1325 / 1424
1325
This stark choice has been made imperative after the collective descent into the pit
demonstrated by the recent meetings about Matrimandir.
But in some ways such a situation was quite predictable. Auroville is about
conscious choices at every step of the way. The choice before us is whether this city
will be like a hundred other cities following the West’s cycle of failures or whether
this collectivity will have the courage and the awakened aspiration to choose a
spiritual path. And whether people like it or not Auroville is in India because it has
the knowledge of the spirit! A conscious choice has become urgent, even imperative
in Auroville’s civic life, in its governance, and most importantly, in the way it
perceives the spiritual centre Mother placed at its core, not just as a symbol for
Auroville itself, but as a symbol of all mankind’s aspiration for the Divine. Mother
has already created the domains of consciousness; these await their hour, for they
require a satisfactory life mass to manifest. Auroville could be today outwardly what
it is inwardly – a creation of harmony. Or it could descend into the opposite reality!
And it is precisely this opposite reality that has been demonstrated by the current
round of meetings organised about Matrimandir. In fact these meetings are a text
book case of how not to deal with a problem! (And if analysed as such they might
still be made to serve some future purpose). But the force that has expressed itself
in them can be transmuted only if another force, another way of being asserts its
supremacy. It is significant to note that the meetings could NEVER have come to
such a pass if the organising structures of Auroville had not only actively legitimised
them but, till quite recently, tacitly encouraged the brutality they manifested. This
brutality remains still unaddressed whatever euphemistic twist or justification is
used to describe it.
We remain destined to such a Western cycle of development also because of the
bleak truth that the Indian way has not yet asserted itself with enough purity and
surety. There is not yet the critical mass that could bring the needed change.
Indians remain excellent followers – they seem still so burdened by their colonial
past!
8. To find a true individual position: to make it an active power for change.
Auroville’s sole protection now is that it rises to a higher status where another sort
of security can prevail. It should not have to endlessly circle in inane, darkly
aggressive, ignorant cycles of collective behaviour. There ought to be acceleration.
But this acceleration can come only if people inform themselves, develop the
individuality to stand for dharmic ‘rightness’ even at personal cost, give birth to a
sufficiently large collectivity of awakened individuals. We talk of brotherhood, but
words without matching actions are mere mouthings. Brotherhood can be born only
in conscious soul spaces. Unless we think deeply, unless we live widely and
generously, this cannot be developed. Brotherhood is a priesthood, an austere
discipline. Will, character, self-discipline and self-mastery are the backbone of
Dharma. There can be NO sanction for a certain type of behaviour: brotherhood,
with its spiritual laws, necessarily VANISHES the moment we ‘go after’ someone,
for then remain merely destructive laws from the vital plane (the laws of Kali and
Rudra)! ‘No real peace can be till the heart of man deserves peace…’