Fall 2008 Journal of the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the … · 2020. 6. 3. · Fall 2008 Collaboration Ł 1 Fall 2008 Journal of the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the

Fall 2008 Collaboration � 1

Journal of the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the MotherFall 2008 Vol. 33, No. 2

A journey of the relics by Dakshina VanzettiOn the significance of the relics by Alok Pandey

Auroville and education, compiled by Kailas JhaveriCurrent affairs ••••• AV almanac ••••• Book reviews ••••• Poetry ••••• Apropos

The Sri Aurobindo Relics Shrine in Lodi, California

2 � Collaboration Fall 2008

Table of contentsCollaboration, vol. 33, no. 2, Fall 2008

From the office of CollaborationNotes on this issue .................................................................. Larry Seidlitz 3

Current affairsReflections on AUM 2008 ................................................. Dave Hutchinson 4Sri Aurobindo Centre for Advanced Research launches new programs

with Indira Gandhi National Open University ................... Larry Seidlitz 6Briefs ........................................................................................................ 6

AV almanacDalai Lama to inaugurate Pavilion of Tibetan Culture ......The Pavilion Team 7The University of Human Unity ........ The University of Human Unity Team 8

ChroniclesA journey of the relics ...................................................... Dakshina Vanzetti 9On the significance of the relics ............................................... Alok Pandey 11

EssaysAuroville and education ..................................... Compiled by Kailas Jhaveri 16

Book reviewsI am with you, Parts II and III by Kailas Jhaveri Reviewed by Larry Seidlitz 31Devotion: An anthology of spiritual poems selected by Lloyd Hofman

and Vignan Agni ..........................................Reviewed by Larry Seidlitz 32

The poetry roomBreath of God ................................................................................... Godfrey 34If only there were peace ...................................................... David Lukashok 34Deep in the core .................................................................. Damodar Reddy 35Auroville .............................................................................. Loretta Shartsis 35The eyes reply ............................................................ Eleanor Montgomery 35

Apropos ......................................................................... 36

The authorsDave Hutchinson was the one of the organiz-

ers for AUM 2008 at Estes Park in Colorado. He isformer member of the Sri Aurobindo Associationand lives in Sacramento, California.He may bereached at [email protected].

Kailas Jhaveri has been a member of the SriAurobindo Ashram since 1964. Prior to that, sheworked at the United Nations Organization; aftercoming to the Ashram, she was instrumental increating the link between Auroville and UNESCO.She may be reached at Sri Aurobindo Ashram,Puducherry, 605002, India.

Alok Pandey ([email protected]) is apsychiatrist who works in the Sri AurobindoAshram in Pondicherry; he is a gifted speaker andauthor on Sri Aurobindo�s yoga.

Larry Seidlitz ([email protected]) facili-tates online courses for the Sri Aurobindo Centrefor Advanced Research in Pondicherry and is ed-itor of Collaboration.

Dakshina Vanzetti ([email protected])is a founding member of Sri Aurobindo SadhanaPeetham, an ashram in Lodi, California, andpresident of Auromere, the ashram�s Ayurvedicimport business.

The Pavilion Team may be contacted [email protected]. Visit their website at:www.auroville.org/thecity/tibet_pavilion/

The University of Human Unity Team in-cludes Rudy, Rod Hemsell, Vladimir Yatskeno,and Grace Aroha. For more information, seetheir website: www.universityofhumanunity.org.

About the coverThe Sri Aurobindo Relics Shrine at SriAurobindo Sadhana Peetham in Lodi, CA.The tree is from a seedling of the ServiceTree over Sri Aurobindo�s Samadhi (Photocourtesy Sri Aurobindo Sadhana Peetham)


Publisher: Collaboration (ISSN 0164-1522) is published by the Sri Aurobindo Associ-ation (SAA), a California nonprofit religiouscorporation, P.O. Box 163237, Sacramento,CA 95816 USA; e-mail: [email protected];phone: 209-339-3710, ext. 6.

Editor: Larry Seidlitz, 39 Vanniar Street,Vaithikuppam, Puducherry, 605012, India;email: [email protected]. The opinions ex-pressed in Collaboration are not necessarilythose of the editor or the SAA.

Copyrights: Copyright © SAA, 2008.Photos of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, pas-sages from their works, and excerpts from thebooks published by the Sri Aurobindo AshramTrust are © Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust unlessotherwise noted, and are used here with the kindpermission of the Ashram.

Subscriptions: A one-year subscription(three issues) to Collaboration is $20 ($32 forairmail outside the USA, except India; in India,send Rs. 150 to Larry Seidlitz, 39 Vanniar St.,Vaithikuppam, Pondicherry 605012). A patronsubscription is $40 or more. A sponsorship sub-scription for residents of India is $4.

Submissions: Collaboration welcomeswriting, photos, and artwork relevant to theIntegral Yoga and spirituality. Submit materialby email to: [email protected]; by faxat 209-339-3715; or by post to Collaboration,P.O. Box 163237, Sacramento, CA 95816USA. Collaboration cannot be held responsiblefor loss or damage of unsolicited material. Let-ters to the editor may be published unless youindicate otherwise. Letters and articles may beedited for style and space considerations.

About SAA: The Sri Aurobindo Associa-tion distributes information about Sri Auro-bindo, the Mother, and Auroville and supportsvarious projects related to the Sri AurobindoAshram, Auroville, and Integral Yoga activitiesin America. Current officers: Theresa Boschert,coordinator; Kalpana Patel, treasurer; Chand-resh Patel, secretary.

Contributions: Donations for the workof the SAA, Auroville, and the Sri AurobindoAshram may be sent to SAA. Donations are taxexempt under section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. In-ternal Revenue Code.

From the office of Collaboration

In this issue we feature two chronicles pertaining to the recent installation of Sri Auro-bindo�s relics at Sri Aurobindo Sadhana Peetham in Lodi, California, and alonger essay on Auroville and Education, which is a compilation of writings by Sri

Aurobindo and the Mother carefully woven together to form a cohesive essay. The firstof the articles on the relics, written by Dakshina Vanzetti, describes her reception of therelics in Sri Aurobindo�s room and the journey back to the U.S. with several companionscarrying the sacred relics. The second article, written by Alok Pandey, is a transcriptionof the talk Alok gave at the relics installation ceremony in Lodi, which focused on thesignificance of the relics. In it, we can realize more clearly the importance and power of SriAurobindo�s relics for the center and for America and the world. Alok is a fine speakerwho likes to weave Sri Aurobindo�s poetry into his talks, as well as ancient Indian leg-ends, to convey more directly to the soul of the listener, the truths of which he speaks.These two articles are accompanied by numerous photos of the reception and installa-tion of Sri Aurobindo�s relics.

The essay on Auroville and Education was put together by Kailas Jhaveri in 1969 asa project-report for a World University for Human Unity requested by UNESCO. Kailashas explained that she was reluctant to write the report because she was given only twoweeks to prepare it. But as she was pressed to do it, she tried. She sent a copy of her firstattempt to the Mother for approval. However, on reading the draft, the Mother becamefurious, threw the papers on the ground, and demanded to know who had asked Kailas toprepare such a report. Devastated, unable to sleep or eat for two days, Kailas went to theSamadhi to seek Sri Aurobindo�s solace and guidance. And then it came. Calmly and con-fidently she went to back to work, the vision of the project came, and her hands went tojust the appropriate passages from Sri Aurobindo�s and the Mother�s writings expressingthe vision. The result was this essay, which the Mother again read out in full, and said:�C� est très, très bien� (It is very, very good).

Although previously published in Mother India in July 1970, we have decided toreprint this essay here for two important reasons. The first is that it elegantly describesthe essential ideals and aims of Auroville, and the role of an Auroville university in thoseideals. It is useful that we periodically review these ideals in order to keep a broader per-spective of the work being done in Auroville. The second reason is that although anAuroville University did not materialize in the period following the essay, in part becauseof the conflict that ensued between Auroville and the Sri Aurobindo Society, recently anew initiative towards an Auroville University has been developing, and so the idealsexpressed here are again especially timely. We have included a brief report about this newinitiative in AV Almanac, and readers can find more information on its website:www.universityofhumanunity.org.

We also have a second article in AV Almanac that is especially timely, about urgentlyneeded work on the Pavilion for Tibetan Culture, and the upcoming visit of the DalaiLama to Auroville in January. We hope that readers may feel moved to contribute to thisimportant project.

We also present two book reviews, one of Kailas�s autobiographical memoirs, I amwith you, and the second on an anthology of poetry written by devotees of Sri Aurobin-do and the Mother, called Devotion. The poems were selected and compiled by twoAurovilians, and published by Chandresh Patel�s Integral Enterprise. To give a bettersample, five of the poems from this book have been included in our Poetry room.

In addition to these articles, we start our issue with a reflection on AUM 2008 writtenby Dave Hutchinson, the main organizer for the event, followed by an important noteabout the Los Angeles center; we conclude with a selection of quotations in Apropos.

The photographers

Lynda Lester ([email protected]) lives inSacramento, California. She was one of the or-ganizers of AUM 2008, has been a speaker atmany others. You can find many more of herphotos of AUM 2008 at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lesterlyn/sets/72157607005011809/

The University of Human Unity Team has severalphoto galleries of activities at the university ontheir website: www.universityofhumanunity.org.


Current Affairs

Reflections on AUM 2008by Dave Hutchinson

The time after AUM is exquisite, almost as meaningful as theevent itself . . . we return to our daily lives, carrying so muchback with us, absorbing, digesting, pondering.

Some of my experiences there are nearly inexpressible: the kir-tan by Markus Stobbs� and his group, for example, or the move-ment session by Melissa Michaels. The kirtan brought me to tearswith its depth and sincerity, and touched my heart for personalreasons. I can still see Markus� smiling face as he sang, eyesclosed, himself transported to happy fields of bhakti.

Melissa�s movement workshop allowed me to open in a waythat I would have not thought possible, and it was a joy to explorephysical consciousness with a group of Integral Yogis! Havingbeen one of the infamous talking heads in the past, dancing wasabout as possible to me as sprouting four arms. The point at whichwe all connected with each other, wordlessly, while dancing, wasalso a true evolution for AUM itself. It felt like looking into the soulof each person, in a fluid movement among the entire group. Suchthings have been tried, but in a static fashion; doing it while in themidst of dance was an entirely different experience.

The Joshi family brought so much to AUM, through thebeaming eyes of Nisarg and Chinmaya, as well as Dipti and Shirish.Everything they were involved in seemed a gift of the energy, joy,and wide-open awareness of childhood, from Nisarg�s spontane-ous helpfulness on the unpacking, to the discussion we had gaz-ing at the campfire, to the hilarious square dance, and even thesimple activity of cutting out collage materials.

Being one of those who had been at previous AUMs, it wasrefreshing to see this one through the eyes of newcomers. Blakeand Emmy were so much fun to have around, and I heard in severalplaces they imbued events with their youthful shakti. CertainlyBlake�s hip-hop performance was a first for an AUM conference,and I hope that there will be many like that in years to come! Itbrings to mind the first paragraph of The Synthesis of Yoga, whereSri Aurobindo says that truth and practice �must be constantlyrenovated by fresh streams of the spirit revivifying the dead ordying vehicle and changing it, if it is to acquire a new life.� Blakecertainly gave AUM new life this year!

In one sense the AUM is over, but in reality it will reverberatefor days, months, or years. Some of us will see each other within aweek, whereas others we may not encounter again for a decade.Connections made at an AUM tend to weave through our lives inways we may not recognize. Personally, I had many sweet andtouching moments at AUM, and the faces of everyone continue torise before my eyes. For me, a recluse by inclination, this is all themore meaningful.

One thing I love about AUM is the opportunity to deepenties. This year I was able to get to know Nishi and Rich, Theresa,Fanou, Larry Tepper, Jim Auler�and others�much better. Ioften fall into the common mistake of keeping a static image of aperson, and it�s helpful to enlarge that, learn more about a person.

It is fascinating that people perceive AUM from a differentperspective. At various times I was told �Did you plan to makethe psychic being the focus of the AUM?� or �It was great howthe Mother was introduced to everyone at this AUM� or �Whendid the organizing group decide that this AUM would be aboutSavitri?� Sartaj and I had a discussion the last day about how toorganize future conferences, and he had the intriguing idea oforganizing a gathering with one third lectures, one third groupdiscussion, and one third spiritual practices. Food for thought!

Encounters with wildlife gave me a strong sense of that �com-mon self,� from the herd of furry antlered elk placidly chewinggrass in the middle of the YMCA, to a lightning-fast chipmunkpicking scraps on the trail around Sprague Lake, to a reclusivebeaver building a dam at the creek upstream from Barclay. Somehikers on Wednesday reported seeing a mother caring for a babyelk, who must have been born only minutes before. One groupreported reading Savitri in the woods, and the nearby animalsgathered to listen, waiting quietly for the finish. These are pre-cious moments that confirm our unity with the rest of existence.

Speaking of Savitri and nature, the prize for spiritual innova-tion goes to Bhuvana, who found herself out in the woods withMira, wanting to read Savitri. By report, she pulled out her Black-berry, connected to savitribysriaurobindo.com, and proceeded toread in the woods! I would expect no less from Bhuvana, who hasconsistently led our community in technology for many years �although newcomers like Ned and Shashwat are pushing ourboundaries, along with Larry Seidlitz with the University of To-morrow (http://www.sacar.in). For those who are interested in us-ing the web to explore your own mental boundaries, especiallythe complexity of science, culture, and Integral Yoga, you mightconsider visiting http://www.sciy.org, since you now know one

The AUM 2008 group photo, set in the magnificent RockyMountains at Estes Park. (Photo by Lynda Lester)


of the founders and principle contributors (Rich Carlson). Whoknew that a blues singer can also expostulate on robotics, JamesJoyce, and rhetorical criticism?

The integration of physical activity into an AUM was onegoal this year, and despite my newsletterish pontifications, Iwasn�t exactly sure how to achieve it. Like many other aspects ofa collective, the answer was to allow the group to create its ownsynthesis. The archery session was a perfect example, where eachperson seemed to bring their own yoga of concentration, one-pointedness, and harmony into the activity. Here as elsewhere,Thiago and Benjamin gave the AUM a particular skill and atten-tion to the physical that I appreciated.

After a major event, a useful practice is to enumerate �lessonslearned.� Whether publicly or privately, it is helpful to ask �Whatwent well? What didn�t work? What could be improved?� Some ofthe smallest aspects of the organizing seemed to have the biggesteffect, such as the name plaques on the doors, which transformedan otherwise impersonal hallway into a familiar abode of yogis. Onthe other hand, nobody seemed to notice the �Non-trivial pursuit�board. I wish we had tested our audiovisual technology better,and provided more redundancy, which would have avoided someissues with music and video. Having a public van, in addition tothe spontaneous rides offered by those with cars, worked verywell, and gave a freedom to both drivers and passengers. The hikeon Wednesday was fun for many, but as an organizer, I feel weshould have required more definite sign-out sheets, with destina-tions. As we saw on the last day, mountain weather can indeed besurprising, and safety is a very real concern in the wilds of nature.

You never know what experiments will succeed, but they areall worth attempting. The art collage this year started late, and byTuesday only a few pictures were on the board. Then we woke upThursday to find the entire six by six foot sheet covered with amosaic of images. I was also particularly taken with �Infinity,� agroup drawing in Camille�s workshop that started as a free-formsquiggle, and then grew to become a multicolored, mythical entity,embodying both infinity and collective individuality.

Sartaj and I discussed the ever-changing harmony betweenhierarchy and structure on the one hand, and personal evolutionand responsibility on the other. With the almost endless spread-sheets, check-off lists, signs, assignments, schedules, itineraries,forms, and finances that were created for the AUM, I sometimesthought that I had created a straightjacket of structure that wouldstrangle even the most vibrant collective spirit. But as AUM tookshape, starting from the first night�s orientation, when so manyjumped in to explain their individual part in the conference, it be-came clear to me that the forms were a guideline, like the lightedstrip that helps a plane to come to earth in the night, and that eachperson was moving in and out of these guidelines in their ownway, to an individual rhythm.

One of the things we all struggle with is striking a balancebetween simplicity and complexity, between star gazing and in-stant messaging. I feel that the setting of this AUM gave us thechance to explore that balance in our own way. One evening Anara

and I sat on the rocks overlooking the creek to the east of Barclaycabin, watching the sparkling stars, the lights of the houses onthe mountainside to the north, the occasional flash of lightning inthe valley below, and gradually the frantic call of work vanished,leaving us with an expansive sense of grandeur and beauty. Now,back home, as the information-rich, populated, complex lifecrowds back in, I work to integrate these disparate experiences.

Sri Aurobindo wrote in The Life Divine that �The one rule ofthe gnostic life would be the self-expression of the Spirit, the willof the Divine Being; that will, that self-expression could manifestthrough extreme simplicity or through extreme complexity andopulence or in their natural balance,�for beauty and plenitude, ahidden sweetness and laughter in things, a sunshine and glad-ness of life are also powers and expressions of the Spirit.� (p.1104) AUM certainly whispered to me of that �hidden sweetnessand laughter in things��and not only the sunshine, but thesnowflake flowers that fell on our last day! Waking to the silentfall of snow was a beautiful if moist way to end the conference!

While Anara and I drove back to Denver, we talked about herexperience as a person who is unfamiliar with the jargon, meta-physics, and history of Integral Yoga. She mentioned that theAUM was striking in its atmosphere of welcome, individually andcollectively; it was open rather than closed, accepting rather thanrejecting, regardless of whether a person had any sense of thisyoga. This gives me hope for the future, because it seems to ex-press another quality of the gnostic, that it has a �unifying senseof a common Truth in many forms, a common self in many con-sciousnesses and bodies.� (The Life Divine, p.1069)

The next AUM is planned to take place in South Carolina,hosted by the Rama family, the hosts of AUM 2002. That wasquite the family gathering, and had many knowledgeable speak-ers. In addition to the more personal give and take that happenedin the Rockies, there is value in hearing the reflective wisdom ofthose who have been working out yoga in their lives for manyyears. Next year�s AUM will probably feature a similar style.

The form of each year�s gathering has been left largely to thelocal group that creates the conference, with the national organi-zations such as the Sri Aurobindo Association or AVI-USA offer-ing financial or logistical assistance. If any of you have been in-spired by AUM, consider hosting it in the future�or better yet,get your feet wet by creating a smaller, regional �AUMlet�! Suchgatherings are a perfect way to try out innovative structures withfive or ten people.

Before the AUM many of us were relative strangers, but nowwe have faces, personalities, and souls to match the names. Inmy life I have found that the intensity and richness of face-to-face exchange can be supplemented by the more reflective anddiscursive virtues of writing. We grow by what we give.

Thanks again to everyone for your generous contributionsto AUM, in many different forms. It was a multi-faceted gem,shining with the faces of everyone present.


