If we are spread out everywhere as individuals, something no doubt will be done; if we are spread out everywhere in the form of a sangha, a hundred times more will be accomplished. But the time has not yet come for this. If we try to give it form hastily, it will not be the exact thing I want. The sangha will at first be in a diffused form. Those who have accepted the ideal, although bound together, will work in different places. Afterwards, bound into a sangha with a form like a spiritual commune, they will shape all their activities according to the Self and according to the needs of the age. Not a fixed and rigid form like that of the old Aryan society, not a stagnant backwater, but a free form that can spread itself out like the sea with its multitudinous waves — engulfing this, inundating that, absorbing all — and as this continues, a spiritual community will be established.
Yes, it is a very inspiring passage from a letter written to his brother Barin who was wondering about the necessity of a commune. The letter is written in 1920 before the Mother’s coming. This is important because the formation of the Ashram, several Centres, Auroville is a step towards fulfilling this dream. Hidden behind this dream is the ideal of a Gnostic Commune which is the ultimate future of a more evolved humanity. This has been foreseen by few others and has been the path that humanity itself took as it began to evolve out of the Ape. The advantages of a spiritual commune are quite a few.
In a commune nothing belongs to anyone personally. All belongs to the Divine and is shared by all.
There is equal opportunity for all to grow and progress depending upon one’s inner need and aspiration.
There is sufficient support by the group upon the individual and the individual equally contributes to the group life.
There is an opportunity to enrich from each other which helps the consciousness grow wider because people from different backgrounds come together centered around the ideal of a higher spiritual evolution. But the difficulty in a commune centered around the Ideal of the New Creation are enormous. This is because the goal and the path are very vast, the change envisaged all inclusive of the diverse activities. The goal of transformation itself is not easy. As such there are problems of diversity in any community living but here the difficulties increase because each person becomes here the representative of a particular problem as well as a divine possibility in humanity. In other words the individual bears the burden of humanity of a particular type on whom the Divine Consciousness works. It is somewhat like a spiritual laboratory for evolution from the present animal humanity of today to the Divine Supramental being of tomorrow.
This dream of collective living is best embodied in one of the Mother’s writings on the Ashram life.
‘A Dream
There should be somewhere on earth a place which no nation could claim as its own, where all human beings of goodwill who have a sincere aspiration could live freely as citizens of the world and obey one single authority, that of the supreme truth; a place of peace, concord and harmony where all the fighting instincts of man would be used exclusively to conquer the causes of his sufferings and miseries, to surmount his weaknesses and ignorance, to triumph over his limitations and incapacities; a place where the needs of the spirit and the concern for progress would take precedence over the satisfaction of desires and passions, the search for pleasure and material enjoyment. In this place, children would be able to grow and develop integrally without losing contact with their souls; education would be given not for passing examinations or obtaining certificates and posts but to enrich existing faculties and bring forth new ones. In this place, titles and positions would be replaced by opportunities to serve and organise; the bodily needs of each one would be equally provided for, and intellectual, moral and spiritual superiority would be expressed in the general organisation not by an increase in the pleasures and powers of life but by increased duties and responsibilities. Beauty in all its artistic forms, painting, sculpture, music, literature, would be equally accessible to all; the ability to share in the joy it brings would be limited only by the capacities of each one and not by social or financial position. For in this ideal place money would no longer be the sovereign lord; individual worth would have a far greater importance than that of material wealth and social standing. There, work would not be a way to earn one’s living but a way to express oneself and to develop one’s capacities and possibilities while being of service to the community as a whole, which, for its own part, would provide for each individual’s subsistence and sphere of action. In short, it would be a place where human relationships, which are normally based almost exclusively on competition and strife, would be replaced by relationships of emulation in doing well, of collaboration and real brotherhood.
The earth is certainly not ready to realise such an ideal, for mankind does not yet possess sufficient knowledge to understand and adopt it nor the conscious force that is indispensable in order to execute it; that is why I call it a dream.
And yet this dream is in the course of becoming a reality; that is what we are striving for in Sri Aurobindo’s Ashram, on a very small scale, in proportion to our limited means. The realisation is certainly far from perfect, but it is progressive; little by little we are advancing towards our goal which we hope we may one day be able to present to the world as a practical and effective way to emerge from the present chaos, to be born into a new life that is more harmonious and true.’
Bulletin, August 1954
Affectionately,
Alok Da
