The challenges of being Chairman of the AVI Board

Auroville Today: How did you come to Sri Aurobindo and The Mother?

I was born in France, and lived near Paris for the first two decades of my life. I had a teacher who spoke to me about Ramakrishna. I was 15 at the time and it impressed me a lot and I visited the Ramakrishna Centre near Paris where they also had books of Sri Aurobindo. I purchased The Life Divine there, but unfortunately it was not the best translation.

In Paris, the atmosphere is very intellectual. When I mentioned my interest in spirituality and yoga to my friends, they didn’t understand: they were completely closed. Later on, my philosophy teacher said that philosophy starts with the Greeks; there had been nothing before. But I had read about Indian philosophy, so I knew this was not true.

At 23 I was liable for military service but there was the possibility to do civil service instead, as a “military cooperant”. As I had a Masters degree in French literature, I could choose to be a French teacher in several countries, including Canada. That’s how I came to Montréal in 1969.

A short time after arriving there I discovered a small vegetarian restaurant, Optizoizo, established by Robert Lorrain, the sculptor of the statue behind the Media Centre at the Auroville Town Hall. In that restaurant I saw an announcement about meditation at the Sri Aurobindo Centre. I began to go there regularly, taking hatha yoga lessons. It was also where I started to read Sri Aurobindo in-depth. Every Saturday afternoon I would go to a small room in the Centre and read The Synthesis of Yoga in Mother’s translation. During this time, I experienced a continuous flow of force.

One day after my reading I came across a picture of The Mother. She was wearing a blue sari and she had a beautiful smile. It was as if she was smiling at me. From that moment, I felt a deep connection with her.

At the end of the school year, a small group from the Centre decided to visit Pondicherry. I was asked if I would like to go, but I said I could not afford it. Then one of them said they would pay for my ticket.

So in July, 1970 I met The Mother in a very intense individual darshan. I had been told that I could write something which would be shown to her beforehand, so I wrote, “Mother, may you look at me and recognise in me one of your children”. She looked me in the eyes and I felt her force coming down. It was like ecstasy, there was such a strong experience of identification and unity with her I was filled with extreme bliss. Then she looked again with a very intense gaze. I felt this was something I would have with me for the rest of my life.

When I returned to Montréal I quit teaching and for next 23 years I stayed and worked at the Sri Aurobindo Centre full-time, giving classes on yoga. During another stay in Pondicherry, I had the idea to get Sri Aurobindo’s relics for the Centre. At first, I got nowhere. But then I spoke to Champaklal, who was in charge of the relics, and he informed me I could have relics on one condition: that I would go with him every morning for one month to Sri Aurobindo’s room. What a privilege! That’s how on the day of my departure, on March 29, 1987, I received the relics for the Sri Aurobindo Centre in Montréal.

As a number of the students attending the Centre wanted to live together, we started buying houses, and soon we had twelve houses in the same block. They were very cheap because they were in poor condition, but we made the repairs ourselves. We had a collective dining room and the main building had a bookshop and a yoga hall.

Was that the beginning of Auroville International (AVI) Canada?

We had a friend who was also a student of yoga who said he was willing to manage what was called in those days the ‘Auroville Association’. Initially, the Association was in the same building as the Sri Aurobindo Centre, but when the problem with the Sri Aurobindo Society started in the mid 1970s, there was a split and the Association moved to another place. I had been more connected to the Ashram than Auroville, but when I got married I left the Centre to start a new home with Andrée, and we became more involved with the Auroville Association, which later became AVI Canada. (By the way, there is now a good relationship again between the Centre and AVI Canada. The AVI treasurer, Samuel, is also a member of the Centre.)

You have been active in AVI Canada and, since 2005, quasi-continuously a member of the AVI Board, which coordinates all the AVI Centres and Liaisons. For the past four years you have been Chairman of that Board. How challenging was this experience?

Very! Firstly, there was COVID, which was not at all easy for Auroville to deal with, so we made a fundraising campaign, with a degree of success. But after that, the new Secretary and the new Governing Board of the Foundation came and started their actions. I pointed out to the Board that while we can write letters to the authorities in power registering our concern, as indeed we did regarding visas, the suspension of maintenances, the cutting of trees etc., we could not do this all the time because then their impact would be lessened. In fact, we never received any reply from our letters to the Secretary. I also said that, with all due respect for the Indian Government and its representatives in Auroville, we should not intervene in a harassing manner with the authorities and keep complaining in a harsh way about what was happening, because this might have unforeseen consequences.

