Difficulties of the Past

We have ventured to state that even in the "golden" past when the number of inmates was very much restricted and the Mother and Sri Aurobindo were physically present to look after everything, the Ashram's collective life was beset with certain difficulties arising out of the capricious nature and behaviour of some disciples. And this phenomenon was neither fortuitous nor unessential to the fulfilment of the central purpose of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Once we understand the occult rationale of this apparently disconcerting phenomenon, we shall be in a position to form a new perspective of vision and not be disheartened by whatever unedifying event occasionally occurs in the Ashram today. But first things first: let us hear from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother themselves about some glaringly negative aspects of the Ashram life prevailing in that early period. The extracts below will speak for themselves; we need not annotate them in any way:

(1)NB: "Now I hear that Y is leaving you to go to R.M. What next?"

Sri Aurobindo: "You are astonished? Really, you seem to be living like a cherub chubby and innocent with his head in the clouds ignorant of the wickedness of men. I thought by this time the revolts of Y were common knowledge." (Nirodbaran's Correspondence, with Sri Aurobindo, p. 297)

(2)NB: "I can't imagine such an incident taking place" in the Ashram - I mean, of course, N's gripping M's throat. It makes me rather aghast. Coupled with that the incident of R rushing to shoe-beat P. Good Lord! but I suppose they are all in the game!"

Sri Aurobindo: "You seem to be the most candid and ignorant baby going. We shall have to publish an Ashram News and Titbits' for your benefit. Have you never heard

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of N's going for K's head with a powerfully-brandished hammer? Or of his howling challenges to C to come out and face him, till Mother herself had to interfere and stop him? Or of his yelling and hammering in a rage at C's door till Dyuman came and dragged him away? These things happened within a short distance of your poetic ears and yet you know nothing??? N is subject to these fits and has always been so. And he is not the only howler. What about M herself? and half a dozen others? Hunger strikes? Threats of suicide? Not to mention rushes to leave the Ashram etc., etc. All from the same source, sir, and apparently part of the game." (Ibid., p. 502)

(3)Sri Aurobindo: "I am all the time occupied with dramas, hysterics, tragic-comic correspondence (quarrels, chronicles, lamentations) ... It is not one or two, but twenty dramas that are going on." (Ibid., p. 212)

(4)NB: "Nowadays we don't see many vital outbursts in the atmosphere."

Sri Aurobindo: "O happy blindness!" (Ibid.)

(5)Sri Aurobindo: "The human vital everywhere, in the Ashram also, is full of unruly and violent forces - anger, pride, jealousy, desire to dominate, selfishness, insistence on one's own will, ideas, preferences, indiscipline - and it is these things that are the cause of the disorder and difficulty in the Ashram work." (The Mother, p. 242)

(6)Sri Aurobindo: "This is one of the main difficulties throughout the Ashram, as each worker wants to do according to his own ideas, on his own lines according to what he thinks to be the right or convenient thing and expects that to be sanctioned. It is one of the principal reasons of difficulty, clash or disorder in the work, creating conflict between the workers themselves, conflict between the workers and the heads of departments, conflict between the idea of the Sadhaks and the will of the Mother." (Ibid., p. 245)

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(7)NB: "Y is hurling abuses, threats, most offensive words at you!"

Sri Aurobindo: "In his 'periods' he was doing that all the time privately among his friends. Now it is publicly, that is all. Afterwards he puts on the airs of a saint and howls reproachfully at us for having believed lying reports. Another specimen of humanity." (Nirodbaran's Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo, p. 297)

(8)Sri Aurobindo: "I do not find that the Mother is a rigid disciplinarian. On the contrary, I have seen with what a constant leniency, tolerant patience and kindness she has met the huge mass of indiscipline, disobedience, self-assertion, revolt that has surrounded her, even revolt to her very face and violent letters overwhelming her with the worst kind of vituperation." (The Mother, p. 229)

All this makes strange reading to us and we wonder if human nature has always been the same whether today or in the past. And such was the case even when the Mother herself selected the new entrants to the Ashram and that too on the basis of their inner possibility and preparedness. The Mother herself has raised a pertinent question and answered it. Here is what she says:

"But one cannot even say that there was a mistake in the selection - one would be tempted to believe it, but it is not true; because the selection was made according to a very precise and clear inner indication." (On Thoughts and Aphorisms, CWM Vol. 10, p. 200)

If it was so, if the selection of entrants was made on the basis of their inner aspiration, why is it then that the sadhaks could not maintain their original state and fell down to a lower level of functioning? Mother clarifies:

"It is probably the difficulty of keeping the inner attitude unmixed. ... Many came, attracted by the True Thing, but... one lets oneself go. That is, it is impossible to hold

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firm in one's true position." (Ibid., p. 200)

Also, there might have been another causative factor behind the qualitative decline in the Ashram life. Sri Aurobindo has hinted at that in a letter dated October 9, 1938. He says: "Increase of numbers brought in all sorts of influences that were not there in the smaller circle before." (Nirodbaran's Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo, p. 705)

The Mother has made the point more explicit. She said on 16 September 1964: "This is exactly what Sri Aurobindo wanted, what he was trying for. He said: 'If I could find one hundred people, that would be enough.' But it was not one hundred for a long time and I must say that when it was a hundred, it was already mixed." (On Thoughts and Aphorisms, p. 200)

Thus, when the number of inmates in the Ashram reached the figure 100, it was found to have been contaminated with undesirable elements and influences. What is, then, the situation now, when the Ashramites number more than twelve hundred? And how many more are joining the Ashram every year? And why? - impelled by what urges? How can we expect in these changed circumstances that all the new entrants will be able to maintain the true spirit that operated behind the Mother's and Sri Aurobindo's creation? Is it permissible to expect from them that they will consciously collaborate in the task of building up of an ideal spiritual group life after the Mother's dream?

If not, where do we go from here? Should we adopt some remedial measures in order to tone up the quality of the new entrants?

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