Articles

On Practicalities and Motives (05-07-2008)

Another angle of approach: to be attained and achieved, each and every purpose requires and dictates a particular series of practical steps. Each creature, according to its nature and the stage of its development, has access to some purposes only and must address their respective, necessary practical steps.
And once one has committed to a purpose, whichever it may be, the practicality of its gradual accomplishment tends naturally to override every other consideration and priority.
To build a nest, to lay an ambush, to find the fitting spouse, to make a pot, become a teacher, assemble a device, dig a tunnel, erect a tower or coordinate a successful campaign, no matter what, each and every purpose demands focus.

Our chosen purpose is to become able to manifest unity, through the emergence of a society plastic and responsive to conscious harmony, unencumbered by class divides, laws, superstitions and doctrines, shallow morals and police and courts and vain pursuits, a society that can grow increasingly aware of a future which will be truly good for all, a society in which all are there for each.
This purpose too dictates the practical steps that must be taken.
And the very first step is the inner discovery, the finding of the true inner being; for this event alone makes the succeeding steps possible.

As this occurs, a silent revolution also takes place; along with the new birth comes the collapse of an entire, massive construction made of notions, assumptions, beliefs and rationalizations that become definitively absurd, ludicrous, hollow and even comical to the awakened inner awareness; and these two simultaneous events are irreversible.
Even though the veils may fall again over the central experience, as our job is to offer the whole of the physical consciousness to the Change, one can no longer be fully caught and one can always, at any moment, re-enter that living truth and its perception.

But today, in Auroville, we face a quandary: we are besieged by various other practicalities that are lesser ones or, at any rate, not ours.
And this can only happen because not everyone in Auroville today has taken the trouble to actually complete the first step and there are, therefore, endless misunderstandings.

Auroville begins with the fourth dimension: only thus can it open to the Shakti.

But, by and large and as a collective in the present, we seem to rather want to be ordinary: to be the ‘managers’, to have positions and diplomas and consumers’ rights and proper fences and facilities and good lawyers. We behave as if we ‘owned’ Auroville – we are now even debating how to mortgage ‘our’ lands!
But shouldn’t we rather be very wary of ourselves?
Shouldn’t we remind ourselves that in fact we are NOT the legal owners? Somebody else is, a much larger institution that can easily divest us of our privileges and choke what is left of our aspiration with a whole array of taxes and strictures.
And we may remember that there were others who, once upon a time, legally owned the land of Auroville and wanted to ‘manage’ the project of Auroville and they, perhaps, had more bhakti than we now seem to have!

Divakar