Not only do elevated beings spend a lot of time in silence, but silences are a major part of their discourses, their messages. The are two major silences to consider:
- When a transmission occurs that is not in word or audio format. This paranormal transmission most often defines a mystic and those who can receive such messages are attracted to become their followers.
- When words fail … on topics where our human languages reveal their deficiency. Poetry and music can point ways into this space, but never has there been universal clarity in these areas.
The enlightened ones provided grand ideas and a direction, that look timeless, eternal. Their powerful insights came forth thru a spirit connection and they were converted into words, often in parables. Their sayings and their stories became myths, epics, and quests. These gave form to the human’s natural desire to flower, to access and use higher powers to ascend, to create.
We have embarked on quests that we received, happily pouring into them our hearts, our lives. The results have been voyages, temples, pyramids, and crusades. Our history is a mosaic of superhuman responses that defy the imagination — a testament to a species destined to work towards the unimaginable, and achieve the impossible. Finding amazing treasures.
The Second Set Of Steps
After finding the first treasures, the mistake by followers — of these great divine beings — is to start worshiping the treasure and not continue to the next step. Upon achieving some success and gaining the first rewards the trap is to institutionalize the work and focus on rituals. Rituals for both lay people and monks can entail sacrifices (such as fasting and providing funds), but they do cause stagnation. The enlightened ones know this trap, can point it out, but clearly cannot prevent their own followers from falling into it:
The error of the [Ramakrishna] Mission is to keep too much to the forms of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda and not keep themselves open for new outpourings of their spirit, — the error of all “Churches” and organised religious bodies.
— Sri Aurobindo
While the first stage is usually somewhat articulated, the second stage is usually very ambiguous. Proceeding further on the unchartered path is very difficult; it involves working on some rough ideas which need to be developed and polished, within the new context created by the first set of successes. And it involves leaving behind hard-earned success to humbly continue the experiment and pray for new outpourings.
One must put aside all that has been foreseen, all that has been devised, all that has been constructed, and then … set off walking into the unknown.
— Mirra Alfassa
Additional difficulty lies in the attitude of those enjoying the first successes. Rituals in an institutionalized space (be it a stone circle, dolmen, temple, pyramid, or today’s air-conditioned chambers) define a clear path and provide a course of action. They provide success both in the institution’s and society’s hierarchy and even when they stop bringing spiritual reward, they provide enough social reward. As is clear, it is hard to give up habit, prestige, and power, and admit the error of ways. So much so that the few who leave those rewards behind to continue to experiment in unchartered territory in the new context are scorned.
The words of all enlightened ones — Buddha, Mahavir, Jesus, Mohammed, and others — have motivated people strongly. But the words have been open to interpretation; they have turned out to be subjective (not to their ardent followers, of course).
Thus we see the creation of sects, of factions. People start to act with anger and antagonism, in a clearly not-at-all-spiritual manner, often exhibiting very inhuman behaviour. All in the name of the enlightened one. This leads to division and infighting, and institutional rivalry.
To get past these divisive and ossidifying forces, to breakdown oppressive institutions, and overcome major roadblocks, we can use the silences of the enlightened ones.
Silence is the language of God, all else is a poor translation.
― Rumi
If we can patiently attend to the silences we can regain lost divinity and humbly continue on our grand journey.
Unfortunately, while we know that the enlightened ones spent a great amount of time in silence, we have not recorded them. They are not found in the texts or the hymns. Luckily, in the recent era with transcripts and recording devices, we have some access to the silences of recent enlightened ones. Let us learn from the silences of one such person and even apply them to the problems facing her followers in Auroville.
The Words of Mirra Alfassa
Mirra Alfassa (1878–1973) was the spiritual partner of Sri Aurobindo, and reverentially called Mother. The technology of her times enabled voluminous recordings in audio, text, camera, and even video. Her words and pictures are worshiped, despite her wishes to not have her words etched into stone and not have her image revered.
Unlike other beings of her ilk (like Sri Aurobindo and Ramana Maharshi), Mother was involved in operating level details on a daily basis. She was growing and managing the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, and was the president of the Sri Aurobindo Society (SAS), of which her dream — Auroville — was then a project.
