matrimandir issue 1

7/28/2019 Matrimandir Issue 1

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1Matrimandir Journal

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Matrimandir Journal No. 1, Auroville, 1998

Peace in the cells

This journal begins an exploration into the deeper meaning of thecentre of Auroville - the area Mother called "PEACE". The city is to radiateinto its manifold outward expressions from this dynamic centre.

Mother spoke of Matrimandir as "the central Force, the force ofcohesion i n Auroville". Aurovilians must find their own "central being" -the psychic being - and "make it the centre of their life and action inAuroville", while the collectivity finds the joy of being"a will ing servitorof th e Divi ne Consciou sness" - creating what is truly a Deva Sangha.

Auroville's Centre is composed of many unique elements.- There is, first, the Matrimandir itself, a spherical structure which houses

the Inner Room.- This is surrounded by large rising earth petals, each of which will contain

one of the 12 meditation rooms whose names were given by Mother.- The exact geographical centre of Auroville is the Banyan Tree with its

Garden of Unity.


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A M at ri man dir

Four pi l lars

Sou t h - MAHESHWARI

N or t h - M AH AKALI East - M AH ALAKSHM I

West - MAHASARASWATI

B Ban yan t r ee an d

Garden of U n i ty

C U r n - Amp hi t heat r e

D Med i tat i on r ooms i n

the large petals

Generosi ty

Goodness

Courage

Progress

Receptiv i ty

Aspi rat ion

Perseverance

Gra t i tude

Humi l i t y

Sincerity

Peace

Equal i ty

E Smal l p et al s

F Ri n g o f t h e twe lv e

Inner Gardens

1 Exist ence

2 Co nsc io usn ess

3 Bl i ss

4 Ligh t

5 Li fe

6 Pow er

7 Weal t h

8 U t i l i t y

9 Progress

10 Yout h

11 Harmony 1 2 Per fect io n

G Rose ga rd en

H Wat er c h an n el

around ova l pa th

I Park

- The Urn which holds the soil of the earth's nations stands in theAmphitheatre and is a symbol of Human Unity.

- Then there are the 12 gardens - each representing a specific state ofconsciousness - considered to be "as impor tant as the Matrimandiritself."

All of these are, in turn, surrounded by a body of water and finally, apark of "tall aspir ing trees" that acts as a green corridor and "isolatingzone" between the city and its centre.

Mother saw Matrimandir as"the li ving symbol of Aurovil le's aspir ationfor the Divine".

PEACE AREA


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A greater awareness of the significance of each of the elements at thecentre of Auroville might help us to activate this symbol in our individualconsciousness. For, as Sri Aurobindo says, "a spir itual symbol i s only ameaningless ticket, unless the thi ng symbol ized is realized in the spiri t...

A spir itual idea is a power, but only when it is both inwardly and outward ly

creative."1

This journal will explore the inward psychological and spiritualsignificance of each of these elements.

When formulating the Charter of Auroville,Mother remarked that the meaning of theMatrimandir was that it "represented the D ivineConsciousness." It becomes important, as theouter structure that houses the Inner Room nearscompletion, that the whole area of "PEACE" isdynamised in our consciousness to better serve

that power which is both inwardly and outwardly creative.


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It is only immutable peacethat can make possible eternity of existence.

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Mother gave the name peace to the centre of Auroville and thisfirst issue will endeavor to discover the significance and importance

of peace and its particular connection with Matrimandir, a place tofin d o nes consciousness. Auroville has been given a very powerfulsymbol for its centre. All that is to come should create a wonderfulenergy field that radiates a positive peace to the city that surrounds itand beyond, something that Mother describes as an acti ve peace,contagious, power fu l , w hich cont ro l s and ca lms, which put s

everyt hin g in or der, organizes.....3

A search for its deepest meaning will take us to the many remarks andclarifications Mother and Sri Aurobindo made, particularly in their lettersto and conversations with disciples. We offer these to our readers andhope they will find them as enlightening as we have.

In this context She gave two separate messages:

I should l ike the who le place to be call ed Peace and that peace,actual peace shoul d reign there not onl y between the occupants but

with the whole of Auroville, present and future. (1969)

'Peace'. The for emost th ing must be Peace. Whatever you do m ust

be by peaceful means.

The second t hin g necessary i s Harmony, not only general harmonybut also between the ind ividu als livi ng there. You mu st begin to l ook

for the harmony in each individual and not dw ell on the disharmony.

The disharmony exists everywhere bu t you must reject that and allow

the harmony to enter.

There must be a sense of O rder. Each indi vidual must have a sense

of Self-discipli ne and actuall y practice it.

PEACE, H ARMONY, O RDER, SELF-DISCIPLINE. (9.01.1969 )

These two quotes suggest the importance Mother attached both toactual peacebeing established at the centre as well as to doing thingsby peaceful means. What, we asked ourselves, are we to understandby peace - a word used so commonly. In ordinary terms it is used tomean an absence of war or strife. It is evident from the second quote thatpeace, both in inner consciousness and outer action, is the basis for otherattributes necessary for community life. Peace becomes a dynamic qualityof life as manifested through Harmony, Order and Self-discipline.


