Finding Auroville

In the previous post (Why is Auroville in India?), I had mentioned that the Indian government had granted Auroville a level of autonomy in its governance and functioning, via the Auroville Foundation Act of 1988. But why does Auroville need this autonomy at all? (This is a long post with a lot of quotes from Sri Aurobindo and some from The Mother. There will also be a part II to this post that continues the description). (Edit: there will also be a part III to this sequence of posts!)

The prevalent narrative in Auroville has been (as usual) a simplistic one, that The Mother wanted Auroville to be an International/Universal Township with the aim of working towards Human Unity, open to people from around the world. And because of this international nature of the township, the Indian government should have minimum interference in Auroville’s affairs. When this facile explanation is questioned, it is additionally mentioned that the people who have come to Auroville have been “called” here to grow spiritually and make of Auroville whatever the Divine Will wills, and they need unending, unquestioned freedom from external bureaucracy for this free growth, and only the Divine knows what direction and form Auroville will manifest as. However, very conveniently, this unending, unquestioned freedom has also included Aurovilians creating their own extensive albeit small-scale unquestionable bureaucracy within the isolated bubble of Auroville.

To support this narrative of autonomy, Aurovilians use a few quotes by The Mother. For example, her text titled A Dream, written in 1954, starts by saying: “There should be somewhere on earth a place which no nation could claim as its own”. And The Auroville Charter written for the inauguration ceremony of Auroville in 1968 starts with: “Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole.” These quotes bolster the narrative that while Auroville lies in India, it should have a high level of autonomy with minimal interference from the Indian authorities.

So let’s delve deeper into why The Mother wanted Auroville to belong to no one in particular, and why she aspired for a place which no nation could claim as its own. For this we need to dive briefly back into the spiritual philosophy of Integral Yoga, and trace Sri Aurobindo’s views about governance in society in the context of that philosophy.

One of the central themes in Integral Yoga is the interplay between the individual and the collective. While an understanding of the “ordinary” Yoga of the past might involve only an individual’s spiritual transformation, in Integral Yoga the aim is for the transformation of the individual as well as the human collective, and ultimately of the whole of humanity.

The whole process of Nature depends on a balancing and a constant tendency to harmony between two poles of of life, the individual whom the whole or aggregate nourishes and the whole or aggregate which the individual helps to constitute. Human life forms no exception to the rule. Therefore the perfection of human life must involve the elaboration of an as yet unaccomplished harmony between these two poles of our existence, the individual and the social aggregate. The perfect society will be that which most entirely favours the perfection of the individual; the perfection of the individual will be incomplete if it does not help towards the perfect state of the social aggregate to which he belongs and eventually to that of the largest possible human aggregate, the whole of a united humanity.

…

The perfection of the individual in a perfected society or eventually in a perfected humanity – understanding perfection always in a relative and progressive sense – is the inevitable aim of Nature.

Chapter II – The Imperfection of Past Aggregates, The Ideal of Human Unity

So we have the spiritual progression of the individual as well as the spiritual progression of the collective (which ultimately is the entire human collective) as the purpose of Integral Yoga, till the individual and the collective reach perfection. Neither is complete or finally possible without the other. And because there is this element of the collective in Integral Yoga, the organization and governance of that collective (as also the individual) becomes an important factor. We need to consider how the social collective can be/needs to be organized in order to move towards the perfection that Integral Yoga aspires to (and humanity secretly aspires to).

And on the path to this ultimate spiritual perfection, there are stages and levels of “perfection” that we have to attain, which is why Sri Aurobindo says that perfection is progressive. So the movement towards this perfection is a step by step process, a gradual movement towards perfection. For humanity, this is part of its evolutionary process. In its current stage of evolution, humanity at its highest is guided by its intellect and reason, not its psychic or spiritual levels.

Reason using the intelligent will for the ordering of the inner and the outer life is undoubtedly the highest developed faculty of man at his present point of evolution; it is the sovereign, because [it is] the governing and self-governing faculty in the complexities of our human existence. Man is distinguished from other terrestrial creatures by his capacity for seeking after a rule of life, a rule of his being and his works, a principle of order and self-development, which is not the first instinctive, original, mechanically self-operative rule of his natural existence.

