Satprem on Auroville

Section I : Excerpts

A grand Adventure

"Not a new society: a new type.”

Auroville is the earth's pilot experiment. It is not a question of raising millions of dollars to build a city, not even a question of finding thousands of men to live in a city, above all not a question of human success with a view to creating an exemplary superhumanity equipped with superschools and superlibraries—a handful of men and women who truly, integrally, will let their own substance be molded by the new Power to see what will come out of it. Some transparent specimens.... Will they succeed or not? Everything will depend upon their sincerity. If only a few men on earth understood, not only in their heads and hearts but in their bodies, that this Power can do everything! Nothing is impossible, no law holds. There are no material problems: only the web to traverse. That is all. On the other side is the constant Miracle, at every second. In short, a few men who are willing to learn the lesson of the Miracle.

***

A whole world in the making, from A to Z, without any reference points—everything has to be invented, or rather let itself be molded by the inner growth of this new Consciousness. A sort of challenge, because, by definition, there is nothing more human than man. Each one arrives there with his own baggage of morality or immorality, of spirituality or nonspirituality, with his ideals and so forth—everything has to be demolished, all the old crust, whether idealistic or not, right down to the pure cellular basis. Something that does not require heroism (or perhaps it does, after all), but an extraordinary sincerity of aim that will not let one atom of old reflex block the current of the clear little vibration—and a single faith: the Consciousness of the future and that tremendous Power that can do everything... if one lets it. The whole difficulty of the endeavor is in this single "let it"—no one wants to "let it" of course, each one has his own idea of the way in which things should or should not be done. There, one measures the earth's difficulty, quite symbolically and simply.

 A few clear men.

Disencumbered men.

Not so easy....

***

It is that "de-certification" of the Mind that must come down into the body. That is the ultimate experience of Auroville. Not a new society: a new type. 

A testing ground for the mental subversion.

Right down to the cells.

The last sedition

The New Species

***

 This City of the Future is a battlefield, a difficult adventure. What is decided over there with machine guns, guerrilla warfare and glorious deeds is decided here with sordid details and an invisible warfare against falsehood. But a single victory won over petty human egoism is more pregnant with consequences for the earth than the rearranging of all the frontiers of Asia, for this frontier and this egoism are the original barbed wire that divides the world.

***

But these builders of the new world will have to be careful not to erect a new prison, be it an ideal and enlightened one. In fact, they will understand, and quickly that this City of Truth will not and cannot see the light of day until they themselves live totally in the Truth, and that that building site is first and foremost the site of their own transmutation. One does not deceive Truth.

One may deceive men, make speeches and declarations of principle, but Truth doesn't care a damn. It catches you in the act and throws your deception right back into your face at every step. It is a merciless searchlight, even if it is invisible. And it is very simple; it catches you every time, at every twist and turn; and since it is a Truth of matter, it foils your plans, checks your gesture, confronts you with a sudden lack of materials, workers or funds, stirs up revolt, sets people at odds with each other, sows impossibilities and chaos – until, suddenly, the seeker realizes that he was on the wrong track, putting up the old false structure with new bricks and exuding his small egoism, small ambition or small ideal, his narrow idea of truth and good. So he opens his eyes, opens his hands, attunes himself again to the great Law, lets the rhythm flow, and becomes clear, clear and transparent, plastic to the Truth, to the something seeking to be – anything as long as it be that, the exact gesture, the right thought, the true work, the pure truth expressing itself as it wishes, when it wishes, in the way it wishes. For a second he lets go of everything. For a second he calls out to that new world – so new he understands nothing of it, but which he wants to serve, embody, grow in this rebellious soil. What does it matter what he thinks, feels or deems, oh, what difference does it really make? – just let it be the true thing, the one necessary and inevitable thing. And everything tips into the light – in a second. Everything instantly becomes possible: the materials arrive, and the workers and the funds, the wall crumbles, and the little egoistic structure he was building changes into a dynamic possibility he had not even suspected. He repeats this experience a hundred times, a thousand times, at every level, personal and collective, from the repair of his bedroom window to the sudden million that comes as a “godsend” to build that Olympic stadium.

There are no material problems, ever; there are only inner problems. And if Truth is not there, even the millions will rot on the spot. It is a fabulous experience every minute, a test of Truth and, even more marvelously, a test of the power of Truth. Step by step he learns to discover the effectiveness of Truth, the supreme effectiveness of a clear little second – he enters a world of continuous little marvels. He learns to trust Truth, as if all those blows, blunders, conflicts and confusion were leading him knowingly, patiently, but relentlessly to take the right attitude, to discover the true lever, the true look, the cry of truth that topples walls and makes every possibility blossom amid the impossible chaos. It is an accelerated transmutation, multiplied by the resistance of each one as much as by the goodwill of each one – as if, truly, both resistance and goodwill, good and evil, had to be changed into something else, another will, a will-vision of Truth that decides the gesture and action at each instant. This is the only law of the City of the Future, its only government: a clear vision that accords with the total Harmony, and spontaneously translates the perceived Truth into action.

***

Then there will be no more boundaries inside or outside, no more “I want,” “I take,” no more lack or absence, no more confined and lonely self, no more against or for, good or evil. There will be one single supreme Harmony in thousands of bodies, plucking its chord in this one and that one, this circumstance and that accident, this gesture and that one, unifying everything in one single movement whose every second is perfect and every act true, every word exact, every thought right, every line rhythmical, every heart in unison – and Truth will mold matter according to its right vision. And this little city without boundaries will radiate by its simple power of truth, attracting what must be attracted, discarding what must be discarded, simply by its own force of concentration, touching this point of the universe or that one, this soul or that one, answering thousands of invisible calls, continuously emitting its high, clear note which will brighten the world and lighten hearts, unbeknownst to all.

For such is Truth, so simple no one sees it, so light it travels around the world in a second, unties knots, crosses boundaries and pours out its marvelous possibility in the midst of all the impossibilities, at the slightest call.

On the way to Supermanhood > The sociology of Superman

Section II : Letters & Notes

Was the Sun but a dream

“Truth is a cripple if it doesn’t have the uncompromising sword of the soul.”

November 10, 1975

(Letter to a few Aurovilians)

I have been spending my life outside all “Institutions,” whatever they may be. I even went off into the forest because I did not want any law nor any rule.

Here, I have been near Mother, and that is that.

I have always seen and felt that people need to let themselves be ruled because they are Unable to have the inner vision and knowledge by themselves — though it is the only true rule, the only one I can accept. Otherwise, the forces don a different mask and everything starts off again with different egos.

Thus, the situation of Auroville, whatever it may be, is a last resort until everyone has lost their ego enough to see things clearly and to spontaneously obey the Rhythm of the perpetually changing Truth.

“We want a race without ego,” Mother said — this is the key to the true rule of Auroville.

Sri Aurobindo says:

“Governments, societies, kings, police, judges, institutions, churches, laws, customs, armies are temporary necessities imposed on us for a few groups of centuries because God has concealed His face from us. When it appears to us again in its truth and beauty, then in that light they will vanish?”

(Thoughts and Aphorisms)

In the meantime, may Aurovilians follow their higher consciousness, and the result will be exactly proportional to their sincerity and lack of ego.

December 21, 1976

(Letter to an American Aurovilian, originally written in English)

I like your letter very much, it is a change from the spate of mental muddle and arrogant cries I receive from all sides. There is a Need in you, you want to really know what is happening and it is your heart which cries at last. I shall try, though English is somewhat difficult for expressing with clearness my feelings.

We may start from any end, it leads all to the same point. It is very striking that none of you seem to have grasped the basic fact that after all Mother and Sri Aurobindo wanted to establish a supra-mental world, which means first of all that the mind must either disappear or be replaced by something else. Now all of you are joyously wallowing in the Mind, each with his war-cry, his “Truth,” his idea — specially this “at the service of Truth” has become a disgusting farce. Not only so, but all of you are very eager to seize all of Mother’s words and align them nicely if possible in ten little paras, clean and dry, for hanging at his own special door, like Moses with his Ten Commandments. But truly we are fed up with this kind of Sinai, and so were Mother and Sri Aurobindo. So if you hope to seize Mother’s Truth in writing and deliver it to the world and to Auroville, you will land exactly in the kind of mess you all are in Auroville and in the world. Because the Truth is not a mental thing and Mother is hammering this on the head of all nations and all groups and individuals till they realize their own ineptitude and floundering panacea.

This is especially hammered on Auroville’s reluctant head. Mother is purposely reducing the whole mental world into such a suffocating imbroglio of Truth-lie and lie-Truth, or true lies and lying truths, that people will really need and want to breathe another air. Then the Supramental will have its chance, not before. Until then you can align the whole of Mother’s Agenda and put in writing all of Her wonders, people will simply see nothing — the secrets are transparent. Another kind of eyes are needed, other organs of understanding. And Auroville must understand in the first place that her raison d’etre is to work out other organs, another level of understanding, and finally another being beyond the mental being. We are not here to build a Matri-mandir (and I will repeat that until I get a hoarse throat) nor to grow cabbages, but to build a new being, and incidentally some cabbages to help his transitory way of meditating — and both are most useful as a means toward developing this other thing, supramental thing, which will dispense very well with all our radishes and more or less spacious buildings. Sorry if I hurt your feelings, but this is a fact, an evolutionary fact, and we are here to make a new evolution, is it not? So, by the same stroke, we put in this real perspective all of our provisional attempts, be it a Committee, a kitchen for all, an external relations office, a Matrimandir or what not.

And if we miss the central thing, we miss everything — and we truly are in the process of a resounding crash if we do not seize on this central fact.

Now, see how it works at the mental level. I can give you here a very good example of the mental prowess (mind is the king acrobat). As you know some people in “Aspiration” have tried to work out something for organizing this collective body dealing with external relations — good or bad, I am not here to judge their merits nor the soundness of the thing — but they have tried and called all others to join in the attempt. The mental response may be taken from a letter of one of you whom I do not wish to name, and it is very illustrative of the mental “understanding,” it might have been written by a dozen other Aurovilians here and there: “So,” says sarcastically the letter, “after an Auroville ‘gestion Navajata,’ an Auroville ‘gestion Shyamsundar,’ we will have an Auroville ‘gestion frangaise’...” Then, really, if such is the reaction in peoples minds, there is nothing left but to have an Auroville “gestion nothingness” or call back Navajata, for, indeed, this is exactly the kind of force which is destroying or wants to destroy Auroville. It plays on the mental level, destroys every attempt, corrupts every endeavour, sows its seed of doubt and distrust and jealousy, pushes up everyone against everyone. If Frederick had wanted to try some organization, it would have been the “German gestion,” nicely labeled and condemned in advance. And everything is rottened and corrupted in advance with this kind of reasoning — nobody can try anything, there is nothing to be done except to entrench ourselves into Swedish radishes, Italian Matrimandirs, and Swiss cows. And we are supposed to be here to build another being! Moreover, mark that this kind of reasoning puts on the same footing and by the same breath “gestion Navajata” and “gestion frangaise” — of course those wonderful acrobats have a wide mind and liberal views: those who put the Aurovilians in jail and blackmailed the Aurovilians are just human beings like those who are put in jail and resist the blackmailing — the complete muddle. Result: nobody knows anymore where he stands and “everything is the same” and all are equally the children of the Mother and long life to Hitler! or to any brother in the world. Now you have understood “everything” and you are stuck like a fly in the mental “honey.” And Auroville is nowhere. And the funny thing in this mental game is that Satprem receives the same treatment from those Aurovilian voices as he receives from the Ashram voices — the same kind of arguments and doubts and this and that... as if it were the same voice. And it is the same voice, the same force, which is trying to corrupt all our attempts in advance. Now Satprem does not care for himself, but he cares for this child of the Mother which is Auroville. He has no ambition there except to see this naughty child standing on his own feet and developing the real organs of perceptions and the new level of understanding as a first step toward the “other being.”

I have come to one conclusion. Men — I mean the male species — are hopelessly shut up in their ineffectual and triumphant Reason — they can reason out anything and everything. After 2000 years of male speeches, we will be exactly where we are today and maybe Auroville will have a dozen Matrimandirs, French, German, etc., ... but not a single heart. We will have missed the purpose for which we gathered here. I have always seen that women have a deeper perception and more direct understanding, something which is at the level of the body because they bear children — this corporeal level is the one on which Mother and Sri Aurobindo work. We could say a physical understanding which can pierce through the mental mist and seize directly on the reality of beings and facts and forces. Men have built around themselves a mental fortress and what is outside the particular fortress is an “Enemy,” a “rival,” a German or French or Indian Someone-else, a foreigner of this or that Community, a suspect. It is a huge fog which distorts everything, every idea, every attempt and throws a shadow on every candid vibration. At this stage, I do not believe that any man in Auroville can do something useful for Auroville — but I believe that women can. If only they could throw themselves with all their hearts and break those pygmean male barriers more solid than the Himalayas, and join together and try together to make this real heart of Auroville beat and pray and repeat the Mantra together, then there is a hope for Auroville, then a new level of understanding will develop; then all these mental ghosts and scarecrows will dissolve, this unreality of Auroville — and the Truth will shine in its bare reality, physical reality, out of the mental mist. Something will be born by their united hearts. Something true and simple and joyous will beat among you — and suddenly, unexpectedly, you will find that the new species is born among you. Mother’s Truth will be like the air one breathes, escaped from all books and paras. Everything will be seen in its simple clarity and the old mental world will crumble in a laughter of unreality. And Auroville will be. Now go on, join together, find out the new living path.

With love,

Satprem

December 7, 1976

A last walk with my little mother in the canyons. While gazing at the setting sun, I tell my mother: “May the kingdom of Truth and Harmony be established upon Earth.” She answers: “It has always been here, but we don’t notice it at once.”

***

(Letter to Rachel, a friend from Paris)

Rachel,

I like the tone of your letter. Please forgive me for answering so late, I am overworked.

