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tour operators brought their flocks to the “viewing” of the Inner Chamber. To me
this was institutionalised violation; but for all these years I remained unable to
communicate the value of what it was that I felt so deeply, perhaps precisely
because it was so intense in me. And, despite the solidarity we experienced in
many a battle in the years that followed 1995, up until we were both “dismissed” by
Governmental orders instigated by the then Chairman of the Auroville Foundation,
Kireet Joshi, and the “Chief Architect” Roger A over the issue of the Park and
Gardens, in October, 2003, Arjun and I never could reconcile our difference over
this issue of the access to the Inner Chamber. This working Note, written by me for
the Matrimandir Forum in 1996, was just one of my attempts to get the terms of
the issue across to everybody interested.)
- Part IV.
Where the two approaches differ, both in terms of the quality of the contact with
visitors and in terms of perspective and development:
With the second approach, currently applied, the contact with visitors is not
established on the basis of the purpose of the Matrimandir, but on a more
superficial one. Thus one is not actively serving this purpose in one’s work here:
one is merely being instrumental in coping with the growing influx of public interest
on outward terms.
This can be rectified to some extent by means of an increased effort of information
at the Visitors Centre; but most of energy will perforce go into deflecting the
pressure rather than in communicating some of the essence of what Auroville and
its Soul, the Matrimandir, have to offer – namely, a profoundly revolutionary
change of attitude towards the divine, as towards human existence.
The mere fact that people are given access to the inner space of the Matrimandir
out of curiosity alone, or because they have been sold this visit as part of a package
by tourism agents, inevitably brings, not only in the general atmosphere but in our
own, a lowering and a loss of quality and aspiration on the day-to-day practical
level of experience.
Instead of regarding the Matrimandir as an increasingly powerful source of
transforming energy, one becomes conditioned to merely cope with its outward
impact on the public.
One does not unite with its purpose.
At present the daily inflow of visitors is still manageable. The number of visitors
allowed in during the viewing period of one hour can go up to 1000 without too
much of a logistical difficulty on the site, although it does create a very complicated
and disharmonious situation on the roads of Auroville and at the Visitors Centre.
However, given the facts that, no matter what organisation is selected, the
Matrimandir cannot possibly receive all and every one of the mobile adult
population of the country, let alone of the world, in a hundred years; and that,
nonetheless, the public interest is bound to increase, while the number of residents
in Auroville itself is bound to grow; there will come a time when even the casual
“viewers” will have to ask permission in advance and a whole administrative
apparatus will have to be installed to this end.