Chapter 4

Auroville and Religions

We want the Truth.

For most men, it is what they want that they label truth. The Aurovilians must want the Truth whatever it may be. Auroville is for those who want to live a life essentially divine but who renounce all religions whether they be ancient, modern, new or future.

It is only in experience that there can be knowledge of the Truth.

No one ought to speak of the Divine unless he has had experience of the Divine.

Get experience of the Divine, then alone will you have the right to speak of it.

The objective study of religions will be a part of the historical study of the development of human consciousness.

Religions make up part of the history of mankind and it is in this guise that they will be studied at Auroville – not as beliefs to which one ought or ought not to adhere, but as part of a process in the development of human consciousness which should lead man towards his superior realisation.

PROGRAMME

Research through experience of the

Supreme Truth

A life

but

NO RELIGIONS

Our research will not be a search effected by mystic means. It is in life itself that we wish to find the Divine. And it is through this discovery that life can really be transformed.

There have been some reactions about the little booklet that you gave us on religions, about the sentence which says: “Our search will not be a search by mystic means.”

By mystic means I mean the way of those who withdraw from life, like the monks, the people who withdraw into convents, or like the sannyasins here, those who abandon life to find spiritual life, who make a division between the two and say, “It is either one or the other.” We say, “That is not true.” It is in life and by living life entirely that one can live the spiritual life, that one must live the spiritual life. The supreme consciousness has to be brought here. From the purely material and physical point of view, man is not the last race. As man came after the animal, so another being must come after man. And as there is only one Consciousness, it is the same Consciousness which having had the experience of man will have the experience of a superhuman being. And so if we go away, if we leave life, if we reject life, then we will never be ready to do that.

But if you had read Sri Aurobindo, you would have understood, you would not have asked this question…

We want to change life – we do not want to run away from it… Until now all those who have tried to know what they called God, to enter into relation with God, they have abandoned life. They have said, “Life is an obstacle. We shall abandon life for that.” So, in India you had the sannyasins who renounced everything; in Europe you had the monks and the ascetics. Well, they can escape, even though when they are reborn they will have to begin all over again. But life remains as it is.

The notion of religion is most often linked to the search for God. Should religion be understood in this context only? As a matter of fact, are there not nowadays other forms of religion?

We give the name of religion to any concept of the world or the universe which is presented as the exclusive Truth in which one must have an absolute faith, generally because this Truth is declared to be the result of a revelation.

Most religions affirm the existence of a God and the rules to be followed to obey Him, but there are some Godless religions, such as socio-political organisations which, in the name of an Ideal or the State, claim the same right to be obeyed.

To seek Truth freely and to approach it freely along his own lines is a man’s right. But each one should know that his discovery is good for him alone and it is not to be imposed on others.

Jesus is one of the many forms which the Divine has assumed to enter into relationship with the earth. But there are and there will be many others; and the children of Auroville should replace the exclusiveness of one religion by the wide faith of knowledge.

You must not confuse a religious teaching with a spiritual one. Religious teaching belongs to the past and halts progress.

Spiritual teaching is the teaching of the future – it illumines the consciousness and prepares it for future realisation.

Spiritual teaching is above religions and strives towards a global Truth.

It teaches us to enter into direct relation with the Divine.

Here we do not have religion. We replace religion by the spiritual life, which is truer, deeper and higher at the same time, that is to say, closer to the Divine. For the Divine is in everything, but we are not conscious of it. This is the immense progress that man must make.

Unity – Harmony – Collaboration

Any sincere attempt to bring peace and unity among men is welcome in Auroville.

How can people having different values live and work together in harmony?

The solution is to go deep within oneself and find the place where all the differences combine to constitute the essential and eternal Unity.

To establish in Auroville the harmonious atmosphere which, by definition, ought to reign there, the first step is for each one to look within himself for the cause of friction and misunderstanding.

For these causes are always on both sides and before demanding anything from others, each one should first strive to eliminate them from himself.

Peace through human unity:

Unity through uniformity is an absurdity.

Unity must be realised through the union of the many.

Each one is part of the unity; each one is indispensable to the whole.

You must all agree.

That is the only way to do good work.

For everyone to agree each one must rise to the summit of his consciousness; it is on the heights that harmony is created.

Quarrels are altogether contrary to the spirit of Auroville.

You see only your side of the question, but if you want to widen your consciousness it would be better to look from all sides impartially. Later you will discover that this attitude has great advantages.

As long as you are for some and against others, you are necessarily outside the Truth.

You should constantly keep good will and love in your heart and let them pour out on all with tranquillity and equality.

I disapprove totally of violence. Each act of violence is a step back on the path leading to the goal to which we aspire.

The Divine is everywhere and always supremely conscious. Nothing must ever be done that cannot be done before the Divine.

