Another Auroville

At the moment, a number of residents are actively engaged in coming up with new proposals for our organization, including ways to strengthen the Residents Assembly and select members of key working groups. Other Aurovilians are working hard on finding ways to protect the land.

All of this work is essential.  However, since many of these discussions take place in public forums it is easy to assume that these are the only issues, or even the main issues, which preoccupy most Aurovilians.  But this is not necessarily the case. For Aurovilians who depend on a basic maintenance and have dependents to look after, ensuring that they can manage to pay their bills and/or repay loans each month often assumes a higher priority, while many Newcomers are more focussed on the need to find accommodation and/or fulfilling the quota of work hours prescribed by the Entry Service. Teachers, commercial unit managers and those working in services often have little energy or interest to devote to larger community matters.

All this is reflected in the fact that so few people attend our community meetings: it is exceptional that even 10% of our adult population turn up. Rather more may contribute to discussions online but, even so, the vast majority of our population take no active part in debating issues of community import.

However, it’s worth remembering that in most societies only a minority of the population engage with civic issues.  Even in ancient Athens, which is often cited as a supreme example of democratic “people power”, only a small minority of  the population at its peak took part in assembly meetings. (In fact, by the 4th century B.C. attendance had dropped so drastically that the authorities had to resort to paying people to attend meetings.)

Why do so few people worldwide actively involve themselves with civic issues? There are many reasons. In ancient Athens certain groups – women, slaves, foreigners – were not eligible to participate. Today, in rigidly controlled societies, democratic involvement is impossible.  But even in more democratic societies, many people are willing to leave such matters to professional politicians. Only when events impinge directly upon their lives are they prepared to take to the streets. 

This seems to confirm Confucius’s belief that “When the empire is well-ordered, the common people will cease to discuss public matters.”  But what may be closer to the truth is that while we may enjoy discussing big political issues in coffee shops, most of us are uninterested in involving ourselves in the nuts and bolts of civic governance. 

Why, then, should we feel disturbed if so relatively few Aurovilians attend our meetings? 

Well, sometimes the issues discussed at such meetings really are big issues. ‘Big’ in the sense that Auroville’s integrity and continued existence as a unique experiment sometimes seem to be at stake. For years we have been battling land speculation in the area, and recently there was the threat of a new major highway being constructed close to the Greenbelt. In such situations, the Residents Assembly can perform a vital function as it is empowered to make major policy decisions for the whole community. This is why some people agonize over poor attendance at meetings and devise all kinds of strategies, like local area meetings and online referenda, to increase the level of participation.

But perhaps there is another way to look at it.  

Mother made it clear that, in addition to the physical dimension, there is an occult dimension to Auroville; that it represents something of huge significance not only to India but, potentially, to the evolution of mankind. The residents can be conscious participants in this ‘work’. However, this is dependent upon their sincerity, upon the degree to which each of them makes themselves a vessel for the new consciousness, for the new world that is taking birth. 

Normally, we don’t like to talk about the occult dimension: we are aware of how little we know about this. Nevertheless, many of us feel that the Matrimandir is far more than a structure of cement and steel; that its subtle influence extends far beyond its physical boundaries. We also learn from Sri Aurobindo and The Mother that in the occult dimension, when it comes to influencing events, it is not sheer numbers that count but rather an individual’s intensity of aspiration and tapasya. As Sri Aurobindo put it, If the French Revolution took place, it was because a soul on the Indian snows dreamed of God as freedom, brotherhood and equality.

In this context, there are individuals in Auroville who never or infrequently attend meetings or participate in community discussions but who are quietly dedicated to trying to live the ideal. They form a kind of invisible “community” in our midst, not because they meet or even know each other, but because they share a certain attitude and belief; that an attempt to live a life based on ‘truth’ will have larger consequences, and that every time an individual manages, for example, to makes a small surrender to Mother’s Force or a conquest of the ego, this will have its effect not only upon that individual but also upon the larger community. For, spiritually, we are one. 

This is not to suggest than any of us are Sri Aurobindos, nor that the work of these individuals necessarily represents, as yet, a fully effective counterbalance to all the challenges, both internal and external, that face Auroville today. Nor does it suggest that those who are actively engaged in physical meetings are not doing a similar work within. But it does indicate that there is more than one way to work for the collective. And that while physical meetings undoubtedly have their importance, there are other, less visible ways of serving the community and the ideal.