The Truth behind the force of Falsehood

The publication of the book Auroville A Dream Hijacked by Dr Nirmalya Mukherjee, Vikram Ram’s publicity stunts on his website The Auroville Files, and the Governing Board of the Auroville Foundation sending its enquiry report into the allegations of Mr. Vikram Ram to the Ministry for Human Resource Development with the suggestion that the Ministry initiate an investigation into Auroville, bypassing Auroville’s Residents’ Assembly, shows that there is a force in motion right now that is seemingly seeking to damage Auroville. 

But I see this as a wave that is pushing Auroville to the next orbit, closer to its purpose. It is, essentially, behind the outer appearances, a movement towards Auroville’s unity and individualisation. The movement towards unity is more obvious, as was witnessed in the Residents’ Assembly revival meeting held on December 3rd, but also it is a movement towards Auroville’s individualisation, which may be less obvious.

In the first stage of Auroville’s evolution, during the time of breaking away from the Sri Aurobindo Society, Auroville was like a child claiming shelter and protection from the Government. Today, the child is approaching adulthood, and learning to take up greater responsibilities. 

I believe the time has come for the child to claim full adulthood, and no longer depend on structured authority, especially on those who have not committed themselves to coming to live in Auroville and being of service to Auroville. For those who have not stepped into the sacrificial fire of Auroville’s adventure will not know what it takes. We need no outer authority to remind us why we are here; we already know and we need to tune into it. The force is at work, it is moving at an ever-accelerated speed towards the realisation, we only need to be silent and tune into it. 

It is the time for Auroville to demonstrate that Auroville is capable of organising herself and that she can move fast, take decisions and make things happen collectively even as its processes are unconventional, inclusive and non-pyramidal. I firmly believe everyone here is doing to the best of his ability, including our Working Committee members, who are often accused of all sorts of things. The real issue is systemic, not individual.

And by systemic, I do not mean ‘oh the system is corrupt.’ What I mean is the system can be more transparent, more sleek, less bureaucratic, and the organisation can be flatter. It is not so much that corruption exists here, it is a lack of an efficient collective organisation.

The wave toward self-organisation has been set in motion and it is only pressing for a greater realisation, a greater Truth, and a truer individualisation. Auroville has all the capacity in the world, and at a deeper level, a faith firmer than ever, a trust truer than ever. In the past, Auroville has demonstrated this at every hour of crisis; today, more than ever, Auroville has to bring this out. Auroville is full of people of goodwill and the very fact that we are here for so long holding the fort on the ground, choosing this over everything else, is a testimony to it; and those who never jumped into this adventure will not know what it means.

We have both the goodwill and the capacity which is needed. We just need to organise better – organise better to be more transparent, organise better for real-time visibility, organise better to show our trust. The present wave is pushing Auroville to the next orbit. It may appear as a wave of Falsehood, but behind it I see the Divine Grace pushing Auroville to clean up, not the clean up in the sense as asserted by the so-called whistle-blowers, but rather a clean up of our processes and become a collective body fully capable of organising itself unitedly as a whole, in a way that has never happened before!