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If the discussion about the Matrimandir Finances continues and an intervention is
actually invited through the Auroville Foundation that intervention should justifiably
extend to all other financial activities of Auroville.
6. What are the facts about Matrimandir’s finances?
The Matrimandir accounts are already an Auroville channel. They are part and
parcel of the Auroville Fund group of accounts. The Balance Sheet has always been
available with the Financial Services. The CAG audit has always been pleased with
the method and maintenance of Matrimandir’s financial system. When you consider
the number of persons who have scrutinised, searched and studied the Matrimandir
financial system year after year, month after month, to find some flaw, some
indiscretion, some slight irregularity which could serve to crucify the coordinators,
you will quickly realise that Matrimandir does indeed have an excellent system in
place! Thus the present proposal to ‘shift the cheque book’ has to content itself with
the singularly pathetic argument: ‘it’s time for a change’!
The other stark reality is that almost all the donations to build Matrimandir come
from outside of Auroville. We could just as easily call the Matrimandir accounts
‘Mother’s Bank’ – after all the money comes from people who really feel they are
giving to the Mother Herself and it is used to build Her Vision. Except for the few
individuals and units who have understood the deeper necessity of putting financial
energy into the building of Matrimandir, most Aurovilians are content only to
intervene to claim ownership of Auroville’s soul: ‘Our place that must be reclaimed
from these stupid Indian tourists and the present Matrimandir Team who deserve to
be dismissed’!
The move to transfer Matrimandir’s ‘cheque book’ is quite understandable in those
who have not accepted the spiritual dimension of Matrimandir. These are also they
who refuse to see the writing on the wall – namely that Matrimandir has already
outstripped Auroville in the scope and dimension of its influence. As the soul is
always much vaster than the body it chooses to inhabit. One sign among many is
that almost all of ‘official’ India (and the rest too) has been flowing like a steady
river to touch down upon this great and solid ‘reactor’ for spiritual change. Mother
is working dynamically through Her great symbol upon much more than Auroville. A
very eminent Indian recently remarked that ‘Matrimandir is the Soul of India’! Such
sentiments are to be ignored at peril. The question now is: can Auroville rise to
maturity and to its spiritual dimension to hold its soul?
7. Auroville ‘Elections’.
This background becomes crucial, especially today as many Aurovilians watch in
disbelief Auroville’s processes seemingly high jacked for the present and steered
inexorably towards ‘petitioning’, sloganeering, voting and electioneering with all
their resultant evils. Now collective meetings ‘vote’ even upon crucial spiritual
questions and almost no voice cries ‘Hold! This is not permitted in Auroville’!
Auroville apparently slides down a muddy slope towards decisions based upon the
mere opinions of those with the loudest voices and the least dharmic standards.
Power brokers step in as ‘peace makers’ only to further confuse, darken or distort,
seldom to genuinely lift things up. This method of organising collective life, led to
its logical conclusion, could cause a destruction of all the higher truth of Auroville.