I don’t know how to handle this immense problem — in fact, the problem of the world, represented by the Ashram at a microscopic level. But let’s start quite simply with the words of your letter: “What can we tell to people who live a lie, who don’t see, and what is more, are sincere in this insincerity!” This blindness is frightening indeed: they mistake black for white and white for black, as says the Upanishad — everything is implacably upside down. The world is more and more in the Night. They pushed Mother into the tomb, didn’t they, after having pushed Sri Aurobindo. And I remain struggling against the same elements that pushed them into the tomb and would have liked to do the same with me. The Ashram is of no interest to me, I have never belonged to any Church — I was near Mother, that’s all. She had called me. And I stay to try and tell, to make the world understand what They really did — what nobody knows. So this message (and its messenger) is infinitely dangerous and feared by the very forces that are waging battle for the last time in the world in order to save their dark supremacy. This is the time when everything must tilt to one side or to the other. Here too, at a microcosmic level, everyone chooses their side — without our knowing, our understanding it: we are here or there, that’s all. So it is quite normal for everything to ferociously and furiously league together against the public menace that I represent by force of circumstance — they tried to wrest Mother’s papers from me, you know, in order to save them from Satprem the traitor and the apostate. And all that might try and escape the dark hold was also attacked and threatened: they tried to take away the passports and visas of the rebellious Aurovilians, to trigger riots among Indian villagers against the Aurovilians, cut off their means of subsistence, send them to jail, blackmail them in every possible way; they made official reports saying that Satprem incited the Aurovilians against the Indian nation and that the bums to be expulsed were drug addicts and sex maniacs — all that with the blessing of the “managers” of the Ashram and of Auroville as well. The big business, you know, millions of rupees collected in the name of an “international work” — was all this battle for the sake of a few huts? Was the Ashram going to let this golden prey get away? Rome experienced that before Pondicherry and the proprietors of Mother are hardly different from the proprietors of Christ — it has been the same force always and everywhere for two thousand years and more, with all kinds of masks, the very force Mother and Sri Aurobindo have uprooted and whose last throes we are now witnessing. It was right, it was natural for the Ashram to be the symbol and the place — the representative concentration — of this ultimate battle. Christ had his Judas, but the Judases of Mother could be found right in her bedroom and to the very end — striving to triumph, to impose their black-is-white and trying to pull the wool over the world’s eyes. So, Satprem in all that is the Enemy, of course, the one who made the pretty business fail — he has committed all the sins of the world, that goes without saying. They throw at him what they no longer can throw at Mother. After all, when you have been faced with a killer, you clearly understand what those eyes mean and what kind of force is there — your body understands very well without philosophy. After all, at the age of twenty I was in a concentration camp, because I refused the Hitlerian regime, I was a Gold-digger in the virgin forest, because I refused the middle-class western regime, I was a ragged and begging Sannyasi, because I refused the world regime — and so I still do. Satprem has not all that many ways of behaving, he has been the same since he slammed the door in his father’s face and fled out into the open sea in his skiff. You cannot shut up the open sea. When people are no longer shut up, they are out of their depth. With an Ashram, it is easy. And whatever comes and upsets this easiness is an awful Lie. The whole world is quite upset! Sri Aurobindo and Mother came to upset everyone — and they think they can shut this up in a shrine within the four walls of an Ashram? But they are mistaken. Satprem came upon earth to wage the battle of Mother and Sri Aurobindo, and so he does. And it is quite natural that 99 percent of the people should be against him — this is the best sign of the divine work. There are those who understand and those who don’t understand, that’s all. And this understanding does not occur in the head, it inexplicably vibrates in the heart. It is “like that,” and it is irrefutable. You don’t need to be a superman to understand that, let alone a super-sage.

Now, if you absolutely want to put this on a local scale, you really fall to the level of sordid gnomes. And the whole story can be summed up in a few words: Andre Morisset has always been jealous, because Mother used to talk with Satprem and chose Satprem instead of himself, her “son.” Pourna, Mother’s “grand-daughter,” regarded herself as the heiress by divine right of Mother’s message and of the spiritual authority over Auroville — but as Auroville did not let itself be impressed by her, she turned against Auroville, and as Satprem was not under her thumb, she turned against Satprem. What one cannot swallow up, one tries to destroy, it is that simple and sordid. As for Barun Tagore, from Auro-press, he tried to swallow Satprem’s books and as Satprem did not give him Mother’s Agenda, he turned against Satprem, he even tried to ruin Satprem in the eyes of his publishers in Paris and New York. In short, it is a “family affair,” as it were — Satprem does not belong to the family. As for Pranab, he is the lord of the manor and has always been jealous of something that was beyond him in Satprem. People cannot stand what surpasses them.

But one can laugh, and I laugh at these gnomic stories; they can think what they want, slander to their hearts’ content, I go my way and I will go right to the end, until Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s work is established in the world. Then I will not stay a minute longer amongst those sordid tribes — I belong to the open sea. I will be neither the new pope of a new religion nor the guru of any city whatever, even if it were Auroville — I will disappear without a trace.

But the Work will be established.

As a conclusion, really, don’t speak of “sincerity” in people’s mistakes, otherwise words no longer have any meaning. Sincere??! I will give you Mother’s marvelous definition: “That’s what I call sincerity: if one can catch oneself every minute belonging to the old Stupidity.” Tell me, who really wants, totally, in every gesture, at every breath, to belong to the New World and to die to himself? They all cling to their power, their noble appearance, their respectable exterior, and to their truth tied up once and for all, as tightly as possible.

As for me, I don’t hold the truth, I walk, that’s all — truth consists in walking. I don’t have any Ashram, any Auroville, my hands are bare and I cry out Mother’s name in the night of the world. I don’t even know if I will have a publisher to publish the great revolution of the world, but I will cry out right to the end and Mother’s Revolution will be despite all opposition.

November 1, 1976

(To Auroville’s friends in Paris)

A small sentence from a London letter which has been conveyed to me makes me feel the necessity of putting the question of Auroville — and ultimately of the Ashram and of the entire Work — in its real general perspective and finally its world perspective for it is all the same world and the same question of the world. There is no “Pondicherry” and “Paris”: there is one and the same formidable, worldwide snake-pit where a few intelligences and especially a few pure hearts are striving to disentangle the truth from falsehood and to draw a line of conduct.

But in reality falsehood cannot be disentangled from truth because Truth is actually entangled in Falsehood everywhere: we are born with a load of atavistic and evolutionary and chromosomic Falsehood from which the pure hearts are desperately and painfully striving to extirpate themselves — without ever succeeding completely because it is not at the Mental level that one can extirpate oneself from the Falsehood, nor at the Mental level that one can disentangle truth from falsehood — it is at the level of the body and of Matter, and this is the whole evolutionary, worldwide story of Mother and Sri Aurobindo. The Supramental lies in the depths of Matter, as Truth-Consciousness is to be found in the atom and at the heart of the cell. It is the very story and the very question in which we are bathed, kneaded and hammered in all possible ways, in all countries and in each group, each Church, and in the least recesses of consciousness. This great Exact Consciousness, or “Straight” Consciousness, as the Rishis used to say, is what has been awakened, set to work by Mother and Sri Aurobindo, and it is now piercing through all the thick and sordid layers of our animal evolution to burst forth into the broad daylight of the world. It is only there that the truth will spring out, pure, in each cell restored to its divine movement, and it is only there that the divine, pure vision in a cleansed body, will make us touch the truth of things and the exact movement, infallibly.

Until then, we are in the same boat, sordid, increasingly sordid. It is enough to turn on the radio for us to understand the extent of the cleansing, from Capetown to Peking, without forgetting Pondicherry along the way. One can also look into one’s own consciousness.

So what hope do we have to understand a little the situation in Pondicherry and to know where to set our feet? It is here that we are entangled a lot, not by bad wills and a swarm of liars, but by good wills and good thoughts — which are as bad as everything else because everyone kindly shares the same Mud Bath. It is the great Mental Mud whose reign is drawing to a close. And it is here that the little sentence from the London letter goes straight to the heart of the problem, we might say to the side of the problem which is the most solidly muddy, for nothing is more solid than Truth when it is caught in a mudhole — this is what is happening everywhere in one thousand six hundred and fifty languages. Well, this person met the “President” of the Sri Aurobindo Society in London and she says very kindly: “I have been helping Nava (the said President) a bit with finding information ... putting him in touch with people, etc., and TRYING TO FEEL UNITY WITH THE BEST IN HIM.” One cannot think better, even Pope Paul VI would say as much to the Protestants or the Copts. One has broad views, you know. The trouble is that the whole View is muddy, as we have said. Where is the “best” in a rotten fruit? And the reasoning keeps unfolding (you can catch it in letters from New York or Nairobi, it is the perfect halo over the general mud) the reasoning unfolds imperturbably because there is nothing more imperturbable than an entrapped Truth (fortunately the Supramental is creating a serious perturbation in all that), it further says: in each man the Divine can be found, so let us embrace our brothers; besides, in each being there are both errors and a spark of truth, so let us embrace again our sinning brothers; in each camp there is some truth and some falsehood, thus there must be a bit of falsehood in the Aurovilians and a bit of truth in its glorious President, a bit of falsehood-truth in the Ashram and a bit of truth-falsehood in the Administrators of the Ashram — let us all embrace one another and may those petty “internecine” quarrels stop at last. Those are the world’s intestines indeed. And as a result, no one knows where they are any longer, no one knows where the truth is any longer, no one knows where the falsehood lies any longer. Everything is true and everything is false. It is the Truth which lies. It is the great intestinal Embrace of the general mud.

But all the same ...

And it is “objective,” of course, one distinguishes right and wrong, one gives each one their “due.” But this “due” is worth nothing. Our total ineptitude is being dinned into us in one thousand six hundred and fifty languages.

Now is the time to try and really understand what Sri Aurobindo and Mother have done, their real work in this total “Mudhole,” as Mother would say. They did not soar into the heavens of Consciousness, no; they worked for the World as a whole. So they gathered around them, in this Laboratory of the Transformation, a number of terrestrial samples taken from the different kinds of mud or of negation that had to be transmuted for the operation to be complete, that is, global. They swallowed up these little ingredients of the world Difficulty in their own bodies: their negations and resistances, their incomprehension or so called comprehension and sometimes, rarely, a little spark of pure love which made, as Mother said, a “drop of eternity” in that opaque and mortal mixture — mortal indeed, They died of it fifty times a day and each time They squeezed out a drop of pure Life from this encircling, harassing and voracious Death. They transmuted, they kept digging up, they swallowed all the dregs and the mud to wrest a pure little response in the cells of their own bodies — and finally in the cells of the world s body, for there is but one body. You know, when you swallow typhoid, you have to “work typhoid out” — They “worked out” all the diseases of the world and all the dirty things of the world, one after the other. First and foremost, the “disciples” were the samples of the collective Negation.

The result of Their unthinkable work? — we see it now and we shall see it more and more. As Sri Aurobindo put it, “The Supramental will explain itself,” and it is vigorously and irresistibly explaining itself, through all the layers of filth which up to now provided a pretty veneer over our decent civilizations. But the veneer is cracking. Saintlinesses are cracking. It is one and the same rot desperately trying to clothe itself in black or white and to put on the halo of all possible saintlinesses: religious, patriotic, Marxist, or whatever “ism” we choose to wrap it in — one even wraps oneself in Mother’s flag and one knows Sri Aurobindo to one’s fingertips. But it is cracking, everything is cracking. It is the time when everything cracks — except what is pure. And what is pure is not located in the head or in the virtues of the old world, but at the level of a little cell.

To know where to go and how to walk in this general snake-pit, we have to find this “pure” something.

The Ashram?... “I did not come upon earth to found an Ashram,” Mother wrote, “that would have been a poor aim indeed.” Yes, God forbid! But, of course, they are the “heirs” of the Work, just as the other is the “proprietor” of Auroville. It is “mine,” I defend the “interests of Mother and Sri Aurobindo.” It is swarming, charming to see, as in the rest of the intestines of the world. And it waves Mother’s flag about marvelously. If you dare to say anything, you are a traitor and a heretic, and you are sent to jail, like the Aurovilians, or they take away your passport. Or else they wage the sordid war against you. It is full of claws, slimy. These are the residues of Sri Aurobindo’s and Mother’s Laboratory, the small triumphant samples — and a few pure, silent drops, thanks to which all that is not complete mud. One could even say that these pure drops give more force to the reigning Falsehood. “What is an Ashram without a guru?” a certain French writer asked us — “It is a Church.” Such is the simple answer.

And such is the choice the Ashram is faced with: to break the walls of the Church and to be reborn in the living truth, in other words, to do Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s experience, to live it, to bring it down into Matter and into the cells of our bodies, or to rot: the great speeches on Sri Aurobindo’s “philosophy” and Mother’s “teaching,” while underneath one goes on and on with the old atavistic and genetic and orthodox rot. It is all stuffed with haloes. We shall celebrate Mother’s centenary with great pomp, we shall bury her a second time after having buried her a first time beneath our general Falsehood.

But who wants the living truth?

Auroville? It is riddled with contradictions, it is full of non-haloes which flounder right and left, make mistakes and bump into things, but seek and climb up and bite the dust again — without putting on airs, without even a single text of Sri Aurobindo’s to brandish. It is perfectly incoherent and even in-cohesive. But all that tends toward something. It is a world which TENDS TOWARD. It has no good reason, no virtue, but it is in tension. And it is this tension that interests us.

Always in History there were those who clung to the evolutionary summits, as one clung to the Italian Renaissance or the priests of Thebes or Mr Karl Marx. It becomes very comfortable in the end, one can even be a bureaucrat or rather a “paintocrat” of Raphael and carry on with Raphael or Karl Marx for three hundred years — or with little Ashrams forever. Then there are those who seize the small uneasy vibration, that “something” within which keeps breaking through walls, all the walls, until it reaches the pure little truth, total and without any wall, in the depths of the atom or of a cell. These ones live Sri Aurobindo and Mother. These ones laugh at the “proprietors” of Mother and Sri Aurobindo. These ones are in motion: they are TENDING toward.

And the Truth, this Truth that we were all seeking so as to distinguish right and wrong is neither of the right nor of the left nor in the Ashram nor even in some future city: it is in the sole fact of tending toward. It is this Movement which is True.

