Children born in Auroville
(Shyam Sunder on a meeting with Mother, 13 April 1972:) “One pair wrote to Mother that their child was conceived not out of sexual desire but as a service to Auroville to give an Auroville child.
Mother said, “How people deceive themselves!” ”[1]
(Shyam Sunder on a meeting with Mother, 29 June 1972:) “Marjorie has become pregnant by a man who was refused permission to be in Auroville. The man was driving a van near Hyderabad a few days ago when it collided with a truck and the man died, also the truck driver. She prays for the soul of the man, and about herself she is not sure if she should go back to America.
Mother said, “Let her go to America,” and added, “It is disgusting. They are living like animals.”
“Mother, there is an open feeling among the people there that they are doing a service to Auroville by producing children, and they are proud of it.”
“No, it is not a service. Such children are ill-conceived, ill-formed, under-developed. They are a burden on Auroville.”
“Mother, the position of sex-indulgence in Auroville is serious.”
“It is disgusting. Something has to be done about it. They are living like rabbits and animals. Haven't I written?”
“There was a conversation with Mother. It has come out in the Gazette.”
“Put it in big letters in your office.” ”[2]
published in Gazette Aurovilienne, Vol. I, No. 7, 1972:
Extracts from a conversation with the Mother
“Since we have set aside all conventions, immediately too many people think: “Ah! nice place to satisfy our desires.” And there are many who come with that intention.
And because I made a maternity clinic for the children of those people that I was obliged to send away from the Ashram so that they could have a place to have their children, people think that the maternity clinic is established for all children born in an illegal way.
I am not concerned with legality, I'm not concerned with law, I'm not concerned with convention. But what I want is a more divine life, not an animal life.
And there are those who turn liberty into licence, for the satisfaction of desires, and they indulge in all those things that we truly have worked all our lives to master, — a dissipation.
We are here to overcome all desires and to turn towards the Divine and to become conscious of the Divine. The Divine we seek is not remote and inaccessible. He is in the very core creation itself and what He requires of us is that we find Him, and by transforming ourselves personally become capable of knowing Him, uniting with Him and, in the end, manifesting Him consciously. It is to do that that we should consecrate ourselves; that is our true reason for existence. And the very first step towards this sublime realisation is the manifestation of the supramental Consciousness.
To realise and manifest the Divine in our life is the way, not to become animals, living like cats and dogs.
Exactly the opposite! Too many people at Auroville belong to an infrahumanity and not a suprahumanity. So it is high time that all that came to an end.”
(Shyam Sunder on a meeting with Mother, 27 July 1972:) “Marjorie's letter was read.
Mother gives her a chance.
The names of two D's at Auroville came up.
Marjorie says that when D is excused, why not she also?
And D says that I [Shyam Sunder] am only a bureaucrat, I only tell people to go; Mother forgives, Mother is very good.
Mother had a good laugh, and she took my hands in hers.
I said, “Mother, formerly these things used to affect me, now they don't.”
Mother laughed and said, “They are like cats and dogs, like cats, and like cats they can be useful. Do you understand?”
I didn't, and she repeated, and added, “They have nothing to do with spirituality, it is animality.” ...
(Mother on cats:)
(Mother, 1951:) “I have studied cats a lot; if one knows them well they are marvellous creatures. I have known mother-cats which have sacrificed themselves entirely for their babies — people speak of maternal love with such admiration, as though it were purely a human privilege, but I have seen this love manifested by mother-cats to a degree far surpassing ordinary humanity. I have seen a mother-cat which would never touch her food until her babies had taken all they needed. I have seen another cat which stayed eight days beside her kittens, without satisfying any of her needs because she was afraid to leave them alone; and a cat which repeated more than fifty times the same movement to teach her young one how to jump from a wall on to a window, and I may add, with a care, an intelligence, a skill which many uneducated women do not have. And why is it thus? — since there was no mental intervention. It was altogether spontaneous instinct. But what is instinct? — it is the presence of the Divine in the genus of the species, and that, that is the psychic of animals; a collective, not an individual psychic.
I have seen in animals all the reactions, emotional, affective, sentimental, all the feelings of which men are so proud.”[3]
(Mother, 1951:) “If you leave an animal in its normal state, far from man, it obeys the spirit of the species, it has a very sure instinct and it will never commit any stupidities. But if you take it and keep it with you, it loses its instinct, and it is then you who must look after it, for it no longer knows what should or should not be done. I was interested in cats to make an experiment, a sort of inverse metempsychosis, if one can call it that, that is, to see if this could be their last incarnation as animals, if they were ready to enter a human body in the next life. The experiment succeeded fully, I had three absolutely flagrant instances; they left with a psychic being sufficiently conscious to enter a human body. But this is not what men ordinarily do; what they usually do is to spoil the consciousness or rather the instinct of animals.”[4]
... (Shyam Sunder:) “But, Mother, they announce without hesitation that by producing children they are doing a great service to Auroville!”
(Mother:) “Auroville is going to have 50,000 inhabitants, is it not? But let us see how many of these children will be there. Does this woman wish to produce more children?”
“Not this one, Mother. She is not saying about it in her letter. It is D who will come today to Mother in the group.”
“These things,” said Mother, “will teach you to smile.” ”[5]
(Shyam Sunder on a meeting with Mother, 13 November 1972:) “About children born in Auroville, Mother said that one can not ask them to leave Auroville. They are to live freely in Auroville.”[6]
(Shyam Sunder on a meeting with Mother, 13 March 1973:) “When informed of two pregnancies, Mother remarked, “Do people in Auroville believe that I desire children?” ”[7]
(Shyam Sunder, 23 March 1973:) “A person in Auroville wishes to make babies for Auroville.
