The Mother
Agenda
Volume 8
June 3, 1967
A. writes that he received in Paris people who asked for information on Auroville. He answered with a letter, and when he was about to send it, he thought, “Maybe I'd better show it to Mother, after all.” He sent his letter – and well he did! Those people asked him the conditions to be admitted to Auroville; he replies, “Oh, that hasn't been decided yet!” (Mother laughs) So I've prepared a little note; because he just says, “Oh, nothing has been decided, we'll see,” as though there weren't any Aurovilians yet. I don't know if he did it purposely to discourage people; at any rate, it's not good to write like that. At least three or four hundred Aurovilians have been accepted and I signed them in. So one can't answer like that.... I know what he based himself on: I had told him that, naturally, from the material point of view, the CONDITIONS OF LIFE in Auroville were not arbitrarily fixed in advance.
Here is what I wrote:
“From the psychological point of view, the essential conditions are:
1) Being convinced of the essential human unity and having the will to collaborate in the advent of this unity.
2) The will to collaborate in all that furthers future realizations.”
That's all, it's not complicated.
Then, from the material point of view:
“The material conditions will be worked out as the realization progresses.”
It's not too complicated.
Of course, we'll add a note saying that for the time being, after they have read the brochures on “Why Auroville?” and have adhered to that, people will have to send their photograph along with their request, and I am the one who will accept them or not. As long as the number remains limited, a few hundreds, it's very easy to see their photos and thus have a minimum guarantee that tricksters won't come in. Because it's very easy to say, “Oh, I am
thoroughly convinced and eager to participate,” but that's just words.... I can't see each and every one, but even with their photograph one can see clearly enough whether they are sincere or not.
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Soon afterwards
Oh, I have something much more interesting.... K. is giving a class, of sociology, I think, but based on what Sri Aurobindo writes. And then, you know that at the School I have AT LAST got them to agree that examinations should not be indispensable; that if a student shows interest and attention during the classes, he can move up to the next year without needing a certificate or having to take
exams.1 I have obtained that at last, after so many years! So the students have been told, “It's up to you; if you want to take exams, there are exams and you can take them; but if you don't feel the need for exams, you need not take them and can just as well move up to the next year.” And K., who has a simple heart, thought all those boys and girls had understood Sri Aurobindo's teaching and had a sound contempt for exams and the old ways. So he expected his children to tell him, “Oh, then we won't take exams....” And each and every one of them, with a single exception, said they preferred to take the exams so as to get a certificate....
He was very disappointed. He said to me, “How is it that after all this... Well, I thought they had understood. And after having studied Sri Aurobindo, here they are following the old ideas!” Then he said, “I have found in a letter of Sri Aurobindo's a passage that perhaps provides an explanation, and I would like to ask you if I should take heed.” I told him he should.
Here is the letter, I find it very good:
“It may be said generally that to be overanxious to pull people, especially very young people, into the sadhana is not
wise. The sadhak who comes to this Yoga must have a real call, and even with the real call the way is often difficult enough. But when one pulls people in in a spirit of enthusiastic propagandism, the danger is of lighting an imitative and unreal fire, not the true Agni, or else a short-lived fire which cannot last and is submerged by the uprush of the vital waves. This is especially so with young people who are plastic and easily caught hold of by ideas and communicated feelings not their own – afterwards the vital rises with its unsatisfied demands and they are swung between two contrary forces or rapidly yield to the strong pull of the ordinary life and action and satisfaction of desire which is the natural bent of adolescence. Or else the unfit adhar [vessel] tends to suffer under the stress of a call for which it was not ready, or at least not yet ready. When one has the real thing in oneself, one goes through and finally takes the full way of sadhana, but it is only a minority that does so. It is better to receive only people who come of themselves and of these only those in whom the call is genuinely their own and persistent.”
Sri Aurobindo
May 6, 1935
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Later
I saw Y. on the 31st. She stayed for about an hour and told me of her hopes: she sees the possibility of a sort of world television (I don't know how that would be arranged), with a telephone and a central office where answers to all possible questions would be collected – each question answered by someone eminent or qualified. The result would be the organization of a universal – well, a world education that would really be an education for all countries, in which the knowledge and best qualities of every country in the artistic, literary and scientific fields would be gathered in a kind of transmitting center, and all you would have to do would be to get into communication with it. So then, instead of having more or less incapable teachers to teach what they know also more or less, you would have the answer to every question, the most competent and best answer. Thus there would really be all over the earth an education that would be the best possible, from which everyone would receive only what he wants; you wouldn't have to attend classes, a number of useless classes, in order to catch the
little you want to know: you would have it just by getting into communication with the center; you would ask for such and such a number and would get your answer.
If it could be realized, it would be very good. It means that the most beautiful works of art, the most beautiful teachings, all the best of what humanity is GOING to produce, would be collected and within the reach of all those who had a television. There would be pictures along with the explanation, or a text or speech. A kind of imposing central building where everything would be gathered. I found it rather attractive. I told her that we would have that in Auroville (not the central office: just a receiving set). She said that instead of teachers who teach poorly what they know, there would be the best teaching for each subject.... (I didn't ask her WHO would select those people – that remains the somewhat delicate point.) But I found the idea very attractive. She said things are moving in that direction.
Yes, but it's still a kind of encyclopedia....
Yes.
It's very interesting, but the best education is the one that could put you in contact with the region of knowledge where you find all answers.
Ah, that would be very good.
Yes, that would be true education. It's not finding answers in a superlibrary, but catching hold of something up above – and you have all answers.
But that's more difficult, isn't it?
Maybe not.... When I was a kid, I was quite conscious of being able to PULL something down from above, and that the answer was there, above. Children just don't know, after all. If they were told, if they were shown and made to understand that knowledge is there, that you can catch hold of it ...
Yes.
On the contrary, they're taught to rely on books, precisely
on encyclopedias. I had to come here to understand what it meant, why I used to “pull” from above. Which means it wasn't at all encouraged when I was a child.
But Z has done experiments like that. He told me the story of a girl at the School who had no imagination: when she was asked a question she could only answer what she had learned, and when she was given a problem she was never able to solve it. She was like that, blocked above. And he taught her to try and make contact precisely with that intuitive zone, by keeping quiet, falling silent and listening. And it seems that after some time, she had extraordinary results in that way, by falling silent and listening – answers which were really remarkable and certainly came from the region of intuition. And that's a practical fact, he did it at the School.
Well, that's what should be done, it's much more important.
Far more important than a machine.
I listened to what she said and simply found it was better than recruiting incompetent teachers.
But there still remained a doubt (which I didn't discuss) on the quality of the CHOICE of answers. Whereas if you go there, to the Origin, then you're sure!
That's what they are now trying to do here in their new classes: teaching them to make contact with the intuitive zone.
It's certainly quite superior.