Sri Aurobindo Ashram - Its Role, Responsibility and Future Destiny

Some Danger Signals

The Mother's and Sri Aurobindo's Work is bound to succeed; there is no shadow of doubt about it. The question is whether our Ashram at Pondicherry will have the privilege of being the vehicle of that Work. If we Ashramites remain sincere in our effort and do not deviate from the Goal that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have set before us, there is no reason why our Ashram cannot realise its God-given destiny. But if we fail to fulfil the conditions for our spiritual awakening, we may be left behind and the Mother and Sri Aurobindo may initiate their work of integral transformation elsewhere at another time in some other collectivity more open to their Light and action. Sri Aurobindo himself has uttered a similar note of warning in another context with respect to the evolutionary preparedness or willingness of humanity. Thus we find in The Life Divine:

"If, then, man is incapable of exceeding mentality, he must be surpassed and Supermind and superman must manifest and take the lead of the creation. But if his mind is capable of opening to what exceeds it, then there is no reason why man himself should not arrive at Supermind

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and supermanhood or at least lend his mentality, life and body to an evolution of that greater term of the Spirit manifesting in Nature." (The Life Divine, p. 847)

Sri Aurobindo has referred to the same ominous possibility in his epic, Savitri:

"Since God has made earth, earth must make in her God;

What hides within her breast she must reveal.

I claim thee for the world that thou hast made.

If man lives bound by his humanity,

If he is tied for ever to his pain,

Let a greater being then arise from man,

The superhuman with the Eternal mate

And the Immortal shine through earthly forms."

(Savitri, Book XI Canto 1, p. 693)

As an integral part of their Yoga of earthly transformation The Mother and Sri Aurobindo wanted to build up an ideal spiritual community consisting of spiritual individuals. And they have said that the Sri Aurobindo Ashram at Pondicherry is the first form their work has taken. The question is: Has our utility been over? Were we meant to play the role of a 'pilot project' alone? Cannot our Ashram prove itself worthy of embodying Sri Aurobindo's ideal of a new kind of spiritual consciousness and life? We say, why not? But a mere declaration or a pious wish will not bring us nearer to our goal. For that the Ashramites have to wake up in time and seek honestly to arrest a few negative trends which have lately, rather prominently, manifested among quite a few inmates of the Ashram. We refer below to five of these trends and append along with them some select passages from the writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, which have bearing on them.

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