Sri Aurobindo Centre forAdvanced Research launchesnew programs with IndiraGandhi National Open University

by Larry Seidlitz

This August 15th the Sri Aurobindo Centre for AdvancedResearch (SACAR) reached a milestone in its development as it begins its fifth year offering online educational

programs on the thought and vision of Sri Aurobindo and theMother. On that auspicious day, in a nationally televised functionwith chief guest Dr. Karan Singh, SACAR director Ananda Reddysigned a memorandum of understanding with Indira Gandhi Na-tional Open University (IGNOU), in which SACAR will be offeringa variety of programs at different levels as part of IGNOU�sSchool of Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Studies. IGNOUis the largest university in the world in terms of enrollment, serv-ing nearly 1.8 million students in India and 32 other countriesthrough 21 schools of study, a network of 58 regional centers, andabout 46 overseas centers. It focuses particularly on distance ed-ucation, chiefly through correspondence, videotape and telecast-ing. SACAR is its first online programme, a medium which it plansto use more in the future. This agreement puts Sri Aurobindo�sthought and vision on the national and international stage at theuniversity level, something which up until now has remained elu-sive�indeed one is hard-pressed to find any other universityprograms carrying courses focused on his perspectives.

Under the agreement, we are launching six new programs:

� six-month introductory certificate program;� one-year post-graduate (post bachelor�s degree) diploma

programs in Integral Education and Studies in Indian Culture;� two-year M.A. program in Sri Aurobindo Studies;� one-year M.Phil. (a master�s level, research-oriented degree,

preparatory to Ph.D.) program in Sri Aurobindo Studies;� two to three year Ph.D. program in Sri Aurobindo Studies.

All the programs are conducted online through our website,www.sacar.in, where you can find more details, though some alsohave a short personal contact component at our campus inPondicherry. We also plan to offer the programs through corre-spondence for learners in India, beginning now with our introduc-tory program. We are presently completing administrative require-ments for implementing the programs under the sponsorship ofIGNOU. We are now accepting applications, and expect to beginclasses in mid-October.

Another noteworthy development is that earlier this yearSACAR became an affiliated research center of the MaharajaSayajirao University of Baroda (where Sri Aurobindo was Profes-

sor and Vice-principal), offering guidance for Ph.D. studies on SriAurobindo�s thought through its Department of Philosophy. Weare looking forward to developing ties with other departmentswithin this university to offer Ph.D. studies in other subjects fo-cused on Sri Aurobindo�s thought. SACAR continues to inde-pendently offer individual academic courses and its spiritualpractice-oriented �Science of Living� program.

Another development has been the completion of the newScholar�s Home, a residential facility for students and scholars,which may also accommodate visitors. The new facility is at-tached to the SACAR building, and provides accommodations insingle and double rooms with attached bath for 22 people, anddormitory space for approximately 20 more. The roof terrace pro-vides a bird�s nest view of the sea and the surrounding village. Italso has a kitchen and dining room for use by the residents. In thecourtyard of the SACAR complex, there is now a spacious amphi-theatre and stage for cultural performances. The new facilities willenhance the educational experience of our learners through offer-ing extended on-site mentoring, seminars, and conferences, aswell as a base for exploring the resources and atmosphere of theAshram and Auroville. We invite you to visit our facilities.

We are also happy to announce the publication of MarthaOrton�s book, The quest for knowledge and mastery: A compar-ative study of motivation in the light of Sri Aurobindo. Thisbook is the culmination of Martha�s doctoral research conductedthrough SACAR. Martha was our first doctoral student, and herin-depth study of Sri Aurobindo�s psychological and philosoph-ical thought in relation to contemporary theorists detailed in this350 page book is a shining example of the possibilities for doctor-al research available at our institution. For information on pur-chasing the book or SACAR�s other activities, please contact:[email protected].

BriefsThe East West Cultural Center�The Sri Aurobindo Center of

Los Angeles announces that living space is available at the cen-ter for accommodating visitors wishing to stay for extended peri-ods. We invite anyone who has the motivation and calling tocome and share with us in our collective community life that isdedicated to the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.This includes participation in our karma yoga projects, study pro-grams and satsangs; all in an atmosphere charged by the Relicsof Sri Aurobindo.

The center is located on a quiet, tree-lined street in West LosAngeles and also offers a beautiful meditation garden with Indianstatuary, a large library of metaphysical books and all the writingsof Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

If you have an interest in visiting the center, please contactus at: [email protected]. You may also write orcall: East West Cultural Center, 12329 Marshall Street, Culver City,CA 90230, USA.


AV almanac

Dalai Lama to inauguratePavilion of Tibetan Culture

by The Pavillion team

Serge�s Departure

We have to start this article with sad news: our brotherand collaborator Serge Brelin has left us on 2 July 2008.For the previous several months, Serge was suffering

from an incurable liver cancer. After it was diagnosed, he decidedto follow a soft treatment and approached Dr. Dorjee Rabten, whohas been attending patients for years in Auroville. During the lastyear of his life, he developed a close equation with Dr Rabten anda few days before his demise, he told us, �I am so grateful to DrRabten and Tibetan medicine which have given me a comfortableyear, a practically normal year.�

In an interview in February, Serge said: �I am a passionateman.� Indeed he was! He was a warrior, not only when he taughtAikido, but also when he fought for Auroville�s highest ideals.

The creed of the Olympics comes automatically to mind whenone thinks of Serge: �The most important thing in life is not thetriumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have con-quered but to have fought well.� Since he joined Auroville in 1981,Serge fought well!

During the last few months, he worked hard for the Pavilion tobe completed in time for His Holiness the Dalai Lama�s visit. Hewrote to all his friends and acquaintances:

As you know, I have a great debt towards Tibet; Istrongly felt that I should offer my help to collect thefunds to complete the Tibetan Pavilion in Auroville. Ibelieve that this Pavilion is of great importance forAuroville. I also believe that with the current events inTibet, the participation of all, even in a very modest way, tofinish the Pavilion during the present year will have a verydeep symbolic significance.

It is important for our own karma!It is important for the Karma of Auroville!It is important for Tibet, India and the World.Speak to your friends and all those who are touched by

what Tibet represents.

His efforts allowed us to continue the construction sinceApril and complete a part of the external slanted walls.

We are sure that Serge, wherever he has gone, will be with uson the occasion of His Holiness� visit.

His Holiness� visit

The Private Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama has nowconfirmed the date of His Holiness� visit. He will arrive from Chen-nai on 22 January 2009, stay the night in Auroville and return toChennai on 23 January.

Apart from the inauguration, His Holiness will visit the Mat-rimandir, address Aurovilians and friends on the theme of �Uni-versal Responsibility and Human Unity� and will visit one or twoplaces in Auroville.

We are in the process of setting up an organizing committeewhich will look into all the different aspects of the visit (accom-modation, program, inauguration, security, etc.). Those who werepresent during the 1993 visit still remember how everyone hadworked in a united manner to make the visit a success. We en-deavor to repeat this.

Construction of the Pavilion

The Building Center of the Center for Scientific Research isworking hard to complete the building in time. The major masonrywork, the slanted walls making the shell (and the storage) for thebuilding, is progressing well. Several sides are almost finishedgiving the building a new dimension. It is not common in Au-roville that everyone agrees on something, but in this case, it isunanimously felt that those slanting walls are beautiful and givea great force and harmony to the building.

We have been struggling (with Serge) to find the funds toprogress. Every month when we have to settle the bills of theBuilding Center, we hope for a miracle, till today the miracle hashappened.

We take this opportunity to express our gratitude to all thosewho help us. Thank you. We hope that you will be with us on 22January.

A view of the emerging Pavilion of Tibetan Culture. (Photo courtesyThe Pavilion Team)


Decoration and painting

Keeping in mind that His Holiness advised us to keep thebuilding �simple and close to the environment,� we have ap-proached the Norbulinka Institute, near Dharamsala, to help usdesign the interior decoration of the courtyard and the outer shellof the building. Hopefully, a master painter will soon be deputedto work out these important details. Later we are planning to asksome Tibetan institutions for help us by sending the necessarymanpower to execute the paintings and designs.

Exhibition to be inaugurated by His Holiness

We have requested the Library of Tibetan Works and Ar-chives in Dharamsala to lend us some Art pieces for a special exhi-bition to be inaugurated on 22 January by His Holiness. Theyhave agreed in principle. A private Tibetan friend has offered tosend 10 old thankas for the occasion. On this front, everything isprogressing smoothly.

What has to be completed?

� The front courtyard� The inner decoration and painting� The final polishing of all the floors� About half of the slanted walls around the Pavilion.

BUDGET ESTIMATE

Rs Euro US $Slanted walls masonry/primer 600,000 10,526 15,385Painting Painting/Decoration 200,000 3,509 5,128Entrance Flooring Entrance 50,000 877 1,282Furniture Tables/Chairs/etc.. 60,000 1,053 1,538Misc. Landscaping 50,000 877 1,282Dalai Lama�s visit: Organization/Security/Other Expenses 200,000 3,509 5,128

1,160,000 20,351 29,744

Since 1 April 2008, we have received Rs. 3,52,000 (US $9,025)from Auroville and Rs. 2,20,000 (US $5,640) from foreign friends.

Our main worry is the financing for the completion of thebuilding. We appeal to all our friends to help us for this last effort.

We have a special account in the Auroville MaintenanceFund for the completion of the building and organization of HisHoliness� visit: A/c No 0477 �HH the Dalai Lama�s Visit.�

Foreign checks should be made in favor of Auroville Fundand sent with a covering letter to Pavilion of Tibetan Culture, Au-roville 605101 TN India.

For further information: Tel: 91-413-2622401/2622136; Email:[email protected]; http://www.auroville.org/thecity/tibet_pavilion/index.htm

The University of Human Unity

by The University of Human Unity team

Since its inception in 1968, Auroville has proved to be a�place of unending education� (Charter of Auroville), and as ear-ly as 1969 The Mother addressed her intention to UNESCO tocreate a �Université de l�Unité Humaine�, a University of HumanUnity, as a means to realise the spiritual and material goals ofAuroville. �The permanent university will be the key to the rea-son for Auroville�s existence (la clef de la raison d�êtred�Auroville). It has to be a leap forward, to hasten the advent ofthe future�a world of harmony and beauty and union.�

A variety of fields of research have developed since its be-ginning, and Auroville has become widely recognized as a placeof learning that �seeks to ensure international understanding,peace, innovative education, a learning society and an all roundmaterial and spiritual development of harmonious individual andcollective growth, . . . such aims contribute to the advancement ofthe objectives of UNESCO� (the 4th UNESCO Resolution, Paris,1983).

The University of Human Unity is being conceived of as aninnovative alternative genre of university, expressive of the ex-plorations of a new consciousness in the emerging universe-city that is Auroville, the city of universal values and knowledge,free from many of the conventional restraints that characterizehigher educational institutions in the world today. At presentthere are a number of centers in Auroville which are looking for awider cooperation among themselves and the world, in the fieldof research and integral studies. It is the purpose of this docu-ment to declare the intention of these units, institutes, and indi-viduals and all those who wish to work together towards an elab-oration of the vision of a University of Human Unity, and to open-ly invite all units and individuals in Auroville who are activelyengaged in research and higher learning, as well as kindred orga-nizations around the world, to join together in this adventure.

The University of Human Unity will be a platform for explora-tion and discovery in all areas of human knowledge and activitywhere students themselves may conceive and pursue programsof study in a supportive and contemplative atmosphere, with theparticipation and cooperation of other students and facilitators intheir respective fields of interest. We are looking for new ap-proaches to knowledge and new ways of being, self-educationalmethods and learning modalities which may lead us to a new per-ception and expression, a deeper understanding, and a truer forceof consciousness that is trying to manifest in Auroville and in theworld.

A greater whole-being, whole-knowledge, whole-power isneeded to weld all into a greater unity of whole-life . . . A life ofunity, mutuality and harmony born of a deeper and wider truth ofour being is the only truth of life that can successfully replace theimperfect mental constructions of the past (Sri Aurobindo).


Chronicles

A journey of the relics

by Dakshina Vanzetti

Aum Jaya Ma Jaya Sri Aravinda

In February 2008, I had come on my regular and very preciousvisit to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram that I inwardly look forwardto every year or two. This time, being 2008, there was the triple

event of Mother�s Birthday Darshan on the 21st, Auroville�s 40thbirthday on the 28th, and the Golden Day on February 29th, whichfilled the atmosphere with great Force and Delight. To this how-ever was added a fourth great blessing and manifestation of theGrace which would impact the fate of the Sri Aurobindo SadhanaPeetham on the other side of the world in Lodi, California, USA,and myself personally as the designated representative: The di-vine relics of Sri Aurobindo would be given to Lodi Ashram onApril 3rd at 5:30 p.m.

As the auspicious day approached I felt more and more thefamiliar sweet sadness of the impending leave-taking ofPondicherry and simultaneously an increasing shower of bless-ings which started to come from all sides�hundreds of blessingpackets, cards and bookmarks in Mother�s handwriting, booksdonated by senior ashramites, flower gifts potent with just theexact spiritual significance needed at the moment, and a myriadgood wishes offered from friends and well-wishers. And even aspecial blessing from the majestic Service Tree in beautiful fullbloom in the Samadhi courtyard was received in the form of a gen-tle caress of a falling blossom landing on my head.

A few weeks earlier Regina and I had gone to ask the manag-ing trustee of the Ashram, Manoj Das Gupta, what would be theprocedure and how should the relics be cared for in between thetime we receive them and when they were to be permanently in-stalled in the Lodi Ashram two weeks later on April 19th. Manoj-da, with a twinkle in his eye, said first of all that he did not believein the �high priests� of the Ashram having to lay down the specif-ic injunctions to be followed and that it would be up to the con-cerned center to inwardly find out what would be appropriate fortheir unique situation, though he did say that if possible for some-one to always be present with the relics during the interim periodof their arrival and the installation, that would be best. We weredirected to go to Kumudben in Sri Aurobindo�s room to give thelist of persons who would be present at the time when the relicswould be received; at that time she strongly advised that weshould not let anyone crowd in to touch the relics on their journeydown from Sri Aurobindo�s room through the Samadhi courtyardto the car.

The bright morning of April 3rd finally dawned and the daystarted with a quiet meditation at the Samadhi and was soon filledwith small last minute meetings and packing arrangements for the3 of us that would accompany the relics to the U.S.: Regina whois the Ashramite in charge of Mother�s House and our long-timesister of the Lodi Ashram, Sujata Mohanty who is looking afterthe Icchapur Integral School project in Orissa, and myself. Chan-dresh Patel would accompany us on the Sumo taxi ride and alsoSatish, a devotee and guest staying at Mother�s House and trav-eling to the airport for an independent flight.

We arrived at the Ashram about a half hour early and medi-tated for some while at the Samadhi and finally in the meditationhall which was to be the meeting place for all the people sched-uled to come to Sri Aurobindo�s room at the appointed hour:Manoj-da, Richard, Kailasben, Alok-bhai, Regina, Prasant, Linda(Rajeshwari), Chandresh, Prabuddh, Sujatadi, Marie Luise, JohnRobert, Larry, two last minute additions: Vinod and Julia, as wellas Albert-da who came in the stead of Manoj Das Gupta, and fi-nally Dr. Dilip-da. We were called up the stairs to sit for a concen-tration before the chiming of the clock announced the �Hour ofGod� and we were led single file into Sri Aurobindo�s room. On asmall table in the center of the master�s chamber lay the relics in asmall Rosewood outer box (about a 9 cm. cube) inlayed with SriAurobindo�s symbol; the box was in a small alabaster dish rest-ing upon an assortment of beautiful candles, (Kumudben ex-plained after the meditation that, as the flowers would not be al-lowed into the U.S. per customs restrictions, she had insteadchosen candles which could be lit at the time of the installation)all arranged on a stainless steel tray lined with brilliant gold/or-ange velvet, along with a single brilliant red-orange flower ofDivine Love. As the designated representative for the LodiAshram, I sat before the relics tray and we all, some sitting, somestanding as space permitted, joined the concentratedmeditation. What others felt I cannot say, but for me it was amoment of rededication and prayer to be open to receive this tre-mendous Grace being bestowed upon Sri Aurobindo SadhanaPeetham and to be responsive to its Action. At the end of themeditation, Kumudben placed a white rose of �Integral Love forthe Divine� upon the tray with a special blessing packet whichshe said was for me, and indicated a tray of roses for each of theothers to take on their way out.

Then the procession began, like a golden radiant streamwending its way from Sri Aurobindo�s chamber, pausing for amoment at specially charged designations as if it were a kind ofdarshan for the relics. First, just outside Sri Aurobindo�s room westopped a moment before the large photo of Mother and Sri Au-robindo on the divan in the small darshan alcove, then before de-scending the stairs, a pause before Mother�s chair and footstool.It was as though in a divine leave-taking, at each special spot, adivine interchange of spiritual forces was taking place betweenthe relics and these places of a particularly charged Presence ofSri Aurobindo and the Mother. Having earlier been apprehensiveof just where I was to go, it was a relief to find that each step of


the journey from Sri Aurobindo�s room was led by Raj Kumar whoushered the way forward. Next we stopped before Mother�scouch in the meditation hall and then before the painting at theopposite end. Heading out into the courtyard there was a line ofdevotees waiting to get a glimpse of the sacred relics on theirjourney. Despite the repeated admonishment by Raj Kumarji notto touch the relics, many hands kept reaching out in waves aspeople could not help themselves it seems from the inner prompt-ing to receive Sri Aurobindo�s blessing. I kept shifting the tray outof reach, murmuring �please do not touch, please do not touch�like a mantra. Onwards we circled around the Samadhi to stop be-neath the Service Tree where it was indicated to place the traywith the relics on the Samadhi. For a luminous, charged moment�smeditation I sat and was grateful for this opportunity to pranambefore the relics and the Samadhi, then resumed the journeyround the Samadhi passing by the joy-filled faces of the silentthrong, so many friends and well-wishers among them. At regularintervals it would be indicated to stop for the photographer whowas recording this occasion for the Ashram record. Until thispoint my being felt charged with the serious import and magni-tude of this moment and my face must have been reflecting this,but as I passed by the beaming face of Shipra-di, I felt myselfbreak into a joyful smile of pure gratitude. Onward to the recep-tion sitting room we passed, stopping before the photo of SriAurobindo on the back wall and then turning to face on the oppo-site the Mother�s beautiful photo radiant with compassionategrace for a final moment before exiting out the Ashram maingate. The waiting vehicle was parked just before the gate andmany people crowded around and spilled out from the courtyardas we boarded inside. As we waited for all of us travelers to maketheir way through to be seated, we were surrounded by such aloving send-off of a myriad of hands lifted in namaskar, knowingsmiles, shining eyes and jubilant waves. The car took one finalcircle round the Ashram leaving behind the beaming crowd andstarted for the airport.

The atmosphere in the car plunged into silence and for sometime we sat immersed in that tremendous Grace of the moment. Tome it felt like a kind of wonderful dream, surely a dream of the Di-vine. As we traveled onwards we chanted �Om Namo Bhaga-vate�, sang a few remembered bhajans to Sri Aurobindo and theMother, recited lines from Savitri, from Sri Aurobindo�s poems,from texts learned by heart like passages from Sri Aurobindo�ssmall book, The Mother. We took turns with the special privilegeof carrying the relics tray, and in this way the time passed and wecame to the airport. There we parted ways with Chandresh whowas to be dropped for the night in Chennai and would fly out tothe U.S. only the next day. And soon after in the airport Satishwent on his way towards his separate flight.

We three remaining attendants were several hours early andtook turns holding the relics while the other two went to eat andfreshen up. It was decided that the large tray would be unwieldyduring the travel and so the tray and the candles were stowed inthe suitcases and the small rosewood box and their sacred con-tents were settled on the small alabaster plate and wrapped in theorange velvet cloth to be hand-carried through the next part ofthe journey.