For whom?

Primarily for the Aurovilians, because if the authorities feel that Western foreigners want to teach them something, I don’t think it would have a good outcome. We had to be very careful as it is a very delicate situation. I was also aware that some people wanted to use us to get their message across, but we are the Board of AVI, and we are responsible to the members of the AVI Centres, not anybody else.

We heard there were divisions in some of those Centres over what is happening at present.

Yes. There were differences in many of the Centres. We also had some good donors who are happy with what the authorities are doing now, because they thought they were getting things to move forward, whereas before they felt everybody was sleeping.

So how did you conceive of your role as Chairman of the Board? Were you called upon to arbitrate these disputes?

No, I didn’t feel it was our job to arbitrate or advise the Centres about how to respond. Even though each major Center has at least one delegate on the Board, the Board is a different entity from the various AVIs. And the various Centers are autonomous and free to make the decisions they want without interference from us, as long as they retain their primary purpose, which is to act as a link between Auroville and the countries of the outside world, and to help Auroville through its units and services. On the Board there are about fifteen of us, all sincere and good-willing people, but it's normal for opinions to differ. We always managed to create consensus, even though sometimes it took time.

As Chairman, I felt I had to resist those who allowed themselves to be dictated to by emotion, or who were not always aware of the consequences of what we may express, so I always tried to maintain a balanced point of view.

But recently this has become harder because the situation in Auroville is becoming more and more intense, so we feel more pressure from all sides and this is hard to manage. In fact, recently the AVI Board wrote a public statement of protest about tree-cutting on the Crown because we all felt this was a drop too much…

Your tenure as Chairman finishes in February. What advice would you give to the next Chairperson?

All I would say to them is try to think of the consequences of your actions because sometimes if you react too quickly, you can do more harm than good. So you need to be patient and also to keep Auroville's long-term future in mind.

One of the possible advantages of being connected with Auroville through AVI yet living outside is that you may see things that we can’t: you may be able to grasp the larger picture.

Yes, as an outside observer, I have more of a general view. I have friends in both ‘camps’ and I was getting interpretations of what is happening from all sides, so

I thought I must try to grasp the larger picture, the possible scenarios, and communicate this because everybody here seems to be thinking in silos. No one puts themselves in the place of the other; everyone is locked into their own mental system, so any effort at synthesis is impossible.

The possible four scenarios you identified for Auroville [see below, eds.] are all pessimistic. Does this reflect a certain lack of hope in you regarding the immediate future of Auroville?

First of all, these scenarios are realistic; I didn’t invent them because I’ve heard them from all sides. For example, certain decisions taken by the current authorities confirm these hypotheses: the multiple mega-university projects, the fence around the city, the Galaxy’s “magic yantra” which will act as a magnet for the supramental, all these have been pronounced and written down in black and white.

But, no, I am not pessimistic. Mother’s presence is clearly perceptible, and I believe that, in a certain way, she is allowing what is happening to happen. But right now many Aurovilians are very depressed, many even want to leave, so we have to be aware that the present situation is perilous.

Mother no doubt authorises this stage of readjustment. For decades, Auroville has slumbered in a certain comfort. The new authorities want to recuperate lost time and double their efforts, but in their hurry they are making mistakes and blunders. Everything is being done in a precipitous way, too hastily, too hectically, without thought of the consequences. Even many of those identified with the actions of the Governing Board and Secretariat are exhausted because they are being driven so hard.

This is why I think a different way has to be found because many people are suffering. The authoritarian method may be tolerated in the short term, but ultimately it is incompatible with Auroville’s raison d’être.

So what do you feel needs to happen?

From my point of view the only solution is, as Mother says, for the Aurovilians to come together and work together. I think there are many sincere people on both sides, but there are also extremists who want to continue the battle, who maintain the divisions because they don’t want to consider any point of view but their own. So maybe the moderates, the most good-willing people, on both sides can come together.

But this cannot be done at the mental level. It has to come through people coming together, starting, for example, by a silent collective meditation in the heart. I think this can unite. The only way forward is to concentrate on Mother and the psychic centre.

Let’s trust that Mother will protect Auroville and redirect it on its predestined path.