On one hand, Mother — operating from intuition and insight — provided a set of values, grand ideas, and some directions, that were, if not timeless, at least valid for lot more than her lifetime. On the other hand she had to daily provide details and give approvals. Those answer were extremely contextual to the person, the situation, and that particular moment.
The natural trap that her followers fell into was to not make the discernment, to differentiate between the two types of messages by Mother. It is not easy, there is much overlap and layers which have to be peeled apart with great care. To help in this task we need to use her silences.
The Silences of Mirra Alfassa
Mother’s many silences, some which were punctuated by words, happened for various reasons. These include:
- Long pauses, giving a long-delayed response.
- Saying partial sentences, not completing, not expanding, not clarifying.
- When ‘yes’ means: ‘Yes, I hear you’ and not ‘Yes, I agree with you’.
- Indicating ‘continue’ without explicitly approving the current point.
- Silence upon recognizing the futility of talking, noticing the fullness of the other and their momentum.
- Silence or approval of the direction, because the changes required were so drastic and would mean getting in the steering wheel again.
There are other important points to incorporate into all Mother said and what she did not say.
She was confined at 80, from 1958, and fully restricted at 84, in 1962. She was 87 when she decided to “take up” the township project of the SAS (the 3rd time an idea of creating a city emanated in her). So most of the discussions, planning, and actual work happened when she was around 90. The work mainly happened in Paris, in Auroville and, of course, some happened in the ashram in Pondicherry where she never left her room.
Without referring to her spiritual powers, it was clear that her physical body aged — her poor hearing made her comfortable with contact with only a few known people. She was confined and often in great pain — and her mental state also did not allow her to engage in long discussions and certainly not arguments. She did not have the physical energy to make sharp turns happen; since she was absolutely convinced that whatever happens is always for the best in the then circumstance, she was also content to let things continue in the same direction.
Auroville’s Birth And Success
The Mother gave a call in 1968 to create a space where people from the entire world can come and work on human unity at a higher consciousness level. This miraculously attracted the attention of the many nations who sent a representative and some soil to put in an urn on a patch of desert. And many who wanted to be part of this great adventure.
From this starting point, Auroville grew, too slowly in the eyes of some, into an amazing place around the Matrimandir. Auroville has many successes over the past decades in so many diverse areas (including reforestation, healing, transportation, …). These were done thru money raised by individuals including accommodations, offices, schools, restaurants, studios, and pavilions. All done in a way that makes Auroville the future than India needs.
But now that the first set of successes have been achieved, how to tweak Auroville’s social and physical environment to become even more favourable to their resident’s individual and communal transformation? As they become more aware of the current reality and the elements of the future that need to be put in place, Auroville needs to organically grow. Auroville also needs to accommodate new people who are seriously interested in joining the great adventure, volunteers, and tourists. Only by holding firmly, but not tightly and not desperately, to the direction set by Mother, will Auroville’s aim of human unity will be realized. Obviously, the continuous evolution and transformation of Auroville has to be directed by its residents who live for and by Auroville’s ideals: that of identifying with the Divine within, and connecting with the divine in others.
The Predicted Problems In Auroville
Auroville has had some unique problems. It has attracted far more architects and designers than do’ers. It has attracted far more pioneers than collaborators. There are many hard-working individual who stand out, but community-building work is neglected. Even the factions that block or push issues are very small numbers of people, making money the major force in what gets done in Auroville.
In the factions that exist in Auroville, two stand out. One has recently gained access to tax-payer money to build the very old ideas of infrastructure such as wide roads, projects that today still generate good income for the entire chain. These roads are clearly not for the residents, who do not own cars, nor for a pedestrian-friendly centre. They are not in response to today’s reality of climate change and air pollution — they exacerbate the problems. They are not futuristic in anyway nor are they objects of beauty. By destroying thousands of trees, they make a mockery of Mother’s observation that we are creating a ‘moon-like’ earth.
Another faction, financed by a wealthy individual, is building a huge, deep lake that is plastic lined and threatens the bio-region. In the many thousand-year history of building lakes in Tamil Nadu, never has such a lake been built: one that does not connect, does not flow, nor does it recharge the aquifer. One that only collects. Technology has been used to isolate Auroville, to create selfish communal behaviour, and reduce jobs. This is not the future the earth needs. Nature has responded by sending the highest rainfall in 80 years and causing the lake to breach.
