1972

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1971
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1973


Mother's Agenda 1972-1973
(Volume 13)

Agenda 1972-1973 (Vol. 13).jpg
PDF (308 pages)


Matrimandir creater New Year 1972.jpg

(Ruud Lohman, 1 January 1972:) “This morning at 6.30 we had a New Year's celebration at Matrimandir. On the bottom, now 9 metres deep, four large fires were lit and all the workers gathered around them and on the various ledges which run around the excavation at different heights. Many people from the Auroville communities and from Pondy came, too. The first rays of the sun emerged. Then we played the New Year's music, as an experiment, for we were not sure how the workers would react. But they got more and more quiet and seemed to experience it intensively. Somebody gave a five minutes talk in Tamil on the meaning of Matrimandir and their work and explained the idea of the Centenary Year. When sweets were distributed they got so much into it that they started making it into a festival. They lost all idea of work and after two hours they left and we also took the day off. This morning was a clear symbol of what has been established during the last six weeks: a good understanding between the Tamilians and the Aurovilians. The work has gone beautifully, the first phase of Matrimandir will be completed this week; the huge crater is ready. It is splendid, great. It reminds many visitors of the construction of the pyramids, of the Colosseum, of cathedrals, really a monument that embodies a new age.”[1]



(Shyam Sunder on a meeting with Mother, 25 February 1972:) “Mother signed the notice of the play “Katha Upanishad” on 26.2.72 at the Aspiration Cultural Centre.

There was a request from an American hippy, William Phillips, “Your vibrations of Universal love and light have reached my life at this time, and I'm looking forward to visit you in your physical form if you so desire. Thank you.”
         He was allowed to come for Pranam in group.”[2]


(Shyam Sunder on a meeting with Mother, 26 Feb 1972:) “S. wrote to Mother offering her body to have the illnesses and obstacles that Mother's body was having.
         Mother said,
         “It is kind of her.
         But I have no ailments.
         The body is in course of transformation.
         As for obstacles, everybody has got them.” ”[3]


(Shyam Sunder on a meeting with Mother, 28 Feb 1972:) “I spoke to Mother about the birthdays of people at Auroville. I was telling them that Mother wished to see only those whom she knew, who were here for more than a year and were of service to Auroville. For visitors, I was seeing about their services. But what about the students of the Aspiration School?
         Mother said that she could not see them; there were too many people.
         Kumud intervened to say, “Today there are 251.”
         Mother said, “You see.”

Sebastian wanted to dance at the Matrimandir the next day in the evening in the foundation-hole. I commented that the concreting work was to start in the morning and these things disturbed the work.
         Mother said, “He can dance elsewhere.” ”[4]


(Shyam Sunder on a meeting with Mother, 7 March 1972:) “I spoke about foreigners with big hair and beards coming here being directed to me now-a-days as they are thought to be Aurovilians. Mother had a laugh and she said raising her hands towards her hair, “Oh! They are coming with big hair!” ”[5]


(Shyam Sunder on a meeting with Mother, 10 March 1972:) “A Japanese woman who wrote, “I want to know who I am”, was allowed to go to Mother with me, instead of joining the group.”[6]


(Shyam Sunder on a meeting with Mother, 3 July 1972:) “Many in Auroville say that an organised working is not desirable in Auroville; they are for spontaneous working. Mother's reply:

“Spontaneous work can be done only by a man of genius.
         Is there anyone claiming to be a genius?
         Blessings.” ”[7]


(Ruud Lohman, 14 August 1972:) “In two and a half hours the Centenary will be here. I have never known a day lived towards so intensively as tomorrow. People expect all kinds of things. ‘August 15’ has long been a mystical date after which, in fact, nothing will come anymore. A bit like the magical year 2000. Many are expecting miracles. The beginning of a new creation. The return of Sri Aurobindo in our midst. Sri Aurobindo's appearance on the Darshan balcony, together with Mother. The conquest of all our weaknesses and human imperfections. The breakthrough of the new being. … I have a strong feeling that the stress is not on the day of tomorrow as much as on the days, months, years after it. As if it is now getting serious. As if the time of hanging on is over and we now have to put our hands to it. It will not be so nice anymore, it won't be a holiday camp anymore, not a place for superficial freedom and for pleasures which have not yet become joys. The transformation of man and matter looks like a laborious work and not something of one day.”[8]


(Ruud Lohman, 8 December 1972:) “The cyclone which didn't come on Sri Aurobindo's Mahasamadhi day, hit the day after. The whole night following the 5th it blew, up to approximately 150km per hour. Pondy, being on the coast, suffered quite a lot, many trees were up-rooted and even the big Service Tree at the Samadhi lost some of its biggest branches. Mother never liked our constructing in keet and bamboo in Auroville; the cyclone did not like it either and blew down a lot of it. Matrimandir was one of the places that suffered least. The pillars look beautiful these days, standing with their feet in the reddish water, more than we have ever seen inside. The cyclone of course cut off all the electricity in the area; so we cannot pump it out.”[9]


(Shyam Sunder on a meeting with Mother, 6 November 1972:) “In accordance with our afforestation plans, we have planted eight hundred trees at Fertile.
         “Eight hundred!” Mother said with a smile.
         “The work continues, Mother.” ”[10]


(Amrit:) “With unaccustomed force, the storm originating from the Bay of Bengal hit on the 5th December 1972. … With winds up to 150 kph, the cyclone ravaged the general Pondicherry area, prompting a stern message from The Mother directly to Auroville: “It is a warning that nature is giving, that those who do not have the true spirit of Auroville will have to change or to go if they do not want to change.” ...
         By some fortuitous Grace, I was spared the destructive fury of these cyclonic winds. Somehow fortuitous circumstances removed me beforehand from Auroville and placed me behind the bunker-like concrete walls of the Society Guest House. Thus shielded, I hardly noticed the storm passing and the next morning was duly astonished to see the deadly repercussions of the cyclone. Fallen trees, branches and litter strewing and blocking the roadways, and the damage wrought on power poles and electric lines as well as homes presented a scene of destruction rarely witnessed in Pondicherry.
         Auroville likewise suffered, its flimsy keet roofs flying off buildings, some flattened by the high winds and rain. The larger trees uprooted or subject to considerable breakage, the small trees planted only a few years previously tended to suffer less extreme harm. ...
         In the end, it was this cyclone that brought me back to Auroville. Walking the streets of Pondicherry after the storm, I bumped into William Netter, an interior designer by profession, who had built an exquisitely quaint little hut in the community of Certitude. Called the ‘Treehouse’ – named for the platform supported by a tripod of three large casuarina timber beams – beneath and to one side was a tiny cabin of light brick and mortar roofed by asbestos. … Frightened by the ferocity of the storm, William had no intention to return, finally offering the hut to me.”[11]


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  1. “Pages from a Matrimandir Diary”, The Golden Bridge (compilation), Auropublications, August 1978, p.27
  2. Shyam Sunder Jhunjhunwala, Down Memory Lane, p.125
  3. Ibid., p.126
  4. Ibid., p.127
  5. Ibid., p.131
  6. Ibid., p.135
  7. Shyam Sunder Jhunjhunwala, Down Memory Lane, p.195
  8. Ibid., p.30
  9. “Pages from a Matrimandir Diary”, The Golden Bridge (compilation), Auropublications, August 1978, p.27
  10. Shyam Sunder Jhunjhunwala, Down Memory Lane, p.243
  11. Amrit, Children of Change: A Spiritual Pilgrimage, p.189


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