Finding Auroville

This post brings together various aspects that were written about in earlier posts, related to the topics of the individual and the collective, and freedom and discipline, in the context of Integral Yoga and Auroville. The aim is to discuss Auroville as an institution or an “intentional community” as it is referred to, the role of the individual and the collective in this institution/intentional community, and whether the purpose of Auroville should be clearly defined.

One of the earliest posts of this blog titled “What Kind of Spirituality in Auroville?” discusses how the prevailing rhetoric in Auroville has been that there should be an almost limitless freedom given to an individual in their practice of spirituality (or lack thereof), and how anyone who stressed on the philosophy of Integral Yoga as the central purpose of Auroville was labelled as too dogmatic and inflexible. This has led to an atmosphere in Auroville where people can basically do whatever they want, as long as they don’t upset the applecart of the societal and administrative structure that has been established here over the past decades. The post then describes how according to Sri Aurobindo the practice of Integral Yoga itself allows for limitless variation and freedom, as long as the “one essential thing” is followed, which is the “the conversion of the whole life of the human being to the lead of the spirit”. This means the transfer of the control of our actions from our vital desires, attachments, fears and insecurities to the spiritual presence, to the Divine that resides in each of us, through the process of self-realization. The process of self-realization allows for limitless variation and freedom in its pursuit. An infinite number of pathways lead to and converge onto the essential moment of self-realization, and an infinite number of pathways diverge outwards and onwards from it once realization has been achieved. The process of self-realization is at the core of Yoga, and it’s pursuit should be at the center of the project of Auroville, since it is an experiment in Integral Yoga. Not only will it allow for all the diversity and flexibility that has existed in Auroville, but will allow for even more of it, and in the correct context – guided by the spirit and not the vital ego.

The post titled “Why Should Auroville Have (Some Level of) Autonomy? Part I” discusses the idea of “spiritual anarchy”, in which the individual freedom that is denoted by the term anarchy is not an outward freedom to do as one pleases, but rather an inner freedom from the control of the vital ego. This inner freedom goes hand in hand with inner discipline, since the vital desires and urges that lead to indisciplined action are subdued. An individual who is on the path of spiritualization and has gained a level of inner freedom and discipline will therefore not need external, mechanical, societal governance, laws and regulations, because they will be self-governing. They will have the ability to identify and pursue actions that will simultaneously be beneficial to themselves as well as society in general. Another way of looking at this is that for a spiritualized individual, whose actions have become truly selfless and who does not act for self-gain, what is beneficial for the individual will have come to overlap with what is beneficial for wider society. So they will choose actions that are beneficial for society in general or society as a whole, because they have come to realize that in those actions is where their benefit lies as well. Sri Aurobindo refers to this as the “spontaneous cooperation” of spiritual anarchy. The spiritualized individual acts for the benefit of as large a section of society as possible because there is no desire to act in any other way. That post also discusses how no external, mechanical, social or cultural schemes of governance and administration, no external laws or sets of rules and regulations are ever going to lead humanity to a truly harmonious, peaceful, equitable and united future. It is only through the spiritualization of humanity, through self-realization and the dissolution of the ego, and the inner disciplining that comes from that path, that harmony and unity will be able to be achieved.

The post “Is Spirituality/Integral Yoga Progressive or Conservative, Part II” goes over how in Integral Yoga the aim is not just the transformation of consciousness of a small number individuals, but the transformation of more and more people in society, leading ultimately to the transformation of humanity as a whole. Individuals who are on the path of transformation and self-realization have to work in society to lead others to the path of transformation.

The post titled “Community in the Context of Integral Yoga, Part I” continues on these themes. It discusses how the idea of community in the context of Integral Yoga differs from the general sense of community. In any group or collective today it is the ego, both individual and collective, that dominates interactions and decision-making. Interactions are therefore between self-centered individuals and groupings of individuals, negotiating with each other to obtain the maximum benefit for themselves. This is true even when the aims of the individuals or groups are supposedly altruistic, and this will continue to be true till humanity can move towards truly selfless action through the process of self-realization. In a community where a number of people have moved towards self-realization, the interactions will become selfless from all sides. The negotiations between individual and collective egos to extract maximum benefit from their interactions and decision-making will be replaced by spontaneous cooperation at a collective level, and the only decisions that will be made collectively will be inherently selfless decisions that will benefit the maximum number of people possible. In this way the conception and workings of community will change fundamentally when the community truly follows the path of spirituality and self-realization.

These themes of the individual and the collective, and of freedom and discipline are fundamental for an understanding of the philosophy of Integral Yoga, because Integral Yoga deals with the spiritualization of both the individual and the collective. This is why Sri Aurobindo keeps returning to these themes in his writings. When humanity functions with the vital ego as its controlling faculty, the need for individual freedom and variation keeps clashing with the need for collective discipline for the overall betterment of the collective. However with the spiritualization of the individual and the collective, the vital needs and requirements of the individual and the collective begin to diminish, and the aspirations of the individual and the collective begin to overlap. The desires that perpetuate the need for external freedoms and the urges that perpetuate external indiscipline are replaced with an inner freedom from these desires and an inner discipline that has no use for the vital’s urges, and instead works for the collective good.

