Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources

a simple proposal... a trust for the earth

Somehow in this moment, in the face of all that denies and resists in our humanity, all that doubts in us and our world blindly driven to destroy, possessed by the law of division, we of the Earth must make a gesture – one simple, unprecedented and unauthorized gesture of Trust. We, who despite ourselves, despite our gravities, our hereditary habits and our paralytic fears, must affirm this need which burns in us and our Earth that labours to become something else, that labours to become one.

In this global moment which seems to contradict the very need of its own being, this world berserkly bound in the escalations of its own Ego, up against a last terrestrial wall madly fighting not to let go, not to become one, Auroville aspires to be a point of Trust for the Earth, a point where the Earth can affirm its trust in itself and its future, a point of trust which will one day grow to englobe a Whole Earth that no longer resists, that allows a Power – an evolutionary Fire – to enter and to transform this Tale of No into the YES of a New World.

And this Trust for the Earth that Auroville aspires to be, it calls for your trust, our trust, you who are not other, all of us who are inseparable points of this Trust for the Earth, this process of change.

Somehow all of us, we must begin, we must make that gesture, that simple and unequivocal gesture. For Nobody in Particular. For Humanity as a Whole.

Let a point of Earth be given, be acknowledged for the Trust that we must share. Let all of the lands of Auroville be that beginning, that conscious offering. Let them be taken from the exclusive ownership of anyone who would claim them, even those of us who would live here. Let them be held in Trust for Humanity as a Whole and let them be declared a Sanctuary, freed from the mercantile motives that exploit our earth.

And the assets and funds given for Auroville, let them too be held in Trust for Humanity as a Whole, freed from the proprietary motives of greed and possession. And let all of the facilities be granted to allow these materials and funds to flow freely and unimpeded for the purposes to which they are given.

Let this simple Trust materialize, this simple, indivisible Charter for a New Earth and a New Humanity.

Let the Earth give its sanctions, participate consciously in its own evolution; let India play her true and active role, fulfil her true destiny in the evolution of the Earth, let India’s truer being respond, awaken and give its faith to this experiment of Auroville that She shares.

Let us make the passage, the opening. Together.

Let this Trust for the Earth be. Let Auroville be. Let a New World be.

28 February, 1979

epilogue

This story – this passage between two stories – a year after its last pages had been written, has yet to find its material conclusion. A conclusion which yet has always been there, long before the beginnings, waiting, the sole Fact of existence.

But the old themes still play on under endless masks, yours and mine and the more archetypal caricatures of the Shyamsunders and Navajatas. A theme of Resistance which seems to grow even more recalcitrant, more desperate and defiant as the truth of our oneness nears, begins to touch, awakening the urge that lies in the heart of us all.

Two stories. A story of Love and a story of Resistance, one Real, the other its mask. But the time has come to make the passage despite our fears and despite our smoke-screen of laws to excuse us from our impotence. The time has come. There is no way out. From Kampuchea to Afghanistan to the Persian Gulf. From the cashew fields on a windswept plateau in Southern India to the Matrimandir. There is no way out.

And despite the Shyamsunders and the Navajatas who are simply the transparent symbols representative of all in us – each of us – that resists and denies, the egg will crack, the egg will crack shattering in its own brittle nothingness. And One will emerge, no longer hidden from himself, one enjoying his million-faceted oneness – you and I in this terrestrial Love Story.

The time has come. Yes…

February 29, 1980.

Auroville

1 Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, p. 225.

2 Sri Aurobindo, Thoughts and Aphorisms, p. 30.

3 Sri Aurobindo, Thoughts and Glimpses, p. 25.

4 Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, p. 357.

5 Mother, extract from conversation, Divine Materialism (Satprem), p. 244.

6 Vivekachudamani v. 20.

7 Suttanipata. v. 119.

8 Lankavatara Sutras, v. 96.

9 Mother, extract from conversation, Divine Materialism (Satprem), p. 222.

10 Mother, conversation on Auroville, (19.4.68).

11 Mother, Conversation, (7.3.56).

12 Mother, Conversation, (24.9.58).

13 Mother, Conversation, (16.11.55).

14 Mother, conversation on Auroville, (26.5.70).

15 Mother, Conversation, (12.2.51).

16 Mother, Conversation, (15.12.54).

17 Mother, Conversation, (14.3.56).

18 Mother, Extract from conversation, Divine Materialism, (Satprem) p. 353.

19 Mother, Conversation, (17.2.54).

20 Mother, Conversation, (14.5.58)

21 Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, p. 410, 416,

22 Mother, Extract from conversation, Divine Materialism, (Satprem) p. 221,

23 Ibid., p. 243.

24 Ibid., p. 208-09.

25 Sri Aurobindo, The Mother, p. 1.

26 Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, p. 1217.