For each problem there is a solution that can give satisfaction to everybody; but for finding this ideal solution each one must want it instead of meeting the others with the will to enforce one’s own preference.

Enlarge your consciousness and aspire for the satisfaction of all.

Each thing in its place and there will be a place for everything.

To say “it is impossible to include this thing”, simply means that its true place has not been found.

Widen your consciousness to the dimension of the earth and you will have a place for everything.

Auroville has been created for those who want to progress, their own progress.

This is written for each one; each one is concerned with himself first.

The true spirit of Auroville is collaboration and must be more and more so.

True collaboration paves the way to divinity.

Work and Discipline

No big creation is possible without discipline –

individual discipline,

group discipline,

discipline towards the Divine.

The important thing is the execution which is to be carried out without ever losing sight of the ideal we want to realise.

To all those who want to live for the future:

A physical work is as indispensable to the balance of the body as food.

To eat without working causes a serious imbalance.

True spirituality lies in the service of the divine work.

To refuse to work for all is only a demonstration of selfishness, and has no spiritual value.

The first thing to do to be able to live in Auroville is to consent to free oneself from one’s ego.

In our smallest action we can serve the Divine if we have the right attitude.

It is in work done as an offering to the Divine that the consciousness develops best.

Indolence and inaction result in tamas which is a fall into inconscience and the very opposite of progress and light.

To surmount one’s ego and to live only in the service of the Divine, that is the ideal and the shortest way to acquire the true Consciousness.

(This quotation was sent to all Aurovilians on 10.6.71.)

“As for the principle that everyone should be allowed to do according to his nature, that can apply only where people do independent work by themselves; where many have to work together, it cannot always be done – regularity and discipline are there the first rule.

She (The Mother) refuses to yield to complaints and clamour born of desire and ego.”

For those in Auroville who want to be true servitors, is Sunday a holiday?

In the beginning the organisation of the week was conceived in this way: six days of work for the collectivity to which the individual belonged; the seventh day of the week was reserved for the inner quest for the Divine and the offering of one’s being to the divine will. This is the only meaning and the only true reason for the so-called Sunday rest.

Needless to say, sincerity is the essential condition for realisation; all insincerity is a degradation.

Many in Auroville say that an organised working is not desirable in Auroville; they are for spontaneous working.

Spontaneous work can be done only by a man of genius.

Is there anyone claiming to be a genius?…

Auroville is created to realise the ideal of Sri Aurobindo who taught us the Karma Yoga. Auroville is for those who want to do the Yoga of work.

To live in Auroville means to do the Yoga of work. So all Aurovilians must take up a work and do it as Yoga.

Truth and Falsehood

Auroville must not lie. Everyone who aspires to be an Aurovilian must make the resolution never to tell a lie.

So long as we go on telling lies, we go on pushing the happy Future far from us.

For those who have been taken into Auroville on a wrong statement of theirs, there is only one solution: it is to cure in themselves all falsehood, that is to say, all that contradicts in their consciousness the Presence of the Divine.

Before dying, falsehood rises in full swing.

Still people understand only the lesson of catastrophe. Will it have to come before they open their eyes to the Truth?

I ask an effort from all so that it has not to be.

It is only the Truth that can save us, truth in words, truth in action, truth in will, truth in feelings. It is a choice between serving the Truth or being destroyed.

To all those who are telling lies: By the simple fact that you are telling lies you prove that you do not wish to be true Aurovilians.

If you wish to remain in Auroville you must stop lying.

To be a true Aurovilian one must never lie.

Auroville will become what it must be:

Only if and when the people living there will stop lying.

When you say “I want to serve the Divine”, do you believe the All-Knowing does not know that it is a lie?

Money

The conflict about money is what might be called a “conflict of ownership”, but the truth is that money belongs to no one. This idea of possessing money has warped everything. Money should not be a “possession”: like power it is a means of action which is given to you, but you must use it according to… what we can call the “will of the Giver”, that is, in an impersonal and enlightened way. If you are a good instrument for diffusing and utilising money, then it comes to you, and it comes to you in proportion to your capacity to use it as it is meant to be used. That is the true mechanism.

The true attitude is this: money is a force intended for the work on earth, the work required to prepare the earth to receive and manifest the divine forces, and it – that is, the power of utilising it – must come into the hands of those who have the clearest, most comprehensive and truest vision.

To start with, the first thing (but this is elementary) is not to have the sense of possession – what does it mean, “it is mine”?… Now, I don’t quite understand. Why do people want it to belong to them? – so that they can use it as they like and do what they want with it and handle it according to their own conceptions? That’s how it is. On the other hand, yes, there are people who like to store it up somewhere… but that is a disease. To be sure of always having some, they hoard it.

