The Spirit of Auroville

The Mother dictated to M. André in answer to my letter on 28-3-70:

It has been decided and remains decided that the Matrimandir will be surrounded with water. However, water is not available just now and will be available only later, so it is decided to build the Matrimandir now and surround it with water only later, perhaps in a few years' time.

As regards the Matrimandir itself I have selected our plan which agrees with the vision I had of the inside and has my full approval. Therefore there is no need to worry. The Matrimandir will be built now and water brought round it later.

Here the Mother has stated:

... as regards the Matrimandir itself I have selected our plan which agrees with the vision I had of the inside and has my full approval.

She did not mention the outside structure. Her indication was: "...the vision I had of the inside..."

For gradually the models of Auroville and Matrimandir started changing. First, the idea was to build the Matrimandir in a shape of a Pyramid. About the Pyramid the Mother remarked

Ancient Egypt belongs to the past, we are here to prepare the future.

Then eventually it became a globe structure.

Earlier the Mother had wanted an eternal Flame in the Matrimandir, because the Fire is sacred and its significances are many. Then finally the Crystal Globe was chosen. The globe with the sun-ray symbolises "The Ray of the Supreme Truth".

I came across a very interesting article in Auroville Today, Number Five, April 1989:

Auroville Yesterday?

By Gilbert

"Here is the place which belongs to no prince, to no god.
No one owns it.
Here is the place for all of us...
The earth will find joy in it.
Here the hearts will be happy."

Does this sound familiar?

You may have heard about the beautiful queen of Egypt. Nefertiti. She was born in 1388 B.C. and was married to the Pharaoh Amenophis IV, later known as Akhnaton. Akhnaton was a daring reformist. He opted for a monotheist cult, in a time of polytheism. He only worshipped the Light, pure and free.

In 1369 B.C., this "modern" couple founded the new city of Amarna, which means Horizon. It became the capital of Egypt. It was situated midway between Memphis (Cairo) and Thebes (Luxor), on the eastern bank of the Nile.

At this place, the cliffs of the high desert shift away from the river and form a wide hemicircle of fertile soil, some 12 kms long and a bit less than 5 kms wide. Big steles (flat pillars) were put around the area, bearing the story of its foundation:

"Here is the place which belongs to no prince, to no god.
No one owns it.
Here is the place for all of us...
The earth will find joy in it.
Here the hearts will be happy."

At the centre of the city, Akhnaton and Nefertiti built a temple to the Light. Inside, there was no picture of any god and no image of traditional worshipping.

In this new city, Akhnaton wanted everybody to be equal: Egyptians and foreigners (many of whom were attracted there), king and common people, men and women. Artists and craftsmen received support and encouragement to express their skills fully. Money was not the sovereign ruler. Soldiers did other jobs than war.

It went on for 22 years, amidst growing discontent of the traditional ruling classes: the army chiefs and the polytheist high priests.

When the general-dictator Horemheb seized power in 1347 B.C., he revived the old capital Thebes and sent thousands of troops to Amarna with one goal: total obliteration. Graves were mutilated, buildings demolished, the names of Akhnaton were frenziedly chipped from the walls. The city was virtually razed to the ground. A layer of cement was spread over the ruins, as if to make sure that no contamination from this cursed place could ever occur.

Only the upper Castle remained untouched. The queen Nefertiti, who helplessly witnessed everything, found refuge there with her scribe Bubastos.

This story perhaps gives Auroville a new dimension; was it the same spirit that passed unscathed from Egypt through the centuries to be materialized again here in India?

The Mother had a close connection with Egypt. For she had been an Egyptian in several past births. One of them was as a sublime queen, Hatshepsut.

Here is a statement by Medhananda (name given by the Mother), the gentleman from Germany who was in charge of the Sri Aurobindo Library.

It appeared in Mother India, June 1958, p. 40:

Standing in front of a portrait of Queen Hatshepsut, the Mother told us the following story when she came to the Library to open an exhibition on "Ancient Egypt" in August 1954:

When she was a girl of about eight or ten, she and her brother (Matteo Alfassa) were taken one day by their teacher to the famous Louvre Museum in Paris. On the ground floor are the galleries of Egyptian antiquities. As they were slowly passing through the collections, the Mother was suddenly attracted by a beautiful toilet-case, inlaid with gold and lapis lazuli, which was displayed in one of the Museum cases. An attendant noticed her great interest and explained to her that the toilet-case had once belonged to the Egyptian Queen Hatshepsut. He also showed her a fine portrait of the Queen as a young girl and smilingly remarked that she had a striking resemblance to that ancient Queen. The toilet-case, and particularly the comb, appeared to be strangely familiar to the Mother.

