AUROVILLE PIONEER PAULETTE - THE AVATAR'S CIRCLE - PART TWO - Lands for Auroville Unified

THE AVATAR’S CIRCLE: PART 2

Auroville – The Crucible of Alchemical Transformation

Auroville Pioneer Paulette – The Avatar’s Circle – Part 2.pdf

Indian spirituality and Integral Yoga: my initiation by an Auroville Greenbelter

My story is intertwined with that of countless others, some not mentioned here for lack of space; telling their inspiring stories would take books. The Avatar’s opus is society; no one is an island, we influence and are influenced by others and sadhana in a collective is much more difficult than individually, Sri Aurobindo made it clear.

The acquaintance with some early sadhaks at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram provided me the foundations; but the one who gave me the rudiments of Integral Yoga was the founder of a Greenbelt community. Shortly after I reached the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, in 1973, he invited me to visit Auroville. Besides introducing me to some remarkable people, he made me read pillars of Indian spirituality such as Ramana Maharshi, Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, Kabir, Ramprasad, Papa Ramdas, Tagore’s bhakti poems. With him I climbed, bare feet, Arunachala the sacred mountain. He told me that in Yoga there are two opposing forces, and that in a moment of weakness anyone can be caught. If one is pure enough, the attack falls back as a boomerang on the assailant. Those who fall are not sinners, in a moment of weakness anyone can go astray; in the cosmic game someone has to do the bad job, thus sparing others. We can always free ourselves, if sincere; the Grace is there to help.

In later years, that soul himself fell and got lost; but he, an early Aurovilian, pointed out the signposts for my journey and I am forever grateful. Interesting persons passed by at the Ashram in those years, some moved to Auroville. Living in harshness was willingly embraced also by cultured people hailing from wealthy families; they too lived with nothing, same as all the others. Auroville is for an elite, the Mother told Roger, and this was the elite, for whom India was Mother India, the land of the Sacred. The Grail legend had dried up and Bharata Mata opened new vistas. Heroes exploring untrodden paths were the need of the hour and Auroville was the existential answer. Being materially so difficult, the selection was automatic; the simple lifestyle of those early residents substantiated the sincerity of their quest.

Subir was one undeniable example of this, and another help and inspiration for me on the way. A former Matrimandir worker and most committed idealist, he managed at that time the Boutique d’Auroville in Nehru Street, but his bed was a hammock and his hut had no walls. Prompted by his calm example, on 26 July 1985 – C. G. Jung’s birthday anniversary, by the way – I moved to Auroville with my four-year-old daughter.

No matter how challenging the outer conditions, and no matter how imperfect the human instruments, I am privileged to have lived that experience – a first attempt at to effectively live the highest creed whose starting point, as I soon would recognize, were the ideals by which I had been brought up.

Working on the Matrimandir’s roof and scaffoldings, cleaning clamps in the Inner Chamber

The Auroville I first saw was inhabited by young, energetic people; their colorful attires sharply contrasted with the immaculately dressed Ashramites with whom I was acquainted. I first started working on the top of Matrimandir in 1977; seven years later I started cycling there from Pondy, on alternate days, carrying on a baby seat my small child, Blanchefleur.

Warm and generous people welcomed us and Aurovilian mothers looked after my daughter at an impromptu kindergarten; Joy (the singer and dancer, an Ashram alumni) was one and her daughter Anandamayi was Blanchefleur’s first friend in Auroville; Joy’s husband, Jean, was an ex-Ashram teacher. There was a conspicuous representation, in that early Auroville, of people coming from the Sri Aurobindo Ashram; this contributed to the distinct atmosphere of the place.

Below are photographs that I took in 1985, when I moved to Auroville. This is how our working place looked like; by that time, the aerial ladders were gone but the Matrimandir roof still needed to be accessed adventurously. Joining the Italians who toiled at what we called the ‘stars’ was my first life-changing experience.

