Ruminations: Two Dreams

Radical revolutionaries par excellence, true trail-blazers of the New World, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother in the course of their lives laid the foundation upon this earth for two of the most extraordinary, most ambitious Dreams ever dreamt: the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1926 and, forty-two years later, Auroville in 1968. The Ashram was meant to be the cradle of collective sadhana where the New Man was to be born and Auroville, the golden crucible for the realisation of this perennial human yearning for enduring Oneness and Unity. 

Almost a hundred years since the creation of the Ashram and fifty-three since that of Auroville, it is perhaps an opportune time to honestly look upon these evolutionary experiments and assess these evolutionary experiments of which we have been the privileged and ever-grateful participants. 

The propellant for both these Dreams is the same: the readiness to take up their challenge as “willing servitors of the Divine Consciousness”, which is nothing else but sadhana or the commitment to self-perfection. How sincere and focussed have we been in this service of the Divine Consciousness? And over the passage of time, how far have we come today towards actualising the promise of these utopian yearnings?

In this endeavour, the Ashram has had a significant head start: the physical Presence of the Masters, Sri Aurobindo’s for twenty-four years, the Mother’s for forty-seven. Auroville, on the other hand, could walk hand-in-hand with Her for merely five. We at the Ashram in Pondicherry were in a way nestled in Their constant protection and guidance. The Aurovilians were not as fortunate and have had, therefore, the far more arduous task of pursuing this sadhana on the strength of each one’s personal sincerity and conviction and on an intuitive guidance from within. 

The Divine Grace, however, has presided over the development of Auroville with solicitous care and consideration. Even after the unfortunate, though necessary, split with the Sri Aurobindo Society, the leaders of Auroville of the time invited the Government into Auroville to keep sustaining the Mother’s Dream. Thankfully, the Dream continued to benefit from a very sympathetic attention to the appointments made by the Indian Government to the various posts of responsibility for shepherding and fortifying Auroville’s collective endeavour. The advisers and executives were all human beings in a revitalising resonance with Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s vision.

The Ashram too, notwithstanding numerous risks and pressures, has visibly steered clear of certain dangers to stay on course. 

The day Truth sinks into dogmatic ritual and mechanical reverence, it is the final blow.

However, the living truth of the original vision needs to be constantly guarded from the biggest danger of all: institutionalisation. The day Truth sinks into dogmatic ritual and mechanical reverence, it is the final blow. It is the cardinal responsibility of the disciples not to let the Masters’ life-embracing vision fall into a religious quicksand of empty ritual. Both the Ashram and Auroville must be wary of not floundering in that quagmire. We all need to be ever vigilant because sincere devotion can imperceptibly veer into religious devotionalism, where we substitute popular gods for the images of our living Masters. 

With the opening command of the Auroville Charter, The Mother was inaugurating a veritable revolution! “Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole.” This signifies a total reversal of the ordinary human condition. It implies the transcending of the sense of proprietorship, which can only be achieved by transcending the ego. And this ego, let us remember, reigns not only in the individual but more alarmingly in the collective as well. No group, however big or powerful, should assume the right to any kind of “ownership” of such a universal Dream.     

Seen from outside, Auroville seems to have been slumbering lately in a worrisome stagnation. The project isn’t really moving forward towards what it was projected to be. Without a greater renewal of energy and fresh blood, the-hundred-and-twenty-odd-communities-in-search-of-a-city might lose steam. However, this renewal must occur in a natural, organic way. Awakened people must feel the need for Auroville and not the other way round. Auroville cannot be artificially populated, for that would invite a most unnecessary and undesirable hotch-potch of energies and aspirations not always quite in resonance with the vastness of the Mother’s Dream. 

Auroville has lately been enveloped by a strange kind of casualness in the routine lives of many residents, each leading their separate little lives without really connecting to the larger collective dimension that Auroville is primarily meant to be. The Ashram has not been spared either. The sense of community seems to be slowly losing focus (except on 2nd December when the Ashram community comes together for a heart-warming spectacle of a joyous one-pointed aspiration). Ashramites are increasingly satisfied with leading their life in a diminished circle, having their meals at home, watching television serials at home rather than congregating to the hallowed Playground for the Saturday film, or enriching themselves through cultural activities taking place at the School or the Theatre. There are some who even prefer to exercise or do yoga at home or meditate or sit quietly in their private spaces. 

The COVID scare, though it ironically witnessed an upsurge of collective solidarity (largely thanks to former and present students brought together by the Ashram management to provide physical sustenance to its members), has in the long-term affected the unifying fabric of the community. If individual sadhana and salvation had been the objective of our life here, what need was there of starting the Ashram or Auroville? They are revolutionary experiments precisely because of their life-changing collective dimension. 

When you have servitors acting under fear or political or social threats, then we are negating the very bedrock, the very raison-d’être of the experiment

Another unsavoury feeling, both in Auroville and at the Ashram, is of encountering people who flaunt a certain sense of special entitlement. Being an Aurovilian or an Ashramite should not be lived as a right but rather as a gift of grace. Let us never lose our immense gratitude for being allowed to join this unique caravan of seekers. Extreme vigilance and sincerity become pivotal in not permitting such an attitude to contaminate or, god forbid, sabotage the Dream. 

The Mother, while offering the Charter of Auroville, made one guideline significantly clear by placing it at the very top: “to live in Auroville, one must be a willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness.” Being WILLING servitors implies an individual choice and sincerity and that is fundamental. When you have servitors acting under fear or political or social threats, then we are negating the very bedrock, the very raison-d’être of the experiment: willing sincerity to want to change our old ways of action, reaction, sentiment and opinion. 

Any change brought about by external pressure or threats is NEVER going to be a REAL, enduring change. We have been called by the Divine to work sincerely towards this real, enduring transformation of our nature and not merely a cosmetic, external one. And in the worst of scenarios, if Auroville or the Ashram were to be turned into someone’s political or ideological agenda, then that would surely lead to its demise. 

The success or failure of the Dream, be it the Ashram or Auroville, will depend on the sincerity and willingness of the collaboration of the instruments the Divine has chosen. If we do not see it being fulfilled, it will be a reflection of OUR lack of receptivity and weakness, not of the viability or authenticity of the Dream. It would be truly tragic for the Dream of the Divine to be institutionalised or appropriated, whether by individuals or by a government. Therefore it rests on the determination of the Divine’s instruments to take it to its final glorious fulfillment.  

Let me end my ruminations with a quote from the Master. Though it was written at a time when India was struggling to throw off the colonial oppressor, I feel it to be potently relevant to both Auroville and the Ashram’s endeavour to regenerate the deeper truth of their creation and continuance. Referring to Mother India, Sri Aurobindo said, 

The Mother asks us for no schemes, no plans, no methods. She herself will provide the schemes, the plans, the methods better than any we can devise. She asks us for our hearts, our lives, nothing less, nothing more... Regeneration is literally rebirth and rebirth comes not by the intellect, not by the fullness of the purse, not by policy, not by change of machinery, but by the getting of a new heart, by throwing away all that we were into the fire of sacrifice and being reborn in the Mother.