Who is building Auroville

Some of those with misgivings about how we are presenting Auroville to the world for the 50th celebrations feel it is a PR exercise which highlights the positives at the expense of exploring the complexity of the ‘Auroville experience’.

There is a truth in this although, having seen aspects of the exhibitions and read some of the press releases, I realise it could have been far worse. 

My concern relates less to what we are presenting than to the manner in which we are presenting it. For what seems lacking in all the outreach material that I have seen is a certain lack of humility. In other words, whether stated or implied, the dominant message is that “we” have done all this; that Auroville as it exists today is “our” achievement.

A moment’s introspection should give us pause. Do we really believe that we all turned up on this dusty plateau ‘by chance’, or that we were the lucky winners in some cosmic lottery? Isn’t it also possible, as Mother said, that we have been brought together at an auspicious moment in spiritual evolution to participate in a particular work? But our ability to carry out that work depends upon our openness, transparency, to a new force that is manifesting upon earth, something that brought us here in the first place. In other words, it is not “us” who are the doers; rather, something is seeking expression through us. Our task is simply to become pure channels of that transformative force. 

This was, is, our biggest challenge. Not planting millions of trees or pioneering new forms of education or economy, but ridding ourselves of that which blocks or distorts the working of that force. As Sri Aurobindo wrote, “the only change wanted is to get rid of the idea of ego and realise as true only the supreme Self,” a work that Mother termed “the apprenticeship of personal nonexistence”. In fact, this is the silent but crucial battle that is being waged every day of our lives here: between the Auroville of the ego, with all its deformations, and the truer Auroville that is trying to emerge. 

Many of us are aware of the need to transcend the ego at the individual level. But we seem less aware of the danger of collective egotism, the egotism which manifests as a need for us as a community to “invent” new forms of governance, economy, conflict resolution or to present to the world what ‘we’ have ‘achieved’. For if, as Mother pointed out, Auroville is already there, complete, in more subtle realms, it’s not a matter of inventing anything but of assisting in its materialisation.

This is a hard pill for many of us to swallow: many of us have been schooled to believe that our individual worth lies in our ability to initiate, create, invent. But what if this is a spurious individualism, driven by forces like fashion, greed or the love of power or prestige? What if true individualism is something else? Something to do with each one of us potentially being a unique vessel, intermediary, for the working of a greater force?

Such a ‘reversal of consciousness’, I believe, would revolutionize every aspect of our lives. Instead of us trying to ‘build’ Auroville with our limited vision, we would be pouring all our energy into contacting that new force and letting the appropriate forms emerge naturally: form would follow consciousness. 

But are we ready to give up our smaller selves for something infinitely greater? I’d love to think so because there are many fine people here. But it’s not a foregone conclusion, at least in the short term, because it’s not the work of a moment and, in spite of ideals which include the achievement of a genuine human unity and the expression of a new spiritualised consciousness, Auroville remains, in many respects, a deeply individualistic and materialistic culture.