So what we have to embrace are not dubious “brothers”or a Church or proprietors of all kinds or good or evil, but this sole Movement, and we have to learn how to distinguish between the rot clinging to its privileges, its powers and its virtues and all the excellent virtues of the old, presiding species — and this uneasy, awkward, stumbling little vibration that nonetheless desperately wants Something Else.

No, it is not a quarrel between two “camps,” but an evolutionary choice between the past of the earth and its future. And ultimately it is the choice of the whole Earth, as one day we had to choose between Hitler (another “brother”) and the Resistance, or between the pithecanthropus and the Homo sapiens. And now it is another species, it is another little vibration to catch and live.

This particular little vibration is unmistakable. It is what distinguishes the ghosts from the living. It is Truth on the move which has not caught all its glories and its fanfares; it is even a rather ragged truth, but it is moving on.

So, are we going to move on?

Are we going to create this New Species?

That is the question.

It is a question to be lived out: to live is the very answer.

As for the others, let them celebrate Mother’s centenary with great pomp — for our part, we want a living Mother, a living Sri Aurobindo, we do not believe in their tomb nor in their Church, but in their new World. And we are building this new world, we are desperately in need of it.

September 10, 1976

(Letter to Andre Brincourt)

Dear Andre,

I don’t know by what inspiration I feel prompted to write to you. The situation is dangerous, I don’t know what may happen in the next days and someone must know, in case I would no longer be here. Someone on earth must understand what the stakes are. I was nearly murdered a few days ago, and it is not over. What is at stake is not myself, but the earth. These words may seem high-sounding, but sometimes the great Burden depends on a few pure hearts — that is all I have, Andre, in this dark battle I have been waging since Mother’s departure against forces that are beyond me. Now things are becoming very tight. I tried to tell you something a number of months ago — ever since then, things have accelerated and become more acute. It is not a question of starting some press “campaign,” at least not now, but if things happened to become too difficult, I would find relief in somebody knowing and being able to protest against the huge swindle which is trying to prevail — by all possible means.

As you know, Mother left two things: Auroville, which is her laboratory of the future, the place where, God willing, some new species is striving to be built among and thanks to its difficulties and internal contradictions; then, what She called her “Agenda,” the manufacturing process of the new species, if I may say so, some 6,000 pages of Her conversations with me for seventeen years, in which She explained to me, step by step, experiences, difficulties, obstacles, and ultimately the formidable Negation that surrounded her and slowly closed over her, pushing her into the tomb — like Sri Aurobindo. But it is not a failure, it is a tremendous Mystery which is being unraveled or worked out in the midst of a ferocious conflict of dark forces — the very ones that pushed her into the tomb and would like to make their dark goal triumph up to the end. For the secrets are there, in these 6,000 pages, and the attempt of realization is there, too, in this fragile laboratory — will they see the light of day or will they be, not destroyed, but — which would be worse — adulterated, truncated, expurgated from the elements of truth they contain and brought out in some Nietzschean and untruthful form? In Auroville, the “Sri Aurobindo Society,” which claims to be the “proprietor” of Auroville, tried to expel all the sincere elements one by one, by having their visas taken away from them; they tried to blackmail the others by threatening them with depriving them of their passports, or by freezing money and stopping supplies to the canteens. They set the villagers, or a number of them, against the Aurovilians and tried to cause riots as a result of which the Aurovilians would undoubtedly have been condemned by the Government of India. They bribed the police, tried to have half a dozen of Aurovilians sent to jail.

They even bribed the Cuddalore hospital, where they had sent a so-called wounded person, a Tamil villager, who was to be kept there for seventeen days, for the “case” to be serious. They tried to have some Aurovilians killed by placing big stone blocks above the sunken lanes crossing Auroville to make them tumble down on the motorcyclists going past — three of them escaped the “accident”.... I don’t know all they tried to do; it is such a tissue of incredible blackness that we could think we are in some Asiatic Middle Ages. Ruthless forces want to be the masters of Auroville — why so ruthless? For the sake of these few huts in the middle of red lands cracked by the sun?

The Grace sent a man to help us, just when I was despairing. This man is Sir C.P.N. Singh, a former Indian Ambassador to Japan and Nepal, an old friend and confidant of Pandit Nehru and Indira Gandhi’s adviser. He happened to visit the garden: I met him, I took his hands, without saying a word. He understood. He wrote to me afterward: what can I do to help you? That is how the battle for our rescue began. He is a man devoted to Sri Aurobindo and Mother, so he understood. Thus the same dark forces rushed at him. The people of the Sri Aurobindo Society made the various foreign embassies in Delhi (including the French Embassy) write to Indira Gandhi in order to criticize Sir C.P.N. Singh’s “interference” in Auroville’s private affairs; they made the Vice-President of India intervene (a very kind and good man, but who does not understand anything); they interceded with the Governor of Pondicherry, the Governor of the State Bank.... Then we began to discover a huge organized network; they have people everywhere: among the government secretaries, the police — Phones have been tapped, we cannot get a plane ticket without their being immediately informed of it, they watch our letters....It is incredible, I cannot get over it, I discovered it all step by step, day after day — all that for the sake of a few huts?

What exactly is this Sri Aurobindo Society? Who is there? — money, a lot of money, millions and millions of “black money,” all that wants to evade paying taxes to the Indian government. They have people everywhere, corruption knows no bounds: the big business, without scruples. How did they get there?... Mother had them under control, their only role consisted in helping to collect money to provide for the Ashram and Auroville — and Mother made a selection, She knew what to accept and what to refuse and She was sensible enough to let in only what was strictly necessary, opening all Her books to the Government of India, without any possibility of cheating. As a matter of fact, She always had financial problems and had to perform daily miracles. But now... So, those people became the “proprietors” of Auroville. And as the Ashram keeps on having money problems, they became the silent “benefactors” of whom no one speaks or knows, because it all takes place in dark and sordid depths that we don’t understand very well. But once again, what is the purpose of it all? Is it for the sake of a half ruined Ashram and a few lands cracked by the sun?

We are facing a vast, well-organized scheme, which has thousands of years of History behind it — it is the eternal tragedy of the new “revelation,” the new “step of evolution,” the new Turning Point for the Earth which every time lets itself be engulfed in new religions and specious philosophies. But this time it was and it is a serious matter, it was and it is really a new step in evolution, a formidable Turning Point that I hope you will soon understand through my books.

Then the target narrowed itself precisely down to these books, to this Agenda, and to me personally — to anything that could endanger their Falsehood. I am the dangerous witness. In January of this year, I faced serious danger (it seems ridiculous to speak about it, but after having experienced the Gestapo and the concentration camps, I can look quietly and philosophically at all that). So, they tried to make me give this Agenda “to the Ashram for publication”: a subtle blackmail, with the real threat of little squads of Ashram gymnasts coming to “rescue Mother’s work” from the devil’s hands. For two days death was lying in wait for me. I saw it come, I saw it go off. What stopped the attack was Sir C.P.N. Singh’s presence in New Delhi. Had they come to seize these papers, I would have burned myself to death at the Ashram gate as a last resort — I was ready. I do not fear death — but this Work had to be handed down to the world, and I had to stay alive. The second time, in April, we tried and made the first move: Sir C.P.N Singh came to the Ashram and we asked the authorities to have the Agenda published by the Ashram — BUT on special terms of material safeguard of these documents, that is, guaranteeing that these writings would be published as they are when I give them, without being cut or censored, under my own authority — they refused. Then the game got heavy. Personal attacks on Sir C.P.N Singh multiplied — sordid, occult and slanderous (he is over seventy-five and his heart is fragile after having escaped several times), attacks on Auroville were launched in close succession. It became obvious that I had to publish my books at all costs — the three volumes I wrote last year — before I met with an accident. It was a race to find a printer in India. In May, at last, we found someone in Madras. For four months, it has been a new kind of race against time and we had to disentangle quasi-insurmountable difficulties one after the other: all the accents had to be hand-set (they only have English characters) — millions of accents for three volumes; we had to compose in 12 points on the machine before reducing to 11 points photographically, to make plates, print — and find the impossible paper which we were lucky enough to get only two weeks ago, thanks to Mr Tata.... All that at exorbitant prices. In short, the first volume will perhaps come out tomorrow. Eight days ago I narrowly escaped being murdered in the canyons where I go for a little walk everyday: a miracle. These three men were there, I was on the edge of a precipice. One of them grasped my right arm and took my watch; the second man seized me by the neck, while the third one — he had wide golden eyes in a bestial, butcherlike face, perhaps a Muslim — he was the killer. He raised his hand to push me, I looked straight at him; he lowered his arm, while the others let go of me, then I moved away quietly, step by step. At that second, everything had stopped. There was not a single vibration in me. I seemed to be outside of it all, watching as if I were already on the other side — I was no longer on their side indeed, they could not touch me. The police was called to watch my isolated garden at night, but... But the Shadow is there, you don’t know from where it can spring out or at which unexpected turning. The second volume may be ready within three weeks, and the third one will follow quickly. People from the Ashram already went to the Madras printer’s in order to make “discreet” inquiries. And C.P.N. Singh, my only protection, was attacked by a hiatus hernia that must be operated these days. His heart is weak. I will take a plane to Delhi tomorrow or the day after in order to assist him. Everything is pending. I gave instructions so that the first volume might be sent to you at the same time as to Robert Laffont, and I said that nothing must come out here (in Pondicherry) until the three volumes are ready, because it would unleash the onslaught. I shall have the whole Ashram against me. May I add that under the dominant crust of falsehood there lies the true Ashram, the pure little lights — but they can do nothing. May Mother protect us. May She protect these books.

There we are. It is a dangerous bridge to cross. Do think of us. These books are a revolution. The revolution of the new world. It is beyond all the Ashrams, all the Aurovilles, all the little “Is” — it is a new step for the Earth. And whether I am part of it or not does not matter — but may the Work be, pure. Pure. And may the Earth welcome the grace.

July 16, 1976

(Letter to Auroville: an Aurovilian woman had fallen from a scaffold, at the Matrimandir)

To my brothers and sisters of the Matrimandir. To Auroville.

This accident should not have happened. According to the spiritual law, it is the sign of a Falsehood. And those who think that it is an “accident” bury their heads in the sand so as not to see.

I like Auroville enough to tell the truth to Auroville — for, after all, Auroville interests me only insofar as it is a place where the Truth can become manifest. So, excuse me if the truth is not pleasant.

There is a double Falsehood, and I have known for a long time that something is going wrong at the Matrimandir, but to tell it, I had to wait for the right moment — people, alas, do not understand until they start receiving blows.

First Falsehood: those who think that the Matrimandir must be built “at all costs” and that the Goal is to build one Matrimandir or two hundred Matrimandirs are grossly mistaken. It is not a question of building the Matrimandir: it is a question of building the people of the next world by using their symbolic effort. Mother does not care about tons of cement — She cares about an ounce of sincerity, a pure little gesture, consciously made. If each of the workers’ gestures were really filled with consciousness, the Matrimandir would shine all by itself like a divine Act and those men would already no longer be men, but divine beings. It is this divine world that we want to build, it is these divine men that we want to create, or else the Matrimandir can crumble along with the dust of all the useless temples that fill the banks of the Nile. It is not that that we want, but a new species upon earth, a supramental species.

So, you think that you are going to build this new species for 1978? — second Falsehood, which is perhaps the most disgusting of all. All those admirable fakers are about to bury Mother a second time, as if all their lies had not already been enough to bury Her a first time. A second, solemn burial for the Centenary of Mother — now that She is dead all right, they think, one can celebrate Her. But when she was really there physically among them, all their little Lies were raging and in revolt. And you want to repeat this disgusting masquerade for Mother’s Centenary? You think that She is dead? You think that you can go on cultivating the countless little Lies under the protective tons of cement of the Matrimandir? But this is not what we want! But Mother is not dead, and Mother does not want this masquerade — She wants pure, true, sincere people. Will there be three of them only in all Auroville for the 21st of February 1978? If there were only three of them, the whole Earth would be saved.

So I invite you to build a few men — as many men as there are in Auroville, if possible — pure and luminous, exact in each gesture, each reaction, each word and each movement. And if you have succeeded in doing that, Auroville will shine upon earth like two hundred Matrimandirs, because it was for THIS that Mother wanted Auroville, not for one more temple. Then perhaps Mother herself will come and shine among us, for we will be able to stand Her light. She is waiting for us to be capable. It is not the second burial of Mother that we want to celebrate in 1978, but the first advent of a new species which will be capable of SEEING HER RIGHT IN OUR MIDST.

January 30, 1976

(Letter to two Aurovilian friends, A. and L.)

Yes, you have seen exactly: the dark forces that incite the masses to everyday fascism are there, and it is not surprising in the least. When you read the rest of the book, you will see the formidable story and how they sent Mother over to the other side. They would like to send Satprem, too, to the other side — and I never once doubted that the forces behind would do their best to disturb A.’s work. We really are in the Hour of God — an Hour of God without appearing such, very much Chicago style. And the book you have in your hands, which is only a little beginning, is formidable dynamite whose significance you will soon be aware of. When speaking of “dynamite,” I don’t mean the words or the ideas or even the facts expressed, but the Force behind. It is Sri Aurobindo and Mother who have begun to walk upon the world — just wait and see. We are all going to see. We delight in speaking of the “new world,” everyone repeats the word or brandishes it or hides behind it — but one day the new world establishes itself. And masks drop. We are reaching this point, at long last! So now is the time to keep our helmets on and to hold on — this book is a great battle. We are waging a great battle.

Here, we went through death for two days before the Forces about to unleash themselves were “miraculously” stopped. All that had been foreseen, foreseen long before. The day after her departure, Mother told me, “You must hide.” And when I saw the danger come nearer, a few months ago, She told me, “No-no, you must not take to the street (God knows! I would have been torn to bits): you must go and see the «Governor»” — I wondered who this ‘Governor’ was, until one fine evening I saw Indira Gandhi’s adviser, unknown to me, appear at my place. It is thanks to him that we are still alive. The Government of India knows and protects us ... as far as it can, because the masses are moved like puppets: one wraps oneself up in Mother’s flag and wants to save Mother’s work from the clutches of the “devil.” That is the way things are. But we keep holding on and advancing imperturbably.

