Memories of Auroville

By 2017 the tapes of the interviews had badly degraded, but Janet and Kati Hotger decided to make the transcriptions of those stories into a book. Memories of Auroville was recently published as a web book by PRISMA.

“There are obviously far more people who could have been interviewed and were not, so the accounts presented offer their insight into the full story,” cautions Janet. “Nevertheless, I hope this narrative of the life of Auroville’s pioneers will touch and inspire many of the readers.”

It’s a promise which is very largely fulfilled. While many of the stories may be familiar to those who have read similar anthologies, there are many fascinating details which evoke, as if for the first time, the challenges as well as the extraordinary high moments experienced by those early pioneers. For example, we have all read that Auroville began on a degraded plateau, but when Janet remarks, “At that time Auroville was a blank slate, and so full of promise. We had such an opportunity that we felt we couldn’t go anywhere but forward”, it becomes a gateway to a new world.

Simplicity

Because there was so little of anything, choices were simple. “We had no time to think about it, there was always something to do the next day, and the next moment. I was working and that is all,” says Jean-Claude. “We worked,” says Lisbeth, “That was what we were here for. People didn’t go out every year to Europe or America.”

The lack of everything threw people back on themselves, and created a new culture of honesty and directness. “It had something to do with there being no artificial props,’” says Shraddhavan of her first teaching experience. “You really only had your personal relationship between you and the kids. And that had to be absolutely honest with the surrounding circumstances. That gave us an experience, a growing experience, and a certain trust was built up among all of us.”

People discovered a satisfaction, even a new identity in the simplest tasks. “Basically, we would be digging earth, and putting it in little pans on our head, and moving it from one place to the other,” remembers Larry of the first Matrimandir excavation. “For the first time I felt I was doing something that I was actually supposed to be doing, even though I really wasn’t sure what it was all about. I feel somehow that the communal involvement, that everybody throughout Auroville, with all our differences, was somehow involved in, and that was going on every day right at the physical level, was what was needed at the time to get Auroville spiritually off the ground. I just know that for me it was a very, very powerful experience.”

“None of us realized what we were doing, because it was a day-to-day thing. There was never any question of why, or we’re not qualified to do that,” says Michael, another of those early Matrimandir workers.  

In fact, none of those early settlers had ever experienced anything like this before.  “Nobody knew anything about afforestation, we just learned by trial and error, and by doing it,” says Jaap. 

Relation with the villages

The developing relationship with the villages is a fascinating story in itself. At first, many of the villagers were suspicious of the predominantly white-skinned newcomers. Poonga recalls, “We were afraid that these velakaras, I mean Westerners, might do some harm. They might lift (kidnap) the children or they may convert them to some other religion or take them to their country”. 

“We were coming here out of a somewhat middle class 60’s background, with no need to farm for our livelihood. We were two opposing cultures, totally, on the economic level, as well as the cultural level,” remembers Francis. Not surprisingly, this sometimes led to confrontations.

“At that time, there were no fences between the fields,” remembers Joss. But goats would eat the young saplings, so the Aurovilians began to put up fences. “We’d say, hey, we’d like to conduct our experiment on this side of the fence, and you go on with yours on that side, your goats and cows and whatever. And there’s a certain quite dynamic edge there that leads to kattis (large choppers) at your throats, and all sorts of stuff.”

At the same time, Aurovilians earned respect from the locals because they were doing dry-land farming like them, learning from them in the process. “There was a lot of relationship with the village, because there was just the village, and we all had accounts in the village teashop,” remembers Joss. 

In those days, recalls Lisbeth, “we wanted to live close to villages, for protection”.

Mother’s influence

If there is one disappointment with this anthology, perhaps it can be found in the section which deals with the Aurovilians’ meetings with Mother. In some ways, of course, it is unsurprising that such an overwhelming experience cannot be captured in words, or that people may be reticent about verbalising it. But for those who never met Her, the few glimpses afforded of Her in this section are tantalisingly brief. Gloria, perhaps, gives the strongest sense of Her influence. “The contact with Her was so overwhelming, and so full of hope, and so full of marvellous things, that all the rest was just an adventure.”

But what does come through well is Her all-pervasive influence upon those early settlers, even those who hardly ever met her. “In those days people actually were walking around saying, ‘Did you hear that Mother said that nature has confirmed that the supramental transformation can happen?’ People were really excited about the spiritual objectives of Sri Aurobindo’s yoga. It was an incredible place. This was the new world,” enthuses Jocelyn S. 

Lisbeth remembers that it was a joyful time because “Mother was always there to give us guidance. It was hard, physically hard, to live and work here, but the people were happy, open. It was just a very wonderful time.”

Piero remembers that whenever there was a major concreting at Matrimandir, Mother would send things to be put in the construction. “That was the sort of thread there was. Actually I always felt like the Mother was following the construction much more than the chief architect.”

Lessons for today

So is Memories of Auroville merely a trip down memory lane, an indulgence in nostalgia, or does it have something to say to us in the very different Auroville of today?

I think it does. 

One lesson seems to be that having a practical, common objective can be a great unifier.  “The crews would change completely from one day to the next,” says Larry of the early Matrimandir construction, “And that was a very beautiful thing, because we would be all sorts of people, and it always seemed to work.”

Another thing we could consider emulating is the willingness of those early settlers to open their arms to whoever wanted to participate in the work, irrespective of their means. “In those days one could live in Auroville with no money. Those who had, took care of you. You just showed up in the kitchen and ate. There was no difficulty,” remembers Charlie.

Piero, the only Aurovilian qualified to supervise the Matrimandir construction in the early days, also has some thoughts about guiding people which are still very valuable today. “I don’t think that you have to teach anyone. I think actually the best is not to teach anybody, because if we start teaching, people pretend to know, and then it’s even worse. It’s better to let things happen, and then, slowly guiding, watching, and being there the whole time, to explain exactly the small steps that have to be done. It’s more effective, and then later people start to grasp the whole of the work.”

And he notes the “early heroism” of those Matrimandir excavators who worked simply on trust and faith, “digging, digging this earth which would be moved to somewhere, but not knowing exactly where”. 

Perhaps the most valuable lesson of all, however, is described by Aster when she talks about the differing effect upon people of Mother’s passing. Some people found it very hard to deal with, she said, because they had lost their bearings. But for others who had already made the inner contact, “their growth was greatly accelerated. The inner movement was much faster, much stronger, and the help much greater”.

Janet, with the assistance of Kati and Pranav Kumar, has done a great service in providing us with these inspiring memories of a few of Auroville’s pioneers, which she hopes will touch and inspire others.  And PRISMA is to be complimented for finally bringing them to a much larger public. 

The book is available online on a gift economy basis at https://www.memoriesofauroville.com/en/

A hard copy will be available for sale later in the year.