journal d'une transition

1083

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.