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The question we pose in this journal is whether peace assumes a deepermeaning in Yoga? The first thing we discover when reading Sri Aurobindosletters is that peace is not merely an idea - it has a material reality - it is asubstance, and one that represents the very foundation of the yogic status...

Every thing is a 'substance' - even peace, consciousness, Ananda, -

only th ere are different o rder s of substance.4

Equanim ity and peace in all cond iti ons, in all parts of the being, is

the first found ation of the yogic status.5

Mother spoke of Matrimandir as representing the Divine Consciousnessand in her conversation of 16.12.1971 she says, The first sign of thedivi ne pr esence in the being is peace. Peace, calm, quietude andsilence are states and conditions the being can have. In his letters, SriAurobindo defines very precisely their shades of meaning:

Calm is a positive tranquil lit y which can exist inspit e of superf icial

disturbances.

Peace is a calm deepened in to somethi ng that is very positive

amount ing almost to a tr anquil waveless Ananda.6


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there is nomovement of t hought or feeling etc., only a great stilln ess

of the mind.

But ther e can be an action in t he Silence, undi stur bed even as the

uni versal action goes on i n cosmic Silence.9

The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo is not an escape to beatific summits ofconsciousness; the work is to transform the habits, the inertia and theignorance of the external nature. The body is the base and the pedestalupon which all must be built.

The descent of Peace, the d escent of Force or Power, th e descent

of Light, the descent o f Ananda, these are th e four thi ngs thattransform the nature.10

Stone calm the body is a pedestalSupporting a figure of eternal peace.

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Peace is a deep qu ietu de wher e no di sturbance can come - a

quietu de wi th a sense of established securi ty and r elease.

In comp lete silence there are eith er no thoughts or thoughts come,

but t hey are felt as something coming from outside and not di sturbi ng

the silence.

Silence of the mind, peace or calm in the mind are thr ee thi ngs that

are very close together and br ing each other.8

It i s on Silence behind t he cosmos that all the movement o f the

universe is support ed.

It is from the Silence that t he peace comes; when t he peace deepens

and deepens, it becomes mor e and more the Silence. In a moreoutward sense the word silence is appli ed to the condit ion i n wh ich

Savitri


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The first th ing to do in the sadhana is to get a settled peace and

silence in the mind... It is in the silent mind that the true consciousnesscan be built .12

While each person must find his own approach to the growth ofconsciousness there appear to be certain substances that greatlyaccelerate the process. It is as if one were building a strong house:one could hardly neglect the foundation. The physicaladharneeds toremain grounded in the vast solidity that comes naturally only to thepsychic being. This brings us back to the Matrimandir which stands inrelation to the collectivity as the psychic being stands in relation tothe individual. And, while each individual creates his own path, the

descent of peace appears necessary for all.

It i s true that thr ough whatever i s strongest in h im a sadhak can

more easily open to t he Divin e. But... peace is necessary for all ; w ithou t

peace and an incr easing pur ity, even if one opens, one cannot receive

perfectly all that comes down thr ough the opening.13

For the self-realization p eace and silence of the mi nd are t he

first conditi on.14

H is being lay down in bright immobile peaceAnd bathed in wells of pure spiritual light.

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Savitri

When t he m in d i s sil ent t her e is peace and in peace all things that

are divine can come.15

Peace helps to pur ity - since in peace distu rb in g inf lu ences cease

and the essence of purit y is to respond only to t he Divine Inf luence

and not to have an affinity wit h other m ovements.16

Yes certainly - the peace start s in th e inner bein g - it i s spiri tual

and psychic but i t overflows the outer being. When i t is there in the

activity, it means eith er that t he ord inar y restless min d, vital, physical

have been submerged by the flo od of the in ner peace or, at a mor e

advanced stage, they have been partiall y or w holl y changed int o

thoughts, forces, emoti ons, sensations whi ch have in their very stuff

an essence of in ner sil ence and peace. ... 17

Contentment and peace are a state of the inner being which donot depend on external circumstances. But in the yoga, what isdescribed in Savitrias thein ner Witn esss moveless peacehas tobe brought, almost as a necessity, into the outer nature.

When the peace is fully establi shed everywhere i n the being, these

things(reactions of the lower vital)wil l not be able to shake it. They maycome fir st as rip ples on th e surf ace, then only as suggestio ns which


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onelooks at or does not care to lo ok at but in eit her case they don t

get inside, affect or di stur b at all.