Keep all that to yourself. The situation is already dangerous enough! I told you about it, because it is so nice to find a brotherly echo in this black mixture!

Come on, a great hope is beating in our hearts, we are reaching the Moment at last. The white pigeons represent the smiling Grace which leads things — that is, the world — toward its ineluctable Victory. Look closely around you. You will see everyone and everything as they are under their masks. And Auroville will be. In fact, we are waging the battle of Auroville and of the new world.

My door is open to you at any moment. If I have the time to call you, I will do it. I well know the lights which burn in the great Night, and I know where every heart is. My brothers and sisters from Auroville are invisibly around “me.” One day we will meet, when the Work is done. We are doing it.

May 21, 1976

(Letter to a young Aurovilian woman, about Nava’s Fallacy-Society. Originally written in English)

29th May is a very good day.

I have read your project for a “Governing Board” of Auroville. It may be premature and there is not the something spontaneous which springs from the New World. It is a kind of improvement of the same old Machine. First of all to want to include there some representative of the Sri Aurobindo Fallacy-Society is to introduce at once the Falsehood. As long as the Aurovilians have not understood and felt the complete rottenness of this Society, there is no hope, it means that they share to some degree this Falsehood. This corrupt seed must be completely eradicated from the mind and body of Auroville. Then you mention my name as a representative of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. But I do not belong to an Ashram nor to any Institution past or future. I belong to Mother, I belong to the Fire which is not to be imprisoned in any human construction. And lastly by whom is your project to be signed? A few days ago a short declaration was circulated in Auroville to the effect that the Aurovilians had no trust in the Sri Aurobindo Society for carrying out Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s ideals. Only 86 signatures were collected, not even half of the Aurovilians, while their own brothers were blackmailed, pursued by the police and menaced with expulsion under the instigation of the impostors from the Sri Aurobindo Society. As long as the Aurovilians will see some arm or leg of their own body being torn and cut without feeling concerned, then they will call on themselves a lot of misery and more misery till they understand fully that they are one and that one cannot cut a piece of the body without hurting the whole body. This is exactly the thing. One may ask not when Auroville will be free, but when the Aurovilians will cease to deserve their masters?

I am with you deeply in the living body of Auroville.

Satprem

You can show this letter to anyone. I have nothing to hide and I have no fear of anything. Who can burn the Fire, tell me?

May 29, 1976

Eight Aurovilians placed under arrest.

May 30, 1976

(Extract from a letter to the Aurovilians, originally written in English)

I have the dolorous privilege of seeing a little better than you, because I am your brother a little more ahead, and I have said to you, repeated, with my brotherly heart, that there was a poison in Auroville. But if you persist in believing or in thinking that one can come to terms with potassium cyanide, then there is no other solution but for you to become poisoned slowly, implacably. And finally your vision and your perception will be so obscured that you will no longer even perceive that it is Poison.

(Extract from a notebook)

In Tindivanam prison (the Aurovilians). P. near me. I grasp the bars: we are there so that this may no longer exist.

April 2, 1978

(Letter to N., in Auroville)

The air is better here. It was becoming a little suffocating there. Well, I think I will soon be able to get back to my real work, once our camping here is better organised. Here? Where? It is the secret of our peace — I hope that it will last (!). And I think that my departure was necessary for Auroville too. It is best that everyone finds his direct contact with Mother, without any intermediary. Intermediaries are the old plague of religions. Sri Aurobindo and Mother came precisely to bring the Divine directly into Matter, or rather to wear away the hard layer that veiled this immediate Presence from our eyes. Now we must open our eyes (and ears). Everyone must strive to listen and to see. Nothing impedes the contact and the right inspiration, except the ego and the mental complication.

Besides, you know well, and all of you know, that I am not leaving you, wherever I am. I continue the work, the same one, yours, ours, that of the new Earth. Auroville is one of those places: we must grow many Aurovilles and open many hearts to the simplicity of the Marvel.

Such is the part I have to play. But you are dear to my heart above all others. I have gauged your heart, your devotion, and I clasp you in my arms, we continue.

The Victory is in every pure little gesture.

With tenderness to all

my brothers and sisters

Satprem

May 24, 1978

(Letter to N., in Auroville)

It was very good to feel your love and joy. The living presence of Auroville is shining in the surrounding night. It is very moving to feel that. Mother is pleased. We must really understand that we are in the hour of the great Possible: not to build a small world or even a better world, but another world. How does one become the next being after man? If we asked ourselves the question with enough intensity and constancy, perhaps the Passage would open.... What an adventure! This is what Auroville is. You understand, what matters is the intensity of the question. Everyone should be like a very intense question, but so quiet, so firm at the same time.

I trust you. Truly, I love you. You are my brothers, my sisters. We are walking together, here or there, toward Mother's great Country, toward the true Earth at last.

With much love to all, how I would like to embrace each of you!

October 5, 1978

(Letter to two Aurovilians)

You have completely misunderstood the meaning of my last letter. I have never thought that the meaning of Auroville consisted in living like individual sardines in a collective tin nor that the unity of Auroville lay in everyone living on the same model, at the same place, and making their genuflections at the same hour — even Marx's egalitarian heavens never dreamt of such an intransigent communism or communitarism. And if the Supramental and the ideal of a Gnostic community must be that, well, off to Kamtchatka with the little polar bears. I am myself the most individualist of individualists and stay carefully "on my own", and yet (it seems) I work perfectly well for the community of Auroville and that of the world by trying to communicate the meaning and the force of the work of Mother and Sri Aurobindo through my own means. Unity, yes, in an infinite diversity. And each one by his own particular means. Sri Aurobindo himself said that the highest state for the human community at its peak would be "divine anarchism," and not, phew! mental authoritarianism. BUT this higher anarchism or supreme individualism could not exist except on one basis: the disappearance of the selfish little individual into the divine Person who is at the centre — and is everybody's Person. There, we are perfectly ONE, and it is the only place where we are ONE, there is no other, and no "trick" will ever replace this primordial and surgical operation. It is the only possible government and the only possible community, because it is the only thing that unites and that KNOWS. So it is not a question of being in Aspiration or in Snarga or in Pantin, but within in this unique place where everything meets, and of making the small egos and the big ones melt away there. I don't doubt that B. gives his cows, his milk, and goodness knows what to the rest of the Community, but that is not the point. I don't doubt that B. and C. are different from X, Y, Z who live in Aspiration or in Pantin, and so much the better! If we were all alike, it would be a frightful bore! That is not the point. What I felt in your place (apart from its qualities and beauty and all the external things) is probably an individual "self" a little stronger than the others, something that strongly delimits itself — and this too, is an indispensable quality, because what the Divine asks for is not wise and worshipping little sheep, but for strong, rich beings, endowed with active qualities. For these strong, fully-formed individuals, it is more difficult than for others to give themselves to the Divine and make the limits melt away. It is more difficult, but the result is richer. Sri Aurobindo even said that one must have "a bit of the titan" in oneself — so as to offer one's titan better and keep only its purified dynamism. So there, B. and C. are struggling with this strong, fully-formed part of themselves, this "individual monument," rather violent and tempestuous, but rich, which must melt away into Something Else. The difficulties that arise with our brothers are only there to help us put our finger on the sore spot — there is never someone's "fault,": there is a progress to make, that's all.

But to call Kali, as C. does, is still a selfish violence that calls for another, stronger violence. All that has to MELT INTO TENDERNESS.

This Tenderness is Mother. She does not break anything: she makes things melt.

And when everything has completely melted within, there is no more opposition anywhere and everything meets harmoniously. The external oppositions are always the image of our own opposition. When it is tender within, everything is very tender.

I embrace both of you.

Satprem

January 8, 1979

(Letter to an Auroville woman. Note in the margin: "Not sent, except to the Devil!")

The game of the Asura is always the same, throughout all of human spiritual history: it catches a bit of the Truth, and with the very force of the Truth it has swallowed, it develops its Falsehood. The danger of the Falsehood is not Falsehood, if I dare say, but the portion of Truth that has been swallowed and that helps strengthen the Falsehood. The true Asura is not the "devil" whom everybody knows is dark and wicked, but the little saint who uses the Truth and utters the words of Truth for his selfish ends. In the name of Christ's "Love," more than one "heretic" was imprisoned and tortured and burnt. In the name of "nonviolence," they betrayed the true Shakti of India and encouraged a

mass of spiritual calves who meditate seated on the rot of the country. The greatest crimes and the greatest betrayals have always been committed in the name of Truth, it goes without saying. In the name of Mother and Sri Aurobindo and the "Ideal of Human Unity," they imprison some Aurovilian brothers and hire dubious lawyers. In the name of this much-vaunted "Unity," they expel Satprem from the Ashram, take away the visas of the dissidents or the rebels, and at the same time, say: let's embrace Navajata, let's embrace Shyamsundar — let's embrace one another, we are all "One," aren't we? No, little one, I don't know if it is the "Truth," but it is mental rot. The "spiritual" arguments of the person you speak of smell bad — it is a corpse of the decaying Truth. You must choose, you must know what you want and on which side you stand. It is this courage that is needed. During the war too, we heard more than one traitor, in the name of the "Unity of France," proclaim collaboration with the troops of the Gestapo.

Unity is all very well, but we have first to deserve it: you don't create unity by putting a viper in your pocket, or else it will bite you and so much the better, if you are silly enough to put a viper in your pocket.

Truth is not something that is like a fried egg: it is something that becomes itself and conquers itself. Unity is not something that exists like a pair of spiritual slippers. It is something that becomes itself and conquers itself at each instant against a thousand enemies.

So let's become and conquer as Rishi Agastya said:

"Let us have the taste of even all the contesting forces,
 Let us conquer indeed even here,
 Let us run this battle-race of a hundred leadings..."

(Rig-Veda I. 179)

That's it.

July 23, 1979

(Letter to Gloria of Auroville, whose husband had just been seriously injured in a mysterious nocturnal attack.)

What has happened to you personally and to Auroville makes me feel very sad. But at the same time, I've had the impression that it was a great and good turning point. You see, bad things are never totally bad, because it is the Divine who drives the world, not the devil. And if he sends us the devil, it is for us to learn to be more divine — until the day we are truly pure, then the devil will vanish because he will not be needed anymore. You see, we are at the critical moment when there will be no compromise anymore: one has to choose totally and absolutely. For years now Auroville has been given all the necessary time to open its eyes and see things clearly. Now, we must be CLEAR, without any ambiguity. Our only salvation lies in totally TRUSTING Mother and Sri Aurobindo. Auroville has opened its doors to all the lies and all the illusions, thinking it was clever and strong enough to absorb everything and marry all the opposites.

You have accepted Nava, X, Y and Z, forces of money, tantric forces — and Auroville is like a fly in a cobweb, struggling with forces that are more considerable than expected. You are all very childish, you think that one can create "spiritual unity" with everything, play with everything, you delight in great words, but behind there are forces that are cleverer than you and that use your silliness and ambiguity to slip into your house and decompose you from within, divide you and blind you — BLIND above all.

It is time Auroville understood that there is no compromise but one single hope and one single solution, which is to be PURE, to clean your house of all those cobwebs and understand that there is but one power, one protection and one solution: Mother, Sri Aurobindo, and THEY alone. You think that you can play at being little tantrics with impunity, but you don't know what forces you are inviting — you are being had, like flies in a cobweb. You think that you can come to an understanding with X or Y, but they wrap you in their honeyed filth until you are all well and truly divided and understand nothing anymore. I have been repeating the same thing for years now. When I denounced Nava and the

S.A.S. for the first time, eighty percent of the Aurovilians cried out in indignation — the truth is coming to light bit by bit. But now it is time you threw out all these fakers, or else it's you who will be eaten. And you will be hit on your heads until you have understood. It is you yourselves who open the door to the Enemy, in the name of spiritual unity, or the sacrosanct money-power or in the name of Tantra and all the sacred texts of India. But who wants Mother pure and simple, Sri Aurobindo pure?

What force do you want, what protection do you want? That of Mother, Mother's mantra, or little tantric mantras to get little powers and play the charlatans in public? — Don't you understand what you are opening the door to?

Twice they tried to kill me. Once, in the canyons. There were three of them, and I was like a child in front of them, there was only Mother's Mantra beating in my heart. And they could not touch me.

A second time, they wanted to kill me.... [Here, several lines crossed out with a violet felt-tip pen.]

Do you understand now?

Are you going to continue playing with all that, or to clean all this falsehood from your house?

It is time.

It is high time.

I embrace you, little one, and I trust you all.

We are together in the struggle against Falsehood.

August 7, 1980

(Letter to an Aurovilian)

You are a little like Auroville's heart. Even its suffering, discouragement and impatience are part of this beating heart — we must go on beating, that's all, whatever the appearances may be. What is wrong with Auroville is that it lives too much in appearances — so today everything is marvellous and full of hope, tomorrow it is abominable and hopeless, and again the kaleidoscope turns and consciousnesses turn like little puppets. One hopes that the S.A.S. is about to disappear, then one gives up hope.... It is like clouds passing over the sea: everything shines, then everything grows dim again. In fact, Auroville lives in its Mind and its desires — the Mind can be idealistic and noble, the desires can be just and generous, but all that is mere human porridge and there is no way out, it will go on for 4677 years until men are fed up with their admirable ideas and precious feelings. Apes too were very fond of their precious gymnastics in the trees.

But truly, the ABC of the new world is to learn how to live in another profundity of being, where appearances do not touch any more than clouds touch the deep sea. On this foundation, this profound and immutable solidity, we can begin to build another being — otherwise, we will always build a circus.

Of course, those crooks must disappear, the Matrimandir must be built, Auroville must be free — but free for what? — for lots of little puppets who will go on with their puppet speeches and their puppet feelings. Who will be in Auroville? Who will meditate in the Matrimandir — the same old men?