A lawyer, a university assistant of contemporary history, a lady graduated in law and English literature and three others were my work-mates, led by Gloria (she too an architect, married to the site architect Piero Cicionesi). The small woman I am carried pipes in tandem with a tall handsome man, Hans, nicknamed the Matrimandir’s sadhu because of his matted locks and beard (and he lived like one). The blue-eyed Dutchman was the only non-Italian in our team; his proficiency at mathematical calculations proved very useful. Elsewhere my mates would have been intellectuals and professionals, like those I left behind in Italy; but on the Matrimandir’s roof, under a scorching sun, we all toiled like laborers. Twice my face swelled like a balloon.

Physical work and resilience made us one in a way I had never experienced. I became one of them, I could not do otherwise: we were the first inhabitants of a new world in the making and it made no difference from where we came, nor what we left behind. The atmosphere was electrifying, Mother’s Force literally worked through us; even the teenagers participated, and this Force was real. Auroville cannot be grasped if rescinded from the physical work at the Matrimandir, this truly was the unifying power of our micro-society. Bravery and contagious enthusiasm were our bread and butter. Whether on the roof or on the scaffoldings, with no security (none of us bothered), working was an exhilarating experience. Just one example is Anna Maria on the heights, as shown below. To work at the “stars” we had to cross that passage every day.

After 5 pm I would take a daily walk with Piero and Gloria. Our friendship had commenced at tea time, with me giving them books on “anti-psychiatry” (Laing & Cooper) and Janov’s “Primal Scream”. The two young architects had joined the team of the prestigious Aalvar Alto, a promising career awaited them; but they reached here five days after Auroville’s Foundation Day and could no longer leave. As Auroville could not afford to pay for the big ECC contractor, Matrimandir would have not been built without Piero’s metamorphosing from architect into a structural engineer. These were my first Auroville friends: two fighters, my heroes. Bit by bit, they unveiled to me Auroville’s unvarnished history, what an adventure of highs and lows it is.

During the monsoon the roof and scaffoldings were dangerously slippery so I got a new job: to remove rust and cement from piles of clamps in the future Chamber, alone with Edith and Joy.

Despite their advanced age, the two grand ladies of Auroville International England never missed a working day. The patches of cement had delicate nuances and abstract shapes; working with what to my eyes were artistic creations I felt as inebriated as when I used to sit in the hollow of the Ashram’s Samadhi tree. Working with those two sadhikas, in the future sancta sanctorum of Auroville, was as thrilling as working with the sadhaks of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press.

However, in 1986 there were already problems at the Matrimandir and I was ready to return to the Ashram; but exactly then I was made an Aurovilian, after only ten months as a newcomer, and I took it as an inward command. Soon I was to discover that, behind all ordeals, is Mother’s will.

Researcher, author, photographer: from the Laboratory of Evolution / Centre for Human Unity onwards

In the middle of the Bharat Nivas’s empty hall stood a cupboard full of archival documents, mostly anonymous. As I went on avidly reading, alone, a truth started dawning. Is Mother’s city the ideal society I always dreamed of in Europe, along with the rebel youth of my generation? From without, the societal dream looked familiar; yet none of my people ever joined here. Or was it that we hadn’t the instruments, at that time, to commence the true journey? Revolutions from without collapse, this was the bitter experience propelling me to India. Could Yoga be the answer: abolition of the ego?

Deeply stirred, I told my archival discoveries to Helene; she had participated in the Sorbonne occupation in May 1968 (Aster Patel, in those years wearing jeans, was there too) and worked as a researcher at the Laboratory of Evolution/Centre for Human Unity (LOE/CHU), newly instituted by Kireet Joshi (shown below), and run by Bhaga.

They read the stunning documents I had discovered and invited me to join right away. Resuming the training in historical research I’d had at Milan’s university, I reverted to my predisposition: researcher and compiler, author, photographer. Between 1986 and 1990 I conducted archival research as a member of the LOE/CHU. Together with Govinda (Auroville Library), we were hosted by Aster in the Centre for Indian Culture.

When we were finally assigned a working space (often flooded at monsoon time), our tables and chairs consisted of discarded items; made by Ben, an Auroville designer, they were chipped but extremely elegant, how proud we were! The same could not be said about the shared toilets, spotlessly clean but looking quite miserable. That Auroville had no money was evident everywhere. There was something very moving in all this: while heralding the new world and society, we were scavenging furniture. One day Bhaga, radiant, told us that she would not leave Auroville not even for one day, not to miss the thrill of the experiment. She spoke for all of us.

