Freedom and Discipline in the Ashram The establishment of overall harmony and concord in our Ashram community and the building up of an ideal group life here is surely a realisation that would require sustained Page-60 effort of long duration. This cannot be expected in a few years' time or even in a few decades'. So let us not be overhasty in trying to "achieve" this concord by any means proper or improper, for that is bound to lead to failure and frustration. In our ignorant enthusiasm we may be tempted to adopt some mental and external measures to establish conformity in our Ashram life by unduly curtailing the freedom of the constituent ind

Nature of Human Relationships: Cherished Goal We should not forget that, being spurred by some misplaced zeal to establish a semblance of all-round 'harmony' in our Ashram collectivity, if we attempt to adopt some arbitrary short-cut measures and try to build our group-life on the insecure foundation of ego-prompted sympathy and solidarity, what we will at best achieve will be a deceptive and brittle 'constructed harmony', not the harmony the Mother and Sri Aurobindo would like us to cultivate. And these attempts are bound to fail in the end; for all that springs from ego has the roots of its ultimate decay and dissolution in-built into its soil

A Utopian Dream? We have put forward in the preceding Section the idea that in order to fulfil its destiny, the destiny of erecting an ideal collective life wherein will live perfect spiritual individuals, a significant number of Ashramites should seriously endeavour to grow within and live from within, know their real selves and build up their relationships with their comrades on the basis of the inner unity of consciousness. But this is a solution to which it may be objected that it puts off the consummation of an ideal human grouping to a remote future; for it presupposes that no machinery invented by man's reason can perfect either the individual or the collectiv

Basic Frailties of Any Group-life The Sri Aurobindo Ashram at Pondicherry is, as is well known, an elaborate and complex structure of group-life sufficiently large in its dimension. But on what fundamental principle of solidarity has it been based or should it Page-21 be based? Before discussing this question let us first see how, in general, any group is formed. Man has in him two distinct master impulses, the individualistic and the communal, a personal life and a social life, a personal motive of conduct and a group motive of conduct. The possibility of their opposition and the attempt to find their equation lie at the very roots of huma

The Ashram Marches towards Its Glorious Destiny In spite of some temporary twists and turns visiting the history of its life, the Sri Aurobindo Ashram has been steadily marching towards its glorious destiny. There may be some Ashramites who hold the opinion that the Ashram is at present "passing through a very bad time" and the inmates "are passing through a great darkness." But we, on our part, do not subscribe to this alarmist view. This may possibly be the case with a few isolated individuals. But there are many more Ashramites who can easily testify on the basis of their daily personal experience that the Presence of the Mother and Sri Aur

The Deficiencies If we in the Ashram would like to fulfil the God-given task of building a collective life in which spiritually perfect individuals would dwell in a spiritually perfect community, many of the Ashramites, or even the majority of them, would have to sincerely try to grow into a more complete spiritual nature, live in the light of a higher and larger and more integral consciousness, and move and act under the guidance of a Truth which sees intuitively and spontaneously the thing to be done at any given moment and intuitively and spontaneously fulfil that in the act. The question is, Have we reached that happy position? The obvious answer is an emphatic NO.

BEHIND THE GENESIS OF THE BOOK A couple of months back, on July 17, 1995 to be precise, P-da of our Ashram Press wrote to me a two-page long letter in a most unexpected way. I say 'unexpected' because we have not met each other even for once during the last so many months if not years. In his letter, among other things, P-da has expressed his anguish over the supposed absence of harmony and brotherly feeling among many Ashramites. He somehow feels that our collective life here is not as he thinks it should be. He wanted to meet some senior member of the Ashram who could possibly clear his sense of uneasiness. I immediately took the letter to respected N

Where Do We Stand Now? Time has come for us for a sincere soul-searching and an honest appraisal to see how far we in the Ashram have advanced towards the realisation of the double goal of Page-12 establishing spiritual consciousness in the constituent individuals and building up a collective spiritual life. Where does our Ashram stand in its present form and disposition with respect to that dual achievement? Surely, as it is, the Sri Aurobindo Ashram cannot be considered to conform to what Sri Aurobindo and the Mother wanted it to grow into. Sri Aurobindo himself said a long time ago: "The Ashram as it is now is not that ideal." (The Mother, p. 229)

C. Spirit of Karmayoga Vanishing As it has been pointed out in the booklet Sri Aurobindo and His Ashram, a community the size of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram naturally requires a considerable amount of work to keep it going. Most of this is done by the members. But it should never be forgotten that the primary purpose of the work in the Ashram is not to satisfy any practical or economic need, nor to be a means for the self-expression of Page-77 the members, but to provide a field for their spiritual growth. Work is done by all, and it is done without remuneration. Sadhaks and sadhikas here strive for perfection in their work not in hopes of material adva

The Ideal Group-life: Its Character All the past attempts of man to build an ideal collective life have invariably foundered on the rocks of ego-consciousness Page-25 of the constitutive individuals. Egos in different persons in a group are bound to differ in their separate ideas, urges, perceptions, interests and purposes. And sooner or later these differences will emerge into the open, be accentuated and then come into conflict bringing in its trail the attendant discords. There are only two ways of overcoming this disharmony. Either the egoistic individuals, continuing to retain their egos, seek to enlarge and universalise themselves; or the