Exploring the inner being

AV Today: What was the origin of this project?

Dan: There were several factors. I was translating Loretta’s book on finding the psychic being into French. In parallel, I was part of a group reflecting on a possible new governance model for Auroville. We were studying the fundamentals, the Charter, the Dream, and To be a True Aurovilian, and in all these three documents the inner quest is an important element.

So just by focusing on the book and on governance something changed in my life. It was a time when I was facing serious external difficulties but this focus on the spiritual aspect allowed me to disregard the outer circumstances. And I understood that it is precisely in the most challenging situations that something very profound, an inner shift, can happen.

When I started talking about this to others, I understood that they were experiencing something similar, so we formed a small group to interview people who were willing to talk about their experience of an inner contact. 

Iris: When I heard about this project, I was immediately interested because I’m doing healing work, which is very much centred on finding the connection within. I see many people who are struggling in this challenging time, and who experience such relief when they can switch to that inner connection, no matter what is happening outside. But I only work one-on-one, so I thought this project could be a way of spreading this awareness wider.

Do you hope that when people listen to these interviews about people contacting or experiencing their inner being it will have a contagious effect? That something will be awakened or strengthened in them?

Dan: Yes, because everybody in the community may have some contact with their psychic being but may not recognise it. So when they listen to what other people are expressing, perhaps they will recognise It or be awakened to it in themselves.

Have any commonalities emerged regarding the interviewees’ contact with their inner being? Or has each one’s experience been absolutely different?

Iris: Both. The commonality is the joy that comes through these people when they speak about it. It also affected us. After each interview we felt completely boosted up; there’s something magical about listening to these experiences. Yet every person has a very different inner landscape, with a different perspective, different symbols, and they use different words.

Carla: This is why we never make judgements on whether someone’s sharing is ‘correct’ or not, because there is no script to follow: the variation of the experience can be infinite.

One commonality from the interviews so far seems to be that when people had a certain inner experience it was unexpected.

Carla: I think for most people when they have been open something has come; but it is not planned.

Dan: For me, it’s about discovering something that has been there forever. Through certain practices we may develop some abilities, but in the end we don’t know what will trigger the experience. The intention of this project is not to set out a programme for everyone to follow: it’s more to bring back this topic to the core of our lives.

Mother and Sri Aurobindo said there is a danger in sharing one’s inner experience with anyone except your guru because the experience can be diluted or deformed through being expressed. There is also the danger that people will mistake the psychic being for something else. How do you respond to these caveats?

Carla: My interpretation is different. To talk about the experience as a means of personal self-aggrandisement, as if the experience was important in and of itself, and one should promote, advertise, this to prove one’s progress – this, for me, is where the danger lies. But if your intention in sharing it is just to open up the grace of the experience and you see it as just one step on your path, then I think it can be very helpful.

Iris: I agree; the difference is in the intention. We are here to share something that we feel is uplifting for others, and we need that right now given the present situation in Auroville. But, for me, there is also something more. I think the more we do and share things that uplift us, the more we increase the level of frequencies, the vibration, of the community in general. Then the things that are happening of a low vibration will not be sustainable: they will just fall off.

In fact, I think what we are experiencing right now with all these difficult conflicts is not the same as the conflicts which happened in the 1980s because we are not at the same vibrational frequency any more. There has been a certain progress.

Dan: In my understanding, the more we share these inner discoveries, the more we have the capacity to relate to each other in a deeper sense. And we are here for that.

Is part of the point of the project to normalise discussions about the inner being, and to suggest that we don’t have to wait until we have attained a very high level of progress to begin this work?

Iris: Yes, because I’ve noticed in our interviews as well as in my personal practice that long-term Aurovilians are the shyest in terms of daring to consider that they may be in contact with their inner being. They say we’re not there, it is far away. So this is a way of demystifying it.

Dan: We want to show it’s not something that is out of reach; it is something that can be experienced now. It’s a way for us to consciously relate and be connected with something which is different in us.

Carla: We hope through this project to normalise discussions about this topic in all areas of the community, because this will bring a lot more energy to the inner work. If we can appreciate that we are not perfect but we see we are all seeking, then we can’t continue to see others as simply one-dimensional representatives of a point of view. We can’t make an enemy of each other when we connect in that space of shared exploration.

Have you noticed any effects upon the larger community since you started doing this exploration?

Dan: It’s a bit premature to assess this, but I am optimistic that if this inner quest receives more attention, little by little it will have a contagious effect upon the larger community. I already experience this in my network, with my friends, with my family. When we record these interviews in the Auroville Radio studio, we also experience something very uplifting. And then we carry this out with us into our other interactions, into meetings etc. My hope is that the more we do this, the more a larger shift in the community will happen, and this will act as a unifying force for our community.

Iris: We spent the first three or four weeks just doing interviews and only recently did we start to publish them on AV Radio. But what is interesting is that when the first interview was broadcast, around 200 people listened to it within the first day. Matthew of AV Radio said he had never seen such a response for any topic.

Why do you think there is such an interest in this topic now?

Dan: I think it is linked to the turmoil which is happening because we had to find new ways to be resilient.

Carla: This challenging time could be providing something needed to push us forward in this inner work.

Iris, you are part of the Silent Presence Keepers group which silently meditates during meetings. The group has been doing this for seven years now. With this longer term experience, do you feel this work has had an impact?

Iris: Definitely, although this depends upon how many people are in our group and the size of the meeting. When our group was big, then the impact was absolutely perceptible. We had a very interesting experience in Unity Pavilion about five years ago, when 80-90 people came together to talk about the state of Auroville at that time. For some time all they did was complain about what was happening: they were depressed about fractured relationships and people’s inability to listen to each other.

When the participants started to work in sub-groups, we went off with a small group of 10-20 people to meditate in the Hall of Peace, inviting anybody who wished to join us in silence and meditation. The kind of meditation we practice in this case is in relation with the inner/psychic being: we actually contact it consciously. We couldn’t hear what was going on in the big meeting, but we felt very much connected with what was happening there. And by the end of the day everything had changed. The same people who before had been complaining were now very enthusiastic about Auroville. It was unbelievable. Even the facilitators who were experienced in organising such gatherings couldn’t understand what had happened, what had created the shift.

Our group also meditates during smaller, working group meetings. And working groups members said we were a calming, reassuring presence and that they worked more efficiently and felt less drained after the meeting. Also, I think that being aware that somebody is sitting there in meditation while you are meeting causes you to pull yourself together, to not allow yourself to spread all your emotions around you.

Do you have any sense of what an Auroville with a new focus upon individual and collective inner work could look like?

Carla: I think we would be unified in our spiritual direction but each one of us would be different, our unique selves, and we would fully accept that we can be different because we would know we were heading on the same path. For me, this is what unity in diversity means.

Dan: Among many other things, I think we would be more compassionate with each other. 

Iris: I think we would feel solidarity. There would be a quality of mutual respect which would be much more than superficial because we would be travelling in the same vehicle in the same direction, which is the development of our contact with the inner being, the psychic being, and beyond. This shared feeling, understanding, would be more present in our everyday contacts without us needing to speak about it. By just looking into each other’s eyes it would be perceptible, palpable.

The interviews can be listened to on the following link: https://www.aurovilleradio.org/author/inner-being-team/

If you would like to participate in or support this collective endeavour, please write to: [email protected]