On Auroville 2022 to 2025

A solution then presented itself, unexpectedly: an engineer, friend of Auroville, brought a study and a plan of a system of collection and distribution of water in Auroville, the major element of which would be a large lake occupying the entire area of the outer gardens; as this study appeared to be well conceived and thought out and sought to address a real situation for the entire city-to-be, Roger saw in it a boon to be seized. In parallel as it were, Roger had been made a member of the Governing Board as Chief Architect (a conflict of interest per se), while Kireet Joshi, who had been the main contributor to the creation and formulation of the Act of Parliament which had given birth to the „Auroville Foundation‟, had just been selected as its Chairman. Kireet was a fervent admirer of Roger and even declared, when this new conflict became critical, having received the inner command to “follow Roger” – to serve him. At stake was a profound issue of orientation: would the initial thrust, maintained and matured along the years, to participate in a collaborative creation – Nature, the human being and the divine joining in a single oeuvre to welcome, receive and serve the Force of truth and harmony of the future – be compromised and compelled to submit to a loud exhibition of the talents and abilities of the privileged man, an imperious statement of his perfectionism and a glorious display of his beliefs, in this great suffering world, ill and torn apart? Must one meekly subscribe to a merely esthetical creation, a finely wrought flaming show of perfection reducing Nature to a controlled decorative offering and man to a disciplined robot endowed with some presumably superior mode of existence? „Truth does not announce itself with the beat of drums…‟ Our collective experience is thus in an odd imbalance: have we already realized our goal? Is that the example we wish to give, of the indispensable humility before the One? And yet Roger, left to himself and his own consciousness, would not have let himself be trapped – despite his creative enthusiasms -, for he was generous, a gatherer always on the move, listening to the new forms and appreciating beauty wherever it came from. Groupisme is a virulent wound. And so a day came when a decisive meeting took place: this time, the hall is actually the old refectory of the Matrimandir workers, but this is enough as there are only two groups: the large table is surrounded by the members of the Governing Board, while the members of our team of management and coordination of the Matrimandir works remain standing or have adopted some sort of available seats. Kireet is the speaker and commands everyone‟s attention; the introduction is lengthy, but the act is brutal: he stretches his right arm and points his index finger at me – „this man is the obstacle‟ -. I am then and there condemned and shot down in one go, and they all have shot, each of them, all this respected and even illustrious personalities held in esteem in their respective domains, including the sweet Maharajah of Puri who tries later to console me by reminding me that, as it is said in the Bhagavat Gita, it is sometimes necessary to sacrifice a truth to a greater truth.

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