Organisation: Satprem’s letter to Kireet, 1983

Dear Kireet,

I dictate these notes to Sujata.

I spend my time in concentration. It’s difficult for me to mentalise problems, as all problems are false problems created by the mind and the ego. I’ll rather go to the real root and find the true remedy. There would be no longer problems, if the Aurovilians were doing this sincerely. I verify the experience of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother step by step, and I see to what extent it is concrete and radical. I don’t like to meddle with the affairs of Auroville; not because I don’t feel interested but, on the contrary, because I believe that all beings should grow by themselves and progress by their own mistakes. If there are no longer any mistakes, there are no longer any means to progress.

The proposed means to “govern” Auroville tend precisely to replace temporary and fruitful mistakes with permanent and imprisoning rules. I am not speaking about changes of labels. Executive Council is more pompous than the simple “Cooperative”, which really meant what it meant (we operate together). I imagine, though, that in the world of falsehood where we live we still need titles and appearances. It doesn’t matter.

So, they want to draw by lots twelve people out of a list of fifty Aurovilians chosen by “consensus”. It’s a way to replace wisdom and expertise with the lottery. It’s also a way to replace the “democratic” blindness with the blind law of fatality.

The Mother found that democracy was “pestilential”, and wished to replace the political groups or parties with a government by “organisers”, as she used to say; meaning capable, efficient people, each of them an expert in his [her] field - (waiting for a “government by wise men” that will happen… when people will decide to give up their ego). Where are you going to find, in Auroville, fifty people who really are organisers? It’s already difficult to find twelve of them. So, you’re going to ask the lottery to drawn those twelve people with the other thirty-eight, whose organising capacities aren’t evident. Then you’ll imperturbably establish the kingdom of those lucky (or unlucky) twelve people for eighteen months.

This seems to me quite a blind rule; its only merit is to hide the lack of courage behind the back of fatality. If a certain number of Aurovilians are unhappy with the decisions of the present Cooperative, what prevents them from expressing their criticism and asking for the withdrawal of the inefficient or incapable “co-operators”? Henceforth there’ll be no longer critics, as fatality will choose the new “executive advisers”.

It’s true that the Divine can also play roulette and choose, among the fifty people who have been proposed, the twelve best ones. I don’t believe, though, that this is the method of the Divine, who wants people to grow by themselves, moulding constantly themselves through their mistakes. I don’t believe that drawing lots is a good “ersatz” of wisdom or efficiency.

In Greece too, from Pericles on, the Archons were chosen by lots. They found themselves facing the same problems: incapacity or average mediocrity of the elected ones. The Archonship became a purely honorary post, while the real practical problems had to be solved differently. Our new “executive advisers” risk falling into the same trap. Finally, like anywhere else in the world, they’ll replace the lack of talent and clear ideas with politics and democratic expedients.

If the Aurovilians are convinced that the members of their Cooperative (or whatever goes under some other label) must be organisers and experts, as the Mother wished, and not orators or woolly minded individuals [des esprit cotonneux], there’s no reason why in Auroville we shouldn’t find twelve capable people, who’ll always be open to public criticism. There’ll always be mistakes, but if people are sincere they’ll progress through their mistakes without being locked up within a “system”. We proceed towards the Truth by a constant moulding.

The underlying mistake regarding the difficulties of the “Cooperative” in Auroville is a mistake in the spirit of certain Aurovilians, who subconsciously hang on to the selfish idea of “power” and “prestige”. These should understand that the task of ‘organisers’ is thankless, difficult and exacting, and one must really be an organiser. As soon as an incapable person steps in, politics steps in, as the incapable one wants to hide his incapacity behind rhetoric.

It appears to me anti-veracious to replace the effort of consciousness with the roulette’s blindness.

As for the remaining proposals, they seem to me to be well conceived and I have nothing to say.

I especially wish to express all my love to Auroville and my fraternal affection for Kireet.

From “Carnets d’une Apocalypse”, vol. 3, pp. 472-5. At the beginning of l984 Satprem forwarded this letter directly to Auroville; see “D’un frere”, a compilation of Satprem’s letters by Pavitra, an Aurovilian, pp. 150-152.