The relics are housed in a series of boxes: gold, silver, san-dalwood, teak, and rosewood�which signify the various planesof consciousness from the innermost supramental, to the outer-most physical. At their final destination, they would be encasedin a white marble shrine reminiscent of the Samadhi, fixed atopwith a golden combined symbol of Mother and Sri Aurobindocarved into a piece of white marble gifted from theMatrimandir. The boxes are sealed and should not be opened,and this was the concern that we travelers shared as we wouldneed to face the various baggage inspection points. Fortunately,Manoj Das Gupta had given us a letter explaining the sacred con-tents of the precious bundle that we carried.

Our first test came at the Chennai airport gate upstairs whereone passes into the secure boarding area. With Mother�s nameon our silent lips we placed the relics, still wrapped in its orangevelvet cover, on the belt to be scanned and the security guardasked to know what was inside. We explained, handing him theletter from the Ashram, and breathed a sigh of relief and gratitudeas he waived us through.

The first flight was from Chennai to France and havingpassed this first hurdle and then a delay in the flight�s departure,we settled into our seats and took turns holding the relics everyhour or two through the long, 13 hour flight. Regina recognizedan Italian devotee on the plane and he was delighted to know thathe was sharing a flight with Sri Aurobindo�s relics and came by tohave the Darshan.

Finally we landed in Paris, but the flight was over an hourlate and we had very little time to make our connection. Differentpersonnel gave different instructions on where and how weshould proceed to the next gate. Sujata-di carried the Relics, Re-gina and I shouldered the hand-luggage, and we wound-up fol-lowing the signs to our distant gate for the connecting flight. We

Dakshina emerges from Sri Aurobindo�s upstairs room with hissacred relics. (Photo courtesy Sri Aurobindo Ashram)


raced along, up several ramps, through long, endless corridors,saris flying, to the distant gate knowing not whether we�d alreadymissed our flight.

Finally, catching our breath, we arrived and came to the nexthurdle and baggage screening point. All the hand luggage had tobe scanned including the relics. The inspector asked us what wasin the orange bundle and we handed him the explanatory letterfrom the Ashram, while Regina explained that we were comingfrom the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry. Despite the letter,he said we would have to take the Relics over to the examinationdesk for inspection, so I took the relics from Sujata-di and waitedat the desk as this new examiner was still busy with another cou-ple of passengers. At this point the three of us were all calling in-wardly to the Mother. Then suddenly as if he got a secondthought or prompted by an unseen Force, the first inspectorasked Regina some specific questions about Pondicherry and asshe was able to answer them correctly, he broke out into a smile,mentioning that he himself was from Pondy and gave the signal tothe other inspector to let us pass through, and we rushed on-wards to board the plane for a second long flight. Fortunately theflight was over an hour delayed so we had not missed it.

On the flight we took turns as before to carry the relics anhour or two at a time, each of us in an indrawn state repeatingMother�s name as we held the precious bundle, taking care itshould remain upright. I felt such a tenderness, almost as thoughit was a baby Sri Aurobindo we were caring for.

April 4th had dawned somewhere over the Atlantic. It was onthis day in 1910 that Sri Aurobindo arrived in Pondicherry. Nownearly 100 years later he would be arriving in the Lodi Ashram.Descending into San Francisco airport with its notorious U.S.security scrutiny, we had decided to keep the relics in Regina�sbag in order to avoid drawing unnecessary attention through theimmigration process. In this way we passed through, picked upour luggage and without any further inspections came out intothe arrival lobby.

Here, in sharp contrast to the jubilant throngs of ourPondicherry send-off, our arrival was met by the silent welcome ofone lone ashramite, Angelo. Sujata-di�s daughter had also cometo meet the relics but somehow we could not find her and had toleave without seeing her. After the stories of the reception of therelics in Orissa and other places in India where they are receivedwith an official State welcome by the governor and thousands ofpeople lining the streets to catch a glimpse and receive the dars-han of Sri Aurobindo, the contrast of this silent, unwitnessed,almost secret, arrival here in the U.S. was deeply striking. To me itwas symbolic�the luminous drop of Divine Consciousness, likea meteor flying over from another realm, landing in this dense andunconscious ocean of materialism. Here it will do its secret work,silently, continuously, radiating the supramental consciousnessinto the atmosphere, into the lives of those who are open to theDivine Influence, into this far off corner of the world that is yet soignorant of its Divine origin and purpose; radiating here toowhere it is so very needed, �Truth and Light and Life Divine.�

On the significance of the relics

by Alok Pandey

A talk given on the occasion of the installation of Sri Aurobin-do�s relics at Sri Aurobindo Sadhana Peetham in Lodi, CA, on19 April 2008

In one of the power-packed verses of the Katha Upanishad,when Nachiketas, the young aspirant, asks Yama, the Lord ofDeath, �O Yama, Lord of the triple worlds, would you tell mesomething about the great Being, of whom you have been speak-ing, of whom you have been hinting?� And Yama has this to say,�O, young and eager aspirant, you ask me of Him, in front ofwhom the sun has no lustre, the moon and the stars shine therenot, nor our electrical hordes, He of whom sages and heroes arethe food, and I, Death, myself am a spice in his banquet.�

I find myself in a similar situation to speak of Sri Aurobindotoday. One is so overwhelmed with all the love and the joy andthe peace . . . and words fall flat. Even silence appears somethingless, because we stand in the mighty presence of a Truth too vastfor the human mind to comprehend, a love which our human heartcannot behold, our speech cannot utter. In one of her very signif-icant messages, Mother says, �Who can understand Sri Auro-bindo? He is as vast as the universe, and his teaching is infinite.The only way to come a little close to him is to love him, and togive oneself unreservedly to his work.� It is the only way to comea little close, the only way to know a little of him, by a kind of iden-tity, of a little portion of his being�to love him; he is as vast asthe universe.

These are no mere words and sentiments and phrases. Theseare facts of his everyday inner life. Is it not he who wrote:

I have wrapped the wide world in my wider SelfAnd time and space my spirit�s seeing are�All Nature is the nursling of my care,I am its struggle and the eternal rest. (Cosmic Conscious-ness, Collected Poems, p. 134)

And he goes on to describe a similar experience of this kindin another poem. The best way to read his autobiography isthrough his poems and through Savitri. In another poem, hespeaks about,

The burning galaxies are in me outlined;The universe is my stupendous whole.My life is the life of village and continent,I am earth�s agony and her throbs of bliss;I share all creatures� sorrow and contentAnd feel the passage of every stab and kiss. (The CosmicSpirit, Collected Poems, p. 151)


Who could write about or speak about one who could see theDivine�as we saw in the beautiful film today�in the bars of hisjail cell, in the judge, in the advocate, in the blanket, in the bowl inwhich he ate his food and also used for everything else. Someonewho in the depths of darkness could tear all these veils and revealwithin its heart the divine Presence. Did he not express this sopowerfully and beautifully:

It is He in the sun who is ageless and deathless,And into the midnight His shadow is thrown;When darkness was blind and engulfed within darkness,He was seated within it immense and alone. (Who, Collect-ed Poems, p. 41)

The mystery of Sri Aurobindo�s birth is the mystery of God�sbirth in time. As he said in Savitri:

His was a spirit that stooped from larger spheresInto our province of ephemeral sight,A colonist from immortality.A pointing beam on earth�s uncertain roads,His birth held up a symbol and a sign;His human self like a translucent cloakCovered the All-Wise who leads the unseeing world.(Savitri, p. 22)

It�s a symbol of the divine Presence in matter. It�s a sign thatthis divine Presence will one day reveal itself despite all the blind-ness, all the obscurity, all the resistance, all the ill will, and all thatstands up against the divine Presence on this earth. This is thesign of his Presence.

Why should the Divine be born on earth? What is the mo-ment of his birth? If we cast a look back just a hundred years, we

shall see something very interesting. Physical science, materialscience had proved that there is no God, or if there is one, he isnothing but a few molecules of hydrogen atoms. Biology hadproved to us convincingly�it is still taught perhaps in some ofthe schools, as a relic of the past�that man is a social animal.And psychology�with an apology to psychologists�hadproved that God is nothing, what man calls his God is nothing buta mask over his animality. It is nothing but a sublimation of all thatis base and low. God is nothing but an animal wearing a beautifulmask in man. This is a hundred years back.

And we turn full circle, and now material science speaks of atheory of everything, it speaks of God in the electron. And bio-logical science begins to see in man more than just a social ani-mal. And psychology is beginning to tell us that man is not just amasked animal, not just a chained animal, but also a maimed andfrustrate god. There is a god inside imprisoned in the humanheart. This is what psychologists are beginning to tell us.

How did the tide of time get turned in this dark period of theprevious century? That is due to the All-wise Guide who leadsthis unseeing world. But it is not just mere guidance, nor merelyto change the tide of time. All that can be done by God, by thedivine Presence, through his instruments. There are many Vibhu-tis, there are many saints and sages, there are yogis who could dothat for man. Why should God descend in matter himself, into itsobscurity? Why should he choose to limit himself, he the Illimit-able? Why should he choose to wear finite shape and form likeus, he the Infinite? We have those beautiful lines explaining whathe doing in this matter�s night:

He who would bring the heavens hereMust descend himself into clayAnd the burden of earthly nature bearAnd tread the dolorous way.

Coercing my godhead I have come downHere on the sordid earth,Ignorant, labouring, human grownTwixt the gates of death and birth.

I have been digging deep and longMid a horror of filth and mireA bed for the golden river�s song,A home for the deathless fire.

I have laboured and suffered in Matter�s nightTo bring the fire to man; (A God�s Labour, Collected Poems,p. 99)

And what does man return?

But the hate of hell and the human spiteAre my meed since the earth began. (Collected Poems, p.99)

A close-up view the Sri Aurobindo Relics Shrine in Lodi,California. (Photo courtesy Sri Aurobindo Sadhana Peetham)


This is an old story being repeated, but in another way, fromanother vantage point, to take it one step further. Sri Aurobindobelongs to the line of those great descents who, in India, we termas the Avatar. And there is a three-fold work that he comes to do,which we find expressed very beautifully in Sri Aurobindo�s work.One, he rescues all the truth of the past. This is referred to as res-cuing the Vedas. He rescues all the essence, all the truth of whathas been done in the past, all that is of value yet to man, all thatmay yet liberate mankind, all that can still lead us towards the glo-ries of the future. He rescues that.

Second, he shows us the way of the present. How to lookupon the present crisis and chaos, how to find a way out of it. Howto deal with our everyday life, our relationships, our education,our children, science, art, all that at the present moment is so veryvaluable to man. How to use it as a material for something morebeautiful yet to come.

But most of all, he comes to open a way to the future. This isthe three-fold work of the Avatar: to rescue the best of the past, togive us a law, a dharma, a way of being for the present, and aboveall, to open a door through matter into the future. It is this three-fold work in which we find Sri Aurobindo engaged. But the one inwhich he was most preoccupied, and for the greatest part of hislife, was this part:

I have labored and suffered in Matter�s nightTo bring the fire to man . . . (A God�s Labour, CollectedPoems, p. 99)

Time and again, Mother would see the supramental light de-scending into his body. We have these experiences documentedin the beautiful poem, The Golden Light. In another place, Sri Au-robindo would tell us, referring to the yoga of Ashwapati, how thebody�s cells would begin to open to that greater light.

Each nerve became a burning thread of joy:Tissue and flesh partook beatitude. (Savitri, p. 334)

This was the everyday life of Sri Aurobindo. When Sri Auro-bindo left his body, a well-known disciple, with a penchant fortruth perhaps, and as is the custom, wanted to give a message. Aswe all know, for 111 hours, Sri Aurobindo�s body was kept in state,thousands of people passed by, and the body was aglow with thesupramental light. A golden light enveloped him, and it remainedwithout decay for almost 100 hours. And even after that, the odorof death was not there at all. But the first signs had begun to ap-pear, the light had begun to withdraw. And the disciple wrote:�The mortal remains of Sri Aurobindo will be interred into theSamadhi.� As was the training, as is the way of sadhana, he tookthe note to the Mother to see if there was anything that she wouldlike to correct. The Mother took her pen and struck off the words�mortal remains,� and added in the margins, �There is nothingmortal about Sri Aurobindo. Each cell of his body is lit with theimmortal fire.�

It�s very interesting. We see it when we go to Pondicherry.The significance of matter: Matter does not lie. It is said in theVedas that there are two poles at which one finds the total truth.One in the superconscious base where the truth is self-manifest.The other at the other pole in matter, where the truth is concealed.In all the mid-worlds, there is half truth, half falsehood. But, thebody�s sense and the soul do not lie. One goes near the Samadhi,and one is hit, hit by something more concrete than matter, morepowerful than the greatest power.

Sri Aurobindo, in one of his evening talks, when he talks ofthe supermind, he says that it has a density stronger than thediamond, and yet it is absolutely plastic. What human mind canunderstand this? Something that is so strong, something that isso plastic, something that is aware of itself? All these are wordsand phrases. But we can approach him with love. This is how hisvery body was surcharged with this light, with this truth, withthis force, which continues to radiate from the Samadhi, and fromplaces where his relics have gone.

It is from this capacity of matter to hold the vibrations im-printed upon it that there arose the institution of relics. It wasbased upon sound occult principles which were later forgottenand the thing turned into a belief and a ritual. The institution ofrelics is not new. It is there in the tradition. There are two sides toit. Of course the modern mind is very skeptical of all these institu-tions, of all these forms, ceremonies, and rituals. And quite natu-rally, because we are breaking free from a past whose words havebecome encrusted into dead formulas, where ritual has taken theplace of the spiritual, and forms have occupied prominence overthe spirit. The human mind must break free from all that. Yet, evenwhen we break free, we must preserve the spirit and the essence,as Sri Aurobindo would tell us. Behind the tradition of the relics isthe occult truth that matter does not lie.

In one of his writings, Sri Aurobindo tells us that if a yogipicks up a sword, just by feeling it, he can say what it was used

Alok Pandey presenting his talk following the relics installation.(Photo courtesy Sri Aurobindo Sadhana Peetham)


for, even hundreds of years back! It carries the imprint, right intothe very physical. And this is an ordinary sword used by ordinarymortals. There is nothing special about it. And a yogi could dis-cern, just by touching it. The Mother could feel an object and saywhere it came from. Someone gave her a bead, and asked, Mother,could you tell us something about it? She said, this does not be-long to the world of matter, this is a dematerialized object. Touch-ing the bead in her hand, she could say where it has come from. Soit is a limit of our sight, a limit of our mind, but the limit of our sightis not the limit of light and truth.

So there is an occult truth behind the tradition of relics, butthere is a still deeper truth, a subtler truth. We see it expressedvery beautifully in the ancient story of Sati. The legend goes thatshe was the consort of the great god Siva. Now it so happens thata great yajna is to be performed and Sati is called by her father,who happens to be one of the formateurs, Daksha Prajapati, oneof those beings who presides over the formation of a particularage and runs the cycles. And he calls his daughter, Sati, but de-nies passport and visa to Siva. So Sati goes there, and Siva says,�Look, we are one being. This is not correct. If you are given entry,then Siva also must accompany.� They are symbol of Nature andher Lord. So Nature without the Lord is allowed entry into Dak-sha�s kingdom. But Sati goes nevertheless, and tries to convincehim, �Look, you must call Siva.� And an argument ensues. AndSati jumps into the fire and sacrifices her body. Sure enough, bythat great sacrifice, Siva the Eternal forces his entry. He gate-crashes through the worlds. There is a thunder and a roar. And hepicks up Sati�s body, and moves around the world carrying in him-self the agony and the sorrow of the world, the world that deniesthe Divine, the world that has rejected the Eternal. And as he goes,and as his agony fills the earth, Vishnu the great Preserver seesthe creation would come to a halt if this continues. So as the leg-end goes, part by part, he dismembers Sati�s body, and it falls at

different places. Now as it happens, these places become thepower-spots, the Shakti-sthala, the seats of Shakti. Why arethey called the seats of Shakti? Because these spots where Sati�sbody fell have become seats, where within earth, the agony ofSati, the sacrifice of Sati, the aspiration of Sati to bring the Eternal,is embedded. And to go to these places is to receive a touch ofthat agony, a touch of that aspiration, a touch of that light, of thatcall to the Eternal. That is why they are called seats of Shakti.

These relics too are not just some parts of Sri Aurobindo�sbody. They are surely not meant just to perpetuate a tradition, tokeep alive through a tradition some form of the past, or some re-membrance of Sri Aurobindo. The Mother who broke free from alltraditions, who gave this beautiful prayer to the children of theschool��Make of us the hero-warriors we aspire to become;May we fight successfully the great battle of the future that seeksto be born against the past that seeks to endure. May we be readyfor the new things that are waiting to manifest��She would notsend the relics just to perpetuate an old tradition. She started theinstitution of relics, if we may use the word institution. Not onlydid She send the relics, she took great, great care. It was as if SriAurobindo himself was going.

So She did not start the journey of the relics just to keep alivea tradition. In fact, there were places were relics were sent forwhich she would say that Sri Aurobindo must receive a Statehonor. And even now in Orissa and in some places in India, whenrelics come, there is a State honor which is given. I�ve been in-volved on a few occasions when the relics were coming fromPondicherry, and I can recount one of them, when the relics werebeing taken to Khandwa, to an obscure village in MadhyaPradesh. I was there with just four other members, in the air con-ditioned compartment in the train. None of us could afford a planeticket, and we were carrying the relics. We had to stop at a placecalled Itarsi and from there they were to be carried to this otherplace on a jeep. Now we were very beautifully seated inside andin a nice atmosphere, just the five of us. There were some people

Placing the relics in the sand-filled marble shrine. (Photo courtesySri Aurobindo Sadhana Peetham)

Presenting flower offerings for the relics shrine. (Photo courtesySri Aurobindo Sadhana Peetham)


around who naturally out of cu-riosity were looking on andwould go away, and somewould ask �what is it?� Thetrain stopped, and I was carry-ing the relics. And before Icould step out there was a com-motion. So I stepped back. Ididn�t know if there was a riotgoing on. I didn�t know wheth-er I should step out with the rel-ics or not. And there were peo-ple with garlands and every-thing. The local administrativehead had come. He had come toknow about the relics. Therewas a proper reception with theState administration coming toreceive because Sri Aurobindois coming. And tears came outof our eyes. They are not relics. We knew it, but we realized thenwhat it means.

It is not just portions of his body, it is a portion of the Divineembodiment. It is the physical atmosphere of Sri Aurobindo com-ing to us. To those of us who have been privileged to feel thatphysical atmosphere in the vicinity of the Ashram, and how it en-velopes all creatures there. It is his physical atmosphere, some-thing of himself which comes here. That is the spirit that we mustreceive it with, as Dakshina said, with joy and gratitude. With allthe humility that we can command, with all the sincerity at our dis-posal, with all the gratitude that we can summon. It is Sri Aurobin-do who comes to us. And it is Sri Aurobindo who has now chosento reside in this, again, if I may say, small and obscure place ofLodi. He has a penchant for working in the small and obscure. Andevery night when you go to sleep in Lodi or San Francisco, or inany of the nearby places, remember that Sri Aurobindo is therejust about 100 miles away, physically present. Even when we go toback to our places in New York and other places from where peo-ple have come, we can remember that he has come to this countryto stay with us, to stay in our midst. What does it mean to us?