…

He [i.e. humanity] seeks for an intelligent rule of which he himself shall be the governor and master or at least a partially free administrator. He can conceive a progressive order by which he shall be able to evolve and develop his capacities far beyond their original limits and workings; he can initiate an intelligent evolution which he himself shall determine or at least be in it a conscious instrument, more, a cooperating and constantly consulted party.

…

… at present it is this which is at work; a self-conscious soul in mind, mental being, manomaya purusa, struggles to arrive at some intelligent ordering of its self and life and some indefinite, perhaps infinite development of the powers and potentialities of the human instrument.

Chapter XI, The Reason as Governor of Life, The Human Cycle

So not only is the mental, reasoning intellect currently the height to which human evolution has reached, but it is also this reasoning mind with which humanity aspires to the next stage in its evolution. However, at this current mental stage, both the human individual and the human collective require (unfortunately) external administration and governance to maintain order in society, and will continue to require it till a higher level of spiritual perfection is attained. And because humanity is currently a mental species, and for the most part does not yet have access to the selfless intuition of the spiritual plane, it is limited to thinking that it can solve the problems of society with mental solutions.

This erring race of human beings dreams always of perfecting their environment by the machinery of government and society; but it is only by the perfection of the soul within that the outer environment can be perfected.

Thoughts and Aphorisms, Sri Aurobindo

It is not by these means [modern humanism and humanitarianism, idealism, etc.] that humanity can get that radical change of its ways of life which is yet becoming imperative, but only by reaching the bed-rock of Reality behind, – not through mere ideas and mental formations, but by a change of the consciousness, an inner and spiritual conversion.

Letters on Yoga, Sri Aurobindo

At one time it was thought that the mind could grasp the whole Truth and solve all the problems that face humanity. The mind had its full play and we find that it is not able to solve the problems. Now, we find that it is possible to go beyond mind and there is the Supermind which is the organization of the Infinite Consciousness. There you find the truth of all that is in mind and life.

For instance, you find that Democracy, Socialism and Communism have each some truth behind it, but it is not the whole Truth. What you have to do is to find out the forces that are at work and understand what it is of which all these mental ideas and “isms” are a mere indication. You have to know the mistakes which people commit in dealing with the truth of these forces and the truth that is behind the mistakes also.

Transcript from memory by a disciple, of a talk by Sri Aurobindo

There is a spiritual solution which I propose; but it aims at changing the whole basis of human nature. It is not a question of carrying on a movement, nor is it a question of a few years; there can be no real solution unless you establish spirituality as the basis of life.

It is clear that Mind has not been able to change human nature radically. You can go on changing human institutions indefinitely and yet the imperfection will break through all your institutions.

Transcript from memory by a disciple, of a talk by Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo makes it clear that while mental/material/mechanical solutions to the world’s problems are currently needed to bring order to the world, they will ultimately always fail. This is because the mental is currently influenced by the energies of our individual and collective vital egos, the self-centeredness and self-servingness of which will always lead any mental solution, no matter how well-meaning in conception, to failure. It is only through the dissolution of the ego, the dissolution of our material attachments, desires, fears and insecurities, that effective solutions to humanity’s problems will begin to emerge, both at an individual and collective level.

For the logical mind in building its social idea takes no sufficient account of the infrarational element in man, the vital egoism to which the most active and effective part of his nature is bound: that is his most constant motive and it defeats in the end all the calculations of the idealising reason, undoes its elaborate systems or accepts only the little that it can assimilate to its own need and purpose. If that strong element, that ego-
force in him is too much overshadowed, cowed and depressed, too much rationalised, too much denied an outlet, then the life of man becomes artificial, top-heavy, poor in the sap of vitality, mechanical, uncreative. And on the other hand, if it is not suppressed, it tends in the end to assert itself and derange the plans of the rational side of man, because it contains in itself powers whose right satisfaction or whose final way of transformation reason cannot discover.

Chapter XX, The End of the Curve of Reason, The Human Cycle, Sri Aurobindo

So if all mental, material, mechanical schemes and solutions are doomed to failure, what is the path forward for humanity, in terms of how it governs itself, in its quest for spiritual transformation? Sri Aurobindo uses the trope of “anarchy” to suggest the way forward.