Auroville will not progress an inch until it understands that it is its heart that must change and that everything is a pretext for obliging it to work out this profound change. Is there any point at all in one more town? one more temple? if it is not to live there in another way, with another consciousness.

Auroville's battle is only a very small symbol of the battle of India and the battle of the world — are you going to free the world, purify India in a few days? Do you even understand that your own inner purification, transformation and liberation are the most powerful help that you can bring to India and to the world? This is the battle that you must wage within yourself and each day, instead of turning like weathercocks with the slightest appearances.

India is in a serious situation, as is the whole world; there is an immense corruption, like that of the S.A.S. before your eyes — it is not in a few days or a few months that Indira Gandhi can clean up India's huge stables. But you can help by becoming more and more what Auroville must become: a place where a new consciousness and a new way of being on Earth will be born. If you yourself change, everything else will change faster — but if you remain the same idiotic little humans, how do you expect other even more idiotic humans to change?

Will Auroville understand that it is a laboratory? the place where a new consciousness is being worked out. The "liberation" of Auroville is first of all the liberation of the small consciousnesses that are contained in Auroville. (...)

It is time you got out of these stupid and obscure little appearances in order to plunge a little deeper into the soul, where one really understands what is happening behind appearances. There one understands beings and circumstances and what they really are. And from there one can act to change things.

Auroville must plunge into its soul and get out of appearances.

Auroville must stop cheating with its goal and become truly what it has been created for.

Satprem

Letter to Auroville after the takeover by the Government of India. This letter was taken to Auroville by Sujata and read to the assembled Aurovilians. Originally in English)

Sisters and brothers from Auroville,

I send this letter through someone who is my own heart, this is to tell you the earnestness and importance I give to the following:

As you know, Mother has left two legacies: 1) The Agenda, 2) Auroville.

For seven years now, we have fought for preserving the purity of this legacy. You know a little — only a little — of the fierce battle for the defence and independence of the Agenda. You know much more about the battle for the defence and independence of Auroville — in fact, it was one and the same battle against the same obscure forces. You have been courageous and resilient. After the freedom of the Agenda, comes now the freedom of Auroville. I have fought for both. If I were satisfied that the purity of Auroville were preserved, I would not write to you.

All sorts of possibilities came up, which were all snares and traps open to outside manipulations. The one needed thing was that Auroville could develop freely on its own lines, without external interferences, and at the same time protected from such interferences.

The government takeover was the only formula for cutting off the S.A.S. s tentacles. This central government takeover would have been a poor gain if, again, Auroville were not protected from the new machinery. Indiraji and a few others have devoted considerable time and attention to the problem and it was found eventually that only an international advisory Council would provide the needed safety for Auroville against any possible interference from any possible machinery. Thus the government takeover would function under the vigilant eye of an international body which will see to it that Auroville can develop freely on its own lines according to Auroville Charter and ideal.

This international body is in the process of constitution and we will see to it that it brings together the East and the West on an experimental field of peace, just as Mother wanted it. Auroville is the place where Russia and America and all countries must shake hands and try to become something else than candidates to destruction. (...)

The only danger is your own discord.

So now it is the occasion for Auroville to work and behave as one body.

But even more it is the occasion now to BECOME what Mother wanted of you, to CREATE a truly new man, able to receive the new Force and to shape himself and his life according to this new Force and not according to his little mental ego. This is the time when the soul must come in front, not the tongue. Perhaps you don't fully realize that if only a few sincere men try, really try to change themselves, they can change the world. This is the true meaning of Auroville — not a new city, but a new heart. A place for the evolutionary change of humanity.

In this effort, in this prayer, in this burning need within for a really new world, I am with you.

January 28, 1981

(Letter to Kireet, originally in English)

......

A place where some young students of the East and the West, from behind the Iron Curtain and all other curtains will try to understand first, then to experiment how a new species is produced among these desperate and self-destructing Homo Sapiens. This is a truly international problem and everybody, from any creed or non-creed, can agree on this necessity of some sort of experimental evolution — not a new "idea" among the billions of rotting ideas, but a new dynamism, a new experiment on human evolution, a new hope in this otherwise hopeless world. How is the next man or the next being on earth produced? Then all the "curtains" will fall in front of this real problem.

......

And let me point out and emphasize: it is not at all a question of millions of dollars or millions of roubles — money is a rotting thing. Auroville does not need to be rich, on the contrary, it would be a curse for Auroville. We need not call for money — but we must call for young blood ready to experiment on the field. And just enough money to carry on. Let Auroville grow spontaneously and develop its own necessity around the central fact of a handful of young people of all nationalities who try, who are willing to try this unknown adventure. Then Mother will seize on these few hearts and good wills and draw out of them unexpected results disproportionate to our small effort. For this is the Hour when even a small effort can work out tremendous and lightning results.

Yes, we may build "Pavilions" of each country, but the real cement of these buildings is the common effort toward a new consciousness and a new way of being. "Buildings" are a mere excuse — in fact the whole of Auroville is an excuse and a façade for building up a new consciousness. Once Auroville is nicely built with all its avenues and alleys and beautiful Pavilions, then we can run away and try to build another Auroville in some other part of the world — because the fact of building is the necessity, not the town. We are building a new being. (...)

February 20, 1981

(Letter to the Aurovilians, originally in English)

Delhi

My friends and brothers,

I want some deeper understanding from you.

We are not here for small things, not even for a "big Auroville," but for a more portentous thing.

Certainly, the first aim is to lend our body and soul to the new Force so that it can remould our humanity. But there is also a world-meaning in Auroville. This new humanity, or whatever it is, is not a personal achievement, not even a group-achievement — it concerns the whole of humanity. If this world of ours is blown to smithereens, then there is no humanity at all. Giant powers are confronting each other. And what can we do about it? What can Auroville do about it?

Here you have to understand a little the world-meaning of Auroville beyond our small affairs.

And I say that we can do something. By a unique Grace as never happened in recent History, the so-called Iron Curtain is opening up for us. Mrs. Zivkova is coming to Auroville. Mother had long, long prayed for such an opportunity. She had repeatedly said in her Agenda that "Auroville is a chance for humanity to avoid a Third World War."

So, please do understand in your heart and body the deep significance, the vast significance of Mrs. Zivkova's visit — don't talk about small things, don't think of small things. Think of the great thing, the great chance. Have a real Prayer in your heart, widen your small horizon and rise to the occasion.

You know, we are here to tread a new path in our own body-consciousness. We are here to open our small humanity to a new experiment. It is not a matter of creed and dogma and philosophy and policies; it transcends all ideologies whether capitalistic or socialistic, all religions and all atheism, all races whether white or black or yellow. We have to survive, and we can only survive if we change our human structure. On this point every human being can agree, whether from the East Bloc or the West Bloc. And we are here to attempt this experiment in our soul and body. Here all ideologies can meet, all creeds or non-creeds can meet. And this meeting-point is Auroville.

We must call Mrs. Zivkova and other representatives to come from America or Africa, with our deepest heart, call them to share in this Human Experiment, this new evolution, and to send from their countries a few human samples who will join in this Experiment — we cannot succeed unless it is a world experiment. The Iron Curtain or the Dollar Curtain or the Bamboo Curtain and all the curtains can fall only if we find the central Point where all the human barriers melt into a deeper Necessity.

We know what this deeper Necessity is and we are here to try it. Let the new wave start from one point at least, from one small corner of the world. Let us try together the New Being. Let us change this catastrophic wave menacing to engulf the world into a new wave of creation and hope.

Instead of confronting the old international ghosts of terror and war, let us confront our own deeper Humanity with its own future and its own challenge. There we can all unite and there we can all try. This is the real world-meaning of Auroville.

My prayer is burning with yours,

Satprem

March 10, 1981

(Letter to Alain Bernard, Auroville)

You are often in my thoughts, although I don't have the leisure to write. Even today I am obliged to dictate this letter to Sujata because I am not in very good health. You are close to me, in my heart and in my consciousness.

I have been very worried about Auroville for many years but more particularly of late, for now it is not so much an outer enemy that we must confront as an inner difficulty coming from human egos — and where there is ego, there is the seed of decay. Everyone seems to be saying "I" think, "I" feel, "I" believe, etc., it is nothing but disorderly, mental hot air. Mother said so many times: "One must let oneself be flattened until one vanishes, one must abdicate the little person, or else it is the old round that goes on and on.... " I well understand that this mental ego is necessary as long as there is nothing to replace it, but at least in Auroville, a first effort should be made to try and listen to the soul first. Instead of rushing at any impulse, one could try, each time, on each occasion, to be a little silent and try to understand what the soul would say. One can try to call Mother in this silence and understand what She would want. Or else it is the old hopeless story.

Certainly, the old democratic majority system is only a temporary device which is doomed to disappear in the new world. Of course the ideal would be a government of wise men: a few persons with a silent vision and without preferences or desires. Perhaps we have not yet reached that stage. But we must never forget — I repeat, never forget — that it is our true aim and sole salvation, otherwise it will be the race for political power with swarming, and more or less well-intentioned little egos, but even "good intentions" are almost as worthless as the ignorant ones. In her last years, Mother would say: "The reign of the Divine must come, oh, how it must come, I am in a hurry...."

Yesterday evening, I heard about the latest good intentions of a number of Aurovilians, for getting rid of undesirable people in Auroville. And it's true, these bad seeds must leave before they contaminate the ignorant. In fact, ignorance is the only illness. If one knew, one would understand, one would love, and the obstacles would melt away. But ignorance can only disappear in the quiet softness of the soul.

While waiting for the government of sages, there should be one voice that can speak in the name of Auroville, it is our sole salvation for the time being, or else there will be this Auroville and that Auroville and nobody will understand anything anymore and eventually it is our enemies who will benefit from it. This voice should try, oh how it should try to be a little clear and loud in its tranquil power of the soul. (...)

The best way to combine spirits is always to mix them into the material stuff, for it is in matter and in the small things of matter that consciousnesses can meet rather than in the abstract rigidity of the mind's little compartments. Thus "ideologies" will be rubbed together, they will soften and wear down, through the calm contact of matter. Consciousnesses unite better in matter than in ideas — which are all false as long as they do not spring from the quiet necessity of the soul. (...)

The government of the soul must be born, oh how it must be born in Auroville, it is more urgent than ever.

I love you all and I toil and work beside you.

Satprem

April 2, 1981

(Letter to the Cooperative of Auroville)

Jean-Marie conveyed to me your big envelope for the Agenda.

You cannot know how touched I was. Immediately, I put it at the feet of Sri Aurobindo and told him: "You see, it is Auroville that gives this for Mother's Work."

You did this with your hearts, but you don't well assess the importance of the gesture that you have made. It is very important. It is as important as the laying of the first stone of the Matrimandir. It means that your material being has understood a little what Mother's presence on earth means. It is like a direct bridge that you have thrown between your physical being and the Grace of the future.

What you don't know, perhaps, is that these Agendas are not books, are not a teaching, are not even experiences; it is beyond all that, more powerful than all that: it is Mother's body. It is her living Force to transform the world. Without it, there is no Auroville. Without it, there is no new world. It is not a book. It is a powerful radioactive ore. You can read it and understand, or not understand, or understand a little what is in it, but it does not really matter; what matters is that you touch this book, that you touch this Force and come into contact with the Force that CAN transform. This is what the Agenda is.

And Mother liked so much the material gesture of "giving," yes, banknotes. Money is precisely the Adversary's hideout — it always goes to selfish ends, even if appearances are altruistic. But to give to Mother is a concrete act which is more important than all philosophies, speeches or even the cloudy or less cloudy feelings in which one envelops things. To give means to make your body participate.

So I am sure that your gesture has a deep meaning for the future and that it is a promise and a blessing for Auroville.

Perhaps what you don't know either is that this Agenda symbolizes a little (or perhaps a lot) the battle of the New World. It is a formidable battle, of which Auroville is only a small reflection. Two thousand years ago, what could a few men understand around a being called Christ? What did those few men know of what the seed sown by Christ was to become? What do we know today of Mother's and Sri Aurobindo's meaning? Will this seed be perverted once again, imprisoned in a religion, shut up in a politico-spiritual power? Or else will it freely and integrally fructify and radiate with its living Power to change the earth?

This Agenda is the whole battle of the future. You don't know what battle, really....

Today it is in India that the battle of the World is taking place. It is absolutely essential that the Agenda spreads in India and wakes its sleeping soul. This is what can save India and Auroville. You don't know all the material and invisible obstacles. But your gesture is very important in this battle.

So, I want this money to go to the work of the Agenda in India. If you want to go on with your effort in the future, I would like your offering to be given anonymously to the Cooperative, when you wish, in a special envelope reserved for the Agenda. It is not at all a question of giving two rupees or two thousand rupees. It is the question of your material awakening to the meaning of the Agenda. It is not superfluous money that you give, it is something else, which cannot be numerically measured. (...)

I love you, I am your brother from all times and for all times.

May 9, 1981, 9 P.M.(!)

(Letter to Auroville Cooperative)

I am dictating these few lines to Sujata.

... The first thing to do, I think, is to stop any money filtering into Auroville through unofficial channels. It is the source of infiltration into Auroville.

You can tell the Cooperative on my behalf, if they think it is right. I mean especially those who get money from S.S [Shyamasundar]. It is a source of betrayal and division. But there are probably other sources that you must know better than I. In fact, the Cooperative alone should be the source of the maintenance or "prosperity" of the Aurovilians.

We must take advantage of the short respite that is given to us to establish solid foundations and clean up the ground. Perhaps the first "legislative" act of Auroville would be to establish, in a few generally accepted points, a sort of material code to determine the material conditions and material qualities that one must fulfil or possess to belong to the community of Auroville, apart from the ideal and spiritual conditions formulated by Mother. In a previous letter, I tried to suggest a few of them. If this basis is generally accepted, it will immediately close the door on a number of dubious or unwanted elements. It would perhaps even be a good idea to ask these vacillating or dubious elements to express themselves on the few material points that would make up the practical code of Auroville. In this way, those elements would have their backs to the wall and would be obliged to choose. The least pretext for division should disappear so that no one could hide behind a "spiritual" cloak in order to continue their own little business. In a few words, one must not mistake a chameleon for a penguin, it is that simple.