With all this as a base, it is not too difficult to see what the purpose of Auroville is as a collective, as a community. As mentioned above, collectivity is a fundamental aspect of Integral Yoga specifically because Integral Yoga entails the spiritual transformation of both the individual as well as the collective. And this is the fundamental reason why The Mother launched the project of Auroville, as a broader and larger experiment in collectivity in the context of Integral Yoga than the Sri Aurobindo Ashram allowed. The rhetoric and narratives that are prevalent in Auroville that The Mother started Auroville as an experiment in “human unity” without specifying the details of what that term means and how we are to get to it are completely unfounded and unsustainable, as are the narratives that we do not know the path forward for the project. The more we read and understand the writings of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, the clearer the purpose and direction of the project become. The pursuit of Integral Yoga is the fundamental purpose of the project and experiment of Auroville. There is unlimited freedom and flexibility in Auroville, but it is the freedom and flexibility of the path(s) of Integral Yoga. The path forward is not specified in its details and is indeed as multifarious as there are people in Auroville, but Integral Yoga gives us the basic and fundamental tenets, framework and guidelines with which to move forward.

The notion that the pursuit of Integral Yoga is too dogmatic and inflexible an aim for Auroville plays to the idea that it will lead to too much uniformity and rigidity in the everyday life and actions of Aurovilians. Here is what Sri Aurobindo has to say about uniformity:

But freedom is as necessary to life as law and regime; diversity is as necessary as unity to our true completeness. Existence is one only in its essence and totality, in its play it is necessarily multiform. Absolute uniformity would mean the cessation of life, while on the other hand the vigour of the pulse of life may be measured by the richness of the diversities which it creates. At the same time, while diversity is essential for power and fruitfulness of life, unity is necessary for its order, arrangement and stability. Unity we must create, but not necessarily uniformity. If man could realise a perfect spiritual unity, no sort of uniformity would be necessary; for the utmost play of diversity would be
securely possible on that foundation. If again he could realise a secure, clear, firmly-held unity in the principle, a rich, even an unlimited diversity in its application might be possible without any fear of disorder, confusion or strife.

…

Therefore we see that in this harmony between our unity and our diversity lies the secret of life; Nature insists equally in all her works upon unity and upon variation. We shall find that a real spiritual and
psychological unity can allow a free diversity and dispense with all but the minimum of uniformity which is sufficient to embody the community of nature and of essential principle.

Nature’s Law in Progress, The Ideal of Human Unity

For the simultaneous spiritual growth of the individual and the collective, there is the need for both freedom and liberty for the individual as well as unity and discipline towards the collective. But this unity and discipline does not necessitate uniformity. Instead, it requires a dedication of purpose from individuals towards a goal, specifically here the goal of collective transformation and self-realization. This dedication of purpose not only allows for freedom and diversity for the individual, but in fact thrives on freedom and diversity. But as mentioned so many times before on this blog, this thriving of freedom and diversity while working towards a united goal will only work if there is a sincere dedication of the individual and the collective towards the process of self-realization. It is only through the dissolution of the ego and through selfless action that freedom and discipline converge. And so in Auroville, a dedication to the collective pursuit of Integral Yoga as the overall goal will allow for a thriving of the freedom and diversity of individuals.

Now onto the discussion of Auroville as an institution. Firstly, is Auroville an institution at all? Or is it just a settlement, a collective or gathering of people, like in a village or town? Or is it an intentional community? The answer to what the nature of Auroville is as a collective is almost redundant, because whatever the case, it needs to have its purpose defined.

If we say that Auroville is an intentional community, what is its intention? Does it make any sense to have an intentional community without specifying what its intention is, or having an extremely vague term such as “human unity” as its supposed intention?

We can quite positively say that when the Indian government took over the project of Auroville in 1988 and created a foundation to house its assets, both tangible and intangible, Auroville became an institution. So then once again, can we have an institution without a purpose, or with a very vaguely defined purpose? That is a recipe for abuse and misuse, which is exactly what has happened in Auroville over the past decades.

Any institution needs a well defined purpose. And any intentional community needs to have a well defined intention. The Mother initiated Auroville with a purpose. A group of people in Auroville say that its purpose has been kept vague and undefined so as to allow freedom, diversity and variety. What this vagueness has led to is not just aimlessness in Auroville, but also deception, duplicity and fraud. People coming to Auroville can claim a vague and ambiguous loyalty to some vaguely defined spiritual purpose, and that is enough to grant them entry to the project, when their actual intentions might be completely different to even their vaguely stated intentions. Specific statements by The Mother are selected and taken out of context, quoted and misquoted to justify these vague intentions.

What is needed in Auroville is a more defined purpose for the project. The more we understand the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother holistically and in its totality (as opposed to a line here or there taken out of context), the clearer that intention and purpose become. The best part is that this purpose, which is the pursuit of Integral Yoga, itself allows for unlimited freedom, diversity and variation, as long as its central objective of self-realization and the dissolution of the ego are understood and pursued. The freedom of Auroville is not the external, material freedom to do whatever one wants, but rather the inner freedom that comes with the sincere pursuit of Integral Yoga.

Another way of looking at all this is that the issue of defining Auroville’s purpose can be seen as an example of the tension between the individual’s need for freedom and variation and the collective’s need for discipline and unity. However this tension only exists if we are looking at Auroville with a material and mechanical mindset, as a material, mechanical entity. When we instead look at Auroville as a place for individual and collective sadhana, as a place for self-realization and selfless work, this tension between freedom and discipline disappears completely.

As discussed in one of the earliest posts, the fact that the pursuit of Integral Yoga is the central purpose of Auroville does not mean that only people who are fully dedicated to being sadhaks of Integral Yoga should be allowed into Auroville. However, there needs to be an understanding of what Integral Yoga is, and an understanding that this is the purpose of the project, and life and work in Auroville is in consecration to that purpose, whether one is directly a sadhak or not.