Other groups include reforesters who have greened Auroville, and passive locals who see their role only to watch (and ignore the words given to them in the Thirukural), and a new set of religious-minded and politically-charged people from the North.
While many things are blocked, what is proceeding is driven by quick money. Not only incorrect actions, but carried out with conspicuous scorn, lack of empathy, absence of any regard to the work that was carried out for decades and the current situation of climate change and deteriorating air and water quality.
The phrase ‘Mother said’ is heard constantly around Auroville, most often to block differing thoughts and stop conversation. And her quotes are being flung by all sides at all sides. This is not bringing clarity, nor any form of unity — there is no collaboration and no support for those working on some form of unity.
Mother herself predicted that this would occur in Auroville:
I must have expressed myself badly.
They try to do things by a mental construction. It doesn’t work.
I don’t want to quarrel with them and it would not have any effect.
You will say one day, “Mother has said this, Mother has said that…” and that is how dogmas alas, are made.
That’s what I am afraid of: that people will make dogmas with the creation of Auroville.
— Mirra Alfassa
Mother knew her words would be misheard, misrepresented, and misused. Even her sketches would cause conflict between those who see them as suggestions and those who see them as divine commands. Today people claiming to be followers or adherents to her wishes still argue and even exhibit the most heartless, the most non-motherly behaviour.
To go past the current blocks and the diversions, it is time to look at her silences — the many silences during practical, pragmatic conversations. At what she did not say.
Let us look at the silences of The Mother in specific contexts.
Heeding The Silence On The Galaxy
The galaxy plan by Roger Anger was given to Mother just days before the inauguration of Auroville. With little time to study it (and having rejected the earlier plan), we should see the practicality of approving a plan, an impressive and ambitions plan indeed, for the rest of the world to see and hear at the inauguration ceremony.
The Ashram had grown organically from two buildings into the large community with guesthouse, sports complexes, school, residences and workspaces for over a 1,000 people. The Mother wished the same for Auroville. She said it to people who would hear, but was silent about it with the people who would not.
Her directions were from intuition and insight and she wished her followers would not be mental, but heed the powers of the psychic which bypassed the mind and manifested more thru the heart.
Mother was clear that even with a galaxy-modelled Auroville would become like any other city, but was unable to convey that fear to galaxy artists. Even though Roger initially said: “What is important is not building a city but building new men”, he later fell into the trap of drawings and execution. Then it became: “We are here to build a city.”
Mother struggled with finding the right people to take the idea of Auroville forward, saying: “André is too old for Auroville; Nava cannot understand Auroville; Roger is impossible; there is a defect in Shyam Sunder, …” At one point, Mother told Shyam Sunder, her secretary: “You are my only hope” when she was frustrated with the great momentum created mainly by Navajata, which left no room for other people and ideas and actions.
One idea that came later into the galaxy design was ‘lines of force’. It did not come from Mother or a person with a psychic expansion. It was an idea put on a mental model to make it appear psychic. Roads and automobiles do not need lines of force — such alignment is for people and water. Any such lines originating from the Matrimandir or the banyan tree would not be enhanced by a concrete crown.
If Aurovilians contemplate on the Mothers’ silences on the galaxy plan, it would help them gracefully loosen their grip on concrete objects and 30-year old master plans; instead, they could hold each other’s hands to work on elevating the society first and then letting the new place emerge.
Heeding The Silence On The Number
All religions get into problems with numbers. Instead of the directive to ‘pray earnestly, pray humbly’, people prefer to be told how many times, at what intervals, and in what position. It is hard to decide whether one’s prayer was recited with an open heart. It is much easier to rattle off a line 108 times. In the ritualization process, quantity overpowers quality. When founders do not specify a numerical approach, latter day gurus introduce numbers to attract lay people and train monks rigorously.
Auroville has got into deep trouble with a number: the target for how many residents to build for.
Roger Anger said to Mother: “We estimate 10,000 inhabitants in five years, 20,000 in 15, 50,000 after 20 years, 100,000 before thirty years, and in the future even more.” Obviously, this means that Mother had not told Roger for how many inhabitants to plan.