The Archives did not exist yet but Bhaga had collected a number of documents, besides those I had come across and would receive afterward; so I started classifying the material that was related to Mother’s years:

– Photocopies of my first compilation, “The Avatar’s Model Town”, hurriedly printed with a left-over SAIIER budget, was distributed for free to the community.

– Five more compilations on archival documents and Mother’s statements on the town, Matrimandir, and life in Auroville followed.

Funded with grants from the Government of India that sponsored the research, all of these were distributed free to the community along with the News and Notes.

I will never forget how Kireet Joshi, holding my hands, looked at me when we first met in Chennai, ferried by a bus loaded with teachers and researchers laughing and singing.

Mother’s town and guidelines were back, inspirational and alive, and people came forward to share. Oscar (the Swiss editor of the Gazette Aurovilienne) passed me his archive, along with the original photographs – some of a very large size – of the car-free Galaxy and the previous layouts. We displayed two exhibitions that galvanised the community.

A major breakthrough happened with Suresh Hindocha: in 1987 he gave me photocopies of his personal archive, documenting Mother’s resolve to build the town in five years via systems engineering. On 13 March 1969 the Mother had signed a 15 page letter to the Ford Foundation, New Delhi, with the request to partially fund a feasibility plan; a preliminary master plan and a host of documents went along.

This was the most significant trove of documents I ever received. No one had ever seen before such documentation and we promptly organized a mini-exhibition. Rolf, a German designer and an Aurovilian, made a poster for us and we printed 1,000 copies for free distribution, see below, “La Ville”. At the end of this article there is a link to read about the systems engineering files.

On behalf of the Centre for Human Unity, with the support of Bhaga and Helene, I displayed many other crucial documents (Auroville Prosperity, admission form to be signed by the Mother, Auromodel’s organisation etc.) the Mother approved and blessed. Conversely, we carried on research and exhibitions on Yoga and Integral Yoga as part of the Laboratory of Evolution.

Regarding the archival documentation, I did the job; Helene provided the French translations; as for Bhaga, she was busy putting together a first chronological compilation, “Mother on Auroville”, with the help of Shraddhavan. We were available every day, full time, answering questions. We felt at the eve of a new dawn and the community responded. It was fantastic.

In 1978 a general meeting had abandoned the Matrimandir project, which the Mother wished to build at the earliest with the help of a big contractor; but already at that time money was so scarce that the construction went on, but with paid labor and Auroville residents only. When the battle with the Sri Aurobindo Society commenced, and survival was a challenge, the original Matrimandir project seemed impossible and Roger left. However, our committed work contributed to change the atmosphere, calling back after eight years Mother’s architect. For me, this was the beginning of a journey with profound inward implications: Roger became my model of surrender. A long collaboration ensued; from receiving exquisite drawings and striking documents from his archive (most of them never seen), to the copy of the letter Mother wrote him:

“…It is with a real joy that I read your letter of the 24th replying to my project of an ‘ideal town’. With joy, but also with no surprise, as I always felt you as the man for this project…”.

This is how my work of research and publication commenced, and continues, after nearly four decades. In Auroville I have authored nine books compiled from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother about Integral Yoga and its triple transformation – psychic, spiritual and supramental –and the gnostic society; as well as three books on Mother’s statements and archival material about Auroville during her years. I have also authored a profusely illustrated Vedantin tale for children and teenagers. The links to my books appear at the end of this article.

As a photographer, I have displayed some twenty exhibitions on Matrimandir and other Auroville subjects. Six were on the villages, and another eight on contemporary architecture and design. Roger had wished that I consecrate exclusively on making the residents familiar with contemporary architecture, design and town planning, so as to empower them to envisage a model town inspired by the best science, technology and sociological research available. I could not drop my books-publication, but whatever exhibition I displayed – from Matrimandir to the villages to nature, from the Ashram’s sadhaks to the Auroville pioneers and macro-photography – stirred people, and so did my architectural exhibitions.The last two, as usual at Town Hall, featuring Milano’s futuristic architecture (elements in Roger’s creation and components of the Galaxy are precursors) resonated with some foresters and Greenbelters too; the cover photo at the start of this article is taken from that video. Roger was right: knowledge and education tear down inveterate barriers, this is the way forward.

