Stepping out of Time

I am, for the most part, a creature of Time. The days race by with me following the clockwork of the hours that determine when I work, eat, play, and rest. Life, as I am sure many of us have experienced, can be a treadmill.

Till, you somehow hit the pause button, and as the children’s skit proclaimed, “slow down and feel the magic,” “slow down and be the magic.” Ah, the magic. It was the magic that drew me to Auroville. The magic of timelessness. I came to participate in a society where an individual had the space to breathe, to be, to dwell in the vastness of one’s own inner being. Those moments when one steps out from clockwork time, those precious moments when one feels the infinity within the finite, immortality within the confines of a body doomed to die, freedom, vastness, and a sense of eternal peace. These are the moments that lend grace and dignity to the diurnal ticking of the hours and make life worth living.

I have been in a bystander in the ongoing civil war in Auroville. Yes, like all of us, I have been wracked by emotions, sleepless nights, and wondered when and how it will all end. But as the days pass by, I have started to ponder on not who’s right and who should apologise, to whom and for what, but can humanity come together again to create an environment (whether that be a city or a forest), where the soul can meet its needs—to be touched by the Grace of the infinite—and mould life for its growth?

I did not join Auroville for the petty comforts of my bodily needs. I joined Auroville to participate in the adventures and discoveries of the inner being. I remember in my early days coming out of a deep meditation (ok concentration, if you like) at the Matrimandir and then walking home in tears, for I could not understand why my inner being could experience so much peace and joy, while my external life in comparison was simply heavy and ugly—a burden that I had to bear. In the decades that followed, a comprehension slowly began to dawn and continues to do so, that the soul’s magic flows into one’s daily activities, but yes, one has to slow down, pause and feel the magic when Infinity steals a moment from the Finite.

Every now and then, with some discerning friends, I have had a conversation along these lines, where we simply share what we have experienced and what our learnings have been from these experiences. And the view that I currently hold today is that the soul’s growth can be aided by the external environment. Given this understanding, the questions that I now explore are, “What would aid my own inner growth?” and “What sort of an environment would aid seekers from all walks of life and from all corners of the world to participate in the inner and outer discoveries of the soul?” My future and Auroville’s future, I feel are entwined in these questions. And, I know that I have to discover the answers, in the due course of time, through direct experience and not through any mental beliefs.