27 Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, p. 35.

28 Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, pp. 153-54.

29 Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, pp. 153-54.

30 Sri Aurobindo, On Yoga, II, Tome One, p. 71.

31 Sri Aurobindo, Thoughts and Aphorisms, p. p. 13.

32 Sri Aurobindo, Thoughts and Aphorisms, p. 13.

33 Sri Aurobindo, Evening Talks, (A. B. Purani), Vol. I, p. 45.

34 Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, p. 222.

35 Sri Aurobindo, Synthesis of Yoga, p. 150.

36 All translations of Vedas and Upanishads noted here are Sri Aurobindo’s.

37 Sri Aurobindo, On Yoga, II, Tome One, p. 99.

38 Mother, Conversations, (17.4.51)

39 Mother, Extract from conversation, Divine Materialism (Satprem), p. 73.

40 Mother, Le Grand Secret, p. 16.

41 Mother, Extract from conversation, Divine Materialism (Satprem), p. 115.

42 Ibid., p. 46.

43 Ibid., p. 107.

44 Mother, Conversations, (25.7.56).

45 Ibid., (28.4.29)

46 Mother, Extract from conversation, The Divine Materialism (Satprem), p. 213.

47 Ibid., p. 199.

48 Ibid., p. 8.

49 Mother, Conversations, (8.1.51).

50 Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, p. 348.

51 Sri Aurobindo, Thoughts and Aphorisms, p. 9.

52 Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, pp. 3-6.

53 Ibid., p. 750.

54 Ibid., p. 751.

55 Sri Aurobindo, On Yoga II, Tome One, p. 823.

56 Mother, extract from a conversation, The Adventure of Consciousness (Satprem), p. 309.

57 Sri Aurobindo, Synthesis of Yoga, p. 187.

58 Mother, extract from a conversation, The Adventure of Consciousness (Satprem), p. 309.

59 Mother, Paroles d’Autrefois (21.5.12).

60 Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, p. 522.

61 Ibid., p. 25.

62 Ibid., p. 784.

63 Representing the victory of the goddess Durga – the Power of the Divine Mother – over the Asura, the Being of Falsehood who possesses and distorts the consciousness of men.

64 Sri Aurobindo, Thoughts and Aphorisms, Centenary Edition, Vol. 17, p. 122.

65 Mother, “A Dream”, August 1954

66 Mother, Conversations (10.7.57)

67 ibid.

68 Sri Aurobindo, Thoughts and Aphorisms, p. 19.

69 Sri Aurobindo, Harmony of Virtue, Centenary Ed. Vol. 3, p. 347.

70 Mother, conversations on Auroville, March 1968

71 Mother, Conversation on Auroville, January 1967.

72 Mother, conversation, May 1972.

73 Mother, S.A.I.C.E., Bulletin, August 1960.

74 bund-shallow earth mound built around fields and trees to retain water and prevent sheet floods and erosion.

75 Mother, extract from conversation, Adventure of consciousness (Satprem), p.78.

76 Sri Aurobindo, Life Divine, Centenary Ed. Vol. 18. P. 843.

77 Note by Gilles G.: The actual quote is “Plus de comités, plus de bavardages inutiles”, which translates into: “No more committees, no more useless talks”. (This is a common translation mistake.)

78 Sri Aurobindo, Thoughts and Glimpses, Centenary Ed. Vol. 16, p. 385.

79 Satprem -author of Sri Aurobindo's biography, The Adventure of consciousness and a biographical trilogy on the Mother, entrusted by Her as the instrument to publish unexpurgated the 13-volunre Agenda which reveals Her intimate conversations and experiences recorded between l95l and 1973 – an Agenda which the same forces seeking to control Auroville sought to suppress.

80 From Saint Exupery, The Little Prince.

81 Italics mine.

82 Author’s note: a ridicule of SAS’s court statement claiming that the Mother in her capacity as president of S.A.S. founded Auroville.

83 Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, p. 4.

84 Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, Cent. Ed. Vol. 24, p. 1,660

85 Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, pp. 885-87.