Yet in modern times when virtue is at a discount A glory untired. As a bright bird comes flying And goodness is taken as the hallmark of the weak, From airy extravagance to his own home, He hid his gentle saintly character under a mask of worldliness, And breasts his mate, and feels her all his goal, Above all he could not bear to be thanked. So from boon sunlight and the fresh chill wave He forestalled the shower of gratitude by saying — Which swirled and lapped between the slumbering fields, “Mother! come not too near this sinner. From forest pools and wanderings mid leaves Your robe of virtue will be defaced Through emerald ever-new discoveries, By my million stains and lapses. Mysterious hillsides ranged and buoyant-swift Last night only I lay with a harlot.” Races with our wild brothers in the meads, Came Ruru back to the white-bosomed girl, The reverend mother stunned by these alien words Strong-winged to pleasure. She all fresh and new Stopped, her gentle hands half-raised in blessings. Rose to him, and he plunged into her charm. Enjoying her discomfiture, the painter in innocent mischief

—Sri Aurobindo

32 • Collaboration Fall 2005 Mocked her further, ”Mother Superior, Thus rising above sin and virtue she sank Christ took the sins of all men on Himself, In front of the magnificence which the artist Can’t His daughter do the same?” Just before she came had unveiled. The church Though her heart was shocked, the iron discipline held. Was inexplicably filled with a heavenly scent, With an outward detachment the Mother said, As all the angels in all the frescoes assumed her likeness. “God bless you, my friend.” But her steps were And the two present heard a divine voice say, A little too hasty and her departure looked like a retreat. “She truly loved.”

The painter laughed heartily at his own prank —Shyam Kumari For he had seen her flesh shrink at his brash admonition. Ignorant of how sorely he had troubled that gentle soul The painter’s brush became more revelatory and vigorous, A quarry lagoon As he painted the last angel in the likeness of the Mother Superior, The Quincy quarries at one time yielded the best grades The saintly being whom he secretly adored. of granite rock for use around the world. An igneous or volcanic rock, Her vesper prayers done, aves offered, granite surfaces under pressure in a volcano. A simple supper disposed of and night’s blessings given to all, The Mother retired to her room illumed by a single candle. Hot summer days we would take the bus This night which her soul told her would be her last, or thumb rides or drive from Roxbury For the shadow of the future sometimes falls on our senses. to the Quincy woodlands. She whose life had been purer than the driven snow, Who had achieved, in her ninety years Ages eleven to thirteen, we street kids would climb the trail More than a mortal can hope or God demand, up green hills to wild raspberry and blueberry patches Now felt defeated by the painter’s taunt. and the water-filled quarries, isolated Inwardly she knew that she had felt a repulsion rock excavations of granite At touching the man who had thus loudly proclaimed his sins. and marble, boulders and stones.

The moment was near for leaving the earthly abode, The old Granite Railway Company in Quincy once hauled The dawn was waiting to usher her to her heavenly home, boulders But she felt some high task remained unfulfilled, for building and stone used for church statues Something had been left undone. as in India, quarried granite left from glacial She knelt before the icon given to her by the Count, her father, or prehistoric times, or excavated A family heirloom of which all Christendom had heard. A calm beyond words settled on her, for churches and tombstones of Boston And a love from heaven filled her heart, and environs, and lighthouses As with a beatific smile she rose of the nineteenth century. Taking the holy icon from its sanctified niche, Opening the door, with firm steps she went where We swam the fresh spring water The painter worked tonight to finish his work — and frolicked leaping or high diving For the morrow’s Feast of Redemption. off quarry rock ledges. Her faithful servitor Sister Bernadette, Dozing on her stool, awoke at the opening of the door, A mysterious presence pervaded these abandoned quarries, And was transfixed by the nimbus around the Mother’s face. an eerie and exotic beauty of reflecting pools, She could have vowed on Holy Bible greenish blue water where floated leaves, That she saw light linger in the Mother’s footsteps. Oblivious to her follower the saint glided insects, branches, twigs, small logs, dust, On her last errand, to her final triumph. soil carried by winds from rocks, The painter startled by her presence at that hour trees and plants. And by her radiant face of incarnate love Watery pools of bottomless excavations. What were their Involuntarily kneeled. Giving the icon to him depths? The Mother said, “Friend! Here is a present for you.”