If we may judge from the modern movement, the progress of the reason as a social renovator and creator, if not interrupted in its course, would be destined to pass through three successive stages which are the very logic of its growth, the first individualistic and increasingly democratic with liberty for its principle, the second socialistic, in the end perhaps a governmental communism with equality and the State for its principle, the third — if that ever gets beyond the stage of theory — anarchistic in the higher sense of that much-abused word, either a loose voluntary cooperation or a free communalism with brotherhood or comradeship and not government for its principle. It is in the transition to its third
and consummating stage, if or whenever that comes, that the power and sufficiency of the reason will be tested; it will then be seen whether the reason can really be the master of our nature, solve the problems of our interrelated and conflicting egoisms and bring about within itself a perfect principle of society or must give way to a higher guide.

Chapter XIX, The Curve of the Rational Age, The Human Cycle, Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo charts a course for humanity to progress, very roughly speaking, from democracy to socialism to anarchy, with anarchy being defined as “either a loose voluntary cooperation or a free communalism with brotherhood or comradeship and not government for its principle”. It should be noted that The Human Cycle was first written between 1916 and 1918, and revised in the late 1930s.

Why is it necessary to move from collective organizational systems (democracy, socialism etc) to a system which stresses on a much more individualistic form of organization (anarchy)? As said earlier, Integral Yoga stresses on the spiritual transformation of both the individual and the collective. In our mental material world, there is always a tension or friction between the individual and the collective. The individual requires freedom and diversity, and the collective requires unity (collective cooperative functioning) for its smooth running. However this need for unity currently often morphs into uniformity, conformity and control, since the collective uses mechanical (material, social, mental) organizational means to achieve the required cooperation and coordination. This can be understood as the friction between an individual’s need for freedom to develop and express themselves on the one hand, and the collective’s need for discipline so that it can function for the good of the many.

The question remains whether anarchistic thought supervening upon the collectivistic can any more successfully find a satisfying social principle. For if it gets rid of mechanism, the one practical means of a rationalising organisation of life, on what will it build and with what can it create?

Chapter XX, The End of the Curve of Reason, The Human Cycle, Sri Aurobindo

Mechanical, mental means of social organization always tend towards social control and rigidity. Anarchism gets rid of this mechanical social organization, but with what will it replace the mechanical? To answer this, Sri Aurobindo moves through a few different forms of anarchism. First he describes the move from a vitalistic anarchism to an intellectual anarchism.

We need not attach much importance to the grosser vitalistic or violent anarchism which seeks forcibly to react against the social principle or claims the right of man to “live his own life” in the egoistic or crudely vitalistic sense. But there is a higher, an intellectual anarchistic thought which in its aim and formula recovers and carries to its furthest logical conclusions a very real truth of nature and of the divine in man. In its revolt against the opposite exaggeration of the social principle, we find it declaring that all government of man by man by the power of compulsion is an evil, a violation, a suppression or deformation of a natural principle of good which would otherwise grow and prevail for the perfection of the human race. Even the social principle in itself is questioned and held liable for a sort of fall in man from a natural to an unnatural and artificial principle of living.

Ibid.

An intellectual or mental anarchism understands that mechanical organizational tools will always suppress the freedom and diversity of humanity. This freedom and diversity is necessary for humanity to make not just social moral progress, but also (more importantly) spiritual progress. However, as we have seen above, the human mental is still controlled by the vital ego and its desires, attachments, fears and insecurities. And so intellectual anarchism will also be derailed by human vitalistic urges and limitations. So Sri Aurobindo moves on to spiritual anarchism.