How would we respond if Sri Aurobindo comes? Would weplan? Think? Calculate? Conceive? Philosophize? Read The LifeDivine? Brush up our shoes? Wear the best dress? Or just rushlike the Gopis of old? Krishna calls, and all that they know is theflute. They don�t know what they�re wearing. They don�t knowwhat hour it is. They don�t know whether it is good or bad. Theydon�t know what society will say: �Oh, another sect is forming,another religion or cult.� All these words fall flat when the heartsenses, and the soul sees and the body feels and knows. It is agrace to come in touch and contact with the embodied Divine.

And who knows, when time will look back through the lens ofhistory, maybe years later, maybe decades later, maybe centurieslater, when people would have eyes to see, and a heart to feel, they

would look back and say, thegreat revolutions that began inthis country and spread to theearth, momentous events thathappened, they started withthis small little seed and a sap-ling that was sown by some�nobodies� in a little place calledLodi. Who knows? History isnot written by historians. His-torians only see it through alens. It is so strange that every-thing is washed away. And yet,truth remains.

We just read beautiful linesof Savitri. It�s amazing, wedon�t know which year Savitriwas born. Many centuries, mil-lenniums perhaps, a millionyears will have come and gone,

and Savitri will still be alive. That is the kind of tapasya that SriAurobindo and the Mother have done for earth. And what we re-ceive today is a little prasad of his tapasya. Are we ready to greethim with open arms? To welcome him? And how do we meet him?We have just read what Mother has said, the only way is to lovehim, and to give ourselves unreservedly to his love. In this ges-ture of self-giving, to just melt into his arms. That is how we cangreet him, that is how we can welcome him.

That agony of the earth, that aspiration of the earth, whichSri Aurobindo embodied, and the response of the Supreme, theGrace of the Supreme, the Light and Truth of the supramentalconsciousness, which also Sri Aurobindo embodied, that wouldbe communicated, as a contagion, into the very physical stuff ofour beings, in the language that we alone understand: the lan-guage of matter. And through contagion, it would spread to thiscity, and through a deeper contagion, to this country, andthrough each other to the entire earth.

Let me pause. It is an overwhelming day. Let me pause withthese lines from Savitri, which invite us to this great adventure.

O Force-compelled, Fate-driven earth-born race,O petty adventurers in an infinite worldAnd prisoners of a dwarf humanity,How long will you tread the circling tracks of mindAround your little self and petty things?But not for a changeless littleness were you meant,Not for vain repetition were you built;Out of the Immortal�s substance you were made;Your actions can be swift revealing steps,Your life a changeful mould for growing gods.A Seer, a strong Creator, is within,The immaculate Grandeur broods upon your days,Almighty powers are shut in Nature�s cells. (p. 370)

Devotees receive the blessings of Sri Aurobindo�s physicalPresence. (Photo courtesy Sri Aurobindo Sadhana Peetham)


Essay

Auroville andeducation

Compiled by Kailas Jhaveri

Reprinted from Mother India, July 1970

This essay describes the central aims ofAuroville�and the role of an Aurovilleuniversity in them. It was written in thecontext of UNESCO�s sponsorship of Au-roville, which Kailas facilitated. Its entirecontents were read out to the Mother andapproved by her. It consists of materialcompiled from Sri Aurobindo�s books TheLife Divine, The Human Cycle, The Idealof Human Unity, War and Self Determina-tion and The Foundations of Indian Cul-ture, as well as excerpts from the Mother�swritings, including messages to the stu-dents and the teachers of the Sri Auro-bindo International Centre of Education,and other works apropos of educationand Auroville, such as the AurovilleCharter. The various excerpts from Sri Au-robindo and the Mother either stand in abody on their own or are interwoven, andsome introductory or connective sentenc-es have been added here and there by thecompiler to make the whole a runningtext appropriate to the theme. As in theoriginal article, quotation marks and ref-erences have been omitted. Spelling hasbeen changed to American English.

Compiler�s Introduction

Basically, we may say, �Auroville isEducation;� for the educational future ofthe world is bound up with this growingCity of Dawn where a new consciousnessis to be variously educed. But, for conve-nience�s sake, we have three sections inthe material compiled here. A paper on Au-roville and its raison d�etre precedes thaton Auroville University, and one on edu-cation and research in Auroville succeeds it.

The first paper shows how Aurovillewith its ideology and the background ofcultural pavilions of all nations of theworld offers the right and unique condi-tions for a free search after the Truth andhence serves as a necessary basis for thefulfilment of the aims and objectives of thekind of university envisaged in the secondpaper.

This paper on Auroville University in-dicates its lines of researches, the visionbehind them and the program; its idealsand aspirations; its aims and objectives;its own unique contribution and its neces-sity for humanity. It is an attempt to sketchin brief the crisis of our age, the basic is-sue, the proposed solutions, the reason oftheir failures to end war and revolutionsand to bring about peace, order and unityby systems of international law and con-trol of armaments, education, ideal ofbrotherhood, religion, etc.; the true solu-tion of all problems and the unique role ofAuroville University, which to state verybriefly�adapting some words of SriAurobindo�s and the Mother�s�is as fol-lows:

A perfected world cannot be createdor composed by men who are themselvesimperfect. The conditions under whichmen live are the results of their state ofconsciousness. (�Wars are made in the

minds of men and it is therefore in theminds of men that the defences of peacemust be constructed.� We go a step fur-ther and call for a change of conscious-ness which alone, we believe, can trans-form not only the mind, but all the othermembers of one�s being, including thebody itself.) To seek to change conditionswithout changing the consciousness is avain chimera. For man is not a machine andcannot be changed by any machinery oflaws, social, political, economic, religious,or moral. However, a change of conscious-ness can only be brought about by a con-scious evolutionary process and an at-tempt at self-finding, self-perfection andself-transformation.

To be or to transcend and becomesomething or to bring something high andnoble into our being is the whole labour ofthe Force of Nature. Knowledge, thought,action, whether social, political, religious,ethical, economic or utilitarian cannot bethe essence or object of life. They are ac-tivities of the powers of being or the pow-ers of becoming, the dynamis of the Spiritand its means of discovering what it seeksto be. To be and to be fully is Nature�s in-tention and the necessity in Man. To be-come complete in being, in consciousnessof being, in force of being, in delight beingand to live in its integrated completenessis the perfect living. To be fully is to of beuniversally, to be one with all . . .

All this implies that the function of theuniversity in Auroville will not stop withproviding conditions and facilities for thedevelopment of all the powers of one�s be-ing through the study of arts, humanitiesand sciences and their researches, whichare a necessary part of the disciplines ofuniversity education. Through them alland above all, the true function of this uni-versity will be to bring forth from the innerpotentialities of its students a new cre-ation, the creation of a divine race.

The distinguishing feature of Au-roville University will therefore be not onlythe researches into all that was and evenall that exists and their synthesis�syn-thesis of all knowledge; synthesis of allaspects of the Truth; synthesis of all ideol-ogies; synthesis of all realizations of the

Kailas in 1970. (Photo courtesy KailasJhaveri)


Past, Present and Future; synthesis of allcultures; synthesis of all nations, paving away for the realization of human unity indiversity, peace, development andprogress in all parts of the world; a bridgebetween Matter and Spirit or Science andSpirituality; a bridge between man�s exter-nal realizations and his highest aspira-tions, etc. The unique contribution of Au-roville University will be a new creationwith a new culture that will be integral anduniversal, thus changing the whole life ofthe earth-consciousness and bringingabout a new world order.

The aim of Auroville University will bealways to move forward ceaselessly to-wards greater and greater perfection by anendless education, constant progress anda youth that never ages.

We are confident that Auroville willprovide the right and necessary condi-tions to make a full and free enquiry intothe glorious future of the human race by arich and vast synthesis of all our gains onthe material and spiritual planes which willfulfill the highest and most noble aspira-tions of humanity everywhere.

I. Auroville: Its raison d�etre

At present mankind is undergoing anevolutionary crisis in which is concealed achoice of its destiny; for a stage has beenreached in which the human mind hasachieved in certain directions an enor-mous development while in others itstands arrested and bewildered and can nolonger find its way. A structure of the exter-nal life has been raised up by man�s ever-active mind and life-will, a structure of anunmanageable hugeness and complexity,for the service of his mental, vital, physicalclaims and urges, a complex political,social, administrative, economic, culturalmachinery, an organized collective meansfor his intellectual, sensational, aestheticand material satisfaction. Man has createda system of civilization which has becometoo big for his limited mental capacity andunderstanding and his still more limitedspiritual and moral capacity to utilize andmanage, a too dangerous servant of hisblundering ego and its appetites. For no

greater seeing mind, no intuitive soul ofknowledge has yet come to his surface ofconsciousness which could make this ba-sic fullness of life a condition for the freegrowth of something that exceeded it. Thisnew fullness of the means of life might be,by its power for a release from theincessant unsatisfied stress of his eco-nomic and physical needs, an opportunityfor the full pursuit of other and greateraims surpassing the material existence, forthe discovery of a higher truth and goodand beauty, for the discovery of a greaterand diviner spirit which would interveneand use life for a higher perfection of thebeing, but it is being used instead for themultiplication of new wants and an aggres-sive expansion of the collective ego.

Science has put at his disposal manypotencies of the universal Force and hasmade the life of humanity materially one;but what uses this universal Force is a littlehuman individual or communal ego withnothing universal in its light of knowledgeor its movements, no inner sense or powerwhich would create in this physical draw-ing together of the human world a true lifeunity, a mental unity or a spiritual oneness.All that is there is a chaos of clashing men-tal ideas, urges of individual and collectivephysical want and need, vital claims anddesires, impulses of an ignorant life-push,hungers and calls for life satisfaction ofindividuals, classes, nations, a rich fungusof political and social and economic nos-trums and notions, a hustling medley ofslogans and panaceas for which men areready to oppress and be oppressed, to killand be killed, to impose them somehow orother by the immense and too formidablemeans placed at his disposal, in the beliefthat this is his way out to something ideal.The evolution of human mind and life mustnecessarily lead towards an increasinguniversality; but on a basis of ego andsegmenting and dividing mind this open-ing to the universal can only create a vastpullulation of unaccorded ideas and im-pulses, a surge of enormous powers anddesires, a chaotic mass of unassimilatedand intermixed mental, vital and physicalmaterial of a larger existence which, be-cause it is not taken up by a creative

harmonizing light of the spirit, must welterin a universalised confusion and discordout of which it is impossible to build agreater harmonic life. Man has harmonizedlife in the past by organized ideation andlimitation; he has created societies based onfixed ideas or fixed customs, a fixed culturalsystem or an organic life-system, eachwith its own order; the throwing of allthese into the melting-pot of a more andmore intermingling life and a pouring in ofever new ideas and motives and facts andpossibilities call for a new, a greater con-sciousness to meet and master the increas-ing potentialities of existence and harmo-nize them.

Reason and Science can only help bystandardizing, by fixing everything into anartificially arranged and mechanized unityof material life. A greater whole-being,whole-knowledge, whole-power is neededto weld all into a greater unity of whole-life.A life of unity, mutuality and harmony bornof a deeper and wider truth of our being isthe only truth of life that can successfullyreplace the imperfect mental constructionsof the past which were a combination ofassociation and regulated conflict, an ac-commodation of egos and interestsgrouped or dovetailed into each other toform a society, a consolidation by commongeneral life-motives, a unification by needand the pressure of struggle with outsideforces. It is such a change and such a re-shaping of life for which humanity is blindlybeginning to seek, now more and morewith a sense that its very existence dependsupon finding the way. The evolution ofmind working upon life has developed anorganization of the activity of mind anduse of Matter which can no longer be sup-ported by human capacity without aninner change. An accommodation of theegocentric human individuality separativeeven in association, to a system of livingwhich demands unity, perfect mutuality,harmony, is imperative. But because theburden which is being laid on mankind istoo great for the present littleness of thehuman personality and its petty mind andsmall life-instincts, because it cannot oper-ate the needed change, because it is usingthis new apparatus and organization to


serve the old infraspiritual and infraration-al life-self of humanity, the destiny of therace seems to be heading dangerously, asif impatiently and in spite of itself, underthe drive of the vital ego seized by colos-sal forces which are on the same scale asthe huge mechanical organization of lifeand scientific knowledge which it hasevolved, a scale too large for its reasonand will to handle, into a prolonged con-fusion and perilous crisis and darkness ofviolent shifting incertitude. Even if thisturns out to be a passing phase or appear-ance and a tolerable structural accommo-dation is found which will enable mankindto proceed less catastrophically on its un-certain journey, this can only be a respite.For the problem is fundamental and in put-ting it evolution-ary Nature in manis confronting her-self with a criticalchoice which mustone day be solvedin the true sense ifthe race is to arriveor even to survive.The evolutionarynisus is pushingtowards a devel-opment of the cosmic Force in terrestriallife which needs a larger mental and vitalbeing to support it, a wider mind, a greaterwider more conscious unanimised Life-Soul, Anima, and that again needs an un-veiling of the supporting Soul and spiritu-al Self within to maintain it.

A rational and scientific formula ofthe vitalistic and materialistic human be-ing and his life, a search for a perfectedeconomic society and the democratic cul-tus of the average man are all that the mod-ern mind presents us in this crisis as a lightfor its solution. Whatever the truth sup-porting these ideas, this is clearly notenough to meet the need of a humanitywhich is missioned to evolve beyond it-self or, at any rate, if it is to live, mustevolve far beyond anything that it atpresent is. A life-instinct in the race and inthe average man himself has felt the inade-quacy and has been driving towards a re-versal of values or a discovery of new val-

ues and a transfer of life to a new founda-tion. This has taken the form of an attemptto find a simple and ready-made basis ofunity, mutuality, harmony for the commonlife, to enforce it by a suppression of thecompetitive clash of egos and so to arriveat a life of identity for the community inplace of a life of difference. But to realizethese desirable ends the means adoptedhave been the forcible and successful ma-terialization of a few restricted ideas orslogans enthroned to the exclusion of allother thought, the suppression of the mindof the individual, a mechanized compres-sion of the elements of life, a mechanizedunity and drive of the life-force, a coercionof man by the State, the substitution of thecommunal for the individual ego. The com-

munal ego is idealized as the soul of the na-tion, the race, the community; but this is acolossal and may turn out to be a fatal er-ror. A forced and imposed unanimity ofmind, life, action raised to their highest ten-sion under the drive of something which isthought to be greater, the collective soul,the collective life, is the formula found. Butthis obscure collective being is not thesoul or self of the community; it is a life-force that rises from the subconscient and,if denied the light of guidance by the rea-son, can be driven only by dark massiveforces which are powerful but dangerousfor the race because they are alien to theconscious evolution of which man is thetrustee and bearer. It is not in this directionthat evolutionary Nature has pointed man-kind; this is a reversion towards somethingthat she had left behind her.

Another solution that is attempted re-poses still on the materialistic reason and aunified organization of the economic life of

the race; but the method that is being em-ployed is the same, a forced impressionand imposed unanimity of mind and lifeand a mechanical organization of the com-munal existence. A unanimity of this kindcan only be maintained by a compressionof all freedom of thought and life, and thatmust bring about either the efficient stabil-ity of a termite civilization or a drying up ofthe springs of life and a swift or slow deca-dence. It is through the growth of con-sciousness that the collective soul and itslife can become aware of itself and devel-op; the free play of mind and life is essen-tial for the growth of consciousness; formind and life are the soul�s only instrumen-tation until a higher instrumentation devel-ops; they must not be inhibited in their ac-

tion or renderedrigid, unplasticand unprogres-sive. The difficul-ties or disordersengendered bythe growth of theindividual mindand life cannot behealthily re-moved by thesuppression of

the individual; the true cure can only beachieved by his progression to a greaterconsciousness in which he is fulfilled andperfected.

An alternative solution is the devel-opment of an enlightened reason and willof the normal man consenting to a newsocialized life in which he will subordinatehis ego for the sake of the right arrange-ment of the life of the community. If weinquire how this radical change is to bebrought about, two agencies seem to besuggested, the agency of a greater andbetter mental knowledge, right ideas, rightinformation, right training of the social andcivic individual and the agency of a newsocial machinery which will solve every-thing by the magic of the social machinecutting humanity into a better pattern. Butit has not been found in experience, what-ever might have once been hoped, that ed-ucation and intellectual training by itselfcan change man; it only provides the

It is only the full emergence of the soul, the full descent of thenative light and power of the Spirit and the consequentreplacement or transformation and uplifting of our insuffi-cient mental and vital nature by a spiritual and supramentalsupernature that can effect this evolutionary miracle.


human individual and collective ego withbetter information and a more efficient ma-chinery for its self-affirmation, but leaves itthe same unchanged human ego. Nor canhuman mind and life be cut into perfec-tion,�even into what is thought to be per-fection, a constructed substitute,�by anykind of social machinery; matter can be socut, thought can be so cut, but in our hu-man existence matter and thought are onlyinstruments for the soul and the life-force.Machinery cannot form the soul and life-force into standardized shapes; it can atbest coerce them, make soul and mind inertand stationary and regulate the life�s out-ward action; but if this is to be effectivelydone, coercion and compression of themind and life are indispensable and thatagain spells either unprogressive stabilityor decadence. The reasoning mind with itslogical practicality has no other way ofgetting the better of Nature�s ambiguousand complex movements than a regulationand mechanization of mind and life. If thatis done, the soul of humanity will eitherhave to recover its freedom and growth bya revolt and a destruction of the machineinto whose grip it has been cast or escapeby a withdrawal into itself and rejection oflife. Man�s true way out is to discover hissoul and its self-force and instrumentationand replace by it both the mechanization ofmind and the ignorance and disorder oflife-nature. But there would be little roomand freedom for such a movement of self-discovery and self-effectuation in a closelyregulated and mechanized social existence.

There is the possibility that in theswing back from a mechanistic idea of lifeand society the human mind may seek ref-uge in a return to the religious idea and asociety governed or sanctioned by reli-gion. But organized religion, though it canprovide a means of inner uplift for the indi-vidual and preserve in it or behind it a wayfor his opening to spiritual experience, hasnot changed human life and society; itcould not do so because, in governing so-ciety, it had to compromise with the lowerparts of life and could not insist on theinner change of the whole being; it couldinsist only on a credal adherence, a formalacceptance of its ethical standards and a

conformity to institution, ceremony andritual. Religion as conceived can give areligio-ethical colour or surface tinge,�sometimes, if it maintains a strong kernelof inner experience, it can generalize tosome extent an incomplete spiritual ten-dency, but it does not transform the race, itcannot create a new principle of the humanexistence. A total spiritual direction givento the whole life and the whole nature canalone lift humanity beyond itself. Anotherpossible conception akin to the religioussolution is the guidance of society by menof spiritual attainment, the brotherhood orunity of all in the faith or in the discipline,the spiritualization of life and society bythe taking up of the old machinery of lifeinto such a unification or inventing a newmachinery. This too has been attemptedbefore without success; it was the originalfounding idea of more than one religion:but the human ego and vital nature weretoo strong for a religious idea working onthe mind and by the mind to overcome itsresistance. It is only the full emergence ofthe soul, the full descent of the native lightand power of the Spirit and the conse-quent replacement or transformation anduplifting of our insufficient mental and vi-tal nature by a spiritual and supramentalsupernature that can effect this evolution-ary miracle.