But if people understood that one should be like a receiving and transmitting station and that the wider the range (just the opposite of personal), the more impersonal, comprehensive and wide it is, the most force it can hold (“force” that is translated materially: notes and coins). This power to hold is proportional to the capacity to use the money in the best way – “best” in terms of the general progress: the widest vision, the greatest understanding and the most enlightened, exact and true usage, not according to the warped needs of the ego but according to the general need of the earth for its evolution and development. That is to say, the widest vision will have the largest capacity.

Behind all wrong movements, there is a true movement; there is a joy in being able to direct, utilise, organise in such a way that there is a minimum of waste and the maximum of result. It is a very interesting vision to have. And this must be the true side in people who want to accumulate money: it is the capacity to use it on a very large scale. Then, there are those who very much like to have it and spend it; that is something else – they are generous natures, neither regulated nor organised. But the joy of being able to satisfy all true needs, all necessities, is good. It is like the joy of changing a sickness into health, a falsehood into truth, a suffering into joy; it is the same thing: to change an artificial and foolish need – which does not correspond to anything natural – into a possibility which becomes something quite natural. So much money is needed to do this or that or the other, so much is needed to arrange this, to repair that, to build this, to organise that – that is good. And I understand that people like to be the channels through which the money goes exactly where it is needed. That must be the true movement in people who like to… translated into foolish egoism, who need to appropriate.

When the need to accumulate and the need to spend (which are both blind and ignorant) are combined, they can lead to a clear vision and a most efficient utilisation. That is good.

Then there comes, slowly and slowly, the possibility of putting it into practice.

But, naturally, the need is for very clear heads and for intermediaries of high integrity (!) to be able to be everywhere at the same time and do all at the same time. Then this famous question of money would be solved.

Money does not belong to anybody. Money is a collective possession which should be used only by those who have an integral, comprehensive and universal vision. I would add something to that: not only integral and comprehensive, but essentially true as well; a vision which can tell the difference between a use which is in accord with the universal progress, and a use which could be termed fanciful. But these are details, for even the mistakes, even, from a certain standpoint, the waste, help the general progress: these are lessons learned the hard way.

I always remember what X used to say (X was completely opposed to philanthropy); he used to say: Philanthropy perpetuates human misery because without human misery philanthropy would have no more reason to exist!… And you know the great philanthropist, what was his name? – during Mazarin’s time; he founded the Little Sisters of Charity…

Vincent de Paul?

That’s it. Mazarin once told him: There have never been so many poor people as since you started taking care of them! (Mother laughs.)

(A donor to Auroville specified:)

I want my money to be used exclusively for conquering the causes of our sufferings and miseries.

It is for this that we all work here, but not in the artificial manner of philanthropists who work on the exterior effects only.

We want to eliminate for good the cause of suffering by divinising matter through the integral transformation.

Firstly, is there something specific being done which is impeding the flow of money to Auroville?

It is the lack of push towards the future that impedes the flow of money.

Secondly, is there something specific which should be done to increase the flow of money to Auroville?

A confident certitude in the inevitable future can break this resistance.

Divine Mother, firstly, what is the role of the United States with regard to the building of the new world?

The work of U.S.A. is to provide the financial help needed to prepare the earth for the new creation.

Secondly, what must the people of the United States do in order to begin to be able to fulfil this role?

Become aware of those, individual or organisation, capable of bringing about this transformation and give them the necessary money.

It is only when people feel that it is their good fortune to help Auroville grow that the funds will come abundantly.

Give your money to the Divine work and you will be richer than you would be by keeping it.

Cleanliness

To take pleasure in dirt and disorder is a sure sign of a nature which rejects its psychic being and wants nothing to do with it.

Cleanliness is the first indispensable step towards the supramental manifestation.

Drugs

Drugs are prohibited in Auroville.

If there are any who take them, they do it deceitfully.

The ideal Aurovilian, eager to become conscious of the Divine Consciousness, takes neither tobacco, nor alcohol, nor drugs.

Is it true, Mother, that though you do not want drugs to be taken at Aspiration, you tolerate them on the other hand at the Centre or in other parts of Auroville?

This is a lie.

I have said, no drugs in Auroville, and I do not go back on my word.

Is it true that essentially you are not against the experience?

This so-called experience warps the development and damages the consciousness; on the pathway to the Divine it is a fall into the rut.

This is clear, I think.

Relation with Villagers

Those who are in contact with the villagers should not forget that these people are worth as much as they are, that they know as much, that they think and feel as well as they do. They should therefore never have an attitude of ridiculous superiority.

They are at home and you are the visitors.

To the inhabitants of Aspiration:

A relationship that is not only cordial but friendly with the inhabitants of the neighbouring village is absolutely indispensable. For the realisation of Auroville the first step is to establish a true human fraternity – any shortcoming in this regard is a grave mistake which can compromise the whole work.

My blessings are with all sincere effort towards harmony.