Fall 2005 Collaboration • 33 The legend of a shrinking corpse bright on darkest blue or rosey gray floating to the surface. Youthful bravado and rash dark on light and light on dark – both do inward seal the day. antics in the mysterium tremendum. Configured granite blocks with high outlook precipices Direct, the frontal waves curl sharp and clear and clean and Brahmic views of surrounding woods for miles yes, pale with light, and green under a panoply of sky and clouds. pouring, pouring, come to me; in them and through I am Beneath graffiti rock walls of rugged crags and steep gliding and shining the frothy filigree cliffs forlorn like a jungle lagoon lace stories entwined in ebb and flow we swam the quarry fresh reluctant to part, to be written on sand; in summer or early autumn, or spring. a mystic language left to tell of travel’s end. We would climb to more elevated rocks and grey ledges, then dive from the steeper cliff’s While sailing behind in the western sky, still creamy but faint high rock landings. who saw the mute full moon send its adieu, a soft salute to dawn in the east? When we reached the very top landing “Rooftop,” we would survey the view Then slumbering swan of the sky awakes of Quincy hills and woods and misty with satin exhale to cheek and lips, my face, Boston skyline in the distance. caress of curves outside to in, and, oh, the same!

Off this high ledge we would contemplate a swan dive. I enter the center, soar above, companions of long: slow pulse of Love. I would visualize the dive’s steep arc, Above the air we sail secure, poise myself for the tremulous height warm, in unknown tongue of understanding then launch a winged swan into shining waters . . . to the space beyond, far away! O Beauty! I now sometimes recall such events, memories O Divine. that stay with you. —Navaja Llope Those youthful swan dives seemed to hint at impulses toward transcendence, the moonlit pools to reflect something tumultuous and Divine. September

—Joseph Kent September, that glorious month Of warm temperate sunshine, Opened her days of felicity, Before dawn, at the sea Her spacious, peaceful cadences, Along the banks of a mountain stream. The press of night releases, retreats the dark and dense. She lay in sylvan solitude Above, the call from skyey space; ah, the secret opens. Framed in willow and towering pine, Captured, I stop and wait approaching alchemy, all open to birth. And boulders heaped upon the shores, Now glide pearly masses on moving water; And above, majestic blue and sun. clouds come for morning’s opal drink. The rushing of water over rocks God, what glory anthem! Commingled with the murmuring pools’ Tones of mystical enchantment. Against the line of new horizon no sun is seen How rare that release into timeless wonder! but inside my skin its push, its rise is felt. The press of cares, the half-done deeds Breathing, seeing, my sheath expands Weigh upon the breast, stifle the soul I lift and slide into sky’s openings beyond these gauzy veils. That slowly, hardly, struggles to emerge.

On either side of wideness, fading edges stretch Now, O radiant Splendor, Come! silver on liquid, as paintbrush strokes lay wandering lights, Flow down in the wide white spaces,

34 • Collaboration Fall 2005 Fill the golden day with thy Presence. When I look at Her Whistle thy flute upon the boughs above And thrill the senses with thy sweet embrace. when I look at Her, Into the moments pass before too late She smiles at me, Thy eternal calm, thy nameless delight. from her womb silencing— Hurry, before the shadows fall, lovable eternal heart. Enter into the tumbling brook, my mind’s unending quest Into the soft and fragrant air, snares the sprinkling Here, into the gray stone, penetrate. perfume of musk from Her shining eyes. —Larry Seidlitz I hold tightly her lotus feet, full with petals Perch fishing of eternal love. where the vastness of sea What is ordinary trembles, anchors the boat of tide, what is regular quakes. night is no more vast Years bend on before the awakening dawn, rattling the plates, in the skies of east. feet a little surer to cheer the world of nature each missing step. She flew the streams What waited cold past snow of the sunlit path, comes to a permanent start. where darkness takes Out folds of a fault complete rest we hope a way along, in the platinum house. stained gull-ridge back, native to stars and the moon, huge grey-green rock. I travelled across the universe Out to catch five yellow holding her wings of fire and peace. tide peak fed perch I arrive in air and water, thick pouched pelicans fetch, and my thought’s paradise we let go both poles touches the sky, a moment and watch, when I look at Her. after wave claps, the blinding mist. —Manas Pati With what swift strokes do you mortally surround me, cover my eyes Trust the dream pacific, abate the pull of the hooked, Auroville is working, the reeling world Trust the Dream— then pound troth into faith. Slowly opening Soul’s angel, As a lily in subeam one you raised White and pure from the living From mud insecure— long ago Stress at every seam. has left these lines Come, hold hands to rock you even now And lift this dream each lash on our face, Of Truth Supreme. the sound all the stronger —Chandresh Patel for our strange past.

