Mother’s Agenda 1967

December 30, 1967

(Mother extracts from a pile of papers, letters and envelopes of all sorts, a note on Auroville, which was based on her words but written from memory.)

(Laughing) All this hangs together in a marvellous balance!

(Satprem reads out the note)

"Auroville will be a self-supporting township.

"All who live there will participate in its life and development.

"This participation may be passive or active.

"There will be no taxes as such but each will contribute to the collective welfare in work, kind or money.

"Sections like Industries which participate actively will contribute part of their income towards the development of the township. Or if they produce something (like foodstuff) useful for the citizens, they will contribute in kind to the township which is responsible for the feeding of the citizens.

"No rules or laws are being framed. Things will get formulated as the underlying Truth of the township emerges and takes shape progressively. We do not anticipate."

Is that all?

I thought I had said more than that. Because inwardly I said a great deal, a great deal about the organization of food and so on.... We are going to try things out.

Some things are really interesting. For instance, I'd like there to be ... To begin with, every country will have its pavilion, and in the pavilion, there will be the cuisine of that country, which means that the Japanese will be able to eat Japanese food if they want to(!), etc., but in the township itself, there will be food for vegetarians, food for nonvegetarians, and also a sort of experiment to find "tomorrow's food." You see, all this work of assimilation which makes you so heavy (it takes up so much time and energy from the being) should be done BEFORE, you should be able to immediately assimilate what you are given, as with things they make now; for instance, they have those vitamins that can be directly assimilated, and also (what do they call it? ... (Mother tries to remember) I take them every day.... Words and I aren't on very good terms!) ... proteins. Nutritive principles that are found in one thing or another and aren't bulky—you need to take a tremendous quantity of food to assimilate very little. So now that they are fairly clever with chemicals, that could be simplified. People don't like it, simply because ... they take an intense pleasure in eating(!), but when you no longer take pleasure in eating,

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you need to be nourished and not to waste your time with that. The amount of time lost is enormous: time for eating, time for digesting, and the rest. So I would like to have an experimental kitchen there, a sort of "culinary laboratory," to try out. And according to their tastes and tendencies, people would go here or there.

And you don't pay for your food, but you must give your work, or the ingredients: for example, those who had fields would give the produce of their fields; those who had factories would give their products; or else your own work in exchange for food.

That alone does away with much of the internal circulation of money.

And in every field things of that sort could be found.... Basically, it would be a town for studies—studies and research on how to live in a simplified way, and where the higher qualities have MORE TIME to develop. There.

It's only a small beginning.

(Then Mother goes over the text of the note, sentence by sentence)

"Auroville will be a self-supporting township."

I want to insist on the fact that it will be an experiment: it's to make experiments—experiments, research, studies.

An experimental city?

Yes ... Auroville will be a city that will attempt to be, or strive or want to be, self-supporting, that is ...

Autonomous?

"Autonomous" is understood as a sort of independence that breaks off relations with the outside, and that's not what I mean.

For example, those who produce food, a factory such as "Aurofood" (naturally, when we will be fifty thousand, it will be difficult to meet the needs, but for the moment we'll only be a few thousand at the most), well, a factory always produces far too much.... So it will sell outside and receive money. And "Aurofood," for instance, wants to have a special relationship with workers, not at all the old system—something that would be an improvement on the Communist system, a more balanced organization than Sovietism or

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Communism, that is, which doesn't lean too much either toward one side or the other.

The idea of "Aurofood" is good, and they are trying to make propaganda among industrialists.

And there is one thing I wanted to say. The participation in the welfare and existence of the whole township isn't something worked out individually: such individual must give so much. It's not like that. It's worked out according to one's means, activity, possibilities of production; it's not the democratic idea, which cuts everything into small equal bits—an absurd machinery. It's worked out according to one's means: one who has much gives much, one who has little gives little; one who is strong works a lot, one who isn't strong does something else. You understand, it's something truer, deeper. And that's why I am not trying to explain it right away, because people will start making all kinds of protests. It must come into being AUTOMATICALLY, so to say, with the growth of the township, in the true spirit. That's why this note is quite succinct.

This sentence, for instance:

"All who live there will participate in its life and development ..."

... according to their capacities and means, not a mechanical "so much per unit." That's the point. It must be something living and TRUE, not mechanical. And "according to their capacities," that is, one who has material means such as those a factory gives will have to provide in proportion to his production—not so much per individual or per head.

"This participation may be passive or active."

I don't understand what they mean by "passive" (because I spoke in French, then they put it into English). What can they mean by "passive"?... It would be rather on different planes or levels of consciousness.

You meant that those who basically are sages, who work within, won't have to ...

Yes, that's right. Those who have a higher knowledge won't have to work with their hands, that's what I mean.

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"There will be no taxes as such but each will contribute to the collective welfare in work, kind or money."

So that's understood: there will be no taxes of any kind, but everyone will have to contribute to the collective welfare through his work, in kind or with money. Those who have nothing other than money will give money. But to tell the truth, the "work" may be an inner work (but that can't be said, because people aren't honest enough). The work may be an occult work, a completely inner work, but of course, for that to be, it must be absolutely sincere and true, and with the capacity: no pretence. But it's not necessarily a material work.