In the Eighties, following Mother’s guidelines was a spontaneous way of life

Nothing in Auroville would have ever commenced without the early settlers. Auroville was founded with enthusiastic youth who lived content in huts. Monsoon or sunshine, the pioneers lived ‘the great adventure’ that the Mother called for with resilience and bliss.

When I joined Auroville, nine years after the conflict with the Sri Aurobindo Society erupted, there was no newcomer fee; instead I was asked to sign a pledge as “honorary volunteer worker”. The food was still rationed and we got only what the Pour Tous baskets managed to provide; yet anyone working at Matrimandir got a free lunch: a big plate of rice. Once, after volunteering at the Matrimandir, I took shelter in Fraternity with my child. Their meager supper was over, no food was left. The next morning, before returning to Pondy on an empty stomach, we were graciously handed over our clothes washed and ironed. We had been initiated to life in Auroville, the Eighties-style: in the absence of food, laundry and bed were offered free to unknown volunteers.

Mother’s guidelines were lived spontaneously and money, or rather its penury, was the least concern. In the Greenbelt there was no electricity; when the windmills did not turn, water was carried on bullock carts from another community. I know how one feels, when we can but pump by hand! When I joined, the only car in Auroville was Prem Malik’s old black Fiat. Cycling was the customary means of transport; mopeds or bikes were not for all and when bikes were not available, as it was often the case at the beginning, people walked. Eventually crossing canyons up to Sri Ma with the school children, as Shraddhavan once recalled.

Turning down Piero’s and Gloria’s invitation to settle in Certitude, as well as Aster Patel’s and Prem Malik’s to settle in Auromodel (the best residential communities, built respectively by Roger and Piero), I chose the Greenbelt instead, living for the next fourteen years under conditions more primitive than at the Matrimandir Workers Camp.

The first year, in Fertile Windmill, the toilet was a hole covered by a cement slab; when I built a 27 square-meter hut in Anusuya, for the next eight years our toilet followed the same pattern, along a canyon. We had oil and kerosene lamps and slept on the floor on thin mattresses, 60 centimeters wide. Our hut, painted with white and red stripes like a Tamil temple, was adorned with seven Oms and three Om Namah Shivaya in Sanskrit. It was beautiful, magical.

Below is my hut cum storeroom, right to left, painted white by the new steward, Satyaji. This Aurovilian initiated the cleaning of the Matrimandir’s discs; here is training new volunteers climbing trees in Anusuya. In the front of the main hut, he painted baby Krishna. I took these photographs in 2012; Govinda is bottom left and Diego’s hut in neighboring Samridhi is last, at the centre. The same old spirit.

We lived in a terrestrial paradise, half forest and half garden; I planted fruit trees and bushes, fifty-four varieties of hibiscuses and other flowers that I cultivated myself. Trivia and mundane affairs vanished as soon as I entered Anusuya’s wooden gate, as if entering a sacred place. Large eucalyptuses made the place outstanding: “Abolition of the Ego” is Mother’s name for this tree. When embracing the largest one, the world vanished.

Life on the brink? One for all, all for one!

In the Eighties and early Nineties, life on the brink was part and parcel of being in Auroville. Humane and compassionate we shared everything, luck and misfortune. The tougher the living conditions, the warmer the heart. Life in Auroville was exalting and precarious; this created indelible bonds, as with a tribe. Choosing to live that way, caring fraternally for each other whether from rich or poor families, from whatever country we hailed, whatever the skin colour, made of us one big family. Solidarity was automatic even between opposites, out of survival.

