The larger context

When we are in the midst of deep, disruptive turmoil, as we are in Auroville at present, it’s easy to believe that the most important issues are the ones we are dealing with daily. But perhaps there is a much wider context, and one which gives much greater significance to how we act in the present circumstances.

For Auroville, we are told, is much more than a specific geographical location on a tiny, insignificant planet spinning through the universe. Firstly, this planet, as Mother made clear, is far from insignificant:

From the occult point of view of the universal creation it is a symbol which represents the universe so perfectly that by transforming the earth one can through contagion or analogy transform the universe, because the earth is the symbol of the universe.

Moreover, it is the only world, as Mother pointed out, where evolution is possible.

Secondly, if Earth represents the universe, India, according to Sri Aurobindo and Mother, is the symbolic representation of the present condition of mankind. And this is where Auroville has a very special role to play. In fact, as Mother came to understand it, this is precisely why Auroville was created:

And the clear vision: the same thing which in the history of the universe has made the earth the symbolic representation of the universe so as to be able to concentrate the work at one point, the same phenomenon is occurring now: India is the representation of all human difficulties on earth, and it is in India that there will be the... cure. And it is for that – it is FOR THAT that I was made to create Auroville.

But how can Auroville contribute to the ‘curing’ of mankind? It sounds preposterous, and extraordinarily arrogant, particularly when one considers the present state of Auroville which, in many ways, rather than representing any ‘solution’ appears to faithfully mirror the larger problems of India and humanity. 

For, clearly, at the moment Aurovilians do not, by any stretch of the imagination, represent the ‘cream’ of humanity. While we may have more than our fair share of idealists and aspiring karma yogis, we also have our liars, cheats, corrupt and power-hungry, just like any other place in the world. One is tempted to think that if only we had better human material, we would progress much faster and be more of a force for good.

Interestingly, in 1935 a sadhak, bemoaning the poor quality of the Ashramites, had exactly the same thought. However, Sri Aurobindo explained to him that:

It is necessary or rather inevitable that in an Asram (sic) which is a laboratory for a spiritual and supramental Yoga, humanity should be variously represented. For the problem of transformation has to deal with all sorts of elements favourable and unfavourable… If only sattwic and cultured men came for the Yoga, men without very much of the vital difficulty in them, then because the difficulty of the vital element in terrestrial nature has not been faced and overcome, it might well be that the endeavour would fail.

And a few years later, he elaborated:

Ours is a problem of world-change. People here are an epitome of the world. Each one represents a type of humanity. If he is changed, it means a victory for all who belong to this type and thus a great achievement for our work.

This is an extraordinary revelation: that the victory of one individual over the defects of his or her nature would represent a victory for all individuals who share that nature, and this is why the Ashram, as a centre of global transformation, had to include representative samples of every type of personality, both the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’.

Of course, as Mother later pointed out, this makes the work:

a bit more complex and difficult…but from the overall point of view – for the Work – it’s indispensable and even inevitable. And in any case, as we were later able to verify, each one represents simultaneously a possibility and a special difficulty to resolve.

Nolini Kanta Gupta, Sri Aurobindo’s foremost disciple, also explained why the Ashram is far from being a paragon of virtue:

Mother told us long ago that our Ashram is an epitome of India. It represents all that is good in India and also all that is bad – all the bad qualities, the weaknesses, all that is crooked and false, dark and obscure. And the Ashram, being a concentrated centre of all that, represents it in an especially intense form. Now the pressure from above has come to change things and for that purpose all the dark points, all that has to be changed and rejected, have been exposed.

Given Mother’s indication of Auroville’s purpose, what is true of the Ashram is also true of Auroville: it is a place where all the problems of humanity are concentrated, exposed, in a particularly stark way so that they can be worked on as a contribution to the ‘cure’, the solution, of humanity’s difficulties. 

But this gives us a huge responsibility. It means that our every act, every thought, potentially has repercussions far beyond our individual understanding, and far beyond its impact upon our immediate lives. It means that our every thought, every act, has the potential to create ripples that will impact, either positively or negatively, humanity as a whole.

Does this sound too far-fetched? I admit I find it very difficult to get my head around it. But it is the only conclusion I can draw from what Sri Aurobindo and Mother have said. And it’s a conclusion underlined by Nolini in an Ashram talk in 1976:

Each one of us who is here in the Ashram is an epitome of the Ashram and all the good and bad elements and movements are in one way or another represented in us – even in the best ones the wrong movements can cast a shadow. So it is a task for each one, especially the so-called “best” ones, that is, those who are more conscious, to detect and reject and change all that is wrong and false in them and develop all that is true and good, and thereby help to change those very elements in the Ashram atmosphere as well as outside it. That is the only solution and the only remedy – to cure the ills individually, personally in one’s own consciousness. Then only a conscious collective consciousness can grow and develop in the Ashram with all these living and conscious units or cells and thereby change its own condition as well as the condition of India and also the condition of the world.

Does this mean, then, that we should stop focussing all our attention upon the Master Plan, the Matrimandir lake, or the correct interpretation of the Foundation Act?

I don’t think so: these are the issues we are given to deal with today. But I think that the way we approach these issues, and the way we relate to each other in the process, is crucial not only in determining whether or not we grow as individuals, but also whether the vibratory quality Auroville transmits to the larger world is ‘curative’, or merely adds to the present confusion.

(I am indebted to Gilles Guigan’s research which has formed the basis for this article.)