At first sight this insistence on a rad-ical change of nature might seem to put offall the hope of humanity to a distant evolu-tionary future; for the transcendence ofour normal human nature, a transcendenceof our mental, vital and physical being, hasthe appearance of an endeavor too highand difficult and at present, for man as heis, impossible. Even if it were so, it wouldstill remain the sole possibility for thetransmutation of life; for to hope for a truechange of human life without a change ofhuman nature is an irrational and unspiri-tual proposition; it is to ask for somethingunnatural and unreal, an impossible mira-cle. But what is demanded by this changeis not something altogether distant, aliento our existence and radically impossible;for what has to be developed is there inour being and not something outside it:what evolutionary Nature presses for, is

an awakening to the knowledge of self, thediscovery of self, the manifestation of theself and spirit within us and the release ofits self-knowledge, its self-power, its na-tive, self-instrumentation. It is, besides, astep for which the whole of evolution hasbeen a preparation and which is broughtcloser at each crisis of human destinywhen the mental and vital evolution of thebeing touches a point where intellect andvital force reach some acme of tension andthere is a need either for them to collapse,to sink back into a torpor of defeat or a re-pose of unprogressive quiescence or torend their way through the veil againstwhich they are straining. What is neces-sary is that there should be a turn in hu-manity felt by some or many toward thevision of this change, a feeling of its imper-ative need, the sense of its possibility, thewill to make it possible in themselves andto find the way. That trend is not absentand it must increase with the tension of thecrisis in human world-destiny; the need ofan escape or a solution, the feeling thatthere is no other solution than the spiritualcannot but grow and become more impera-tive under the urgency of critical circum-stance. To that call in the being there mustalways be some answer in the Divine Real-ity and in Nature.

The conditions under which men liveupon earth are the result of their state ofconsciousness. To seek to change condi-tions without changing the conscious-ness is a vain chimera. All who have hadthe perception of what could be andshould be done to improve the situation, inthe different domains of human life, eco-nomical, political, social, financial, educa-tional or sanitary are precisely the individ-uals who have developed their conscious-ness more or less to an exceptional degreeand put themselves in contact with higherplanes of consciousness. But their ideasremained on the whole theoretical; or, if anattempt was ever made to realize thempractically, it always failed lamentably inthe long or short run: for no human organi-zation can change radically unless humanconsciousness itself changes. Prophets ofa new humanity have followed one anoth-er, religions, spiritual or social, have been


created, their beginnings were at times fullof promise: but, as humanity was nottransformed at heart, the old errors arisingfrom human nature itself have reappearedgradually and after a time it was found thatone was left almost at the same spot fromwhere one had started with so much hopeand enthusiasm. In this effort, however, toimprove human conditions there have al-ways been two tendencies, which al-though apparently contrary to each othershould rather be complementary and to-gether work out the progress. One seeks acollective reorganization, something thatwould lead towards an effective unity ofmankind: the other declares that allprogress is made first by the individualand insists that it is the individual whoshould be given conditions in which hecan progressfreely. Both areequally trueand necessary,and our effortshould be di-rected alongboth the lines.C o l l e c t i v eprogress andi n d i v i d u a lprogress arei n t e r d e p e n -dent. Before theindividual can take a leap forward, it is nec-essary that something of an antecedentprogress be achieved in the collective life.A way has therefore to be found wherebythe twofold progress can go on simulta-neously.

It is in answer to this pressing needthat the township of Auroville is proposedas a centre of universal education and cul-ture, so that the élite of humanity may beready who would be able to work for theprogressive unification of the race andwho at the same time would be prepared toembody the new force descending uponearth to transform it.

The unity of the human race can beachieved neither through uniformity northrough domination and subjection. Asynthetic organization of all nations, eachone occupying its own place in accor-

dance with its own genius and the role ithas to play in the whole, can alone effect acomprehensive and progressive unifica-tion which may have some chance ofenduring. And if the synthesis is to be aliving thing, the grouping should be donearound a central idea as high and wide aspossible, and in which all tendencies, eventhe most contradictory, would find theirrespective places. That idea is to give manthe conditions of life necessary for prepar-ing him to manifest the new force that willcreate the race of tomorrow.

All urge of rivalry, all struggle for pre-cedence and domination should disappeargiving place to a will for harmonious orga-nization, for clear-sighted and effectivecollaboration.

To make this possible, children from

their very early age must be accustomednot merely to the idea but to its practice.The cultures of the different regions of theearth will be represented here in such away as to be accessible to all, not merelyintellectually, in ideas, theories, principles,and languages, but also vitally in habitsand customs, in art under all forms�paint-ing, sculpture, music, architecture, decora-tion�and physically too through naturalscenery, dress, games, sports, industriesand food. A kind of world-exhibition has tobe organized in which all the countries willbe represented in a concrete and livingmanner; the ideal is that every nation witha very definite culture would have a pavil-ion representing that culture, built on amodel that most displays the habits of thecountry: it will exhibit the nation�s mostrepresentative products, natural as well as

manufactured, products also that best ex-press its intellectual and artistic geniusand its spiritual tendencies. Each nationwould thus find a practical and concreteinterest in cultural synthesis and collabo-rate in the work by taking over the chargeof the pavilion that represents it. A lodginghouse also could be attached, large orsmall according to need, where students ofthe same nationality would be accommo-dated; they will thus enjoy the very cultureof their own motherland, and at the sametime receive at the center the educationwhich will introduce them as well to othercultures existing upon earth. Thus the in-ternational education will not be simplytheoretical, on the school bench, but prac-tical in all details of existence.

A general idea of the organization isonly givenhere: the appli-cation indetails will begradually car-ried out as theTownship de-velops.

The firstaim then willbe to help indi-viduals tobecome con-scious of the

fundamental genius of the nations towhich they belong and at the same time toput them in contact with the modes of liv-ing of other nations so that they may knowand respect equally the true spirit of all thecountries upon earth. For all world organi-zation to be real and to be able to live, mustbe based upon mutual respect and under-standing between nation and nation aswell as between individual and individual.It is only in the collective order and organi-zation, in a collaboration based upon mu-tual goodwill that lies the possibility ofman being lifted out of the painful chaoswhere he is now. It is with this aim and inthis spirit that all human problems will bestudied in Auroville.

The unity of the human race can be achieved neither throughuniformity nor through domination and subjection. A syntheticorganization of all nations, each one occupying its own place inaccordance with its own genius and the role it has to play in thewhole, can alone effect a comprehensive and progressive unifi-cation which may have some chance of enduring.


II. Auroville InternationalUniversity

I become what I see in myself.All that thought suggests to me, I can do.All that thought reveals in me, I can become.

A university by its very origin andnature is a universal institution, its bound-aries conterminous with the boundaries ofthe universe.

But there are no boundaries to man�sinsatiable thirst for Knowledge, his inex-haustible and ceaseless search after theTruth, his deep seeking for Beauty andLove, his secret aspiration to expand andbecome one with the universe, to touch, tofeel, to experience and to enjoy the Infinite,to meet, to clasp and to possess the Eternal.

Progress

Towards the synthesis of scienceand spirituality

Progress is the very heart of the sig-nificance of human life, for it means ourevolution into a greater and richer being,and this our present age, by insisting on it,by forcing us to recognize it as our aim andour necessity, by making impossible here-after the attempt to subsist in the dullnessor gross beatitude of a stationary self-content, has done a precious service to theearth-life.

An unbiased view will regard this ageof civilization as an evolutionary stage, animperfect but important turn of the humanadvance, where great gains have beenmade which are of the utmost value to ulti-mate perfection, even if they have beenmade at a great price. There is not only agreater generalization of knowledge andthe more thorough use of the intellectualpower and activity in multiple fields; thereis not only the advance of science and itsapplication to the conquests of our envi-ronment, an immense apparatus of means,vast utilizations, endless minute conve-niences, an irresistible, machinery, a tire-less exploitation of forces; there is, too, acertain development of powerful, if not

high-pitched ideals and there is anattempt, however external and thereforeimperfect, to bring them to bear upon theworking of human society as a whole.Once restored to its true movement, theinner life of man will find that it has gainedin materials, in power of plasticity, in a newkind of depth and wideness, a salutaryhabit of many-sided thoroughness and asincere endeavor to shape the outer col-lective life into an adequate image of ourhighest ideals.

We, of the coming day, stand at thehead of a new age of development whichmust lead to a new and a large synthesis ofall truths everywhere. To entrench our-selves within the bounds of any one ideol-ogy or system of thought, to adhere to anyone theistic religion or social and politicalcreed would be to limit ourselves and toattempt to create our life out of the being,knowledge and nature of others, instead ofbuilding it out of our own being and poten-tialities. A mass of new material is flowingto us from all sides. The luminous secretsof the past, long lost to the consciousnessof mankind, too, are breaking out againfrom behind the veil. We have not only toassimilate the influences of the great theis-tic religions of the world and recover theirtrue meaning, their stuff of permanenttruth constantly reshaped and developedin the inner thought and spiritual experi-ence of developing humanity so that theymay be of a living importance to mankind,but also we must take full account of thepotent revelations of modern knowledgeand seeking and equip ourselves with theadvantages of science and technology.

Towards the synthesis of Past,Present and Future

The Past is our foundation, thePresent our material, and the Future oursummit. We should be the children of ourglorious Past, possessors of the Present,and creators of the Future. We do not be-long to the past dawns, but to the noons ofthe Future. In Auroville University, it willbe our attempt to evaluate the totality ofthe Past in relation to the potentialities ofthe Future. All this points to a new, very

rich and vast synthesis. A fresh and widelyembracing harmonization of our gains istherefore both an intellectual and a spiritu-al necessity of the Future. Taking advan-tages of all discoveries from within andwithout, Auroville aspires to boldly springtowards future realizations, thus building abridge between outer external realizationsand the highest inner aspirations.

Towards the synthesis ofall cultures

The aim of Auroville will be to pro-mote research in order to enrich all cul-tures, and raise the level of spiritual andmaterial life in all parts of the world andcreate a climate of understanding and ap-preciation of the values of all cultures andcivilizations. But Auroville anticipates anew creation with a new culture that will besynthetic and universal and will therefore,include in its study and research at its Uni-versity all the latest and future possibleachievements and experiments of Scienceand Technology with an equal importanceand emphasis on the revelations of spiritu-al research. And thus combining the two�Science and Spirituality�it will hew a newpath for the Future of Peace, Knowledge,Unity and Progress. East and West willmeet from two opposite sides and mergeinto each other and found in the life of aunified humanity a common world cultureand a common world order, obeying thelaw of the Truth.

Towards change andreconstruction

It is one of those vast critical momentsin the life of the race when all is pressingtowards change and reconstitution. Theideals of the Future, especially the idealsof freedom, equality, commonalty, unity,are demanding to be brought from theirlimited field in the spiritual life or the ideal-ism of the few and to be given some begin-ning of a true soul of action and bodilyshape in the life of the race. But bandedagainst any such fulfilment there are pow-erful obstacles, and the greatest of themcome not from outside but from within. For


they are the old continued impulsions andobstinate recalcitrance of mankind�s pastnature, the almost total subjection of hisnormal mind to egoistic, vital and materialinterests and ambitions which make not forunion but for strife and discord, the plausi-bilities of the practical reason which looksat the possibilities of the day and the mor-row and shuts its eyes to the consequenc-es of the day after, the habits of pretenseand fiction which impel men and nations topursue and forward their own interestsunder the camouflage of a specious ideal-ism, a habit made up only partly of the dip-lomatic hypocrisy of politicians, but muchmore of a general half-voluntary self-de-ception and finally, the inrush of blinderunsatisfied forces and crude imperfect ide-alisms to take advantage of the unrest anddissatisfaction prevalent in such times andlay hold for a while on the life of mankind.

Peace

War and violent revolution can beeliminated, if we will, though not withoutimmense difficulty, but on the conditionthat we get rid of the inner causes of warand injustice of which violent revolutionsare the natural reactions. The limitations ofarmies and armaments, is an illusory remedy.Even if there could be found an effectiveinternational means of control, it wouldcease to operate as soon as the clash ofwar actually came. The European conflicthas shown that in the course of war, acountry can be turned into a huge factoryof arms and a nation convert its wholepeaceful manhood into an army. The devel-opment of international law into an effec-tive force which will restrain the egoism ofindividuals is another solution which stillattracts and seems the most practicable tomost when they seek to deal with the diffi-culties of the future. But not even the con-struction of a stronger international lawwith a more effective sanction behind itwill be an indubitable or a perfect remedy.The real truth, the real cause of the failureis that internationalism is yet, except withsome exceptional men, merely an idea; it isnot yet a thing near to our vital feelings orotherwise a part of our psychology.

What the modern spirit has sought foris the economic social ultimate,�an idealmaterial organization of civilization andcomfort, the use of reason and science andeducation for the generalization of a utili-tarian rationality which will make the indi-vidual a perfected social being in a perfectedeconomic society . . . It is hoped that by aradical change brought about through theagency of a greater and better mentalknowledge, right ideas, right information,right training of the social and civic indi-vidual, he will subordinate his ego for thesake of the right arrangement of the life ofthe community. But it has not been foundin experience, whatever might have oncebeen hoped, that education and intellectu-al training by itself can change man; it onlyprovides that human individual and collec-tive ego with better information and a moreefficient machinery, but leaves it the sameunchanged human ego. For the way thathumanity deals with an ideal is to be satis-fied with it as an aspiration which is for themost part left only as an aspiration, accept-ed only as a partial influence. The ideal isnot allowed to mould the whole life, butonly more or less to color it . . .

The idealist, the thinker, the philoso-pher, the poet and artist, even the moralist,all those who live much in ideas, whenthey come to grapple at close quarters withpractical life seem to find themselvessomething at a loss and are constantly de-feated in their endeavor to govern life bytheir ideas. But even the man who is capa-ble of governing his life by ideas, whorecognizes, that is to say, that it ought toexpress clearly conceived truths and prin-ciples of his being or of all beings and triesto find out or to know from others whatthese are, is not often capable of, the high-est, the free and disinterested use of hisrational mind. As others are subjected tothe tyranny of their interests, prejudices,instincts or passions, so he is subjected tothe tyranny of ideas. Indeed, he turns hisideas into interests, obscures them withhis prejudices and passions, and is unableto think freely about them, unable to dis-tinguish their limits or the relation to themof other, different and opposite ideas andthe equal right of these also to existence.

Ideals and idealists are necessary; idealsare the savour and sap of life, idealists themost powerful diviners and assistants ofits purposes. But reduce your idea to asystem and it at once begins to fail . . . theideas themselves are partial and insuffi-cient; not only have they a very partial tri-umph, but if their success were complete, itwould still disappoint, because they arenot the whole truth of life and thereforecannot securely govern and perfect life.Life escapes from the formulas and systemswhich our reason labors to impose on it; itproclaims itself too complex, too full of infi-nite potentialities to be tyrannized over bythe arbitrary intellect of man.

So long as war does not become psy-chologically impossible, it will remain or, ifbanished for a while, return. War itself, it ishoped, will end war; the expense, the hor-ror, the butchery, the disturbance of tran-quil life, the whole confused sanguinarymadness of the thing has reached or willreach such colossal proportions that thehuman race will fling the monstrosity be-hind it in weariness and disgust. But weari-ness and disgust, horror and pity, even theopening of the eyes to reason by the prac-tical facts of the waste of human life andenergy and the harm and extravagance arenot permanent factors; they last only whilethe lesson is fresh. Afterwards, there is for-getfulness; human nature recuperates it-self and recovers the instincts that weretemporarily dominated. A long peace, evena certain organization of peace, may con-ceivably result, but so long as the heart ofman remains what it is, the peace will cometo an end; the organization will break downunder the stress of human passions.

We of today have not the excuse ofignorance since we have before us perfect-ly clear ideals and conditions. Freedomand unity, the self-determination of menand nations in the framework of a lifedrawn together by cooperation, comrade-ship, brotherhood if it may be, the accep-tance of a close interrelation of the com-mon aims and interests of the race, an in-creasing oneness of human life in whichwe cannot deny any longer to others whatwe claim for ourselves,�are things ofwhich we have formed a definite concep-


tion. The acknowledgement of them isthere in the human mind, but not as yet anysettled will to practice.

The question now put by evolvingNature to mankind is whether its existinginternational system, if system it can becalled, a sort of provisional order main-tained with constant evolutionary or revo-lutionary changes cannot be replaced by awilled and thought out fixed arrangement,a true system, eventually a real unity�serving all the common interests of theearth�s peoples.

The hopes, the ideals, the aspirationsthat are abroad in mankind are themselvesso many severe and pregnant questionsput to us, not merely to our intelligence butto the spirit of our being and action . . . andthe gain they will bring to humanity de-pends on the spirit which governs us dur-ing the time of their execution. For theseideals stand and they represent the greateraims of the spirit in men which through alldenials, obstacles and imperfections of hispresent incomplete nature knows alwaysthe perfection towards which it moves andthe greatness of which it is capable.Circumstances and force and external ne-cessity and past nature may still be toostrong for us, but if the light of the ideal iskept burning in its flame of knowledge andits flame of power, it will seize even onthese things and create out of their evil itsgreater inevitable good. At present it mayseem only an idea and a word unable tobecome a living reality, but it is the Ideaand the Word expressing what was con-cealed in the Spirit which preside over thecreation. The time will come when they willbe able to seize on the Force that worksand turn it into the instrument of a greaterand fairer creation. The nearness or thedistance of the time depends on the fideli-ty of the mind and will of man to the bestthat he sees and the insistence of his self-knowledge, unobsessed by subjection tothe circumstances he suffers and the ma-chinery he uses, to live out its truth withinhimself so that his environment may ac-cept it and his outward life be shaped in itsimage.

Unity

Internationalism

The idea of humanity as a single raceof beings with a common life and a com-mon general interest is among the mostcharacteristic and significant products ofmodern thought.

It is founded on a view of thingswhich looks at man in his manhood onlyand casts away all those physical and so-cial accidents of birth, rank, class, color,creed, nationality, which have been erect-ed into so many walls and screens behindwhich man has hidden himself from his fel-lowmen . . .

The height and nobility of the idea isnot to be questioned and certainly a man-kind which set its life upon this basiswould make a better, purer, more peacefuland enlightened race than anything wecan hope to have at present. But as thehuman being is now made, the pure idea,though always a great power, is also af-flicted by a general weakness. For man atpresent lives more in the outward than in theinward, is governed principally by his vitalexistence, sensations, feelings and cus-tomary mentality rather than by his higherthought-mind, and feels himself in this to bereally alive, really to exist and be, while theworld of ideas is to him something remoteand abstract and, however powerful andinteresting in its way, not a living thing;the pure idea seems, until it is embodied inlife, something not quite real; in that ab-stractness and remoteness lies its weak-ness . . . Life accepts it as a partial habit,but not completely, not quite sincerely.

In the crises of life it is the primaryvital necessity which tells, while the otherand remoter element betrays itself to be amere idea not yet ready for accomplish-ment; it can only become powerful when italso becomes either a vital or a psycholog-ical necessity . . . A living sense of humanoneness in thought, feeling and life mustalways remain the injunction of the Spiritwithin us to human life upon earth. Thesaving power needed is a new psycholog-ical factor which will at once make a unitedlife necessary to humanity and force it to

respect the principle of freedom.

