“We have to open ourselves”

Auroville Today: Auroville is 50 years old. But in 1973, did you think it would survive The Mother’s passing?

François: For me it was a terrible loss when Mother died: I never believed She would die. I didn’t think that Auroville was finished, not at all, and the grace is still here. But when Mother died something went out the atmosphere: that very strong, solid atmosphere went away. And after She died, individually and collectively things went down. Her departure was definitely a setback for Auroville and I think it will take many more years now than She thought for the true Auroville to manifest.

Gérard: I had a different feeling, perhaps because the day She left I was working at Matrimandir and we completed the fourth pillar. Of course, it was very hard, a shock, because we felt She was immortal, but I knew the work on the Matrimandir would continue: we had to finish it. For me, She was there often, She has not gone, She is not far. So I never doubted also that Auroville would continue.

Janaka: I never thought that Auroville was finished. I left soon after Mother’s passing, and when I came back after 18 years I felt that spirit, the strong atmosphere, that was there when I left. It was only when the Matrimandir was finished that I felt the special atmosphere of The Mother went away.

How do you feel about Auroville today?

Janaka: I don’t understand where Auroville is going at present. I see the nice constructions and the nice roads etc. but it is not enough. I came to build a new man, humanity, rather than to build a city but I don’t think the right attitude is here at present to do this. Auroville has become so individualistic that I have withdrawn from almost everything except my work of looking after the art gallery at Citadines.

François: While I do not really agree with or understand the direction we are taking at present, it is useless to say that the past was better. We have to accept that Auroville is as it is now. Mother said that Auroville doesn’t need us to be manifested, so eventually it will happen. Whether or not it is going in the wrong direction at the moment doesn’t matter. But I believe that the spark is still there, that there is still a will to try something different.

But there are things that concern me today. Visitors to Auroville do not come for the right reasons. They come for the bakery, restaurants, parties, to ogle western girls or to drink in the Green Belt. So perhaps our aspiration is not strong enough to attract the right type of people.

We have given away so much important land, and all the access roads are in the hands of promoters and the wrong people. Again, many old-timers don’t go to Matrimandir anymore because they feel it has become like a church: the people there tell you to be quiet and how to behave. While there is still a miraculous presence there, I don’t feel welcome.

Above all, what is missing today in Auroville is the feeling of brotherhood that we had in the past. The psychic realisation would be ideal but just a feeling of brotherhood is important.

Gérard: When you look at certain things happening in Auroville, it is heartbreaking; the education system, the economy, our organisation with all these groups and the way we select them, for me it is obsolete. At a deeper level, you realise that things are like this because the old world is collapsing. It is collapsing because a New Supramental World is coming and the old has to take place.

For me it’s not a problem of economy or politics, it is a problem of evolution. Auroville is meant to be the cradle of supermanhood; this is its true meaning and we can’t continue with our little mind and ideas searching to improve the old story.

We’re not here only to build a town but to manifest a new species.

There is less and less that is collective in Auroville today, it is more about the individual. But maybe this is because the true collective is building up, a gnostic collective. In fact, I think like many other Aurovilians that something is already at work: you feel a connection with certain people, a true link from inside.

It is interesting to note that the community still gets easily polarised over certain issues, the latest example being the Line of Goodwill. The French were in the forefront of the struggle against the Sri Aurobindo Society in the 1970s, but were also very influential when the community turned against some of its own members in the 1980’s. Did they help polarise the community?

François: There was already a certain cultural polarisation in 1969 because Aspiration was mainly French and the Matrimandir Camp more English and Anglo-Saxon. I think the revolutionary spirit the French brought was very important. The French got damaged in the process, but what they did was important.

Gérard: There is something about the French. They have this very discriminatory mind as well as the spirit of revolution. That is why the fight with the Society was led mainly by the French. If the Society had won, Auroville would be a very different place today because they betrayed Mother’s Auroville. It was difficult at the time: some of us were sent to jail. But it was necessary for the future of Auroville as confirmed by the Supreme Court of India.

Conflicts always create de facto polarisation. Today, I think it is not so strong any more. Our collective step is to find the “third position” as Mother called it.

François: That polarisation is seen today more in the ecological part of Auroville against the town planners, it’s not so much the French against the Anglo-Saxons.

Where do you think Auroville will be in 15 – 20 years time?

Janaka: For me there are two Aurovilles. There is the Auroville that seeks material comfort and the Auroville which aspires to manifest the consciousness of the superman. This aspiration can be felt in individuals and small groups: I feel it in Citadines where I live. So, overall, I am an optimist concerning the future.

François: Sri Aurobindo said this is the hour of the unexpected so I don’t know what Auroville will be in some years time. But as long as people ask Mother what we should be doing and if we are taking the right direction, I think we will be fine.

Gérard: I do not think we can improve the present system because it has to disappear. When Mother spoke of the true consciousness, She said it is like another geography, a completely different way of looking at things. New forms of organisation etc. come when this other thing is there.

Maybe during the next 15 years Auroville will become even more difficult because something has to break through and Mother and Sri Aurobindo are working on it. Meanwhile, there are two parallel things here, the old and the new world. But evolution will continue and it will succeed, nobody can stop it because it is the meaning, the larger purpose, of everything.

Today, the first thing is to aspire for something else, then there will be an answer because there is always an answer. I think this is why She wanted us to build the Matrimandir: this is something that encourages that aspiration. We are all trying our best, we need to endure and, above all, we need the smile and love that are somehow always present behind everything and inside us.

Sri Aurobindo and The Mother have opened the way, now it is up to us to go ahead. Sri Aurobindo said about India that, despite all its difficulties, thousands of years of spirituality have impregnated it and that has not gone. It is the same with Auroville. Mother has put her Force into Auroville but you have to open yourself to it to discover this new world.