The "spiritual" may remain vague and hazy, but the material is very exact and demanding and no one should be allowed to slip away from a few material points, clearly understood and expressed. That is where all the sources of division can be caught red-handed.

So what should be firmly established is the very role and quality of the Cooperative. There must be a central and centralizing organ, endowed with the power to act according to a few material points generally admitted. These few points must be also acknowledged and admitted by the administrators of Auroville.

It's certain that in the near future — I hope so — Auroville will no longer need "rules" because it will have gone beyond in its consciousness. Meanwhile, we must give ourselves a good scrubbing and know what we want.

Work well and take heart.

Satprem

Allow Sujata to add: COMMON SENSE above all.

August 7, 1981

(Letter to P., of the Auroville Cooperative)

I have read these statutes [of a new organisation for Auroville]. The idea seems good to me. The "Government of Auroville" must indeed be set-up, in other words, you must have done with those dubious and subversive elements who say that they represent a "third position" or whatever, and who under the cover of being "unbiased" or "neutral" are simply playing into the adversary's hands. Auroville must have one voice. In this sense, the idea of a trust is very good, if legally feasible. (...)

The only point that seemed vague or weak to me in the wording of these statutes, and which could be slightly revised, is the point 6 concerning work, "the freedom to work".... Work is the essential, material foundation of Auroville. It is through work that the new consciousness develops, not through meditations. It is in work that the unity of consciousnesses is forged. As early as 1910, while envisaging the formation of "divine communities" (Deva Sangha), Sri Aurobindo insisted upon the primary necessity (not secondary) for these communities to become self-sufficient by their work. Mother insisted upon it countless times. Thus, you cannot let this point 6 remain as vague as it is now. It is for you to find a satisfactory formulation, but I suggest that you incorporate the following quotation from Mother:

Work, even manual work, is indispensable to the inner discovery. If one does not work, if one does not apply one's consciousness into matter, it will never develop. To let consciousness organize some matter through one's body is very good. To put things in order around oneself helps to put things in order in oneself.

Agenda XI, June 6, 1970

Like that, you will get rid of a whole category of lazy and "spiritual" chatterboxes.

Satprem

September 10, 1981

(Letter to an Aurovilian)

What you say is essentially true, but not very practically true, judging by the circumstances for eight years — since 1973.

It is true that the sole power of our sincerity should have obliged the undesirable elements to leave or change. And I think that, to a certain extent, we have succeeded, because eight years ago Auroville was a kind of muddy soup where all sorts of people, more or less unconscious and more or less undesirable, were paddling about: mongooses were embracing snakes and were bitten in the name of "human unity" — it remains to be seen whether it was the unity of poison or the unity of truth? Then there were a number of slugs who sided with neither one nor the other and simply left their trail of sticky and spiritual slime to embellish the situation and try to take the place of the other two — I don't know what is preferable, slime or venom, or if the three put together would make up another soup or potpourri which, at the end of a few generations of Aurovilians, around the year 2000 or after the Deluge, would perhaps make up an ideal Auroville?

As for me, I think that our enemies have helped us a lot: in eight years, there has been a tremendous progress in the Aurovilians' consciousnesses — they have begun to open their eyes, to see things clearly, to put each thing more or less in its right place: you know who is Leon and who is Chameleon. This is a huge progress. The undesirables have helped us see what was desirable — to know what we really want, in short: slimy cat stew, or what? So, now, eight years later, you want to experience the cat stew again, in order to see if it will make for human unity in the end? — "To pull out the snake's fangs," you say. Just try a little! For a few thousand years various prophets and Avatars have come to try this operation. But all the same, in the end, at the end of the painful story, poor humans began to see things a little more clearly and to let themselves be a little less entangled by the devil — which means that in the year 1981, everything has been more or less unmasked, laid bare: one can see the little devils publicly swarming everywhere; they had to drop their false spiritual haloes and false whiskers on the way — one knows who is what. This is the real progress of the Earth: it is not that it has swallowed or transformed the undesirable, but it has reached the point where it begins to know or guess the only Desirable thing. Apocalypse, αποκαλυψιζ, does not only mean "to reveal," it means laying bare. It is the time of the laying bare. The clothing falls off, whether the snake's, the chameleon's or the baboon's, and one knows what is there, one is what one is and nothing else. And if you are not, woe betide you!

Thus in Auroville, this is the situation, when all the masks have more or less fallen. It is the immense progress that Auroville has made. Now, what are you going to do with those unmasked ones? To be "neutral"? But it is not neutrality, it is slimy cat stew, as I have already told you! To expel them? But we are not the Gestapo! Then what?

Then it seems to me that the necessary, very necessary cleaning can be done in a very simple way: the Aurovil-ians can agree on a number of material points (I don't say spiritual, I say material), as, for example, no personal profits, no personal money, no drugs, no "prosperities" this way and that, but a single cooperative centre allotting the necessities and receiving donations, etc..., you can make a list. Then automatically, you will see a number of little slugs and medium-size snakes saying no-no-no. And the sorting out will be done. Those who don't want to follow the law of Auroville will have to go elsewhere to make their own law. The main thing is to know what one wants. It is no longer a question of hiding behind a spiritual cloak and pompous words, but of defining a few simple, material points, which will go to form the practical code of Auroville, that's all. Then you accept or you don't accept, but you cannot at the same time brandish Mother's flag and do your own little business or distribute money here and there to sow corruption. What Mother said about India's corruption can be perfectly applied to Auroville: "You know what happens when a rotten apple is put next to a good one? — England came and stayed much too long, it made things go quite rotten." (Agenda III, July 14, 1962). You must know if you want to let yourselves be contaminated and go rotten in the name of "human fraternity," or if you want to put your house in order and keep it clean. We "expel" no one: we put in front of everyone the choice between cleanliness and rot.

It is simple.

It is clear.

It is a question of smell.

With you in the pure air,

Satprem

P.S.: You must not mistake the softness of a rag for the "softness of the soul," for Kalki too is armed with a sword.

P.S.2: In fact, one of the great confusions in Auroville (and almost everywhere) is of a mental and pseudo-spiritual order. Many people seem to forget that there are different planes of reality or consciousness and that what is true on one plane is not, or not yet so, on another plane. Thus it is true on the supramental plane that everything is Divine, but on the material plane, it is not true that Sri Aurobindo and Mr. Guruprasad [a Secretary of the S.A.S.] are equally divine. It is also true, on the supramental plane that everything is equal in the Divine, a grain of sand or Alexander's exploits; but on the material plane, it is not true that the coolie and an Einstein are worth the same. It is true on the supramental plane that everything is ONE and fraternal, but it is completely false to believe, on the material plane, that the cleverness of a crook is equal to the skill of an engineer and that snakes don't swallow little birds. These are simple truths that many seem to ignore. What is true is that this plane of truth, supramental, is trying to infiltrate the material plane, despite or through the material darkness, but its first action when a drop, a small supramental drop goes down into this quagmire, is to show the mud its true face and the little aspiration its true power — but it is not true that this mud and this aspiration are equally divine, although the suffocation of the mud can lead us to aspire for pure air.

The truth, simple, supramental and material at the same time — right where both meet — is that everything, in this world, is here to awaken the aspiration of the Divine in Matter to the Divine in Matter, because everything is the Divine that has forgotten Itself. But you must not confuse those who aspire with those who oblige you to aspire by strangling you — if you are strangled, there is nobody left to aspire and to remember.

September 28, 1981

(Letter to an Aurovilian, originally in English)

I know nothing of economics, for all my life I have had a permanent hole in my pocket. Whatever I needed Mother gave me, including forbidden cigarettes in the Ashram — she was wide enough to understand the limits of each one and the necessity of errors for progressing. If we shut the truth in an ideal little box, then beware of mummies. This is the difficulty with any "system," however wonderful and "new" it may be — tomorrow it will be already old. So I have no panacea for Auroville's economic and financial system.

The truth is simple, as usual: we need no system but a new Man — and these difficulties and "problems" are precisely meant for forging this new Man, not for imprisoning him in an ideal formula. Let him become what he should be, then automatically the ideal "formula" will flow at each second and change at each second. Certainly, before that we will need some crutches on the way, some do's and don'ts, but the working out of these passing necessities are precisely part of the elaboration of the new Man — so, why should I interfere like a sort of Pithya or super-professor.... ouf! I love Aurovilians and I love them enough for not delivering oracles to them — I am a simple man trying to become something else, with a hole in my pocket. I am all for trying.

It is true, just "like that," out of the blue, I spoke to Mother about these "coupons de travail,"63 because she was looking at the problem, but today I would never dream of suggesting anything of this nature. In fact, do you know what I would dream of now? I would dream of a "Santa Claus system," of a dozen Santa Claus', who would put their beards together and try to give to each Aurovilian whatever they ask, naturally according to the resources available, and I would expect each Aurovilian to ask only for what he truly needs, with the perfect understanding that the need of the one is completely different from that of the other and that even a futility may be necessary for some, even an error. We are completely stupefied by the egalitarian and moralitarian systems — nothing is equal, not even two leaves from the same tree. This is why all mechanical systems, however useful they may be, fail in the long run. Money — in cash, coins, "coupons" — are part of the mechanical system: this much is worth that much. How are you to equate ten minutes of silent and "useless" meditation with ten cubic meters of earth dug out for a well? The only possible "coupon" is SINCERITY. This is the only currency in Auroville. The normal rule in this sad world is because there are some thieves, let's put everybody in jail. Let us reverse this sorry condition.

Indeed all systems have failed in our world: communism, capitalism, socialism and even (or specially) gandhism — and rightly so, a holy prison is nevertheless a prison. The only free place is in the heart of each individual being and as long as this free place does not become the law of the collective body, we will go on stumbling and falling. In other words, we have to become living souls, there is no other "system" or solution. Meanwhile....

Yes, there is this "meanwhile." We are growing souls not equally evolved, but in each of us, we suppose, there is a common and equal elementary quality which is SINCERITY. One need not be an Einstein or a yogi to have this quality. If the capacity to correct one's errors and the will to see clearly and not to delude oneself — if this central quality is there in Auroville, the rest is easy — and we know it is there, these eight years have sufficiently demonstrated our sincerity. Thus we come back to our "Santa Claus system": according to the resources available, a few men chosen among the wisest or among the most sincere will decide with the collective approval what project should be given priority and try to give each one whatever he needs. A government of the wise-men. But as we know, these wise men are not completely wise, which is the story of the growth and evolution of Auroville. We will go on stumbling and groping and changing till we have reached this wisdom of the heart, which is the only free place in this world.

And never forget that the divine Hand is always there to help miraculously and beyond all imagination and human calculation: a little drop of simple sincerity suffices. We are wrong if we suppose that we have to do all the work.

27 March 1983

Letter to a young Indian lawyer who had just joined Auroville, originally in English. It was about the first official meeting of the trust “Auromitra,” which had been founded to protect Auroville and which J.R.D. Tata and Satprem were members of.) 

I don't believe much in the Unesco people. Anyway, I am of not much use for Auromitra but my inner prayer and support are very actively turned towards Auroville⎯not really as an "Institution" but the people there. I wish so much a few could understand that we are there not even for a better society but for a new being, a new species, a change in the human nature. A change of nature. I have stopped all contacts with the outer world and hardly write any letters, please excuse me. Instead of writing letters, or books, I have found that it was more urgent to concentrate on one’s own change and hasten the time.  If we were truly one-pointed, a handful of men, we would hasten the time. It is urgent.     

November 8, 1983

Very dear Kireet,

 I am dictating these notes to Sujata. I spend my time in concentration. It is difficult for me to mentalize the problems⎯precisely because all problems are false problems created by the mind and the ego. I prefer to go to the true root and find the true healing. If the Aurovilians did that sincerely, there would be no problems anymore. I am verifying Sri Aurobindo’s and Mother’s experience step by step, and I can see to what extent it is concrete and radical. I don’t like either to interfere in Auroville’s business, not because I am uninterested in it, on the contrary, but because I think that beings must grow freely by themselves and progress through their own errors. If there are no errors anymore, there are no longer any means to progress. The means that are proposed to “govern” Auroville are precisely tending to replace temporary and fruitful errors with lasting and imprisoning rules. I’m not speaking of the change of label: Executive Council is more pompous than the simple “Cooperative,” which meant what it meant (we operate together). But I understand that in the untruthful world we are living in, we still need titles and appearances. That doesn’t matter. So, they want to draw twelve representatives from a list of fifty Aurovilians chosen by “consensus.” It is a way of replacing wisdom and expertise with lottery. It is also a way of replacing “democratic” blindness by the blind law of fatality. Mother thought that democracy was “pestilential” and She wanted to replace parties or political groups with a government of “organizers,” as She said, that is to say, of capable people, efficient and expert each one in their own domains (while waiting for a “governement of wise men” which will come … when people decide to lose their egos). Where are you going to find fifty men in Auroville who are real organizers? It is already difficult to find twelve of them. So you are going to ask lottery to drown those twelve people among thirty-eight others, whose capacities of organization are not evident. Then you will imperturbably establish the reign of those twelve lucky (or unlucky) people for eighteen months. It seems to me a very blind rule, of which the only merit is to hide the lack of courage behind the back of fate, for if a number of Aurovilians are not happy with the decisions of the present Cooperative, what prevents them from expressing their criticisms and asking for the withdrawal of the inefficient or incapable “cooperators”? Now, they will not have to criticize anymore, since it is fate that will have chosen the “executive councilors.” It is true that the Divine can also play roulette and choose the best twelve among the fifty who will be put forward, but I don’t think that that is the divine method, which wants men to grow by themselves and are constantly shaped through their errors. I don’t think that a lottery is a good “ersatz” of wisdom or efficiency.  In Greece too, since Pericles, Archons were chosen by drawing lots. They found themselves faced with the same problem of the incapacity or the average mediocrity of the chosen representatives, and archonship became a purely honorary charge, while the true practical problems had to be solved in another way. Our new “executive councilors” run the risk of falling into the same trap, and finally, as anywhere else in the world, you will replace the lack of talent and clear ideas with politics and democratic expedients. If the Aurovilians are convinced that the members of their Cooperative (or anything else under another label) must be organizers and experts, as Mother wanted it, and not orators and wooly minds, there is no reason why they should not find a dozen capable people in Auroville, who will always remain open to public criticism. There will always be errors, but if people are sincere, they will be able to progress through their “errors” without being locked in a “system.” One goes towards the Truth through a constant shaping. The error that underlies the difficulties of the Cooperative in Auroville is an error in the mind of certain Aurovilians who subconsciously cling to the egoistical idea of “power” and “prestige.” They should understand that the organizers task is unrewarding, difficult and demanding, and that one has really to be an organizer. As soon as an incompetent meddles in it, politics meddles in it, because the incompetent wants to hide its incapacity behind rhetoric. It seems anti-truthful to me to replace the effort of consciousness with the blindness of roulette. (…) As for the rest of the proposals, they seem well thought out to me, and I have nothing to object. I have mainly to express much love to Auroville and my brotherly affection to Kireet. 