(Mother:) “Do they believe that I want babies in Auroville?... You tell them that it is not so. A way is found for taking birth differently. We do not want babies by the ordinary way.” ”[8]
- (Ashram teacher, 1953:) “Sometimes children ask us why we are here [in the Ashram]. What should we tell them?
(Mother:) That depends upon their age, my child, and upon what they are. It depends upon their sincerity. You can’t give the same answer to everyone.
But do the tiny tots sometimes ask?... Do the youngest ask why they are here?
- Not the youngest — Purnima, Tarulata.
At that age, already it’s the age when one questions and doubts.
The very tiny ones, if they ask this, it is wonderful. There is only one very simple answer to give them: “My children, it is because this is the divine will. It is due to the divine grace that you are here. Be happy, be calm, be at peace, do not question, all will be well.” And when they grow older they already begin to reason, then it is no longer so well, no longer so easy. But that depends, as I said, that depends upon how intelligent they are, how great is their opening. There are those who are predestined, who are here because they should be here. With these it is easy. You have only to tell them: “My children, it is because you belong to a future which is being built up, and it is here that it is being built.” For them it is very simple, it is true. There are those who are here because their parents are here, for no other reason. So it is difficult to tell them that, unless you tell them quite simply: “Because your father and mother are here.”
- But how can we understand?
Ah! that indeed depends upon you.
The first thing is to learn how to know by identity. That is indispensable when one has the responsibility for others. To learn how to guide other people, the first indispensable step is to know how to enter into their minds so as to know them — not to project one’s thought, imagine what they are, but go out of oneself and enter into them, to know what is happening there. Then, in this way, one knows them because one is them. When one knows only oneself in others, that means one knows nothing. One may be completely mistaken. One imagines it is like this or that — one judges by appearances or else through mental preferences, preconceived ideas; that is to say, one knows nothing. But there is one condition in which one doesn’t even need to know, to try to know what somebody is like: one can’t do otherwise but feel what he is, for he is a projection of oneself. And unless one knows how to do that, one can never do what is necessary for people — unless one feels as they feel, thinks as they think, unless one is able to enter into them as though one were they themselves. That is the only way. If you try to know with a small active mind, you will never know anything — nor by looking at people and telling yourself: “Why, he does this in this way and that way, so he must be like that.” That is impossible.
So, the first task of those who have a responsibility — for instance, those who are in charge of educating other children, taking care of others, from rulers to teachers and monitors — their first task is to learn how to identify themselves with the others, to feel as they do. Then one knows what one should do. One keeps one’s inner light, keeps one’s consciousness where it ought to be, very high above, in the light, and at the same time gets identified, and so one feels what they are, what their reactions are, what their thoughts, and one holds that before the light one has: one succeeds in thinking out perfectly well what should be done for them. You will tell each one what he needs to hear, you will act with each one as is necessary to make him understand. And that is why it is a wonderful grace to have the responsibility for a certain number of people, for that obliges you to make the most essential progress. And I hasten to tell you that ninety-nine times out of a hundred, people don’t make it. But that is exactly why things are in such a bad way. Particularly those who have the responsibility of governing a country — this is the last thing they think about! They are very eager rather to keep their way of seeing and their way of feeling, and fiercely refrain from realising the needs of those over whom they rule. But indeed one can see that the result is not up to much; so far it is evident that one can’t say that governments have been remarkable institutions. It is the same thing on all levels: there are small governments, there are big governments. But the laws are the same, for all. And unless, when giving a lesson, you are able, there and then, to take in the entire atmosphere, to gather the vibrations around people, put them all together, keep all that before you, and become aware of what you can do with this stuff (with the vibrations you can spread, the forces you can give out, those which will be received, those which will be assimilated), unless you do that, mostly you too are wasting your time. In order to do the least work, one must make a lot of progress.”[9]
(Kireet Joshi to students at Last School, 1999:) “If you have decided in your past life, ‘I must become supramental’, very likely you will be born in Auroville. If your soul has decided, ‘I must be supramental’, because you find that here is a circumstance, although not a very smooth circumstance, a kind of a battle which is going on, but a battle for the supermind. So very likely you'll be born here, or, even if you are born elsewhere, you'll find such a circumstance where the parents will be obliged to come to Auroville, sooner or later. So you are born there. It all depends upon the decision that your soul has taken. It is one truth in your life, if you have come here; it's quite possible that you have greatly aspired for the supermind in your past life. Therefore, you are here. It's quite possible. Many others also make mischances also; by chance we have got to come here for a short time, and then your destiny may be elsewhere, but it's quite likely. When you are seeking, put this in your itinerary, in your journey. Very likely you have come here because you have a destiny to discover the supermind and to become supramental, and therefore you have to prepare yourself for that. If you know this, your preparation also becomes much easier.”[10]
- ↑ Shyam Sunder Jhunjhunwala, Down Memory Lane, p.163
- ↑ Ibid., p.193
- ↑ Questions and Answers 1950-1951, p.27
- ↑ Ibid., p.238
- ↑ Ibid., p.204
- ↑ Ibid., p.245
- ↑ Ibid., p.280
- ↑ Ibid., p.283
- ↑ Questions and Answers 1953, p.298
- ↑ https://www.kireetjoshiarchives.com/audio-video/session.php?id=119
See also