On Auroville 2022 to 2025

aspirations; but now, he could not understand; and so, suddenly, he addressed me directly across the hall, asking how I could defend or support this model!? He was not Aurovilian; he would come and go between the Ashram and Italy since years; he had received di rectly from Mother, in Satprem‟s presence, Her first descriptions of the Inner Room; he had participated in the making of Her new apartments on the second floor of the main Ashram building, with their balcony from which She would give Her darshans; h was an artist, architect and creator of environments, deeply fond of harmony; his model of white marble had been rejected, but he continued to work with Piero on all the details of the inner Room; he was still hoping that another solution would be sought, more wholesome and dignified. How could I, right there and then, that we were bound by the choice the community had made and could only strive to realize it with as much perfection and care as was possible? My only hope, in my consciousness and commitment, for a harmonious balance that would reset the proportion between spectacle and authentic experience, lay in the realization of the gardens and the park, this park of which Mother had dreamed since Her childhood, the most beautiful site in the world, in the heart of which this golden sphere could silently reveal itself. For it was not merely a matter of the object itself – the building, the edifice, the monument, the sanctuary, whatever we call it -, but of a whole collective conduct, a whole mental and emotive approach, a whole comprehension of its role and function, of its whole future communication with the world at large, of a whole mode of development and manifestation. Then itself I realized how much one can be torn between what the collectivity chooses and what one feels profoundly as necessary, right and truthful before That which is to incarnate upon earth. How to reconcile the two experiences, the two commitments, the two aspirations – since the aspiration to the cohesion of the community and the goodwill towards it are necessarily part of our service of Auroville -, how to find their harmony? There does not seem to be an easy answer to this question, as one can easily verify nowadays where the governance of Auroville is concerned. There are moments when the path of Auroville becomes tangible and as if invincible – perhaps when we forget our oppositions, differences, exclusivisms? Intellectually, it is relatively easy to conceive the effort that is asked of the individual and of the group: the first mus t offer one‟s limitations and egoistic preferences and learn to perceive each of the other viewpoints present, while the second must ensure that none of the present viewpoints is ignored or dismissed, so that all the participants, without exception, may adhere wholeheartedly to the chosen direction. It is not a matter of blind and passive submission or of yielding, nor of mere superficial juxtaposition, but of a real integration by which both, the individual and the collective, grow in consciousness and in capacity of manifestation.

Such is our apprenticeship, and the Force of Auroville, its true force of creative contagion, awaits still that we realize it: then Auroville will radiate.

36