A spiritual or spiritualised anarchism might appear to come nearer to the real solution or at least touch something of it from afar. As it expresses itself at the present day, there is much in it that is exaggerated and imperfect. Its seers seem often to preach an impossible self-abnegation of the vital life and an asceticism which instead of purifying and transforming the vital being, seeks to suppress and even kill it; life itself is impoverished or dried up by this severe austerity in its very springs. Carried away by a high-reaching spirit of revolt, these prophets denounce civilisation as a failure because of its vitalistic exaggerations, but set up an opposite exaggeration which might well cure civilisation of some of its crying faults and uglinesses, but would deprive us also of many real and valuable gains. But apart from these excesses of a too logical thought and a one-sided impulsion, apart from the inability of any “ism” to express the truth of the spirit which exceeds all such compartments, we seem here to be near to the real way out, to the discovery of the saving motive-force. The solution lies not in the reason, but in the soul of man, in its spiritual tendencies. It is a spiritual, an inner freedom that can alone create a perfect human order. It is a spiritual, a greater than the rational enlightenment that can alone illumine the vital nature of man and impose harmony on its self-seekings, antagonisms and discords. A deeper brotherhood, a yet unfound law of love is the only sure foundation possible for a perfect social evolution, no other can replace it. But this brotherhood and love will not proceed by the vital instincts or the reason where they can be met, baffled or deflected by opposite reasonings and other discordant instincts. Nor will it found itself in the natural heart of man where there are plenty of other passions to combat it. It is in the soul that it must find its roots; the love which is founded upon a deeper truth of our being, the brotherhood or, let us say, — for this is another feeling than any vital or mental sense of brotherhood, a calmer more durable motive-force, — the spiritual comradeship which is the expression of an inner realisation of oneness. For so only can egoism disappear and the true individualism of the unique godhead in each man found itself on the true communism of the equal godhead in the race; for the Spirit, the inmost self, the universal Godhead in every being is that whose very nature of diverse oneness it is to realise the perfection of its individual life and nature in the existence of all, in the universal life and nature.

Ibid.

Sri Aurobindo presents an anarchism based not just on a mental and intellectual aspiration for human unity and equality, but an inner spiritual realization of the oneness of humanity.

What is the difference between an intellectual understanding of the oneness of humanity and a spiritual realization of the oneness of humanity? The difference is that the spiritual realization is based on the fundamental dissolution of the ego, where the material self (body and mind) is no longer seen as the true self, and instead the true self is recognized as that part of the Divine consciousness that resides in every human being, and pervades the universe. This leads to a fundamentally deeper realization of the oneness of humanity and of the universe. The mental, intellectual understanding of human oneness is still mired in vitalistic sentimentality, and still continues to hold a self-centered and self-indulgent view of the centrality of the individual self, with which the aspiration for human oneness will keep clashing and competing. With the spiritual realization, there will be no more clash and competition between these two. The self identifies completely with the whole of humanity (and the universe), and understands that the good of the whole overlaps completely with the good of the self. There is no longer any desire for self-gain at the expense of the collective. Therefore the solutions to material problems that this liberated self arrives at are not hampered by the individual or collective ego in any way. The solutions will go straight to solving whatever material problem they are dealing with in as objective and cleanly effective way as possible.

In the current stage of human evolution, we are using our mental and intellectual faculties to try and solve society’s problems. A collection of people who are using their mental and intellectual faculties to solve problems will invariably have to deal with and negotiate with each other’s individual and collective egos, including alliances of egos, and this is always what derails the process of coming up with effective solutions. In every human interaction currently, we are dealing with, interacting with, and negotiating with each other’s egos, preferences, biases, attachments, desires, fears and insecurities. If, instead of this, we have a spiritualized collective where the individuals have gotten control of their vital instead of their vital controlling them, then in their interactions, and in their attempts to solve their collective problems, none of them will be tempted by their vital limitations to derail the collective good for their own self-interest. The solutions that they come to will spontaneously and instinctively be for the betterment of the collective or community as a whole. Sri Aurobindo has referred to this as “spiritual comradeship” above and as “spontaneous cooperation”.

A free equality founded upon spontaneous cooperation, not on governmental force and social compulsion, is the highest anarchistic ideal.

Ibid.

Spiritual anarchy will thus rely on a collective ego-less understanding of the oneness of humanity to spontaneously bring order to the collective by fundamentally selfless decision-making. In this scenario, the friction between the individual need for freedom and the collective requirement of discipline disappears, because it is the individual and collective ego that creates this friction and dichotomy. Real freedom is an inner freedom from our insecurities and its resultant fears, attachments and desires. And real discipline is an inner discipline which comes along with this inner freedom, because the need for indiscipline disappears with the disappearance of insecurity, fear, attachment and desire. So the real, inner freedom and discipline are one and the same, go hand in hand. There thus ceases to be any friction between the individual and the collective, since the freedom of the individual and the necessary discipline for the smooth functioning of the collective are both spontaneously coming from the same source. In the absence of any desire for self-gain, the only solution that makes any sense is one that benefits the widest possible collectivity.

