What do we believe? And why?

I’m not so sure. Some of us seem to have very little understanding of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother or the purpose of Auroville. And even those who have a better understanding do not necessarily relate to Sri Aurobindo and Mother in the same way. For example, we can approach Mother as the intimate Mother, or the Kaliesque Mother, or the eternal Goddess Mother, or the path-breaking, evolving Mother, and in many, many other ways.

Some people have no problem in encompassing all these different aspects of Mother and seeing them as one. Others may relate to certain aspects much more than others.

Does this matter?

Well, the aspect of Mother we most relate to can have a very real influence upon how we approach or align ourselves on certain issues that occupy our community process. For example, those who feel that whatever Mother ‘blessed’ or expressed represents some kind of eternal truth will tend to defend this to the death, while those who relate more to the ‘evolving’ Mother will be more likely to say that “if Mother were here today, she would do things differently”.

Again, those who take ‘Truth or the Abyss’ as her core message may approach decision-making in a very different way from those who focus upon the Mother of “You must all agree”.

But why do we differ in how we relate to Mother?

Sometimes beliefs are the result of a profound and overwhelming revelation, which I imagine was the case for many of those who met Mother. Sometimes beliefs are arrived at through a dedicated process of self-exploration and surrender. But sometimes our beliefs may be influenced by our existing predilections. In other words, subconsciously we may gravitate to the beliefs that fit us best, the ones that bolster our existing assumptions about the world or our sense of ourselves. And, as we have seen, Sri Aurobindo and Mother provide many different ‘doorways’ through which we can approach them.

For example, if we are already attracted to democracy we may enthusiastically embrace Sri Aurobindo’s perception in The Renaissance of India

What I meant by acceptance of all the effective idea of democracy, – the thing itself, never fully worked out, was present as an element in ancient Indian as in ancient European polity and society, – is that I find its inclusion in our future way of living in some shape, to be a necessity of our growth. while ignoring Mother’s comment I don’t think democracy is AT ALL, at all an organization in accord with India’s spirit – not in the least.

If it is the case that some, at least, of our beliefs are intimately identified with our sense of ourselves, of our ego, then it becomes much harder to change them; for to change them threatens to undermine our sense of who we are.

But what are the kinds of assumptions that may shape our fundamental beliefs? One fairly common one is that whatever Sri Aurobindo and Mother did, from birth onwards, must have the stamp of what we understand to be perfection.

Sri Aurobindo cautioned against such a simplistic view:

When (men) think of a manifestation of Divinity, they think it must be an extraordinary perfection in doing the ordinary human things – an extraordinary business faculty, political, poetic or artistic faculty, an accurate memory, not making any mental mistakes, not undergoing any defeat or failure….All that has nothing to do with manifesting the Divine.

At that rate Rama would be undivine because he followed the Mayamriga as if it were a natural deer and Krishna would be undivine because he was forced by Jarasandha to take refuge in distant Dwaraka. These human ideas are false.

And, again,

Why the immortal Hell should the Divine be tied down to succeed in all his operations? What if failure suits him better and serves better the ultimate purpose?

This belief in their ‘perfection’ allows us to manufacture a Sri Aurobindo or Mother who effortlessly surmounted difficulties and who never changed. Yet Sri Aurobindo once remarked that he had changed his entire outlook four times and Mother, after the descent of the ‘surhomme’ consciousness, said “my vision and understanding of the world, of life, of everything, has completely changed”.

But underlying this desire for their ‘perfection’ is perhaps a deeper need, and this is our need for a point of stability, for something to rely upon in a chaotic world. Hence the tendency of some of us to set them far above us as examples of unchanging perfection rather than – and here I have to choose my words very carefully – divine works in progress. As Sri Aurobindo put it,

I had no urge toward spirituality in me, I developed spirituality. I was incapable of understanding metaphysics, I developed into a philosopher. I had no eye for painting – I developed it by Yoga. I transformed my nature from what it was to what it was not. I did it in a special manner, not by a miracle and I did it to show what could be done and how it could be done.

The problem is that by deifying, worshiping, them we evade the responsibility of making progress ourselves. This, no doubt, is why Mother once remarked that it is better to become than to adore.

And here, perhaps, lies the key. For if, as Mother remarked to a school child “Truth is a living, changing thing, which expresses itself every second”; and if, as Sri Aurobindo explained, they never had a prearranged mental plan for the development of the Ashram for “The whole thing has taken birth, grown and developed as a living being by a movement of consciousness (Chit-Tapas)”, then perhaps one way we can distinguish the ‘eternal’ truths from the more temporal ones, or navigate the belief clashes that bedevil our communal process, is by trying to identify ourselves with that “movement of consciousness”, with that evolving ‘truth”.

This is not a matter of debating the pros and cons of any position, or of trying to work out a compromise between competing approaches or beliefs. Mother gave the clue. – “…one who has completely dedicated himself to the Truth, who wants to live the Truth and serve the Truth, will know EVERY MINUTE what he has to do: it will be a sort of intuition or revelation (more often than not wordless, but sometimes also expressed in words), which will every minute let him know the truth of that minute.”

And until we achieve this, both as individuals and as a community?

Perhaps it would be wise to hold our beliefs a little more lightly and with more humility. Rather than asserting that we are possessors of the real, unchangeable truth and that everybody should listen to us, perhaps we could honestly examine why we hold certain beliefs and be prepared to rest a little bit more in doubt, in the ‘unknowing’ necessary to subjugate the ego and prepare us for receiving that ‘Something Else’.