The current conflict in Auroville

At this time, late 2023, the world currently has two conflicts with the potential to grow into major global wars. Catastrophes. Given the nature of Auroville’s collective yoga, I believe it is pertinent to consider how it deals with its own seemingly localised conflict in relation to wider world events, as there is evidently a relationship and a synchronicity between the global and the local. And from personal experience over 60 years of witnessing conflict in my own life and in world events, it becomes apparent that the same forces of division are at work behind all conflicts, whether interpersonal or international. And the same challenges and potential solutions apply.

Conflicts are usually the consequence of a combination of individual and collective ego and ignorance of the hidden forces that motivate human action. The actors are motivated by greed, ambition and the arrogance which makes them believe that their beliefs are superior to those of their fellow humans who, for the purpose of the play, are regarded as opponents. But what rational human being wants to get caught in an endless and expanding cycle of violent retribution? If you’ve killed my child, am I justified to vengeance, knowing that my actions will result in the death of someone else’s child? There is, however, the paradox that baffles the moralist in us. It was not by non-violence that Hitler’s ambitions for world domination were ended. According to Sri Aurobindo, the victory of the Nazis would have set back civilisation by a thousand years. And yet, he advised a disciple: “You write as if what was going on in Europe were a war between the powers of Light and the powers of Darkness – but that is no more so than during the Great War. It is a fight between two kinds of Ignorance…The only way out is through the descent of a consciousness which is not the puppet of these (hidden) forces but is greater than they are and can force them either to change or disappear.”

Sri Aurobindo endorsed direct action against the British when he was in his revolutionary period and later also endorsed involvement by his followers in whatever it would take to resist the triumph of the Asuric forces behind Hitler and the Nazis. Direct action was and is right in resisting evil, injustice and oppression, and this invariably involves violence. But the Master’s consciousness was also aware that all involved in these conflicts, the ‘goodies and baddies’, were and are essentially still mired in the Ignorance. And that is what these quotations clearly state. It seems nuanced and difficult particularly for those of us brought up with the moralistic notion that fighting is bad, violence an inferior response to the violence of others.

And looking at the present day conflicts one is irresistibly drawn to the conclusion that Sri Aurobindo’s comments are a fuller statement of the evident and hidden reality. All parties are in the Ignorance. But there is right and wrong action and a rule of law that needs to be followed, or those who believe themselves in the right succumb to unjustifiable actions.

These reflections have a bearing on Auroville’s predicament. The community of residents needs to search its soul and admit to those things that need to change in the way it has lived and organised itself. It needs also to feel the need for more dynamism in its manifestation of the Dream. But equally the Governing Board needs to accept responsibility for clumsy and inappropriate actions and change them. Dialogue and trying to work together on an agreed programme of action is essential, otherwise the conflict will persist and Auroville will be seen as the City of Human Unity that is unable to manifest its core purpose and is at war with itself. That would be the end. The Dreamcatcher process has also demonstrated a workable methodology by which the best ideas of the participants can be harmoniously combined in a workable and mutually endorsed course of action. 

A change of consciousness is the whole meaning and challenge of what has been happening and the realisable opportunity The Mother has given the community and its supporters.

One of the essential evolutionary functions of the collective and individual integral yoga is to provide a discipline which has the love, power and knowledge to lift humanity above the limited and divisive mental levels and thereby to liberate us into the harmony of human unity. A unity which is our essential inner state, but covered over in the Ignorance. A unity, be it noted, that is not uniformity but a consciousness that accepts, respects and values the true self of all people and all created things. Sri Aurobindo and The Mother have, by the creation of Auroville, given us not only the experiment and the challenge, but the example and the tools, the means of succeeding in making the transformation. But we must want it like the need to breathe. And, essentially, it is the need to breathe.

One can look at history and see that war, conflict and disharmony have always been with us. In this light, the need for Auroville to demonstrate that a change of consciousness can begin to change patterns of human behaviour becomes all the more imperative. The only way that Auroville can truly claim to be the city of human unity and rise to the challenge of being an example to the world, is by rising to another level of consciousness. Auroville’s current conflict is not really just about the detail of how Auroville should be planned and built, or governed. It is about changing consciousness. We need to ask ourselves, can we afford to fail?

(Vikas is a pioneer Aurovilian who at present lives in the UK.)