Mother responded by saying that 50,000 would be enough.
Let us contemplate on all the small silences around this sentence.
Mother wanted to curb Roger’s enthusiasm without putting him down. Saying “A population of 3,000 to start with and then letting it grow on its own” would have deflated the architect completely as he was internally competing with Le Corbusier and Chandigarh. She was tired of repeating that growth should be organic, constantly letting new growth emerge out of the new situation.
Mother did not want to get into an argument by questioning what the people would do. Nor get into lecture mode on that it was not the number of people but the work they were doing that was going to bring down the supramental.
These silences were absorbed by some, but hard to absorb by the planners and those committed to action. There are those who can be content with meaningful work, but face a problem when a powerful faction has a desperate need to know that they are part of a bigger movement and eagerly want to see and feel progress. The contest is always won by the person who can raise money to build skyscrapers over the person who slowly tills the soil, retaining a sense of awe for whatever emerges.
Can Aurovilians, having risen in the past decades, give up their fascination with a number? Can they work instead maintaining their modest elevation, and on creating the conditions to rise further and for the rest of humanity to rise? Can they work to attract both the divine and other humans?
The Challenge Today Is The Greatest Ever
For those who are trying to bring humanity back into the human, to reign in the hyper-masculine, and bring forth the feminine — the Divine Feminine — today the challenge is different, greater than even in the recent times of Mirra Alfassa.
The power imbalance has become so great that dialogue is impossible and the powerful do not have to yield to any pleas or hunger strikes or protests. Here silence is seen as acceptance. Or cowardice.
Meanwhile, the institutions of power have created such a theatre of seductive, addictive entertainment that the vast majority not only do not see the oppression, but welcome it as progress. They embrace the addictions dished out on all starting with toddlers. And they ignore the violence oozing out everywhere.
Today, to raise the consciousness of men and women , we have to create societies. Heroic societies outside the limelight, the glare and the cameras.
Auroville is a microcosm of the world and also of the emerging world. While most are passive, appearing to support the powerful and old ideas from old moulds, there are many heroic efforts to create the new, the needed. Five decades ago visionary Indian leaders gave Auroville the freedom to experiment. To create a future the world needs.
Auroville got lost and now has much work to do in coming together and creating the next experiment. Their organizational structure, for one, did not work in the past. The latest one of having the Governing Board run the show also does not work. So they have to reorganize in a different way.
To help themselves stand up together, feeling ownership of their destiny, they have to learn from the values of the enlightened ones and give up the words.
Values To Heed
There are many words that are powerful, but subtle. One can recite them and the trap is to accept them after circumstances change — as an explanation of the new situation. To really follow the words into values requires the ability to enter a transition, face discomfort. To be proactive about the future really requires us to be in the now, to see it clearly, to accept it, and to use the now to make the shift into the unknown. We have to stop thinking about the future, to imagine it and see if we like it or not. The change has to happen in the now, whatever the future may be.
Break the moulds of the past,
but keep safe its gains and its spirit,
or else thou has no future.
— Sri Aurobindo
Breaking the historic moulds means that our next thoughts, our next ideas, our next creations will stem from new moulds. We have to break out of our habits and work on creating new moulds today. In the now.
New words are needed,
To express new ideas.
New forms are necessary,
To manifest new forces.
— Mirra Alfassa
For those stuck within old or current forms of organization, old or current structures, old or current infrastructures, and old or current livelihoods, the request is to let those working on new forms work. They need to be encouraged, and supported. Not suppressed — it is the old ideas that need to be suppressed.
What will happen to you tomorrow? I have no idea.
— Mirra Alfassa
Across all spiritual traditions, all those who find themselves in the first successes and ready to continue the journey, they have to separate themselves from the dogmas. They are in new territory in the dark. Their teacher’s blessings will be present, but the glow will not light up a path. They have to now become tunnelers and dig towards each other. The new light and direction will come from the sangha, the community. Just as in a wind, we cup our hands to protect the flame, we have to protect each other’s flames until the collective blazes and lights up the way for humankind.
Thanks to Gilles G of Auroville Archives for much help.
