REASON FOR FORMING THE ASHRAM

There was no Ashram at first, only a few people came to live near Sri Aurobindo and practise Yoga. It was only some time after the Mother came from Japan that it took the form of the Ashram, more from the wish of the Sadhaks who desired to entrust their whole inner and outer life to the Mother than from any intention or plan of hers or of Sri Aurobindo.

The facts are: In the meantime, the Mother, after a long stay in France and Japan, returned to Pondicherry on the 24th April, 1920. The number of disciples then showed a tendency to increase rather rapidly. When the Ashram began to develop, it fell to the Mother (to organise it; Sri Aurobindo soon retired into seclusion and the whole material and spiritual charge of it devolved on her

*TWO FOUNDATIONS OF THE ASHRAM'S MATERIAL LIFE*


What your vital being seems to have kept all along is the "bargain" or the "mess" attitude in these matters. One gives some kind of commodity which he calls devotion or surrender and in return the Mother is under obligation to supply satisfaction for all demands and desires spiritual, mental, vital and physical, and, if she falls short in her task, she has broken her contract. *The Ashram is a sort of communal hotel or mess, the Mother is the hotel-keeper or mess-manager.* One gives what one can or chooses to give, or it may be nothing at all except the aforesaid commodity; in return the palate, *the stomach and all the physical demands have to be satisfied to the full; if not, one has every right to keep one's money and to abuse the defaulting hotel-keeper or mess-manager. This attitude has nothing whatever to do with Sadhana or Yoga and I absolutely repudiate the right of anyone to impose it as a basis for my work or for the life of the Ashram.*


There are only two possible foundations for the material life here. * One is that one is a member of an Ashram founded on the principle of self-giving and surrender. One belongs to the Divine and all one has belongs to the Divine; in giving one gives not what is one's own but what already belongs to the Divine. There is no question of payment or return, no bargain, no room for demand and desire. The Mother is in sole charge and arranges things as best they can be arranged within the means at her disposal and the capacities of her instruments. She is under no obligation to act according to the mental standards or vital desires and claims of the Sadhaks; she is not obliged to use a democratic equality in her dealings with them. She is free to deal with each according to what she sees to be his true need or what is best for him in his spiritual progress. No one can be her judge or impose on her his own rule and standard; she alone can make rules, and she can depart from them too if she thinks fit, but no one can demand that she shall do so.* Personal demands and desires cannot be imposed on her. If anyone has what he finds to be a real need or a suggestion to make which is within the province assigned to him, he can do so; but if she gives no sanction, he must remain satisfied and drop the matter. This is the spiritual discipline of which the one who represents or embodies the Divine Truth is the centre. Either she is that and all this is the plain common sense of the matter; or she is not and then no one need stay here. Each can go his own way and there is no Ashram and no Yoga.


*If on the other hand one is not ready to be a member of the Ashram or bear the discipline and is still admitted to some place in the Yoga, he remains apart and meets his own expenses.* There is no discipline for him on the material plane, except the rules necessary for the safety of the work; there is no material responsibility for the Mother.


Page 234 - The Mother - volume - 25, SABCL

Sadhana in the Ashram and Outside

THIS Ashram has been created with another object than that ordinarily common to such institutions, not for the renunciation of the world but as a centre and a field of practice for the evolution of another kind and form of life which would in the final end be moved by a higher spiritual consciousness and embody a greater life of the spirit. There is no general rule as to the stage at which one may leave the ordinary life and enter here; in each case it depends on the personal need and impulsion and the possibility or the advisability for one to take the step.

This is not an Ashram like others – the members are not Sannyasis; it is not mokşa that is the sole aim of the yoga here. What is being done here is a preparation for a work – a work which will be founded on yogic consciousness and Yoga-Shakti, and can have no other foundation. Meanwhile, every member here is expected to do some work in the Ashram as part of this spiritual preparation.

Page 847 , Letters On Yoga Volume-23 , SABCL

This is not an Ashram like others – the members are not Sannyasis; it is not /mokşa/ that is the sole aim of the yoga here. What is being done here is a preparation for a work – a work which will be founded on yogic consciousness and Yoga-Shakti, and can have no other foundation. Meanwhile, every member here is expected to do some work in the Ashram as part of this spiritual preparation.

page 847, Letters on Yoga , volume - 23 , SABCL