"Sections like Industries which participate actively will contribute part of their income towards the development of the township. Or if they produce something (like foodstuff) useful for the citizens, they will contribute in kind to the township which is responsible for the feeding of the citizens."

That's what we've said. The industries will participate actively, they will contribute. If they are industries producing articles that aren't in constant need—and are therefore in quantities or numbers too great for the township's own use that will be sold outside—those industries must naturally participate through money. And I take the example of food: those who produce food will give the township what it needs (in proportion to what they produce, naturally), and it is the township's responsibility to feed everyone. That means people won't have to buy their food with money, but they will have to earn it.

It's a kind of adaptation of the Communist system, but not in a spirit of levelling: according to everyone's capacity, his position (not a psychological or intellectual one), his INNER position.

In democracies and with the Communists, there's a levelling down: everyone is pulled down to the same level.

Yes, that's just the point.

The true part is that every human being has the right ... (but it's not a "right" ...). The organization must be such, must be arranged in such a way, that everyone's material needs should be guaranteed, not according to notions of right and equality, but on the basis of the most elementary necessities; then, once that is established, everyone must be free to organize his life, not according to his monetary

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means, but according to his inner capacities.

"No rules or laws are being framed. Things will get formulated as the underlying Truth of the township emerges and takes shape progressively. We do not anticipate."

What I mean is that usually (always till now, and more and more so), men establish mental rules according to their conceptions and their ideal, then they apply them (Mother lowers her fist, as if to show the world under the mental grip). And that's absolutely false, arbitrary, unreal, with the result that things revolt, or else waste away and disappear.... It's the experience of LIFE ITSELF that must slowly work out rules AS SUPPLE AND VAST as possible, in order that they remain ever progressive. Nothing must be fixed. That's the immense error of governments: they build a framework and say, "Here is what we've established, now we must live under it." So naturally, Life is crushed and prevented from progressing. It is Life itself, developing more and more in a progression towards Light, Knowledge, Power, that must progressively establish rules as general as possible, so as to be extremely supple and capable of changing according to need—of changing AS RAPIDLY as habits and needs do.

(silence)

At bottom, the problem almost boils down to this: to replace the mental government of intelligence by the government of a spiritualized consciousness.

It's an extremely interesting experience: how the same actions, the same work, the same observations, the same relationship with the people around (near or far), how they take place in the mind, through intelligence, and how they take place in the consciousness, by experience. And that's what this body is now learning—to replace the mental government of intelligence by the spiritual government of the consciousness. And it makes (it looks like nothing, one may not notice it), it makes a tremendous difference, to the point of multiplying the body's possibilities a hundredfold.... When the body is subjected to rules, even if they are broad, even if they are comprehensive, it is a slave to those rules and its possibilities are limited by them. But when it's governed by the Spirit and the Consciousness that gives it an incomparable possibility and flexibility! And that's what will give it the capacity to prolong its life, to last longer: it's by

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replacing the mental, intellectual government by the government of the Spirit, of the Consciousness—THE Consciousness. Outwardly, it doesn't seem to make much difference, but... My experience is like this (because now my body no longer obeys the mind or the intelligence at all, not any more—it doesn't even understand how that can be done), and more and more, and better and better, it follows the direction and impulsion of the Consciousness. But then, it sees, almost at each minute, the tremendous difference that it makes.... For instance, time has lost its value (its rigid value): you can do exactly the same thing in very little time or in much time. Necessities have lost their authority: you can adapt yourself this way, adapt yourself that way. All the laws—those laws that were laws of Nature—have lost all their despotism, we may say: it no longer works that way. All you have to do is always, always be supple, attentive, and... responsive (if any such thing can be!) to the influence of the Consciousness—the Consciousness in its all-powerfulness—so as to go through all this with extraordinary suppleness.

That is the discovery being made more and more.

And it's wonderful, you know! A wonderful discovery.

It's like a progressive victory over all constraints. So naturally, all the laws of Nature, all the human laws, all habits, all rules, they all become increasingly supple and finally nonexistent. Yet it is possible to keep a regular rhythm that facilitates action—it's not contrary to this suppleness. But it's a suppleness in the execution, in the adaptation, which comes and changes everything. From the point of view of hygiene, health, organization, from the point of view of relationships with others, all that has not only lost its aggressiveness (because for that, it suffices to be wise—wise and level-headed and calm), but also its absolutism, its imperative rule: that's completely gone—gone.

And then you see: as the process grows more and more perfect—"perfect" means integral, total, leaving nothing behind—it NECESSARILY, inevitably means victory over death. Not that this dissolution of the cells which death represents stops existing, but it would exist only when necessary: not as an absolute law, but as ONE of the processes, when necessary.

It's mainly that: all that the Mind has brought in terms of rigidity and absoluteness and near invincibility—that's what ... is going to disappear. And simply by ... handing the supreme power over to the Supreme Consciousness.

That may be what the sages of old meant when they spoke of handing the power of Nature or the power of the Prakriti over to the

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Purusha—handing it from the Prakriti over to the Purusha. Perhaps it was their way of expressing the same thing.

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