Possibilities of unificationand their shortcomings:Ego�the chief obstacle

If we consider the possibilities of aunification of the human race on political,administrative and economic lines, we seethat a certain sort of unity or first step to-wards it appears not only to be possiblebut to be more or less urgently demandedby an underlying spirit and sense of needin the race. This spirit has been createdlargely by increased mutual knowledgeand close communication, partly by thedevelopment of wider and freer intellectualideals and emotional sympathies in theprogressive mind of the race . . . The realstrength of this new tendency is in its in-tellectual, idealistic and emotional parts.Its economic causes are partly permanentand therefore elements of strength and se-cure fulfilment, partly artificial and tempo-rary and therefore elements of insecurityand weakness. The political incentives arethe baser part in the amalgam; their pres-ence may even vitiate the whole result andlead in the end to a necessary dissolutionand reversal of whatever unity may be ini-tially accomplished. A common, intellectu-al, and cultural activity and progress maydo much, but need not by themselves besufficient to bring into being the fully pow-erful psychological factor that would berequired.

Individual and group harmonies of acomparative and qualified completenessare created, a social cohesion is accom-plished; but in the mass the relationsformed are constantly marred by imperfectsympathy, imperfect understanding, grossmisunderstandings, strife, discord, unhap-piness. It cannot be otherwise so long asthere is no true union of consciousnessfounded upon a nature of self-knowledge,inner mutual knowledge, inner realizationof unity, concord of our inner forces ofbeing and inner forces of life. In our socialbuilding we labour to establish someapproach to unity, mutuality, harmony,because without these things there can beno perfect social living, but what we build


is a constructed unity, an asso-ciation of interests and egosenforced by law and customand imposing an artificial, con-structed order in which the in-terests of some prevail over theinterests of others and only ahalf-accepted, half-enforced,half-natural, half-artificial ac-commodation keeps the socialwhole in being. Between com-munity and community there isstill worse accommodation witha constant recurrence of thestrife of collective ego with col-lective ego. This is the best thatwe can do and all our persistent readjust-ments of the social order can bring usnothing better than an imperfect structureof life.

Brotherhood

Brotherhood is the real key to thetriple gospel of the ideal of humanity�liberty, equality, fraternity. The union ofliberty and equality can only be achievedby the power of human brotherhood and itcannot be founded on anything else. Butbrotherhood exists only in the soul and bythe soul; it can exist by nothing else. Forthis brotherhood is not a matter either ofphysical kinship or of vital association orof intellectual agreement. Only when manhas developed not merely a fellow-feelingwith all men, but a dominant sense of unityand commonality, only when he is aware ofthem not merely as brothers�that is afragile bond�but as parts of himself, onlywhen he has learned to live, not in his sep-arate personal and communal ego-sensebut in a large universal consciousness,can the phenomenon of war, with whateverweapons, pass out of his life without thepossibility of return. Meanwhile that heshould struggle even by illusions towardsthat end is an excellent sign; for it showsthat the truth behind the illusion is press-ing towards the hour when it may becomemanifest as reality.

Everything depends, first, upon thetruth of our vision, secondly, upon thesincerity with which we apply it, last and

especially, on the inwardness of our real-ization. Vain will be the mechanical con-struction of unity, if unity is not in theheart of the race and if it be made only ameans for safeguarding and organizingour interests.

Change of consciousness�thesolution

No change of ideas or of the intellec-tual outlook upon life, no belief in God orAvatar or Prophet, no victorious scienceor liberating philosophy, no social schemeor system, no sort of machinery internal orexternal, can really bring about the greatdesire implanted in the race, true thoughthat desire is in itself and the index of thegoal to which we are being led. Becauseman is himself not a machine nor a device,but a being and a most complex one at that,therefore he cannot be saved by machin-ery; only by an entire change which shallaffect all the members of his being, can hebe liberated from his discords and imper-fections. Until man in his heart is ready, aprofound change of the world conditionscannot come; or it can only be broughtabout by force, physical force or else forceof circumstances and that leaves all thereal work to be done. A frame may havethen been made, but the soul will have stillto grow into that mechanical body.

Inner perfection

The one safety for man lies in learning

to live from within outward,not depending on institutionsand machinery to perfect him,but out of his growing innerperfection availing to shape amore perfect form and frame oflife; for by this inwardness weshall best be able both to seethe truth of the high thingswhich we now only speak withour lips and form into outwardintellectual constructions, andto apply their truth sincerely toall our outward living. It isthrough the growth of con-sciousness that the collective

soul and its life can become aware of itselfand develop; the free play of mind and lifeis essential for the growth of conscious-ness; for mind and life are the soul�s onlyinstrumentation until a higher instrumen-tation develops; they must not be inhibit-ed in their action or rendered rigid, unplas-tic and unprogressive. The difficulties ordisorders engendered by the growth of theindividual mind and life cannot be healthi-ly removed by the suppression of the indi-vidual; the true cure can only be achievedby his progression to a greater conscious-ness in which he is fulfilled and perfected.

Man�s true freedom and perfectionwill come when the Spirit within burststhrough the forms of mind and life andwinging above to its own gnostic fieryheights of ether turns upon them from thatlight and flame to seize them and transforminto its own image.

Difference between the methods ofreligion and spirituality

Human society itself never seized onthe discovery of the soul as a means forthe discovery of the law of its own being oron a knowledge of the soul�s true natureand need and its fulfilment as the right wayof terrestrial perfection. So far as it saw inreligion a means of human salvation andperfection, it laid hands upon it at once tomechanize it, to catch the human soul andbind it on the wheels of socio-religiousmachinery, to impose on it in the place ofspiritual freedom an imperious yoke and an

Rod Hemsell leading a discussion on developments at the Universityof Human Unity (Photo courtesy University of Human Unity Team)


iron prison. It saddled upon the religiouslife of man a Church, a priesthood and amass of ceremonies and set over it a pack ofwatchdogs under the name of creeds anddogmas. The supreme truths are neitherthe rigid conclusions of logical reasoningnor the affirmations of credal statements,but fruits of the soul�s inner experience.

So far as we really succeed in livingfor others, it is done by an inner spiritualforce of love and sympathy; but the powerand field of effectuality of this force in usare small, the psychic movement thatprompts it is incomplete, its action oftenignorant because there is contact of mindand heart but our being does not embracethe being of others as ourselves. An ex-ternal unity with others must always be anoutward joining and association of ex-ternal lives with a minor inner result; themind and the heart attach their movementsto this common life and the beings whomwe meet there but the common external liferemains the foundation,� the inward con-structed unity, or so much of it as can per-sist in spite of mutual ignorance and dis-cordant egoism, conflict of mind, conflictof heart, conflict of vital temperaments,conflict of interests, is a partial and inse-cure superstructure.

The spiritual consciousness, the spir-itual life reverses this principle of building;it bases its action in the collective life uponan inner experience and inclusion of othersin our own being, an inner sense and reali-ty of oneness. Spirituality respects thefreedom of the human soul, because it isitself fulfilled by freedom; and the deepestmeaning of freedom is the power to expandand grow towards perfection by the law ofone�s nature.

Freedom and mutuality

Man does not actually live an isolatedbeing, nor can he glow by an isolated free-dom. He grows by his relations with othersand his freedom must exercise itself in aprogressive self-harmonizing with thefreedom of his fellow beings. The law ofour self-determination has to wed itself tothe self-determination of others and to findthe way to enact a real union through this

mutuality. But its basis can only be foundwithin and not through any mechanicaladjustment. It lies in the discovery withinby the being in the course of his self-ex-pansion and self-fulfilment that thesethings at every turn depend on the self-ex-pansion and self-fulfilment of thosearound us, because we are secretly onebeing with them and one life. Each beinghas his own truth of independent self-real-ization and his truth of self-realization inthe life of others and should feel, desire,help, participate more and more, as hegrows in largeness and power, in the har-monious and natural growth of all the indi-vidual selves and all the collective selvesof the one universal being.

That which we are has expressed itselfthrough the individual, but also throughthe universality, and though each has tofulfill itself in its own way, neither can suc-ceed independently of the other. The soci-ety has no right to crush or efface the indi-vidual for its own better development orself-satisfaction; the individual, so long atleast as he chooses to live in the world, hasno right to disregard for the sake of hisown solitary satisfaction and developmenthis fellow beings and to live at war withthem or seek a selfishly isolated good . . .

For the only things that we can reallycall our rights are those conditions whichare necessary to our free and sound devel-opment, and that again is our right be-cause it is necessary to the developmentof the world and the fulfilment of the desti-ny of mankind.

The law for the individual is to perfecthis individuality by free development fromwithin, but to respect and to aid and be aid-ed by the same free development in others.His law is to harmonize his life with the lifeof the social aggregate and to pour himselfout as a force for growth and perfection onhumanity. The law for humanity is to pur-sue its upward evolution towards the find-ing and expression of its highest aspira-tions and perfection taking full advantageof the free development and the gains of allindividuals and nations and groupings ofmen, to work towards the day when man-kind may be really and not only ideally onefamily.

The social evolution of the humanrace is necessarily a development of therelations between three constant factors:individuals, communities of various sortsand mankind. Each seeks its own fulfilmentand satisfaction but each is compelled todevelop them not independently but in re-lation to the others. The perfect societywill be that which most entirely favors theperfection of the individual; the perfectionof the individual will be incomplete if itdoes not help towards the perfect state ofthe social aggregate to which he belongsand eventually to that of the largest possi-ble human aggregate, the whole of a unitedhumanity.

The object of all society should be,therefore, and must become, as man growsconscious of his real being, nature anddestiny and not as now only of a part of it,first to provide the conditions of life andgrowth by which individual Man,�notisolated men or a class or a privileged race,but all individual men according to theircapacity,�and the race through thegrowth of its individuals may travel to-wards this perfection. For civilization cannever be perfect or safe so long as, confin-ing the cultured mentality to a small minor-ity, it nourishes in its bosom a tremendousmass of ignorance, a multitude, a proletariat.

Towards world union

Humanity is one, but different peo-ples are variant soul-forms of the commonhumanity. When we find the oneness, theprinciple of variation is not destroyed butfinds rather its justification; it is not byabolishing ourselves, our own special tem-perament and power, that we can get at theliving oneness, but by following it out andraising it to its highest possibilities of free-dom and action. The nations should there-fore become conscious not only of theirown but of each other�s genius and soul,and learn to respect, to help and to profit,not only economically and intellectuallybut subjectively and spiritually by eachother. For the final end is a common world-culture in which each national cultureshould be, not merged into or fused withsome other culture differing from it in prin-


ciple or temperament, but evolved to itsfull power and could then profit to that endby all the others as well as give its gainsand influences to them, all serving by theirseparateness and their interaction thecommon aim and idea of human perfection.

The peoples of humanity must be al-lowed to group themselves according totheir free-will and their natural affinities;no constraint or force could be allowed tocompel an unwilling nation or distinctgrouping of peoples to enter into anothersystem or join itself or remain joined to itfor the convenience, aggrandizement orpolitical necessity of another people oreven for the general convenience in disre-gard of its own wishes. Unity would be thelargest principle of life, but freedom wouldbe its foundation-stone.

Man�s communities are formed not somuch by the instinctive herding togetherof a number of individuals of the same ge-nus or species as by local association,community of interests, and community ofideas; and these limits tend always to beovercome in the widening of humanthoughts and sympathies brought aboutby the closer intermingling of the races,nations, interests, ideas, cultures. Still, ifovercome in their separatism, they are notabolished in their fact, because they re-pose on an essential principle of Nature,�diversity in unity. And so, a free worldunion must in its very nature be a complexunity based on diversity and diversitymust be based on self-determination.

A spiritual oneness which would cre-ate a psychological oneness not depen-dent upon any intellectual or outward uni-formity and compel a oneness of life notbound up with its mechanical means ofunification, but ready always to enrich itssecure unity by a free inner variation and afreely varied outer self-expression, thiswould be the basis for a higher type of hu-man existence.

Could such a realization develop rap-idly in mankind, we might then solve theproblem of unification in a deeper and truerway from the inner truth to the outer forms.Until then, the attempt to bring it about bymechanical means must proceed. But thehigher hope of humanity lies in the grow-

ing number of men who will realize thistruth and seek to develop it in themselves,so that when the mind of man is ready to es-cape from its mechanical bent,�perhapswhen it finds that its mechanical solutionsare all temporary and disappointing,�thetruth of the Spirit may step in and lead hu-manity to the path of its highest possiblehappiness and perfection.

The indwelling deity who presidesover the destiny of the race has raised inmen�s mind and heart the idea, the hope ofa new order which will replace the old un-satisfactory order, and substitute for itconditions of the world�s life which will inthe end have a reasonable chance of es-tablishing permanent peace and well-be-ing. This would for the first time turn intoan assured fact the ideal of human unitywhich, cherished by a few, seemed for solong a noble chimera; then might be creat-ed a firm ground of peace and harmonyand even a free room for the realization ofthe highest human dreams, for the perfect-ibility of the race, a perfect society, a high-er upward evolution of the human soul andhuman nature. It is for the men of our dayand, at the most, of tomorrow to give theanswer.

The central aim: New creation

A race of gnostic beings�a race ofgods

A perfected human world cannot becreated by men or composed of men whoare themselves imperfect. Even if all ouractions are scrupulously regulated by ed-ucation or law or social or political machin-ery, what will be achieved is a regulatedpattern of minds, a fabricated pattern oflives, a cultivated pattern of conduct; but aconformity of this kind cannot change,cannot re-create the man within, it cannotcarve or cut out a perfect soul or a perfectthinking man or a perfect or growing livingbeing. For soul and mind and life are pow-ers of being and can grow but cannot becut out or made; an outer process or forma-tion can assist or can express soul andmind and life but cannot create or developit. One can indeed help the being to grow,

not by an attempt at manufacture, but bythrowing on it stimulating influences or bylending to it one�s forces of soul or mind orlife; but even so the growth must still comefrom within it, determining from there whatshall be made of these influences and forc-es, and not from outside. This is the firsttruth that our creative zeal and aspirationhave to learn, otherwise all our human en-deavor is foredoomed to turn in a futile cir-cle and can end only in a success that is aspecious failure.

Self-transcendence andself-fulfilment

To be or become something, to bringsomething into being is the whole labourof the force of Nature; to know, feel, do aresubordinate energies that have a valuebecause they help the being in its partialself-realization to express what it is andhelp it too in its urge to express the stillmore not yet realized that it has to be. Butknowledge, thought, action,�whether re-ligious, ethical, political, social, economic,utilitarian or hedonistic, whether a mental,vital or physical form or construction of ex-istence,� cannot be the essence or objectof life; they are only activities of the pow-ers of being or the powers of its becoming,dynamic symbols of itself, creations of theembodied spirit, its means of discoveringor formulating what it seeks to be. The ten-dency of man�s physical mind is to see oth-erwise and to turn the true method ofthings upside down, because it takes asessential or fundamental the surface forc-es or appearances of Nature; it accepts hercreation by a visible or exterior process asthe essence of her action and does not seethat it is only a secondary appearance andcovers a greater secret process.

To become ourselves is the one thingto be done; but the true ourselves is thatwhich is within us, and to exceed our outerself of body, life and mind is the conditionfor this highest being, which is our trueand divine being, to become self-revealedand active.

To be and to be fully is Nature�s aim inus; but to be fully is to be wholly con-scious of one�s being: unconsciousness,


half consciousness or deficient con-sciousness is a state of being not in pos-session of itself; it is existence, but notfullness of being. To be aware wholly andintegrally of oneself and of all the truth ofone�s being is the necessary condition oftrue possession of existence. This self-awareness is what is meant by spiritualknowledge: the essence of spiritual knowl-edge is an intrinsic self-existent con-sciousness; all its action of knowledge, in-deed all its action of any kind, must be thatconsciousness formulating itself. All otherknowledge is consciousness oblivious ofitself and striving to returnto its own awareness of it-self and its contents; it isself-ignorance laboring totransform itself back intoself-knowledge.

But also, since con-sciousness carries in itselfthe force of existence, to befully is to have the intrinsicand integral force of one�sbeing; it is to come intopossession of all one�sforce of self and of all itsuse. To be merely, withoutpossessing the force ofone�s being or with a half-force or deficient force of it, is a mutilatedor diminished existence; it is to exist, but itis not fullness of being . . . Power of self isthe sign of the divinity of self.

Lastly, to be fully is to have the fulldelight of being. Being without delight ofbeing, without an entire delight of itselfand all things is something neutral ordiminished; it is existence, but it is not full-ness of being. This delight too must be in-trinsic, self-existent, automatic; it cannotbe dependent on things outside itself:whatever it delights in, it makes part ofitself, has the joy of it as part of its univer-sality. All undelight, all pain and sufferingare a sign of imperfection, of incomplete-ness; they arise from a division of being,an incompleteness of consciousness ofbeing, an incompleteness of the force ofbeing. To become complete in being, inconsciousness of being, in force of being,in delight of being and to live in this inte-

grated completeness is the divine living.But again, to be fully is to be univer-

sally. To be in the limitations of a small re-stricted ego is to exist, but it is an imperfectexistence: in its very nature it is to live in anincomplete consciousness, an incompleteforce and delight of existence. It is to beless than oneself and it brings an inevita-ble subjection to ignorance, weakness andsuffering: or even if by some divine com-position of the nature it could excludethese things, it would be to live in a limitedscope of existence, a limited conscious-ness and power and joy of existence. All

being is one and to be fully is to be all thatis. To be in the being of all and to includeall in one�s being, to be conscious of theconsciousness of all, to be integrated inforce with the universal force, to carry allaction and experience in oneself and feel itas one�s own action and experience, to feelall selves as one�s own self, to feel alldelight of being as one�s own delight ofbeing is a necessary condition of the inte-gral divine living.

But thus to be universally in the full-ness and freedom of one�s universality,one must be also transcendentally. Thespiritual fullness of the being is eternity; ifone has not the consciousness of timelesseternal being, if one is dependent on bodyor embodied mind or embodied life, or de-pendent on this world or that world or onthis condition of being or that condition ofbeing, that is not the reality of self, not thefullness of our spiritual existence . . . But

one must transcend not only the individu-al formula but the formula of the universe,for only so can either the individual or theuniversal existence find its own true beingand a perfect harmonization . . . Otherwisethe individual may remain subject to thecosmic movement and its reactions andlimitations and miss his entire spiritualfreedom. He must enter into the supremedivine Reality, feel his oneness with it, livein it, be its self-creation: all his mind, life,physicality must be converted into termsof its Supernature; all his thought, feel-ings, actions must be determined by it and

be it, its self-formation. Allthis can become completein him only when he hasevolved out of the Igno-rance into the Knowledgeand through the Knowl-edge into the supreme de-light of existence; butsome essentiality of thesethings and their sufficientinstrumentation can comewith the first spiritualchange and culminate inthe life of the gnostic su-pernature.

Adventure ofconsciousness and living

Education in Auroville will not be amere acquisition of knowledge, of inertideas and information, nor only the knowl-edge of the why and wherefore of the factssurrounding and pertinent to life, but anart of utilization of knowledge, a living ex-perience and an art of becoming. And so,at Auroville University, life will be studied,experienced and experimented upon too, inits multifarious activities and its possibili-ties of infinite relationships. Auroville willbe the place of an unending education, ofconstant progress and a youth that neverages.

To know, possess and be the divinebeing in an animal and egoistic conscious-ness, to convert our twilight or obscurephysical mentality into the plenary supra-mental illumination, to build peace and aself-existent bliss where there is only a

An interactive workshop at the University of Human Unity in the Unity Pavilion(Photo courtesy of University of Human Unity Team)


stress of transitory satisfactions besiegedby physical pain and emotional suffering,to establish an infinite freedom in a worldwhich presents itself as a group ofmechanical necessities, to discover andrealize the immortal life in a body subjectedto death and constant mutation,�this isoffered to us as the manifestation of God inMatter and the goal of Nature in her terres-trial evolution. To the ordinary material in-tellect which takes its present organizationof consciousness for the limit of its possi-bilities, the direct contradiction of the un-realized ideals with the realized fact is afinal argument against their validity. But ifwe take a more deliberate view of theworld�s workings, that direct oppositionappears rather as part of Nature�s pro-foundest method and the seal of her com-pletest sanction.