Having charted this brief path through Sri Aurobindo’s ideas of societal governance, which has arrived at spiritual anarchy as the organizational principle of society that can lead humanity towards a spiritual transformation, we return our attention to Auroville. In December 1972, when The Mother was asked what she wanted for the political organization of Auroville, she responded:

An amusing definition occurs to me: a divine anarchy. But the world will not understand. Men must become conscious of their psychic being and organise themselves spontaneously, without fixed rules and laws – that is the ideal.

For this, one must be in contact with one’s psychic being, one must be guided by it and the ego’s authority and influence must disappear.

The Mother uses the same trope of spiritual anarchy – she calls it divine anarchy – as the organizing system for Auroville. She wants Auroville to be an ego-less collective that organizes itself through selfless spontaneous cooperation and spiritual comradeship, far above any need for mental, material, mechanical controls and governance.

So when The Mother, in the Auroville Charter, calls for Auroville to belong to no one in particular, and instead belong to humanity as a whole, and when she aspires for a place which no nation could claim as its own in A Dream, it is so that life in Auroville can have the flexibility and freedom to grow spiritually into this spontaneous cooperation and spiritual comradeship. It is an aspiration for a place where the regular mechanical laws and governance structures that we live under are substituted by an atmosphere that allows for this growth. Humanity is of course very far from being able to achieve this, however this is what we in Auroville should aspire to and work towards, individually and collectively. This is the audacious purpose of Auroville.

This post set out to answer the question “Why Should Auroville Have (Some Level of) Autonomy?” It has turned into a long post, and has given a brief look at the spiritual philosophy that underpins the reason for Auroville to have a level of autonomy. In the next post (Why Should Auroville Have (Some Level of) Autonomy? Part II), we will see how this underpinning philosophy can be juxtaposed with the real-life present-day social scenario we find ourselves in. (Edit: there will also be a part III to this sequence of posts!)

In the meanwhile, we can end this post with a re-look at A Dream, which The Mother wrote in 1954. It can be better understood in the light of the spiritual philosophy described above. The text is reproduced here in full.

A Dream

There should be somewhere on earth a place which no nation could claim as its own, where all human beings of goodwill who have a sincere aspiration could live freely as citizens of the world and obey one single authority, that of the supreme truth; a place of peace, concord and harmony where all the fighting instincts of man would be used exclusively to conquer the causes of his sufferings and miseries, to surmount his weaknesses and ignorance, to triumph over his limitations and incapacities; a place where the needs of the spirit and the concern for progress would take precedence over the satisfaction of desires and passions, the search for pleasure and material enjoyment.

In this place, children would be able to grow and develop integrally without losing contact with their souls; education would be given not for passing examinations or obtaining certificates and posts but to enrich existing faculties and bring forth new ones. In this place, titles and positions would be replaced by opportunities to serve and organise; the bodily needs of each one would be equally provided for, and intellectual, moral and spiritual superiority would be expressed in the general organisation not by an increase in the pleasures and powers of life but by increased duties and responsibilities.

Beauty in all its artistic forms, painting, sculpture, music, literature, would be equally accessible to all; the ability to share in the joy it brings would be limited only by the capacities of each one and not by social or financial position.

For in this ideal place money would no longer be the sovereign lord; individual worth would have a far greater importance than that of material wealth and social standing. There, work would not be a way to earn one’s living but a way to express oneself and to develop one’s capacities and possibilities while being of service to the community as a whole, which, for its own part, would provide for each individual’s subsistence and sphere of action.

In short, it would be a place where human relationships, which are normally based almost exclusively on competition and strife, would be replaced by relationships of emulation in doing well, of collaboration and real brotherhood.

The earth is certainly not ready to realize such an ideal, for mankind does not yet possess the necessary knowledge to understand and accept it nor the indispensable conscious force to execute it. That is why I call it a dream. Yet, this dream is on the way of becoming a reality. That is exactly what we are doing on a small scale, in proportion to our modest means. The achievement is indeed far from being perfect, it is progressive; little by little we advance towards our goal, which, we hope, one day we shall be able to hold before the world as a practical and effective means of coming out of the present chaos in order to be born into a more true, more harmonious new life.