January 1984

It is sad to say, but if I would go to Auroville to breathe the new life into them a little and hasten the collective process, I would be torn to pieces. This is the time for absolutely silent and secret action. 

March 20, 1984

Vision 

Decidedly, I keep on seeing Auroville. Last night, I was put on a kind of table (operation?) and my nose was cut!... with nail clippers. I was watching. Then I stood up and went to wash my face thoroughly, but I noticed that I wasn’t bleeding… (the “surgeon” = A.).

 I really think that the nasty devil hidden there is going to create a stir and they are going to lay into me, or disfigure me, or I don’t know what. What of it?! They won’t try to see where their cancer is. I really don’t believe in any group, any community, any Institution; only some individuals—some rare individuals—can do. As soon as there is a group, everything is contaminated. A few isolated individuals must first make the passage, the evolutionary breakthrough—afterwards he will be able or they will be able to try to take the others along (a few others) without being reabsorbed by the common mud. The new being will really need to have a power—a power supreme or from the Supreme—in order not to be torn to pieces by the old gang. I believe above all in a silent, invisible, contagious action—not the travelling performer who does his amazing feats at every fair. For some time, I have been feeling more and more something like a very powerful centre of force forming (or swelling, one could say) at the centre of the chest (heart lotus). 

March 20 1984

I am making a last desperate attempt. A few days ago I have sent a note to Auroville which you probably have read by now. Today I have felt that I should write to you. Though we have seldom met I have always felt a special relationship with you and I have never forgotten. I have also a few brothers and sisters in Auroville who are dear to my heart because of their sincerity and deep truthfulness. But Truth without strength becomes easily a prisoner, for the greatest skill of Falsehood is always and everywhere to hide itself behind a truth. This mixture of Truth and Falsehood is the scourge of our world. I remember so poignantly Mother’s deep sadness the day She spoke to me of the “black and gluey fingers of Falsehood creeping everywhere— everywhere.” For the past eleven years I have met this sad fact everywhere and fought with the blood and tears of my soul. Mother has kept me informed, if I dare say so, of the inner situation of Auroville through a series of pictorial images scattered over the years, giving me the point of the situation. I don’t know if I should tell you what the last images were, but in one of them a few months ago, you were the only one to materially help me, should I say that this “me” has nothing to do with the person. On November 17, 1973, the person has died in me. Only one thing is left in me—I don’t know whether it is a prayer or a cry, when I saw this little white body with a ray of sun on her neck being screwed up in a coffin. This prayer or this cry is that all She has suffered, all She has wanted and tried so much for the Earth should not go in vain. Now comes the central point, and to miss the central point is to miss the very meaning of Her effort and break or corrupt the foundation of the future. And the central point or the seed which contains the very power of realization, is the Mother’s Agenda. A dozen Matrimandirs may be built but if the Agenda is not enshrined in each and every Aurovilian there is nothing and the very foundation of Auroville is broken and corrupted. After Sri Aurobindo’s departure in 1950 there was (and still exists) a very powerful hostile “formation” against the Mother: Sri Aurobindo, yes; the Mother...? Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy, yes; the Mother’s searching and pitiless white Light on the human compromise with Falsehood...? When this indomitable Ray was put into the coffin, another very powerful “formation” of the hostile forces (not a human formation, mind you, but a direct action from the power of Darkness which now dominates the world) sprang up: the Mother, yes maybe; but the Agenda...? Mother’s talk on Evolution, yes maybe; but the coming to grips with the root of falsehood in ourselves and the black gluey fingers everywhere...? The cunning, gluey powers have even a last righteous mask: the Agenda, yes; but Satprem’s distortion...? There is no more “Satprem”, there is no more a writer or even a “confidant of the Mother”—all this is dead. There is a crying soul, there is a bleeding child who is desperately trying to bring into his flesh what She wanted so much for the Earth. This child does not care a damn for the approbation or the mud of the world. He cares that Her suffering and agony do not go in vain. In Auroville Her effort and attempt are very much about to go in vain or be corrupted for the single reason that the central point is not fully and unshakably understood by too many Aurovilians. Only one single little cell is enough to make a cancer. This simple obvious truth is not properly grasped. Auroville is already, but not irreversibly, contaminated by the gluey fingers, which have strangled and reduced to an empty mummy the Ashram. The cruel and insidious and surreptitious ways of those fingers to befog the clear consciousness of men and muddle the simple truth under various slogans and righteous fallacies, is a world-fact. If Auroville has not the courage to cleanse itself of its galloping cancer, if Auroville has not the strength to cling to the one central point and establish without compromise the Agenda as Mother’s own body and the very fount of the power for the realization of the future, then you break your own strength and are eaten away from within. This is the crucial point and no nonsense. Truth is a cripple if it doesn’t have the uncompromising sword of the soul. With my deep love and trust in the few who truly love Mother and are ready to fight for Her, and the great Hope.

 P.S. 1) As part of the same Falsehood, I inform you that recently an article about the Agenda written by Mira-Aditi  was rejected by the “Auroville Review.” Reason: “controversial.” This speaks a lot.  

2) The Truth must be brought out into the open. Freedom does not mean the right to betray the basic truths of Auroville. That’s that. 

May 6, 1984

Letter from Satprem to Frederick in Auroville, dictated to Sujata. Originally in English. 

Your letter to Mother is moving. How we miss Her! It was so simple when we could throw all our mistakes and griefs on Her lap. We felt that nothing could go wrong. We feel lost now. That is true. But pain and regrets are not the way of the strong. Either we accept this tomb and we burn incense sticks over it, or we break this falsity and masquerade of death and we pull Her out of this coffin where the wickedness of men have shut Her in. We are sacrilegious, we are heretics because we love Her. We want this tomb broken open. Not to live with eternal regrets. 

February 8, 1986

The tactics of the Enemy, that is, of the forces that seem to dominate the world (I do say “seem”) consists in avoiding, at all costs, the catastrophic demolition of their obscure system, but on the other side, to rot everything from inside––to rot, to rot, to rot everywhere and everything. To stupefy the terrestrial consciousnesses. That is, to “pick up” or contaminate all the elements that would be likely to make the transition. He seems to succeed rather well. That is why I have hope only in the new being––the Divine Manifestation. Mother who blows up that tomb––and at the same time the tomb of the world. * (The contamination of Auroville, which seeks simply to make a little more “pleasant” humanity, is an example of the Enemy’s ways. (Unless they have the shock of a Divine Manifestation, they will be more and more bogged down.)* (I may be mistaken, or God grant that I am mistaken, but for the time being the situation is... obscure.) The “problem” had been clearly seen by Sri Aurobindo–marvellously seen––but I begin to touch it in a concrete way in my body and in the “surroundings”. * In truth, we know nothing––we grope in the twilight of men. 

Section III : Conversations

Nothing is lost forever

“It is not a question of changing your idea, you have to change your way of being.”

February 16, 1985

(Extract from a conversation with Sujata about L.’s recent letter to Frederick in Auroville.)

L. says it well, doesn’t he, but…

People who are really sincere find themselves more and more isolated, in the midst of a crowd which is there only because it is more convenient to be there than to be in Pantin, you know. There are at least eighty per cent who are like that.

Frederick is no longer eager. He no longer feels like…

L. says it well. But all that is badly perceived: [people will say:] “What business is it of his?” They are there as if in a Club Méditerranée—that was the criticism levelled against Auroville in the past, it is not all that untrue. At present, it is not all that untrue.

Those who want to do something are very isolated. And inevitably, they come under attack, usually very nastily and very shrewdly. The Adversary is very clever.

You see, it is always the same story (you can take the individual or the community): as long as the Adversary is not disturbed, it is as kind as they come; it attracts lakhs of rupees, it organises everything very well. Then, as soon as you begin to want to upset it, you really see the claws that start to come out…

It is a sign.

I, for my part, have nothing to say.

But they are very-very few.

Yes, they are indeed very few! They are very few—that is certain.

It is not my business. I have the impression that it is less and less my business.

August 11 1985

Conversation with Sujata

(Satprem and Sujata comment on the last news from Auroville: the reactions raised by Luc’s recent letter toSerge, in which Luc suggests that it is “too late” for Auroville. Which prompted thirteen Aurovilians to decide to leave Auroville.)

A lot of good that will do!

(silence)

It reminds me that Mother told me in… I don’t know anymore, in ‘70 or ‘71. Speaking of Auroville, She said: “The sincerity of the realisation must be such that the undesirable elements are obliged to leave.” (laughing). And we arrive at the opposite situation!

It is sad.

What a mix-up…

(silence)

What Luc wrote to Serge (I read that a short time ago) is true––but it is a linear and mathematical truth. It is like that (gesture drawing a straight and thin line), it is seen in a mathematical straight line. What he says is true. But life is rarely linear and mathematical: it has hollows and bumps and abysses and… graces. You have no right to… I understand very well why Luc wrote. He probably wanted to shake up the Aurovilians, didn’t he? Well… everybody sees things his own way, and it is useful. So, certainly, Luc’s act had utility. Only, as appearances are always untruthful, people just look at the line and don’t understand the purpose behind: what it wants to awaken in Auroville.

But in my opinion, one has no right to say that a thing is “finished”, has “failed”… One has no right to say entirely negative things without proposing a positive solution. His negativity is real, isn’t it; he has many good reasons to say it… And when you look at Auroville, it is rather saddening.

What they don’t want to understand (what I have tried to make them understand for, how long?––twelve years) what they don’t want to understand, is the necessity of inner progress: they want to make outer progress. And inner progress is difficult. And if you don’t want to make inner progress, you destroy yourself. Appearances can be vivid, but you destroy yourself.

It is the story of Shantiniketan, isn’t it: after Tagore’s departure, what effort did they make for it to live? They lived on what Tagore had created, settled. But what effort did they make to create, live, progress?

In the Ashram, it is the same thing––it is worse. So things fossilize, become an institution: they have all the appearances of success, of official recognition––Shantiniketan is a great, great… I don’t know what, but it is a sort of empty shell, empty and crumbling. The Ashram has superb appearances, but it is dusty and dead: the river has moved elsewhere, the current has moved elsewhere. If you don’t want to make the effort… (well, we can say that it is mathematical and true): if you don’t want to make the effort, you condemn yourself.

The only thing Mother showed me… They say that “I am not informed” or that “I don’t receive the right information”––what need do I have of information?! It is not a question of information or “wrong information”––I am already informed!

Sujata - The truth is shown to you, isn’t it, through images.

People may think what they want, X, Y, Z think what they want, it is not my business; as for me, Mother showed me only one thing, it was that boat (Vision of September 14-15, 1984: “The boat of Auroville”) with that tremendously powerful engine cluttered with all kinds of incredible things, which had nothing to do with the boat. So the engine did not work, did not run. It was one of those big engine blocks, and it was cluttered, but with samans [Tamil word meaning “things”], an impossible clutter that had nothing to do with the engine––and nobody started the engine. Mother showed me that. Then the tide flowing out, and the mud at the bottom. Well, this is shown. This is the true situation. So they can say what they want, for or against––I am shown exactly what is right, what corresponds to a reality. Well, the truth is that they DON’T start the engine. This is the truth. And it is the root of the whole story of Auroville: if they don’t start the engine, they sentence themselves to death, it is obvious! To start the engine means really: to make the inner progress and the true thing. Not avenues, planting, executive councils, resolutions––nothing of all that! The engine, it really means the inner power, which is formidable––which is FORMIDABLE. And this is what they don’t make use of. This is the illness of Auroville. So if they don’t want to use it, they go to the… successful fossilization, don’t they, they will be as in the Ashram, they will succeed very well!

But nobody starts the engine! This has been shown to me––so I don’t argue. It is a fact. It is the fact of Auroville. All the rest is blah- blah-blah.

This is what they don’t want to understand: it is the necessity of the inner progress––the true progress, the one that no friend can see: nobody can see that, only Mother and Sri Aurobindo can see it. Not things that you “show”. And this is the true progress, difficult, arduous; and the enemy bares all its teeth and claws as soon as you want to make some progress. It is not convenient. They are very peaceful because, precisely, the enemy did not sink its claws in. It lets  them  proliferate:  “Go  on,  my  little  ones,  go  on,  do  pretty

things…” (gesture)

Sujata : That is to say, there is no effort to come out of the enemy’s domain?

No, there is no effort in the true inner sense: that we are at the end of a world, that man is in the process of disappearing, isn’t he––of disappearing. The question is to know if something of this humanity is going to survive and transform itself or if a new being (by which means, I don’t know) if a new being will manifest. That is the problem. Sri Aurobindo said: “If man doesn’t want to surpass himself, he will be surpassed; a new being will come and take the lead of evolution.” Well, it is the key-sentence of those four and a half billion ignoramuses who live on the earth––yet it is the key to the destiny of all of them. And it is the key of all that bunch of little Aurovilians who don’t understand the Grace that is given to them. So what do they want?... Do they really try to surpass man?––they try to improve him, they try to put up little paintings, little temples, little committees, and “we have this one’s recognition”, “we have Mr Rajiv with us”, “we have Mr…”, well, all those stupidities––which are dying, precisely, and dying everywhere.