For all problems of existence are es-sentially problems of harmony. They arisefrom the perception of an unsolved dis-cord and the instinct of an undiscoveredagreement or unity. To rest content with anunsolved discord is possible for the practi-cal and more animal part of man, but impos-sible for his fully awakened mind, and usu-ally, even his practical parts only escapefrom the general necessity either by shut-ting out the problem or by accepting arough, utilitarian and unillumined compro-mise. For essentially, all Nature seeks aharmony, life and matter in their ownsphere as much as mind in the arrangementof its perceptions. The greater the appar-ent disorder of the materials offered or theapparent disparateness, even to irreconcil-able opposition of the elements that haveto be utilized, the stronger is the spur, andit drives towards a more subtle and puis-sant order than can normally be the resultof a less difficult endeavor.

Science itself begins to dream of thephysical conquest of death, expresses aninsatiable thirst for knowledge, and isworking out something like a terrestrialomnipotence for humanity. Space andTime are contracting to the vanishing-point in its works, and it strives in a hun-dred ways to make man the master of cir-cumstance and so lighten the fetters ofcausality. The idea of limit, of the impossi-

ble begins to grow a little shadowy and itappears instead that whatever man con-stantly wills, he must in the end be able todo; for the consciousness in the raceeventually finds the means.

Education is life in pursuit of the Truthin all its manifold aspects and a constantresearch for the harmonization of theseaspects, however disparate, opposite,contradictory or contrary. And life is anendless adventure of consciousness untothe Unknown, probing into its mysteries toconstantly renew and enrich itself.

The Unknown is not the Unknowable;it need not remain the unknown for us, un-less we choose ignorance or persist in ourfirst limitations. For to all things that arenot unknowable, all things in the universe,there correspond in that universe facultieswhich can take cognizance of them, and inman, the microcosm, these faculties are al-ways existent and at a certain stage capa-ble of development. We may choose not todevelop them; where they are partially de-veloped, we may discourage and imposeon them a kind of atrophy. But, fundamen-tally, all possible knowledge is knowledgewithin the power of humanity.

Evolution: Supramentalconsciousness and new faculties

There is an ascending evolution inNature which goes from the stone to theplant, from the plant to the animal, from theanimal to man. Evolution continues andMan will be surpassed. For man is a transi-tional being living in a mental conscious-ness, but having the possibility of acquir-ing a new consciousness, the Truth-con-sciousness, and capable of living a life per-fectly harmonious, good and beautiful,happy and fully conscious.

One of the most important researchesin Auroville will be regarding the principleand the process of evolution, which will bescientifically studied and will be used toexpedite the next step of the evolution ofthe human race, to bring forth the latentfaculties of Man and a change of con-sciousness. For the future of humanity de-pends upon this change of conscious-ness. In this connection, the psychologi-

cal discipline of the Yoga as developedand perfected by Sri Aurobindo will bestudied as one of the primary and essentialmethods for a conscious evolution and achange of human consciousness, tran-scending the present limited and divisive,egocentric mental consciousness of man.The new consciousness, which Sri Auro-bindo terms the supramental conscious-ness or the Truth-consciousness, is con-sciousness creatrix of the world, a state ofKnowledge and Will at once, with a clearvision of the totality and Power to effectu-ate its vision. It is the unifying conscious-ness because it views all things in a multi-ple unity.

To see things steadily and see them asa whole is not possible to the mind, but it isthe very nature of the transcendent super-mind. The mind sees only a given time andspace and views many possibilities pell-mell as all more or less realizable in thattime and space; the supermind sees thewhole extension of Time and Space andcan embrace all the mind�s possibilitiesand very many more not visible to themind, but without any error, groping orconfusion; for it perceives each potentiali-ty in its proper force, essential necessity,right relation to the others and the time,place and circumstance, both of its gradualand its ultimate realization. There is aspontaneous harmony and unity of allknowledge and truths in this conscious-ness, because it is the Truth-conscious-ness with an inherent and self-existentKnowledge and Power to realize its vision.

Since the primary aim of Auroville is toestablish the supreme harmony every-where,�within the individual, in his rela-tion with his fellow-beings, and hissurroundings, the community, the nationand the world, between all aspects of theTruth, between Man, Nature and God, be-tween the two poles of existence, Spiritand Matter, �and to bring about a newcreation and a new world order with a newculture, changing the whole life of theearth-consciousness, this study and thepossibility of the conscious advent of thenew consciousness its application to allproblems of life, and its manifestation in allthe activities and the manifold relation-


ships of life, will be the most crucial re-search and the salient contribution of Au-roville University.

III. Education and research inAuroville

The education of a child in Aurovillewill begin with the education of his mother.For the nature of the child depends verymuch upon the mother, her aspiration andwill and upon the material surroundings inwhich she lives. In order to be able to edu-cate the child, the first thing to do is to ed-ucate oneself, to be master of oneself, andto be oneself what one wants the child tobe. One must always be very patient, andnever be arbitrary, despotic or ill-tempered.The part of education that the mother hasto go through is to see that her thoughtsare always beautiful and pure, her feelingsalways noble and fine, her material sur-roundings as harmonious as possible.

In his formative years, the child inAuroville will grow through all sorts ofwork in play and play in work in an envi-ronment of love, understanding, freedomand flexibility, and through all that may in-terest him he will be guided i) to observe,to concentrate, to question and to experi-ence; ii) to master a few languages whichhe can speak, read and understand withease, including classical and internationallanguages; iii) to develop the capacity tolearn and to use the documentation. Whatis most important at this stage is for thechild to develop the power of concentra-tion and identification, self-confidenceand readiness to learn more and more, thequalities of endurance, self-poise and per-sistence against difficulties and obstacles,truthfulness and courage, goodwill, gener-osity and nobility, sensitivity, right atti-tude and response to the light of the Truth.

He will not be stuffed therefore withacademic courses and factual knowledgewhich he can always acquire later accord-ing to his aspiration and needs. As hegrows, he will find for himself�or with theassistance of an adult who will be more of afriend than a teacher�what are his naturalaptitudes and interests and what are thepossibilities of widening the vistas of his

knowledge and consciousness. He will de-velop the ability to reflect, to seek and dis-cover for himself the truths by which hewill live, and he will be helped to grow inhim a tireless capacity for experimentationand innovation. He will also be aided byspiritually awakened persons who may,more by their example and living than byinstructions, awaken him to the existenceof the Divine Reality within him, his soul,to whom he can refer for true guidance indealing with the problems of life. For ulti-mately, it is the soul which is the trueteacher and Guide.

All efforts will therefore be directed tohelp the individual to become consciousof this true Guide within so that he maylearn to follow as he grows an inner disci-pline proper to the aspirations of his soul,and not the discipline of others imposedon him by the conventions of the ordinaryinstitutes and the society. The only indis-pensable quality required of a student aswell as of a teacher�and of all Aurovil-lians�is the constant aspiration and thewill to learn and to progress endlesslywithout fatigue towards a greater andgreater perfection with a spontaneous joyin the effort for progress, not for obtaininga result, but for the love of the effort. Thisjoy is realized and the energy for such anendless effort is obtained only when thesoul is made the leader of the march. Forthe soul is ever in contact with the inex-haustible energy and the splendors of theSuperconscient from which it derives itsorigin. All that one needs to do is to sin-cerely aspire and to open oneself to its in-fluence in faith and with sincerity and con-fidence.

The center of all education, of allteaching and training, of all learning, isMan, Man in all his glory, in his divinity. Itmust be the aim of education to make himthe master of his destiny and the lord of hisuniverse. All that is vital to the gloriousFuture of Man, he will learn in Auroville sothat he may become Man the god, fromMan the animal and Man the thinker.

Each human being has in him some-thing divine, something his own andunique, a chance of perfection andstrength in however small a sphere. But it

is only when man rises at the summit of hisascent into a spiritual being that he can re-alize his divine manhood and manifest theDivine in all its glory of Love, Knowledge,Power and Perfection�the highest that hecan dream of�whatever be his field of ac-tion. So, the fundamental aim of educationin Auroville will be to put the individual incontact with his soul and then help him tofind, in the light of his soul, his own indis-pensable place in the orchestra of thewhole. Auroville hopes to provide theright conditions and environment as wellas the full facilities to help the individual tobring out all that is best in him and to makeit perfect for a noble use so that he mayfulfill his unique role and his mission onearth.

The primary discipline necessary forthis is for the individual to observe andbecome conscious of himself, consciousof all the instruments of his being�physi-cal, vital, mental, psychic and spiritual�and their workings, to develop, transformand organize them around the divine cen-ter of his being. It is through the psychicpresence that the individual comes intocontact with the truth of his being. In mostcases, this presence acts, so to say, frombehind the veil, unrecognized and un-known. However, it is only when it comesforward and takes the lead that the individ-ual goes through life with an assuranceand a certitude all his own and becomesthe master of his destiny. This is the psy-chological discipline of the integral Yoga,which is absolutely indispensable if onewants to know and express the highesttruth of one�s being, and if one aspires thatall one�s actions, thoughts and feelings,even the very sensations and impulsionsmay manifest the supreme beauty andsplendors which one so often receives inone�s awakened thoughts and visionswhen one opens oneself to the light of theSuperconscient.

The education in Auroville will betherefore integral, aiming at the develop-ment, transformation and perfection of allthe parts of one�s being so as to build anall-round personality which is beautiful,harmonious, sensitive, supple, luminousand powerful in all its movements of mind,


life and body, and selfless,heroic and noble in its ac-tions. For this an individu-al may be required to gothrough the study of allarts, aesthetics, humani-ties and sciences whicheach can choose accord-ing to his capacities andneeds of self-perfection,self-expression and self-fulfilment.

It is evident that therewill be no fixed courses orcurricula, nor tests, de-grees and diplomas whichhave value only if onewants to earn money or agood name and position according to thestandards and values set by the conven-tions of the ordinary world. In Aurovillewhich aspires to build a new world of theFuture, individual value and sincerity ofthe person would have a greater impor-tance than the worldly cleverness or mate-rial wealth and social position. Since Au-roville aspires to be the place of eternalyouth, of an endless education and a con-stant progress, degrees and diplomas, giv-ing a false sense of satisfaction of havingcompleted one�s education will have novalue and will be naturally out of place.Education in Auroville will be for the joy ofknowledge and for the joy of becoming, forthe joy of self-perfection and self-tran-scendence, for the joy of self-fulfilmentand world-fulfilment.

The chief aim of education in Au-roville will be to help each man to seek forand to manifest the Divine in every way ofhis being, and to so find it and live in it thathowever�even in all kinds of ways�helives and acts, he shall live and act in theDivine, in the Spirit, in the eternal Realityof his being, manifesting its truth and itslaw; and to discover the truth behind theveil of forces in the universe, to disengagethe divine Reality behind everything andto work for its full manifestation.

Some of the programs and projects ofresearch and education in Auroville willbe: to know the secrets of Nature and oflife; to know oneself and to be the master

of oneself, of life, of Nature; to seek afterthe Truth and perfection; to surmountwithin oneself all weaknesses, in capaci-ties and the falsehoods of Ignorance; toconquer the causes of sufferings, illness-es, war and miseries; to vindicate therights and the dignity of Man by helpinghim to transcend his half-lit humanity andfumbling mental-ethical consciousnessand its conflicting laws; to eradicate Igno-rance and the divisions of the egocentricconsciousness by a change of Conscious-ness which is the inevitable further step inhuman evolution; to enrich the existingfaculties and bring forth new ones; to tri-umph over one�s limitations, narrowness,rigidity of views and prejudices by con-stantly widening one�s horizon of compre-hension in the light of the Truth-Con-sciousness; to harmonize all the parts ofone�s being, integrate the personality andto be the whole Man of the Future, embod-ying the new consciousness, which tran-scends the limited and divisive conscious-ness of the present Man; to perfect andtransform all the instruments of one�s be-ing into powers of the spirit so as to mani-fest the divine Reality within; to perfectand synthesize knowledge in each fieldand to integrate all fields of knowledge; toperfect each culture and to unify all cul-tures; to discover the particular geniusand the role of each nation in the comity ofall nations and to integrate the humanrace; to develop and use the resources, ex-

periments and benefits ofscience and technologyfor the amelioration ofmankind; to march untothe Unknown by constant-ly searching and makingnew discoveries on thespiritual and materialplanes so as to find newways of enriching life; andthus to progress alwaystowards ever more perfec-tion and a more noble andtruer life, the higher andvaster life of the Future,the life of Truth, Knowl-edge and Power, of Love,Unity and Bliss, making

the whole life of the earth beautiful, divine.All of Auroville in its entirety and in

its details of all activities and organizationwill engage itself in this educational pro-cess and will be a laboratory for this exper-iment, where no problem of life and itsmanifold relationships on all levels of ac-tion will escape the scrutiny and the studyof its citizens. Auroville, being dedicatedto the whole of humanity, will naturallyseek all ways and means for the fulfilmentof its highest aspirations, and will be atraining institute for the whole of humani-ty, a fully equipped, intellectually alive andspiritually inspiring home for all men, wom-en and children, who will learn together tolive in oneness and who will live togetherto learn all the time, at each moment of theirlife. Education in Auroville being a con-scious experiment of living and an adven-ture of consciousness, the scope of its re-search being as wide as the universe, itsaim being an advent of a new race of gnos-tic beings, it will naturally embrace the Infi-nite in its infinite aspects and move to-wards a progressive universal harmony.The cultural pavilions of all nations of theworld will not only provide a right settingfor this purpose, but also afford the uniqueopportunity and the facilities for its mani-fold researches for a living embodiment ofan actual human unity.

The University of Human Unity Development Team in Septermber 2007 (Photocourtesy University of Human Unity Team)


Book Reviews

I am with you, Parts II and III,by Kailas Jhaveri

Reviewed by Larry Seidlitz

Kailas� new book, I am with you, Parts II and III, chroniclesher life experiences after coming to the Sri AurobindoAshram on 14 August 1964. Part II focuses on her interac-

tions with the Mother and Kailas� activities in the early years ofher stay, Part III deals with her experiences after the Mother lefther body in 1973. A previously published book comprising Part Idealt with her life before coming to the Ashram.

Kailas is known and loved by many devotees of Sri Aurobin-do and the Mother in the U.S. and Europe due to her travels, manyof which are documented in this 635 page volume. The book con-tains a wealth of interesting and inspiring material of various con-tent, drawn together under her overarching theme of the Mother�sconstant presence and guidance in her life. It is mainly autobio-graphical, but it includes correspondence with the Mother, vari-ous messages and inspiring quotes from Sri Aurobindo and theMother, historical accounts of important events in the develop-ment of Auroville, Kailas� essays on important topics, Kailas� in-ner experiences, perceptions, and views of the spiritual life, travel-ogues, photographic plates showing artwork of various kinds pre-sented to the Mother, as well as facsimiles of Mother�s messages.Through this book one encounters a deep, elevated, and sophis-ticated soul totally surrendered to the Divine Mother, and suchencounters always have an inspiring effect upon oneself.

One the things that I found especially interesting was Kailas�work for Auroville. I had vaguely known that she had worked atthe United Nations in New York before coming to Pondicherry. ButI did not realize that Kailas was such a vital instrument inUNESCO�s sponsorship of Auroville. Here she recounts her closerelationship with Dr. Adiseshiah, whom she called Sat, who wasthe Deputy Director-General of UNESCO. He was a very capableand idealistic man who was open to the ideals of Sri Aurobindoand the Mother and the role of Auroville in their manifestation,which he learned through Kailas. We see how the relationshipbetween UNESCO and Auroville progressively developed overthe years through their collaborative activities. We find expressedin this volume the deep significance of Auroville which was com-municated to the international organization through Kailas andSat. One element of Kailas� work in this regard was her paper onEducation in Auroville that was presented to UNESCO, in whichshe compiled writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother pertainingto the ideals of education in Auroville in the context of the aspira-tion for human unity [reprinted in whole in this issue]. This paper,

which Kailas describes as coming to her as an inspiration follow-ing a fervent appeal to Sri Aurobindo at the Samadhi, was greatlyappreciated by the Director of the Department of Education atUNESCO. This work of the Auroville University, as well as themore general promotion of Auroville in the international arena,did not find a complete fulfillment, partly because of the conflictthat eventually ensued between Auroville and the Sri AurobindoSociety. The early enthusiasm and idealism of Auroville was sul-lied in the bitter conflict, which was perhaps necessary to workout some negative propensities in human nature. Partly due tothis unfortunate setback, Dr. Adiseshiah lost interest in pursuingthe work of promoting Auroville, and became engaged in othernoble endeavors.

Though some of the correspondence between Kailas andSat, we find in their special relationship and collaboration thelove of two souls united and sanctified in that greater love andaspiration for the Divine. While Kailas was more conscious of thespiritual and psychic dimensions of their relation, Sat too on hispart recognized that there was a deeper significance to their rela-tion and was entirely respectful and receptive to Kailas� devotionto the Mother and spiritual practice. Kailas keeps the Mother in-formed of developments in their relationship and collaborativeefforts related to Auroville and UNESCO, and sought the Moth-er�s guidance and approval when meeting with him. On her part,the Mother recognized the unique character of their relationshipand the truth and importance of their collaborative work for Au-roville and the world. She actively encouraged and supportedtheir relation and guided their efforts. Through this correspon-dence, Kailas exquisitely expresses the higher possibilities ofhuman love.

Yet more deep than this human love, Kailas� expressions ofher love and total surrender to the Divine Mother, will be inspir-ing to all devotees. Kailas is extremely articulate in expressing thenuances of her feelings and views, and this ability is very evidentin her devotion to the Mother. A single example will demonstratethis:

�Mother Divine: . . . pranams. I give myself to You in com-plete abandon with tears of a sincere prayer: Take away allmy preferences, my preoccupations, my ideas of good andbad�all that comes in the way of Your work. Let me standbefore You like a blank page so that You may inscribeYour Will freely and clearly and I be what You want me tobe. Let me die to myself and be reborn in You so that I seeYou everywhere and serve You with love and joy.

�O Mother Sweet, make me Thine completely andwithout any reserve, absolutely and altogether Thine andlet me merge in Thee in that indissoluble union of Love sothat Thou alone livest in me. I am here for Thee alone. Letme have no other will than Thine. Pray, tell me whatexactly is Thy Will and how best I can collaborate with it.Let me have this one joy�to live in Thee, be Thee and forThee. With humility and loving surrender at Thy feet. Thychild.�


And along with Kailas� many expressions of deep love anddevotion to the Mother and Sri Aurobindo, we have priceless ex-pressions of the Mother�s love and wisdom for her child Kailas.For example, in the reply to Kailas� fervent appeal above, theMother replied, �Kailas, Do not worry. Keep quiet and calm�It isthe only way to the know the Truth and to do the proper thing.With love and blessings.� Regarding human love, the Mother ex-plains, �There is a stage for human beings when they need to lovethe Divine through a human being because they are not ready fora direct relation with the Divine. But when the body conscious-ness progresses and it becomes possible for the cells to enter inconstant relation with the Divine without needing the visiblepresence of another person, the love for another person becomessuperfluous and may stop.� There are many such significant com-ments by the Mother as well as passages from Sri Aurobindo�swritings on different subjects conveyed in the book.

