The truth of the matter is that the Ashram as a whole is undergoing a rapid process of normalisation, by which I mean a sinking back to the normal level of consciousness. The divine moment when Sri Aurobindo and the Mother lifted their disciples to unthinkable skies of spirituality has definitely passed. Even the memory of it is fading away and we are once again left free to fend for ourselves [...]
For a few decades, the habit of unthinking obedience seems to have worked (with hiccups) as long as the administration was run by the first generation of disciples who came to the Ashram in the 1920s and 1930s or even earlier, as opposed to the current old guard which came later, in the 1940s and 1950s. The hallowed names of the first generation that come spontaneously to our minds are Nolini, Amrita, Pavitra, Dyuman, Satyakarma, and a number of other self-effacing disciples of that period who worked silently and efficaciously, setting a living example of Yoga in daily life. They helped to establish the inner Ashram and build its outer structure brick by brick, wall by wall, building by building for more than three quarters of a century. For them, the outer Ashram was the symbolic representation of their Gurus and was therefore too important to be sacrificed at the altar of their own egos! Very much unlike the present old guard! What a marked difference between the two generations, the first that built the Ashram and the second that now claims its ownership!
But is it legitimate for the more recent inmates of the Ashram to have greater expectations from the present old guard of the Ashram, which has had the immense good fortune of being so closely associated with the Mother herself? Do they have at all the right to question the spiritual or moral capacity of the latter, when they themselves can hardly pass muster in front of others? Moreover, they have not been assigned the onerous responsibility of running the Ashram, so their first reaction to the administrative rot should be to simply shut up and mind their own business. Finally, the foremost reason that justifies a submissive attitude to the decisions of the present Ashram Trust is that “United we stand, divided we fall.” For at no cost should the Ashram break into pieces, as it belongs to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, and nobody else! Posted by General Editor at 10/25/2015 05:17:00 PM
Sridharan (25) Bireshwar Choudhury (11)
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