About 2300 years ago, Queen Hatshepsut ascended the throne of Egypt at a time when the word 'Queen' did not exist. She was the first woman to rule over Egypt. In the hieroglyphic inscriptions she was designated as 'the King' and called 'Female Horus'. The word 'majesty' was put in feminine form for the first time. On solemn occasions she had to wear a pointed beard, the executive sign of royalty of the Pharaohs. Beautiful and talented, she became famous for her extensive building activities; an entirely new style of architecture was developed during her reign. The imposing rock temple of Hatshepsut, now known as Der-el-Bahri, was built by her; the energetic Queen sent to the ends of the known world expeditions for fruit trees and flowers to be planted on the terraces of that temple of God. The gigantic shaft of her Karnak obelisk stands even today as a monument to her greatness.

I read a memorable and vivid description of Queen Hatshepsut in the book The Splendour that was Egypt, by M.A. Murray:

She was a woman of great force of character, and if her portraits speak true, she was endowed with beauty and charm as well. Her reign is characterized by the great expansion of trade, and by her passionate devotion to her religion, which showed itself in the erection of one of the finest temples that even Egypt can boast of, and by the decoration of other temples as well. Her magnificent temple at Deir-el-Bahri is renowned not merely for its beauty but for the interest of many of the inscriptions on its walls. These inscriptions are illustrated by sculptures, and recount among other things the story of her divine birth....

Hatshepsut means Chief of Noble Women....

Queen Hatshepsut, who ruled as King, puts her position in plain language: 'I am God, the beginning of Existence.'—(Naville, temple of Deir-el-Bahri, pl. IXXXVI, line 7).

In the Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. II, ed. 1960, p. 250, this description has been given:

Hatshepsut or Hatasu (fl. 1500 B.C.), Egyptian queen, daughter of Thotmes I, sister and queen of the short-reigned Thotmes II, after whose death she secured the crown in spite of opposition from the future Thotmes III, who was the son either of Thotmes I or of Thotmes II. She acquired fame by her magnificent terrace temple at Deir-el-Bahri and by her Obelisks at Thebes, the expenses of which were partly met by the treasure-hunting expeditions which she sent to South Arabia. The long military inactivity of her reign, during which state affairs were in the hands of her partisans, shook Egyptian power in Asia. In 1841 her tomb was discovered on a cliff behind the valley of the King's tombs. Her successor, Thotmes III, had her name and figure cut off from the sculptures in her temple and treated the remains of partisans in a similar manner.

The colossal Karnak obelisk stands even today reminding us of the monumental creation of this mighty Queen.

Here is a picture of Hatshepsut's sculptured bust and hers is indeed a face both majestic and ethereal, with a touch of our Mother's loveliness.

I feel that the Matrimandir in Auroville is the final temple the Mother wanted on earth to fulfil her vision of the Supreme Truth and Love in her New World.

In 1952, on our way to England, one of my brothers and his wife and I stayed in Cairo for two or three days. It was the night of the 23rd July, when King Farouk went into exile after General Mohammed Naguib seized power in Egypt. The very night our plane touched down in Cairo the King was leaving. At the airport everyone seemed to be excited and talking about the King.

During our stay in Cairo, I found everything familiar. I did not know why, I was entranced by the gigantic Pyramids and the famous Sphinx. While looking at the photographs which were taken there by us, I am reminded of one of the Mother's writings:

O serene and immobile Consciousness, Thou watchest on the boundaries of the world like a sphinx of eternity. And yet to some Thou givest out Thy secret. They can become Thy soverign Will which chooses without preference and executes without desire.

This is a very beautiful passage written by the Mother:

This immobile Consciousness is the "Mother of Dreams", you may say that it is the creative consciousness, the origin of the Universe, the Universal Mother; the Creative Power—the sphinx of eternity who keeps vigil on the confines of the world like an enigma to be solved. This enigma is the problem of our life, the very raison d'être of the Universe. The problem of our life is to realise the Divine or rather to become once again aware of the Divine who is the Universe, the Origin, cause and goal of life.
Those who find the secret of the Sphinx of Eternity become that active and Creative Power.

The Mother, Questions and Answers (1950 - 1951): 21 December 1950