Another aspect of the book is Kailas� essays and writings onvarious topics. Some of these were prepared for the Madras Insti-tute of Development Studies, an institute founded by Sat after hisretirement from UNESCO in 1970. Kailas attended the monthlyseminars until 1976, commenting on papers and preparing othersherself. Some selections of her comments and papers are includedin the volume. They touch on many issues, especially on variousaspects of education, but also on other topics such as develop-ment in India, eradication of poverty, population control, and so-cial change and development. Regarding education, there are in-sightful essays on the teaching of science, education of women,and the student-teacher relationship. In other parts of the book,one can find essays and commentaries on such subjects as Gan-dhi, Christ and Christianity, the role of women in spiritual India, onthe India-Pakistan war of 1965, on beauty of mind, and on integralprogress. Based on her insights into Sri Aurobindo�s and theMother�s vision, Kailas creatively applies their living wisdom toanalyze and unravel a variety of complex social problems and is-sues.

The latter part of the book contains travelogues of a varietyof trips taken by Kailas and her friend Richard to different parts ofIndia and to various countries such as the U.S., France, Germany,Spain, Italy, and other countries. These give a feel for the variouscountries� natural landscapes, cities, and societies, living descrip-tions of some of their primary attractions, and an introduction tosome of the Sri Aurobindo centers and devotees who assistedthem. Throughout their travels, Kailas repeatedly shows how theMother was constantly with them, guiding, providing, and pro-tecting. She also reveals interesting insights into the various cul-tures, and especially their special genius and contributions in thedivine harmony.

There are still many other jewels in this delightful book. Oneis able to get a good feel for Sri Aurobindo�s philosophy andyoga, of his poetry, of his views of and contributions to Indianculture, of his perspectives on social and political developmentand events. But this more substantive, �heavy� material is knittedinto a rich fabric of lighter subjects and personal events. One such

lighter subject is flowers. One of the important means of Kailas�communication with the Mother was through the giving and re-ceiving of flowers together with their spiritual significances.Their mutual love for flowers was also an important element ofKailas friendship with Richard. Thus one finds this subject peri-odically recurring in the narrative in various ways, and the bookitself is richly decorated with a variety of beautiful color photosof flowers, including the red and white lotuses on the front cover.Throughout the book, on whatever topic she touches, Kailasshares with us her deep perspectives on the issues she con-fronts, and one feels oneself in the company of a loving and wisefriend.

Devotion: An anthology ofspiritual poems, selected byLloyd Hofman and Vignan Agni

Reviewed by Larry Seidlitz

Devotion: An anthology of spiritual poems contains a fineselection of over 250 devotional poems by 110 devotees of SriAurobindo and the Mother. The poems were selected by LloydHofman and Vignan Agni of Auroville, and the book was pub-lished by Chandresh Patel�s Integral Enterprise, also centered inAuroville. It is a nicely bound hard cover book using high qualitypaper, the poems generally appearing one per page, that is, nicelyspaced apart with plenty of white paper surrounding them, facil-itating their contemplation. The poems were selected primarilyfrom Ashram and Auroville books and journals; Collaborationwas also included.

The book begins with two selections from Sri Aurobindo�sSavitri, and follows with the devotee�s poems, organized by au-thor, starting from the earliest poets and proceeding chronologi-cally to the most recent. The earliest poets often wrote under SriAurobindo�s personal guidance, and a number of them are fol-lowed with Sri Aurobindo�s comments. A few of the poems byNirodbaren are shown in both their original form as written by theauthor, and again in revised form as revised by Sri Aurobindo,together with the written exchange about the poem between thetwo. The book includes selections from the most well-knownpoet-disciples of Sri Aurobindo, such as A.J. Chadwick, NoliniKanta Gupta, Nirodbaren, Dilip Kumar Roy, Nishikanto, K.D.Sethna, and Pujalal. But there are also included many other au-thors well-known in America, among them Norman Dowsett, RodHemsell, Peter Heehs, Richard Eggenberger (Narad), Shyamsun-der Jhunjhunwalla, Seyril Schochen, Shraddhavan, GordonKorstange, Shyam Kumari, R.Y. Deshpande, Joseph Kent, Mary(Angel) Finn, Chandresh Patel, Shraddhalu Ranade, Larry Seid-litz, and Michael Miovic.

As explained in an Appendix to the work, a compilation ofkey passages from Sri Aurobindo�s prose writings on poetry,


poetry in its essence is an expression of truth and beauty of thesoul of the poet appealing to soul of the listener. As Sri Aurobindoputs it: �A soul expressing the eternal spirit of Truth and Beautythrough some of the infinite variations of beauty, with the wordfor its instrument, that is, after all, what the poet is; and it is to asimilar soul in us seeking the same spirit and responding to it thathe makes his appeal.� We can see from this the importance of po-etry from the spiritual standpoint�it is a medium through whichthe soul can directly express itself, and through this expression,can awaken and speak to the soul in others. As Sri Aurobindo alsosays in this passage, there are always two elements in poetry, theeternal true substance, and the limitations and accidents broughtin by time; and it is the first alone that really matters. Thus, in eval-uating the poems in this anthology, it should be borne in mind thatit was considerations such as these that were foremost in the au-thor�s and in the editors� minds, and should form the basis of thereader�s own response to the poetry. We should seek for the soulin the poetry, the eternal spirit of truth and beauty, and seek theresponse of our own soul, the inner ecstasy and delight, the innerawakening and enlightenment.

Two brief examples convey more directly this sense of theeternal soul in the poet speaking to the soul in the listener. A.J.Chadwick, in a poem called �Mid-voyage,� speaks in the firststanza of the journey of the soul moving from earthly things to-wards the spiritual: �One by one the earth-lights fail / And theshores sink down behind: / The prow leaps on with a fresheninggale / Over the course assigned.� (p. 30) The message is direct,and the stanza seems to carry something of this eternal truth ofthe message in its sound and word values. Similarly, listen to howthese opening lines from Nirodbaren�s poem, �Single smile,� con-vey the eternally repeatable experience of the immediate and pow-erfully transforming delight of the Divine: �A single smile fromthee awakes in us / A bliss unknown to worlds of human thought;/ Losing life�s shadow-inconsistencies / Our hearts are to a lumi-nous harmony wrought.� (p. 55)

One interesting thing about this collection of poems is thatthey convey the unique character of Sri Aurobindo�s IntegralYoga, as distinguished from other spiritual paths. You will findhere, for example, consistent with its embrace of the Divine withinthe world, though also its recognition of its need for transforma-tion, a deep appreciation of life and nature. As Pritwi Singh Naharsays in the first line of �The Play,� �In all these forms Thou laugh-est, Golden Child!� (p. 144) Similarly, Renukadas Deshpande in�Lotus of Truth-Vision,� declares the divine presence in the bodyof the sadhak-poet: �Above my shoulders a vast and luminoussky, / Behind my heart a depth of ocean bliss; / In my limbs a calmplentitude of sun-force, / My body is a flame and a rapture ofGod.� (p. 195)

Shyam Kumari, sensing the divine in the things of nature in�The Tribute,� wishes to offer them one by one to her Divine be-loved: �I would like to gather / The charm and marvel / Of all theflaming flowers, / The enchantment of golden morns, / The peaceof pearly eves / To offer at Thy Feet.� (p. 218)

We also find in this volume an abundance of pure devotion,self-giving, humility, love, self-sacrifice, ardent aspiration�andthese, when expressed as an outflow of the experiences them-selves, inspire and awaken these states in the listener. Listen tothe simple sincerity of Pujalal Dalvadi�s �A Prayer�: �Mother!Raise me from this mire / Of ungainly earth-desire; / Bathe me inThy holy fountains, / Place me on Thy star-peaked mountains.�(p. 174) Or hear the opening lines of Mirajyoti�s �Aspiration�:�May I enter the fullness / Of Thy silence� / For Thou knowest/ And I know not.� (p. 188) Listen to the music of Michelle�s�Sweet Mother�: �May I sit by your feet and rest in you / May allseparation cease / May the floods in my heart release themselves/ In your paradise of peace.� (p. 187)

But not all in this book is so simple and direct�there is alsomystical, profound, and intellectually stimulating poetry. Thereare samples of Nirodbaren�s mystical poems, like this stanza from�Ascent�: �Alone in a white deathless peace / I am merged, like afelicitous moon / Lost in the flaming ecstacies / Of its self-wraptand luminous swoon.� (p. 47) There are samples of Nolini KantaGupta�s poetry expressing truths and experiences of the higherlevels of mind, such as this from poem XXIII: �There is no dark-ness, we only close our eyes / and shut out the Light; / There isno pain, it is only our shinking / from an intense and unwelcomeDelight; / There is no death, it is only our dread of the Life Eternal/ that comes back upon us and smites us.�(p. 35) Or listen tothese inspired lines from K.D. Sethna�s �Nec Plus Ultra,� whichSri Aurobindo commended so highly: �Is the keen voice of tune-ful ecstasy / To be denied its winged omnipotence, / Its ancientkinship to immensity / And dazzling suns? / When mystic gran-deurs urge him from behind, / When all creation is a rapturouswind / Driving him towards an ever-limitless goal, / Can suchpale moments crown the poet�s soul?� (p. 90)

Consistent with the Auroville origin of the book, there are ex-pressions of the Auroville experience, both of its trials and dark-nesses and of its promises and ecstacies. In this aspect, I wasparticularly struck with these lines from Shraddhavan�s �DeepPlaces�: �I�m in no mood for mountains� / Too near downpressing sky, / Too barren, bright, unmysteried they lie! / So,climbing to a bald white peak / I stopped�knee deep in grassand flowers.� (p. 192) Similarly, I was struck by these lines fromher poem �Utter Blackness�: �In utter blackness / Shrill-voicedbats / Flap leathern wings; / A sharp-toothed wind / Tortures rick-ety trees.� (p. 194) Or listen to the haunting lines from AbhaPrakash�s �Musings�: �Can something be made of your silence?/ This threadbare blanket / hardly veils your thoughts. / They tripover the dark skeins; / run in the blanks like silver / blinded bynight. / Silence may be a walled well / where screams echo / into agathering storm.� (p. 282)

Devotion will be a wonderful addition to any devotee�s li-brary, one that can be picked up any time to nourish one�s soul, todrink in the ambience of Sri Aurobindo�s and the Mother�s light,love, and life as experienced by their many poet-disciples. Whoknows, it might even inspire the poet in you!


The poetry room

Breath of God1

O�er India when the day is doneAnd twilight shadows creep,

There falls a stillness infinite,Solemn-sweet and deep.

The river�s flow is soothed and hushed,The distant city-cries

Are quieted with a soft caress,Till all their discord dies.

The temple-bells are muted soft,Their tones are vesper-notes

That fall bewitching on the earAnd o�re the waters float.

The flickering lamps, like fairy-gold,Shine forth to greet the night,

And far-away a lonely voiceHymns a pure delight.

A lingering sweetness fills the airFrom mount to desert broad,

And India lies enraptured byThe holy breath of God

�Godfrey

If only there were peace2

I�ve always loved the patterof a rain in spring and fall;it really doesn�t matterthe month�I love them all.I love to see the sprinklingof colors in the spring,and red and yellow wrinklingof leaves that autumns bring.I stand in awe and wonderof an open starry skyand love to hear the thunderof a storm that�s coming nigh�and feel as one who�s spellboundwhen I come back to the seaafter wand�ring ages inland,and I see it suddenly.

No there is no end of wonders;I could rave without surcease;but then I�d have to stop and add:�If only there were peace!�

I could celebrate the cities,the villages and towns,and sing in simple dittiesof all that here abounds,of the hillsides that are sprinkledwith a thousand yellow lightswhere so often I have mingledto pass my mortal nights.I could tell of love�s enchantmentsand all they�ve meant to meand the faces I have worshippedas God�s own poetry,and you�ll know I�ve only hintedat the wonders of this earth,the sadness and the splendor,the rubbish and the worth!all yes, I�d sing its praisesthough �short is summer�s lease��but then I�d have to stop and add:�If only there were peace!�

�David Lukashok

Deep in the Core3

Deep in the core of my heartIs the ache of an ancient partingThat keeps me tied to some Unknown,The one who smiled and playedHis music in my being,In a moment�s flash now lost in time�Spreading the vivid vastitudes of a luminous silence,Revealing the deep harmoniesEroding our borders,Expanding our horizons.

The throb wandering in the mist,The voice of the forlorn in the heart of thingsSearching for its true home,Calls to the azure my seeking solitude.

Into this silence of sorrow, O Nameless,Pour the peace of your light,Dispel the disguise from your loving touch in all I seeThat I may drink deep a draught of your deathless delight.

�Damodar Reddy


Auroville4

Have you seen the giants walkingAcross the wide red land?Seen them moving large and grandAgainst the sky?I have seen them coming,Tiny seedlings in their hands,Hands and feet as redAs the dirt they work each day,Carrying the future on their backs and in their dreams�Seen them growing tall and strongAs they hammer out their wayIn a land of yielding beautyMaking progress from delay,Seen them growing wise and deepAs they dig the hardened clay,Worry water from the dry red earth,Bend their backs,Sweat out their sorrows,Wrest from yesterdayTomorrows,Coming of a new world�s birth.Have you seen the giants workingIn the quiet secret places,In the kitchens, in the gardens,The world�s forgotten spaces?I have seen them rise, emergingOut of ignorance and pain.Faith sustained, they work and laborTo create a new domain.A thousand tiny troublesTell the story of their struggleAs they strive to bring aliveA long forsaken dream;In their hearts an angel singing,Being�s beauty widely wingingAs they grow to know the truthOf creation�s will to beA living harmony.Have you seen their victory?Have you seen the giants workingHigh atop construction beams?Suffering the toils of their hardest dreams?I have seen them growing, changing,Working, working out the problemsOf a vast and varied natureThrough necessity and failureWith enduring dedication,Consecrated to completion,Seen them struggle with the graspingOf the passing ways of time;

Hoping deep enough to open,Feeling love enough to trust,Finding courage to createA living wonder with their labor,From the nameless, from the formlessYou can see a promise risingIn the clearer, higher spacesAt the center of the city;Breathless peace, transcendent beauty,While the glorious expansionOf the limitless in manOpens wide the striving hearts,To manifest the miracle of destiny�s decree.

�Loretta Shartsis

The eyes reply5

Bright Eyes! O can�t You smile through eachAnd every line?

How shall I know the tame and tawdryFrom the fine

Unless Your seeing sanctions mine?

How know the poem is true untilYour Touch is found�

Most infinitely delicate questFor the Whole and Round?

�Follow�, I seem to hear You say,�Till all is crowned,

The witchery of word and Wonder-sound.�

�Eleanor Montgomery

References

1Devotion, p. 100, originally published in Mother India, August,1960.2Devotion, p. 304-305, originally published in Sri Aurobindo�s Ac-tion, 2005.3Devotion, p. 257, originally published in A Bouquet for my Mas-ter, 1994.4Devotion, p. 156-157, originally published in Mother India, Feb-ruary,1975.5Devotion, p. 86, originally published in Mother India, March,1952.


Apropos

All who aspire for the divine perfectionknow that the blows which the Lord dealsus in His infinite love and grace are thesurest and quickest way to make usprogress. �The Mother

Not to judge anyone but oneself until onecan see things from a calm mind and a calmvital is an excellent rule. �Sri Aurobindo

The highest good is like water. Watergives life to the ten thousand things anddoes not strive. It flows in places men re-ject and so is like the Tao. �Tao Te Ching

People only see what they are prepared tosee. �Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every person, all the events of your life,are there because you have drawn themthere. What you choose to do with them isup to you. �Richard Bach

Wisdom is not a question of learning factswith the mind; it can only be acquiredthrough perfection of living. �N. Sri Ram

True understanding is possible only whenwe are fully conscious of our thought, notas an operative observer on this thought,but completely and without the interven-tion of a choice. �Jiddu Krishnamurti

The cave you fear to enter holds the trea-sure you seek. �Joseph Campbell

A donkey with a load of holy books is stilla donkey. �Sufi saying

If the Mind dwells upon the spiritualthings, then it follows that it becomeswhat it has dwelt upon, what it has livedupon, what it has made itself a portion of.But if the Mind dwells upon self-indul-gences, self-aggrandizement, self-exalta-tion, selfishness in any of its forms, in anyof its variations, then it has set itself atvariance to that First Cause. �EdgarCayce

Our business is to stand strongly for prin-ciples, but never to attack persons, aboutwhose lives we can know but little.�George Arundale

When you are offended at any man�s fault,turn to yourself and study your own fail-ings. Then you will forget your anger.�Epictetus

�I know nothing except the fact of myignorance.� �Socrates

Man improves himself as he follows hispath; if he stands still, waiting to improvebefore he makes a decision, he�ll nevermove. �Paulo Coelho

If the creator had a purpose in equippingus with a neck, he surely meant us to stickit out. �Arthur Koestler

You must learn to be still in the midst ofactivity and to be vibrantly alive in repose.�Indira Gandhi

He is the wise man who has by perfect liv-ing gained the instinct of rightness bywhich he guides himself, whether inthought or action, who has found that cen-ter of balance which is always over hispoint of contact with circumstances. He isthe man whom Nature pours the riches ofall her instincts. �N. Sri Ram

You give but little when you give of yourpossessions. It is when you give of your-self that you truly give. �Kahlil Gibran

Soul development should take precedenceover all things. �Edgar Cayce

Not out of right practice comes right think-ing, but out of right thinking comes rightpractice. It matters enormously what youthink. If you think falsely, you will act mis-takenly; if you think basely, your conductwill suit your thinking. �Annie Besant

People may forget what you said, peoplemay forget what you did, but people neverforget how you made them feel. �Anony-mous

Never forget that life can only be nobly in-spired and rightly lived if you take it brave-ly and gallantly, as a splendid adventure inwhich you are setting out into an unknowncountry, to meet many a joy, to find many acomrade, to win and lose many a battle.�Annie Besant

There is no such thing as a problem with-out a gift for you in its hands. You seekproblems because you need their gifts.�Richard Bach

Great things are possible only to strongsouls and it�s from the trivial events of dai-ly life that strength is won. �L.W. Rogers

If words come out of the heart, they willenter the heart, but if they come from thetongue, they will not pass beyond theears. �Al-Suhrawardi

Understand that the right to choose yourown path is a sacred privilege. Use it.Dwell in possiblity. �Oprah Winfrey

The love of one�s country is a splendidthing. But why should love stop at the bor-der? �Pablo Casals

The crisis of yesterday is the joke oftomorrow. �H. G. Wells.

No man can reveal to you ought, but thatwhich already lies half asleep in the dawn-ing of your knowledge. �Kahil Gibran

What man really seeks is not perfectionwhich is in the future, but fulfillment whichis ever in the present. �N. Sri Ram

You must learn to be still in the midst ofactivity and to be vibrantly alive in repose.�Indira Gandhi

Each soul in entering the material experi-ence does so for those purposes of ad-vancement towards that awareness of be-ing fully conscious of the oneness withthe Creative Forces. �Edgar Cayce

Turn your face to the sun and the shadowsfall behind you. �Maori proverb

Documents

Fall 2008 Journal of the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the … · 2020. 6. 3. · Fall 2008 Collaboration Ł 1 Fall 2008 Journal of the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the