Finding Auroville

In the previous post (Why Should Auroville Have (Some Level of) Autonomy? Part I), we went through the spiritual and philosophical context behind the need for Auroville to have a level of administrative autonomy. In this post, we will unpack the correlations of terms such as spiritual anarchy and autonomy, and how they apply to Auroville. In the next post, we will return to what The Mother had said about the administrative organization of Auroville.

As we see from the previous post, Sri Aurobindo and The Mother have used the terms spiritual anarchy and divine anarchy to describe the “spontaneous cooperation” and “spiritual comradeship” which they are aiming for in their teaching of Integral Yoga. The dissolution of the individual and collective ego and the resultant selfless decision-making will allow for “a loose voluntary cooperation or a free communalism with brotherhood or comradeship and not government for its principle”. This spiritual transformation will mean that the motivation for cooperation and togetherness will not be one that has to be externally imposed, but will come spontaneously from within individuals, because there will be nothing else that the individual will want or desire, except an aspiration to see the betterment of the collective and the human whole. There will be no self-centered motive from anyone to derail the move towards harmony, collaboration and unity. The dichotomy between the individual and the collective will disappear, because the individuals will identify themselves completely with the united collective. The dichotomy between the need for freedom and the necessity of discipline disappears, because egolessness is simultaneously the source of true freedom as well as the ending of the need for indiscipline.

At an individual level, spiritual or divine anarchy is reached when the truly free and intrinsically disciplined individual works spontaneously, completely and continuously for the betterment of as wide a collective as possible, without the need for external rules, laws, governance etc. When there is a group or collective of such individuals, this spiritual anarchy reaches the collective level. At that point all the external controlling mechanisms that humanity has developed to keep the collective together will be rendered completely redundant, since the collective will spontaneously, intrinsically aspire only for the good of the collective.

Needless to say, present day humanity is very far from this ideal. Auroville is an experiment in moving humanity – or a small sample of humanity – in this direction.

The currently ongoing conflict in Auroville centers around a group of Aurovilians demanding that the autonomy they have enjoyed for the last 30+ years continues to be maintained, and that the Indian government should not impose any kind of rules and regulations that would impede that autonomy. Their argument is that this autonomy is necessary for Auroville and Aurovilians to grow spiritually.

So what is the connection or relation between the spiritual/divine anarchy that is the aim of Auroville and the administrative autonomy of Auroville that is being demanded by this group of Aurovilians? For spiritual anarchy, there is the necessity of the spiritual transformation of consciousness, in which the divine self is recognized as the real self, as opposed to the material self which humanity usually considers to be the real self. This is the only way to move towards and attain the material detachment and transformation required to be able to embrace spiritual anarchy. On the other hand, the demand for administrative autonomy is completely within the material realm. It is ultimately just a vitalistic demand for material control and power within the small-scale bubble of Auroville.

The contention is that this administrative autonomy (and freedom from oversight) is necessary for the long and winding process of attaining spiritual anarchy. However, spiritual anarchy requires a distancing from and dissolution of attachment from such material mechanisms and processes. As we have seen in the previous post, Integral Yoga teaches us that no material solution, administrative mechanism or policy adjustment is going to lead us to the necessary transformation of consciousness. The transformation will only come by detachment from the material in every way. Relying on and implementing martial, administrative solutions is only going to continue the cycle of human conflict, inequality, disharmony and insincerity. A fixation with and attachment to material means and solutions is a sure sign that not only is the goal still far away, but even the orientation towards the goal has not been achieved yet. Unfortunately, the current desperate holding on to autonomy (in actuality power and control) is in itself a sign of how far we are from being worthy of that autonomy. Instead, Aurovilians should focus their energies on moving sincerely towards the detachment that is necessary for the transformation.

Administrative autonomy (leave alone the almost absolute administrative sovereignty that some Aurovilians are demanding) is not a requirement for spiritual progress. Instead, administrative autonomy is something that the spiritually progressed individual and collective will be able to successfully actualize and accomplish once a certain level of spiritual progress has been achieved.

Another way to look at all this is to think of how a sadhak of Integral Yoga would approach the current process of the Indian government exercising more of a say in how Auroville will be run in the coming days. Such a sadhak is in full knowledge of the fact that neither humanity nor certainly Aurovilians have reached the level of spiritual progress that is necessary to be able to embrace and justify the autonomy given to them. Using the deep objectivity that comes with detachment, this sadhak understands that the experiment in autonomy that has played out over the past 30+ years in Auroville has very evidently failed, and the rules that the Indian government is currently implementing are very clearly the next phase in the evolution of this experiment, which will have multiple phases as we go into the future. These external rules are an unfortunate necessity but are only of perfunctory importance if one is focused on the true goal of spiritual transformation. The sadhak will therefore focus on this individual and collective transformation that is the key to be able to justify and hold any autonomy that is given to Auroville.

The latching on to administrative autonomy as fundamentally important in Auroville comes completely from the vital ego and its desires, attachments and self-centeredness. The psychic self will recognize this administrative autonomy in Auroville as just another re-centering of authority, power and control, simply existing in different (Aurovilian) hands and ripe for manipulation by Aurovilian “politicians” – people with a vital affinity to politics and manipulativeness. Thus the authority, power and control embedded in Auroville’s administrative autonomy is something that the self needs to have no attachment to. And it is only with this detachment that the self then becomes able to utilise that administrative autonomy and authority wisely and properly. This is part of the fundamental teachings of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother.

It basically makes no difference whether the administrative rules to be followed in Auroville come from Aurovilians themselves or from the Indian government, because these rules are not what are going to lead to transformation. There will be no “aha moment” in which one or other of these rules clicks and we begin to move in the correct direction. That “aha moment” has to (or multiple such moments have to) come from within, on the individual path of transformation. Then the collective has to be a group of people who have had such aha moments. As long as Aurovilians have the space to grow spiritually at both an individual and collective level, that is all that is needed. We could say that as long as Aurovilians have “spiritual autonomy”, outer rules are quite perfunctory.

Auroville and Aurovilians have to show through their actions that they are worthy of being given autonomy, by making progress towards the transformation of consciousness. And even then there should be no attachment to that autonomy, just an aspiration for being worthy of it. The time when an individual or collective actually moves towards spiritual anarchy is when they become able to handle autonomy. As with so many aspects of Yoga and Integral Yoga, the less attachment one has to something, the better one is able to utilize it, serve it and take care of it.

Material administrative autonomy is not a prerequisite for moving towards transformation of consciousness and divine anarchy. In my view, anyone who sees the immediate administrative autonomy of Auroville as a central and indispensable criteria of the project has missed the point of the project completely.

In the next post, the third of this “autonomy” sequence, we will return to what The Mother had said about the administrative organization of Auroville during the early years of the project.