Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor Alan

This is my first ‘Letter to the Editor’ of Auroville Today but I am not nervous. You usually graciously publish all the letters you get, and you get very few. I think this is because AVT is such a sterling publication that has enlightened Auroville and the world for the last thirty years in such a fair and accurate way that there is little need for complaint. The truth is my slight exaggeration. Congratulations Auroville Today on your 30th Birthday and having never missed your monthly deadline in all those years.

My letter is about a book review in the October 2018 #351 issue just to make sure a reader might not get a wrong impression about the origins of the new two-volume publication of Auroville in Mother’s Words edited by Gilles Guigan. Alan, you have positively reviewed this comprehensive chronological compilation as “timely and useful” giving some historical context as well as a “few words of warning.” However in the first sentence of your review, it would have been better to refer to me by my current name of B since I took the “ill” out of Bill so many years ago. Gilles kindly gave all my names in his introduction. You ascribe to me the most notable compilation on Auroville by 1990. That credit is not for me but I understand you may have been misled by Gilles’ introduction. Gilles will change that introduction in the next edition to reflect how that compilation began with Navoditte keeping the messages of Mother sent for Auroville, and these were later incorporated into “cards” made by Barbara for the early and still-used brochure ‘Mother on Auroville’ .

Finally, it was Bhaga who, with Barbara’s blessings, put all this together in chronological order with other material she had researched. Much of that new material came from what was recorded by Satprem in the thirteen volumes of Mother’s Agenda. The translations of the Agenda into English only came out slowly after the French edition. Bhaga had permission from Satprem to use this material and to do provisional translations of the Auroville material in the untranslated French versions. I only assisted her with the English fluency of what she translated, and with fund-raising to pay Auroville Press for the printing. When this comprehensive compilation was complete with References List and Index done by Shraddhavan, all typed up by Brigitte from Arya, and given the name ‘Auroville in Mother’s Words’ by Bhaga, its publication was blocked. Some people felt the Agenda material should not be mixed with the other material. We could not go ahead. The only way out then was to take the Agenda material and publish that in a separate volume. I extracted that from Bhaga’s compilation for printing at the Auroville Press with the title: Mother on Auroville: References in Mother’s Agenda. Since that time, this book has been continuously reprinted and sold by Auroville Press. Now, finally, we have the other half of Bhaga’s compilation and so much more in the two volumes Gilles has edited.

Gilles has also always kept his own compilations and has been researching the history of Auroville for the last 35 years. One last thing, the book review might have acknowledged a bit more the monumental achievement of Gilles in accomplishing a real magnum opus that is such a gift for Auroville on its Fiftieth Birthday. In the next fifty years, may we create Auroville according to Mother’s words.

B