Sri Aurobindo Ashram - Its Role, Responsibility and Future Destiny

C. Spirit of Karmayoga Vanishing

As it has been pointed out in the booklet Sri Aurobindo and His Ashram, a community the size of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram naturally requires a considerable amount of work to keep it going. Most of this is done by the members. But it should never be forgotten that the primary purpose of the work in the Ashram is not to satisfy any practical or economic need, nor to be a means for the self-expression of

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the members, but to provide a field for their spiritual growth. Work is done by all, and it is done without remuneration. Sadhaks and sadhikas here strive for perfection in their work not in hopes of material advancement, but in order to make their labour a more worthy offering to the Divine.

But as years have rolled by, especially after the physical withdrawal of the Mother, and with the arrival of a new generation of entrants, the real purpose of work in the Ashram has been lost sight of by many. Work has been reduced to the status of office or factory work prevailing elsewhere. If one has to live in a community, one is expected to give some service to the group which provides him with the amenities and necessities of life: such is the attitude developed in quite a few Ashramites. And this detracts much from the spiritual quality of the Ashram atmosphere. In order to recover the proper spirit in their work, the sadhaks and sadhikas would do well if they comprehend the full meaning of the following words of Sri Aurobindo:

"The work in the Ashram was not meant as a service to humanity or to a section of it called the sadhaks of the Ashram. It was not meant either as an opportunity for a joyful social life and a flow of sentiments and attachments between the sadhaks and an expression of the vital movements, a free vital interchange whether with some or with all.

"The work was meant as a service to the Divine and as a field for the inner opening to the Divine, surrender to the Divine alone, rejection of ego and all the ordinary vital movements and the training in a psychic elevation, selflessness, obedience, renunciation of all mental, vital or other self-assertion of the limited personality.

"Self-affirmation is not the aim, the formation of a

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collective vital ego is also not the aim. The merging of the little ego in union with the Divine, purification, surrender, the substitution of the Divine guidance for one's own ignorant self-guidance based on one's personal ideas and personal feelings is the aim of Karmayoga, the surrender of one's own will to the Divine Will.

"If one feels human beings to be near and the Divine to be far and seeks the Divine through service of and love of human beings and not the direct service and love of the Divine, then one is following a wrong principle - for that is the principle of the mental, vital and moral not the spiritual life." (Letters on Yoga, pp. 850-51)