Auroville: Sun-Word Rising

Auroville Today:  The book was published and recounts events that took place over 40 years ago. Is it relevant to the Auroville of 2020? If so, in what way?

Savitra: “Those who forget their history are condemned to repeat it,” Spanish philosopher-poet George Santayana noted more than a century ago. I believe this humble reminder still speaks to us today, especially to a collective experiment like Auroville that aspires to consciously evolve.

After all, if Auroville residents fail to study their past, don’t they risk unconsciously repeating old patterns? For how can we understand how we got where we are today if we don’t research the roots of Auroville’s emergence, especially that vulnerable period after the Mother’s passing? And how can we build a more conscious future if we don’t resolve our past, including events that may be unpleasant to revisit?

Another challenge is the courage to be honest with ourselves and our history. For there is a powerful default reflex in our species to cover up experiences we prefer to conceal or forget. Our deeper psychology today calls this cover-up reflex “denial”. For who wants to look in the mirror and see our Shadow? Yet in Integral Yoga, how can we transform, not just transcend, if we don’t let in the Light? So to the question if this book is still relevant to the Auroville of 2020, one can only find out if residents and Auroville International representatives make the experiment to read it.

To be clear, I didn’t write the book to glorify our past or vilify and blame old adversaries. It was simply an attempt to be honest about what happened then rather than sweep it under the rug. It was also an attempt to document a critical period in Auroville’s collective development that revealed the courage to face incredible challenges as well as the ingenuity to respond to them. After all, we began the Herculean labour of reforesting a barren plateau, creating schools, settlements, farms and a collective organization, at the same time as we were struggling to survive an escalating conflict with the Sri Aurobindo Society (SAS) after the Mother’s passing.

So without this book-length documentation, there is no in-depth context for the issues that led to the conflict with the SAS or the successive Indian Government interventions that followed, including the 1982 Supreme Court Case and the 1988 Auroville Act of Parliament. In this light, I was not only a direct witness to these events but a proactive participant. In fact, I spent a year in New Delhi working with our legal team, drafting the affidavit which our lawyer (the eminent jurist Fali Nariman) actually used to win our case against the SAS in 1982.

I left Auroville 2 years after the Foundation Act, returning in 1990 to America where I hoped to pick up the torch for Auroville and the liaison role the Mother entrusted to me in 1971. But that was not to be…

Looking back on the events covered in the book, do you still see things in the same way? And how do you see some of Auroville’s subsequent organizational developments?

Though I haven’t visited Auroville since 2008, I still see the events of the 1970s through the lens of my experience then. But I could not foresee the Foundation Act which followed: an Act which de facto and de jure restructured some of the community’s self-designed systems. For example, the Auroville Cooperative (which focalized collective affairs through the 1980s) was replaced by the Working Committee, a statutory body created in the Act. As I recall, the Working Committee serves as an intermediary between the Auroville Community and Indian Government-appointed Governing Board (another statutory body created along with the International Advisory Council).

As a first-generation Auroville resident observing events from a distance, the challenge of growing Auroville’s experiment within formal bureaucratic structures became apparent. After all, the community was still recovering  from the shock of the previous decade while trying to reconcile pressing issues such as town planning, the integrity and acquisition of vast missing pieces of Auroville lands, etc. The Galaxy Plan itself continued to create challenges, setting its fixed-vision approach in contrast with those like the Dreamcatchers, a self-organized group of resident architects and engineers who sought to adapt the Plan more organically to earthy realities. In view of these realities (and present escalating crises such as climate change), even with the Act in place and the SAS no longer holding power over Auroville, the community still faced the challenges of conflicted or competing sources of authority and decision-making.

There are two stories in Sun-Word Rising which are obviously interrelated.  One is the struggle of Auroville to assert its independence and remain true to its founding ideal, the other is the story of Savitra. You left Auroville in 1990. How has the Savitra story progressed since then? And how do you see your relationship with Auroville today?

An interesting question that brings up a lot for me. When I returned to the States, I assumed I would continue to serve as Auroville Liaison Coordinator, a bridge-building role I had built up over two decades, creating exchange programmes like Peace Trees, establishing valuable allies with foundations, environmental organizations, universities, research institutes and individuals such as anthropologist Margaret Mead, Esalen co-founder Michael Murphy, environmentalist Huey Johnson, town planner Christopher Alexander. So I approached AVI-USA for collaborative support. But they rejected my proposal.

This forced me to begin a new life from zero, letting go of 20 years of work and connections for Auroville. It was a sad and shocking re-entry to America. But I took heart from the Mother’s 1971 message to me: “Remain in the true consciousness and return to America to do good work for me there, with my love and blessings, Mirra”. So I turned to my skills as a writer, authoring several books, including the well-respected Evolutionary Agenda for the Third Millennium; while the activist in me redirected energy into local social-environmental projects as well as working with at-risk youth. At this point, I had also become a parent, which is a sacred yoga in itself.

In 2008, another opportunity presented itself to serve Auroville. For Michael Murphy chose to resign from the International Advisory Council and suggested me to replace him. Here is an excerpt from his recommendation: “…Based on his experience as a pioneering Auroville resident and his extensive experience in America as a liaison representative appointed by the Mother, he is certainly well qualified. As a personal friend for many years, I know he loves Auroville deeply. And I highly recommend him for the next IAC vacancy.”

This gave me hope for a second chance to re-activate my relationship with Auroville as well as with former American allies and new ones I had developed in the interim (e.g., environmental pioneer David Brower and evolutionary thinkers Jean Houston, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Matthew Fox et al). But decision-makers chose a different choice. So once again, I had to surrender expectations. But perhaps this Auroville Today article opens up new directions and unforeseen possibilities…