I promoted the systems engineering Galaxy and was deeply involved with Mother’s architect battling for the town and the Matrimandir, but I lived in the Greenbelt and was one of them, joyfully living by the same stern conditions. Human unity, honouring diversity, was real. The major highlight in my Greenbelt experience was sharing, and this stretched beyond the communities’ boundaries. Govinda managed the small Anusuya forest, and in the spare time wove mats which he donated to the Free Store. When coolies to dig the foundations of our hut in Anusuya did not come, Soham from Transformation did and Alan and Charles too came from Samridhi. They spent the day digging the trench with their workers and accepted no money for the labor.

One evening Blanchefleur, five, was bitten by a snake; she screamed and trembled for half an hour, then fell unconscious. We had no electricity, no phone, and anyhow no taxi could reach there in the night. Hans went calling to Anne in Fertile Windmill, they returned hours later with three blackstones that could absorb the poison; but so infected was the child that the stones stuck at random. We had only cycles and I had to wait till dawn to reach Anna Maria in Certitude, return with her to Anusuya and carry Blanchefleur on her scooter, frozen like a piece of ice, sandwiched between the two of us. At the Health Centre we got an ambulance for Pondy’s General Hospital and after fourteen hours, at last , she regained consciousness. I went on repeating Sri Aurobindo’s name throughout. He protected her.

The health hazards were tremendous and Dr. Kamla Tewari, who had saved me (when I got amoebiasis I was so weak that I could not enter the house key in the hole) convinced me to become my own doctor, ready for all emergencies. Many in Auroville have homeopathic kits for good reasons. When thirty antibiotics failed, I survived typhoid fed by Govinda, listening to the singing of the birds, breathing the scent of flowers – and taking homeopathy. That was the spirit of the age, of which Kamla and her husband Krishna Tewari (the General and war hero who founded the Auroville Archives and in his nineties still worked daily in his office), were signposts. Husband and wife are shown below.

To live that way was my choice; because of the sale of my family’s flat in central Milan – today I would be a millionaire – I had no financial concerns. I supported myself and my daughter for over twenty years and worked for free, without asking Auroville one rupee. Many others worked for free, starting with my closest neighbors in the Greenbelt. For us it was normal; marked by two World Wars, ours was the century of grand ideals and revolutions; many in my generation were born as idealists and remained so all their lives. Auroville was born in 1968 and those were the types.

We were cared for and thoroughly cared: this is the unforgettable lesson. Gathering most heterogeneous personalities, the journey had commenced. It truly was ‘the great adventure’ and we lived it, happy and fulfilled. Ours was not a super humanity of saints, shortcomings were aplenty, but we were idealists. Sometimes rough and wild, but first of all, always, seekers. The dream of a new society was our weapon, commitment to Auroville our wealth and strength.

Extravagances of all sorts coexisted in the same person, but courting the essential bonded us; comfort, money, prestige had no luster. These foundations we shared; what would we build upon this was the task of the psychic being. No matter how difficult and how imperfect the human instruments, we braved all obstacles, serene and unperturbed and earned the privilege of residing in Auroville by our courage and nonchalance. Determined, resilient, those people founded Auroville in a desert. The Westerners joined first, followed by young villagers blessed by the Mother: she wished integration or cooperatives, and their children went to the same free schools as the Aurovilians. Indians from all states joined too. Tea-time at the Matrimandir, as life at the Camp, showed how well integrated was this multifarious humanity. From the beginning the former villagers played a primary role in Auroville’s essential services, and today their children graduate as architects, engineers , computer scientists. It is marvelous.

Moving to Vikas – workers in Auroville

Satprem had founded Vikas in the Nineties as the first community modeled on Mother’s guidelines; this included no servants and no paid workers. Its strong ecological imprint was another tenet. The early residents planted the trees and the bushes, cleaned the common kitchen and toilets, though Satprem did most of the work. He also took care of the tallest windmill in Auroville, and fell from it. Satprem is shown below, and also pictures of Vikas I took around the millennium.

Vikas, as Satprem had conceived it, seemed a wonderful adventure and in 1999 I left my temple – hut in the Greenbelt. One reason was that a thief went around night and day, there were periods like this. Another was that taking care of my garden (the only real one in the Greenbelt) took most of my time and my research work was lagging behind.