So they will ask: But what does it mean “to surpass humanity and make the new being?”––well, to find it, you must WALK! It is not given, it is not in any book! You must walk, you must take some steps. And as soon as you want to take a step, you see the Enemy who bares his claws and teeth, and who is there. Well, immediately he is there. Immediately. And immediately, you are on the way. Immediately. You are on the way, automatically––it is the most marvellously or abominably (as you wish) automatic thing that exists. You just have to want to understand that, which is the heart of the problem: this new being, to make it, to build it––how? So you tell yourself… (if you love Sri Aurobindo or if you understand Mother a little), you tell yourself: Well, They know; so there is a way, so we have to search for it. And how? And HOW? And HOW?––Well, they won’t need to ask the question three times with a bit of sincerity, because the first time, the Enemy will be there to scratch them in the face.

This is what starting the engine is.

There is no need of books. All possible books have been given––you need to start walking, that’s all. As soon as you want to take a step–– one step, a very tiny step––everything pounces on you. Because the Enemy understands very well what it is all about. Everything pounces on you––then you can say: Ah, well, I am on the way. There, it begins. It begins. Because the formidable Grace is there, too–– which they did not use. That formidable Power is there, which they did not use. And this is life. This is automatic life. This is Life, you understand. It is Auroville’s life. Immediately: it lives. Otherwise, it is dust. Golden and institutionalized dust––as in the Ashram. 

…

They don’t understand anything of the path. And above all, they don’t understand the power of the forces that they trigger by trying to make that little bit of progress. They don’t understand that individuals are very small masks for FORMIDABLE forces. So they can set a supreme Grace in motion, and they can set rottenness in motion… yes, that of the world, precisely, which wants to gobble up everything. It has marvellous appearances, hasn’t it, everything seems to fit so well––then everything comes apart, everything cracks.

Progress… you must walk, you must walk, you must get smashed up. You must set the forces in motion. Then you understand. You understand what it is in vivo––what is happening. And this is Auroville’s heart––or rather, it should have been Auroville’s heart, precisely, its power. Mother would say (Mother knew, didn’t she) she would say: “It is the only chance to avoid a world war.” So how can a little bunch of oddballs like that, in their corner, avoid a world war? Did they ever ask themselves the question?! Did they ever understand what it means? They don’t understand that they are really the little puppets of such tremendous forces––both ways. They don’t want to do anything… Outwardly, they do lots of things, they make lots of speeches, too. Well, it is… They don’t set the forces in motion. They don’t give the Divine Grace the opportunity to manifest. They do as in the Ashram––they have been corrupted. Invisibly corrupted by those people from the Ashram. They have not understood the work that Mother and Sri Aurobindo did in the middle of those COCKROACHES… who gobbled everything: they made a feast of Mother and Sri Aurobindo––they gobbled Them up–– everything! And now, you go to Auroville because there you have more ease, you have more “freedom”, you can…

But, well, it is useless to say: It is this, it is that––to make external accusations. Here is the fact: the fact is that they don’t make use of the Power that is there. And for that, there are not all that many methods.

So… what’s the use of being negative and saying: “Auroville is lost”?––What is lost? To begin with, we should make a distinction between Auroville and the people who are in it––first of all. Auroville is something yet to come. But for people who are in it, this is something that is present. So we can discuss all we want about Auroville’s modalities––we don’t care, do we: it is the business of the future. What should be discussed are the internal modalities, and the sincerity of the people who are there––their capacity to start the engine. To start it not to “reform” Auroville, but to reform their own nature.

So, well, to leave Auroville, what does this mean? For me, the “Auroville Institution” or the great Auroville with a capital “A” is a secondary matter. The essential matter is the individuals. Because it is on those individuals that the other thing depends: the Auroville with a capital “A”. And the Auroville with a capital “A” as Mother saw it, formed it, conceived it, is over there (gesture far ahead), we have to go there. And the problem is the individuals who are there. So we must distinguish between the collective of Auroville and the individuals of Auroville. This is why saying to individuals: There is nothing to do… you might as well say that there is nothing to do with man! Because nowhere is there anything to do with humans. As a

matter of fact, they don’t want to make progress. They want to leave it to Medicine, to Science, to Laws, to Constitutions, to the Police, to the Clergy, to the Ashrams, to… They want to leave it to anything except themselves––except their own engine.

So the statement “Auroville is lost” and all that, for me, means nothing. Or “will Auroville succeed?”––I am no prophet: what will be, I don’t know. What I am concerned with are the individuals. And this is the truth of the problem, that engine, that power that you set in motion––or don’t set in motion.

But there is a simple logic, this one: What’s the use of going away, when combined forces can… can help one another, can, precisely, multiply––the individual capacity can be multiplied, cant it. So the fact that you are several to want something… If the best elements of Auroville find themselves isolated in… I don’t know, in Paris, in a corner of the Himalayas, well perhaps they will be able to make their individual progress, it is possible… Yet, all the same, in Auroville, there is an opportunity, it is something that has been inwardly (I don’t say outwardly) that has been inwardly formed by Mother. So it would be better for the few who are sincere to join forces; but “to join” does not mean to create committees! It means that silently, without even knowing it, each of those who are sincere will help the others, automatically and invisibly: forces are multiplied, aren’t they, they are combined. Whereas leaving is useless. Being negative is useless.

There are a certain number of elements who are there, and who are sincere––well, let them push their sincerity further. They will find themselves  roaming  the  streets  of  the  West  or  the  roads  of  the

Himalayas or I don’t know where and… pff…what? What good will that do them? Auroville must be built, it must be built from inside. Sri Aurobindo never stopped saying it: The New World must be built from inside. So what does this mean? They don’t ask the true questions! I wore myself out asking questions! I asked them, you know, while slogging.

It is not a question of changing place, or even the question of each of them changing the job he does, (whether it is, I don’t know, planting peanuts or… I don’t know what they all are doing) it is not a question of changing jobs, it is really an inner question. And an individual one. Whatever may be their outer action, it will necessarily be imperfect because all men are imperfect, and necessarily, they will clash with other egos because the world is full of egos. It is like that. But everything changes the moment you really… you decide: But let’s see, Sri Aurobindo said this: “If man does not want to surpass himself, he will be surpassed and another being will take the lead of evolution.” They don’t understand the… the Key. They don’t understand! They don’t understand that there are formidable keys–– they don’t use them. We are at the moment when all the keys are here (gesture on hand), it is a Grace upon earth. And they don’t use it. What do they do with that formidable Grace, what do they do? They want to “arrange” Auroville… it is ridiculous––you don’t arrange Auroville, you don’t arrange… It makes no sense to arrange Auroville. What makes sense are the individuals who MAKE Auroville BECOME. Auroville is not. It is in… (gesture above). It is a possibility. It is like the soul: each individual, each one of those four billion and a half ignoramuses is born with a soul,––but who uses the soul?? It is here, like that (gesture above, a little far away) and how many in a million think, know, that they have a soul and that this soul has a power? How many?––Well, in Auroville, it is the same thing: there is the soul of Auroville that is there… somewhere (gesture).

But if you don’t start the inner engine, there is nothing, it remains up above (gesture), that’s all. Or there is a caricature, as in the Ashram, as in Shantiniketan, as everywhere, in all the institutions. In Europe… in France, they started with magic words which were really very marvellous words a few centuries ago: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity––it is beautiful, you know, it is beautiful, enough to set hearts on fire. After all, it was French people who cried that. (Satprem “contemplates” the three words). Liberty… Equality… Fra-ter-ni-ty… Ah, the Republic was a success in France, eh? How beautiful! So what remains of all those things? If there is not the inner power, there remain ridiculous masks.

(silence)

It not a question of Auroville, it is a question of the individuals who are there, and of their capacity to make the real progress. Then we will be able to talk about Auroville again.

Progress, what does it mean? That everything breaks: this is progress. Progress is something very difficult. If everything is fine, it means that you are wide off the mark!

(silence)

Forces should be joined. There is not much time. I had been shown twenty centimetres of water under the keel––perhaps it is the keel of the world. There is not much time. And really, there is here such a formidable Power––here, like that (gesture on hand). Who wants it?––Only it burns, eh! It burns. Oh! It is not difficult to set out on the path: you become aware of it immediately! You notice it immediately; you are made to perceive it immediately.

So the few who understand a little should understand even more deeply. It would be more efficient than to leave for Paris, Berlin, Kamchatka or I don’t know where: this would be the true path. And there is no need to form “special teams”: it is an individual work, isn’t it; and this is the true power of Auroville––which is not. Which is there, awaiting. Then the “loss of Auroville”, really, it has no meaning for me. Or its success, too, has no meaning for me: these are things of the future––I am no prophet. But its present, it is some individuals. And this is everybody’s business––they understand or they don’t understand. But in reality, they hold the key to Auroville’s engine. That’s all.

There is nothing else to say: this is the essence.

Sujata : You have just said that this formidable power which is there, like that, “burns”… What does it mean exactly: if it is not used, or…

If it is not used, it does not burn at all! It leaves you to all the forces that are there––it leaves you to be gobbled by all the rest, that’s all. This power is a grace––a difficult grace––but if you don’t use it, if you don’t want to call for it, it leaves you to the general hodgepodge of the world, until the day when... You ninny! It is over, and there you are... you start all over again. But if you call for the Grace, if you set out on the path, then, it is fire... oh! It is fire and it is a battle. Then you understand all––you understand it automatically. You know, there is no need to make speeches, to write books: you understand on the spot. You understand the reality of the Stakes, the forces that are there. The ABOMINATION that is there. And the marvellous Power that is there (gesture side by side). But the abomination knows how to show you how nasty it is...

The path is automatic. Automatically, you set the forces in motion. Nothing is more “childish”, if I may say so. Sri Aurobindo would say: “The Supramental will explain itself.” Well, I assure you it explains itself very well! There are no speeches to make! Only if you do nothing... well, you do nothing: you have a pretty name, you see, and then your pretty name will end up in dust, and that’s all. “Liberty- Equality-Fraternity”––it is a farce, isn’t it.

So I hope that Auroville will not be a farce, that’s all.

But Auroville is not. Auroville is what its components will make it become. I know the internal situation of Auroville very well: what happens outside is the usual mishmash, with pluses and minuses, but well, I am not interested––it neither disappoints me nor makes me enthusiastic. But the individuals, the elements of the Work, what in hell are they doing?

For twelve years, since Mother left, well, you and I have toiled, we have walked, and we didn’t know where to put our feet... Well, this is progress: you don’t know where you go and it is painful.

What else can we say?... Have you something to say?

Sujata : They don’t even make the effort.

Yes! I keep saying it again and again, don’t I? Since the beginning, for ten or twelve years I have been trying to tell them: Catch that Power, catch That, catch the true thing. But it is the only thing that they don’t catch.

They don’t understand that, really, you walk in the dark––you walk in the dark and it hurts. I don’t know... I have exhausted so many pains and paths like that, without understanding anything, without knowing anything. And yet, you see, what mattered was to walk. What mattered was to fall flat on your face. There is no book for that; there is no recipe for that. You have to set the Power in motion, that’s all. Then everything stems from it. Whereas they do the contrary: they want to “build” Auroville without setting the inner power in motion, so it is a farce, it is a falsehood. 

They want to make a “neat and tidy” little humanity. This is their most sublime ideal. Neat and tidy, and decent, with a good name, and you have some ideal, you make a pretty town, it is “human unity”––a pretty little humanity, very neat and tidy, there. Well, it is not that. A “neat and tidy” humanity, it is not possible, because humanity is made to be surpassed. Humanity is finished, it is dying. So it is there, the next step. But nobody knows the next step: we have to make it.

So you set the forces in motion. It is so fantastically automatic. You set the forces in motion––immediately! Immediately! As soon as you want to walk a bit of... one centimetre on the true path, so there, you are attacked: immediately, the Enemy shows its true claws, what he is. And immediately, the Grace is there (gesture side by side). From that moment on, you are on the way. Then you begin to see the whole Play; you begin to understand the Play of the world.

It is the only thing I had to say: it is useless to change country. You have to change your way of being. And the operation is as difficult as it is for an old fish to come out of the water and invent lungs. It is as difficult as that. It is not a question of changing your idea, you have to change your way of being.

(silence)

There is like a... something of Mother which says: “Still more waste?” Mother doesn’t like waste... So why waste forces again? We can try again to tell them...

That’s it, there is nothing to say. To speak exhausts me... I am no longer in that world.

December 8, 1987

(Excerpt from a conversation with Sujata)

That I have understood well: to write, to speak, all that is useless––useless, useless, useless. It is an abyss: you can throw everything into it, everything will be engulfed. You can throw everything-everything... Sri Aurobindo and Mother threw all the Gold of their Consciousness into it and splash! And splash! It is eaten up. Not in vain, but well, it is... how long until it comes out again...? So I understand that there is nothing to do except the individual work, or what else? Or... the individual attempt. ..Yes, isolated. ... isolated. I already understood that one had to be very isolated. 

….Little by little, I understood: well, no, there is one man.  I don’t mean that there are no others, but that it is everyone’s work, individually. Communities, all that, it does not exist. All collective stories are doomed to disaster. Mother said: Another ashram should be started with two or three people––and even that... No, She said with a dozen people. And She added: “and even that...”

Yes. And She added: “And even that...” And even that! Yes! Well, I quickly understood her “and even that”––I quickly understood. …There are only isolated individuals, that’s all. Yes. Let everybody do their own work. Yes. And without showing themselves, in any way. Otherwise, it is: Oh! It is the “black hole”, everything is engulfed. Everything is taken over. Look at Auroville. They did not want... Mother gave them 14 years, didn’t She: they were incapable of having one gram of purity, a little pure. So they are... vrff! They are swallowed back. Everything is swallowed back. That is why Sri Aurobindo wanted something that could not be swallowed back. Well, I assure you that that Power, nobody can swallow it back. Nobody. But it is unbearable, isn’t it.