—Rick Lipschutz

Fall 2005 Collaboration • 35 We all have a role to fulfill, a work to ac- The minute one stops going forward, one Apropos complish, a place which we alone can oc- falls back. The moment one is satisfied and cupy. —The Mother no longer aspires, one begins to die. — It is your destiny to see, to know as God The Mother knows, to feel as God feels. —Meister I found completeness when each breath Eckhart began to silently say the name of my Lord. Man is a born child, his power is the power —St. Teresa of Avila of growth. —Rabindranath Tagore Life is a perpetual choice between truth and falsehood, light and darkness, How long will grown men and women in What percent of space is this earth in the progress and regression, the ascent to- this world keep drawing in their coloring infinite realm? What percent of time is one wards the heights or a fall into the abyss. books an image of God that makes them second in eternity? Less than that is our It is for each one to choose freely. —The sad? —Meister Eckhart knowledge of God. How then can we ever Mother. argue about Him? —Meister Eckhart Wisdom is so kind and wise that wherever Come and be Love’s willing slave, for you may look you can learn something Like water in jar and river are in essence the Love’s slavery will save you. Forsake the about God. —St. Catherine of Siena same, you and spirit are the same. Your slavery of this world and take up Love’s every idol prostrates before you, your ev- sweet service. The free, the world en- The conquest of difficulties make up all ery thought-form perishes in your form- slaves, but to slaves Love grants freedom. that is valuable in the earth’s history. lessness. —Rumi —Rumi —Sri Aurobindo To everyone who suffers, perseverance God and I have become like two giant fat Know the true nature of your Beloved. In brings good fortune, The Prophet has said people living in a tiny boat. We keep His loving eyes your every thought, word, that each prostation of prayer is a knock bumping into each and laughing. —Hafiz and movement is always, always beautiful. on heaven’s door. When anyone contin- —Hafiz ues to knock, felicity shows its smiling Everything I see, hear, touch, feel, taste, face. —Rumi speak, think, imagine, is completing a per- Commerce is supported by keeping the in- fect circle that God has drawn. —Meister dividual at odds with himself and others, A thousand souls hear His call every sec- Eckhart by making us want more then we need, and ond, but most every one then looks into offering credit to buy what refined senses their life’s mirror and says, “I am not wor- Do not say, “It is morning,” and dismiss it do not want. —Meister Eckhart thy to leave this sadness.” —St. Teresa of with a name of yesterday. See it for the first Avila time as a new-born child that has no name. Everyone has a life appropriate to his total —Rabindranath Tagore development, everyone has experiences That which oppresses me, is it my soul which help him in his total development, trying to come out in the open, or the soul I have no object to defend for all is of and everyone has difficulties which help in of the world knocking at my heart for its equal value to me. I cannot lose anything his total realization. —The Mother entrance? —Rabindranath Tagore in this place of abundance I found. If something my heart cherishes is taken All beings are words of God, His music, To see the divine possibility and overcome away, I just say, “Lord, what happened?” His art. —Meister Eckhart its play of obstacles constitutes the whole and a hundred more appear. —St. Cathe- mystery and greatness of human exist- rine of Siena Each object in the universe is really the ence. —Sri Aurobindo whole universe in a different frontal ap- Divine Love is not something ethereal, pearance —Sri Aurobindo If you are irritated by every rub, how will cold and far, but a love absolutely intense, your mirror be polished? —Rumi intimate and full of unity, closeness and It is not possible for Love to not hear us, rapture using all the nature for its expres- and whatever happens the perfect teacher You have been put upon earth, in a physi- sion. —Sri Aurobindo staged. —St. Catherine of Siena cal body, with a definite aim, which is to make this body as conscious as possible, Divine love will be eternally true to its own They can be a great help—words. They make it the most perfect and most con- being, and its being is giving all it can, at can become the spirit’s hands and lift and scious instrument of the Divine. —The the perfect moment. —Meister Eckhart caress you. —Meister Eckhart Mother

36 • Collaboration Fall 2005