As Satprem went to teach in South America, for three months I supervised the construction of the third building, the one where I was to live. I asked for advice from our best people: Piero, Helmut, Cristo, Maurice; even Harald Craft came, Roger’s engineer for the Matrimandir lake. To all of them I introduced Mohan, the Alankuppam contractor whom the Vikas community would make famous. An ordinary mason with no instruction, young Mohan was incredibly intuitive and intelligent; in the absence of the architect, he came up with ingenious solutions, impressing all the professionals I called. He would tell me what to do, every morning, and left. To supervise Vikas’s third building was an intrinsic part of my service to the Mother and I recall that period as a most rewarding experience.

I spent eight hours a day on the site and had tea with the workers; some became my friends. I marveled at the ethics and perfection of the chief-mason, the painter, the carpenter; what they did in my flat is still in perfect condition twenty-five years later. After my working day was over, I discussed with Diksha, Sadrishia, Chaitanya and another Frenchie. Those early residents were devotees of the Mother’s Agenda; Vikas was born with such types, carrying an altogether different athmosphere.

The skill and professional pride of the local workers was not new to me. In the Greenbelt I had become friends with a superb carpenter, the forest’s watchman, the gardener who in Anusuya dug holes and planted trees, still to this day greeting me affectionately. I always had excellent relationships with our workers in the services too, having known some for over thirty years. How the Water Service (now Pour Tous Water) took care of Vikas in the aftermath of the cyclone Thane was truly admirable, stationing for five days their tank at 10 pm and leaving at 6 am. Once for three days I followed the team repairing Vikas’s well and pump, in admiration for their life of service. One fantastic exploit was the painting of Vikas’s third building (three floors plus basement), sitting on aerial benches and cracking jokes. Not to mention, in the same building, just months ago, the spectacular saving of the sewage pipe, reconstructed bit by bit, forced to work with only a 2 inches gap from the wall. I always did photographic albums with all of them. Joyful, dedicated workers are a humbling experience. I wonder: who gives the most to society?

Mother’s Prosperity and Guidelines are not a blueprint for utopia: we lived them without even being aware of their existence

The group-soul was being born. Brotherhood, solidarity arose from living free from material cravings. When meeting the material needs dropped below the minimum, self-giving never wavered: one for all, all for one. There was no other chance to be in Auroville; but joining to live that way was a choice from the soul.

The Dream was in the air; all of us, whether traveling overland or locals, were seekers, sadhaks, wandering sannyasins owning nothing but the Quest. Christophe, an Aspiration pioneer, reported about a meeting with the Mother:

“And she said that the inner discovery should have been done before coming to Auroville. This was the very, very striking thing she said, that it would have been much better and much easier. But of course it was not always the case for us. She stressed the importance of the very, very physical work.”1

Yet there was a gap, between the collective aspiration and the day-to-day reality. As a seeker, for years I had been roaming around, exploring ashrams and interacting with gurus. But every time I returned to Auroville and a thought crept in: “Most Aurovilians have never seen the Mother. Without the guidance of a living guru for most people it is much more difficult; but if a bunch of Aurovilians can make it, they may grow stronger than those who had the fortune of a living guru and misused it.”

I will never forget those fourteen years in Auroville’s Greenbelt, my apprenticeship for life in Auroville. That other world existed, announcing that yes, a new world and society are possible, if we pursue the journey faithful to the call.

(1. “Memories of Auroville: Told by Early Aurovilians” by Janet Fearn)

Today, quite a different Auroville is in the making. How to transfer that dawning consciousness to an urban dimension, shifting the heroism of those early years to the need to realize, this is the challenge. Faithful to the pure ideal Roger and Kireet embodied, I have gone on publishing books and displaying exhibitions; my path and dharma have been traced decades ago and I have never wavered. Within, “the Avatar’s model town” is forever. But I had to go through extreme, often shattering experiences to surrender: Auroville is the alchemical cauldron of transformation, all in the furnace! Conflict will not subside until the psychic being, individual and collective, takes the lead; then everything will fall into place and Mother’s Guidelines, along with her Auroville Prosperity, will be lived as the most natural thing in the world. Then Their town can be born. Svadharma!

Paulette
Vikas, Auroville, 17 November 2024