It i s difficult to explain but i t is something like a mountain at w hich

one may throw stones - if conscious all t hrough the moun tain may feel

the touch of the stones but the thing woul d be so slight and superficial

that it would not be in the least affected. 18

If t he peace or silence is once absolutely established no amoun t of

movements on the surf ace can impair o r aboli sh it. It can bear all th e

movements of th e universe and yet be the same.19

It i s not a fact that one ought not to p ray or aspir e for peace or

spir itu al joy. Peace is the very basis of siddhi in t he yoga and why

shoul d not one pray or aspir e for foundation i n the yoga?... it cannot

remain in t he system so lo ng as the system has not been pr epared for

it... the conditi on of this permanence is that one should have the

constant contact or i ndwelling of the Di vine and this comes naturally

not to t he outer mind or vital but to the inner soul or p sychic being. 20

In one conversation Mother uses the analogy of a prism to explain thepsychic conversion in the being. Just as light passing through a prism isbroken and divided, so in the life of the ordinary consciousness the innerlight is broken and fissured. The psychic conversion represents a restorationof the white light. It brings with it an incredible, joyous reordering ofexistence.

This is known t o everyone who h as had a taste of the jo y of

lib eration, that it cont ains an eternal pow er of calm . And that

profou nd tr anquill ity can remain in the very heart of action, can

persevere in th e most violent m otion of for ces... The calm of the

liberated m an is not an indo lence, incapacity, insensibil ity, inertia;

it is full of imm ortal pow er, capable of all action attuned to d eepest

delight, open to profou ndest l ove and compassion and to every

manner o f int ensest Ananda21


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T he voice that only by speech can move the mindBecame a silent knowledge in the soul:

The strength that only in action feels its truthWas lodged now in a mute omnipotent peace.

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Savitri

A most marvelous passage is to be found in the concluding cantosof Savitri. Death has been vanquished and the Supreme Lord standsrevealed. Savitri is faced with her final test - a choice to return tohappy extinctio n, a sublime cessation in a namelesswordlessnaught. She refuses but asks instead for boons for the m agnificentsoul o fman on earth, the very first of which is the gift of peace, aboon wit hin to keep/Amidthe roar and ruin of w i ld t im e.Peace isnot necessarily an immediate realization when one begins the processof inner askesis. Many undesirable t hingsmust first be convertedto their divine equivalents.

All undesirabl e things are a mistr anslati on in t he Ignorance ofsometh ing that on a higher plane is or mi ght be desir able. Inertia,

tamas, is the mistranslation of divin e Shama, rest, qui etude, peace...

It is only when the low er perversions are got ri d of that th e higher

things in their tr uth can reign.23

Tamas is to be tr ansformed int o Sama, the peace and rest of the

higher Prakriti, and then fil led wi th t apas and j yoti.24

Peace, Sri Aurobindo says, is the very basis of siddh i in yogabut doesthis make it any easier to achieve? The fact that Aurovilles centre is namedPeace in no way obviates the necessity of treading the path to establishpeace within and around oneself. When one looks at the condition of theworld an easy optimism is hardly possible. The word peace has been bruitedendlessly in world fora, turned into a political slogan and reduced to somethingmerely trite and meaningless. This century has seen more death, war anddestruction than any in human history. How then can one act by peaceful

means? Sri Aurobindo and Mother both insist first on looking at existenceas it really is without romanticizing:

...because unless we have the honesty and courage to look existence

straight in t he face, we shall never arr ive at an effective soluti on to i ts

discords and oppositi ons. We must see fir st what life and the wor ld

are; afterward s, we can better set about findi ng the right w ay to

transform them in to wh at they should be.25


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No r eal peace can be ti ll the heart of man deserves peace; th e lawof Vishnu cannot pr evail t ill t he debt to Rudr a is paid. To turn aside

then and preach to a still unevolved mankind the law of love and

oneness? Teachers of t he law of l ove and oneness there must be, for by

that way must come the ultim ate salvation. But not ti ll t he Time-Spir it

in man is ready, can the inner and ulti mate prevail over the outer and

imm ediate reality. Chri st and Buddha have come and gone, but it is

Rudra who still hol ds the worl d in th e hollow of hi s hand.26

It is interesting to note that the above passage from Sri Aurobindo'sEssays on the Gi tawas given out by Mother for distribution during theIndo-Pakistan conflict in 1965. There is also a very striking message ofHers dating from 1930:

We have come not for peace but f or Victor y, because in a wo rl d

governed b y hostile for ces Victory must come befor e peace.27

But, however one views things, by naming Aurovilles centrePeace,Mother has indeed made itthe foremost thing.In one of herconversations She creates the following perspective on the power andaction of peace:

Qu ietude is a very positive state; there is a positive peace whi ch

is not th e opposite of conf lict an active peace, contagious, powerfu l,

whi ch contro ls and calms, which put s everyth ing in or der, organizes.

...True quietud e is a very great force, a very great strength...all t hose

who ar e really stro ng, powerfu l, are always very calm. It is only the

weak who are very agitated, as soon as one becomes trul y stro ng, one

is peaceful, calm, qu iet, and one has the power of endur ance to face

the adverse waves whi ch come rushing from outside in t he hope ofdistur bin g one. This tru e quietu de is always a sign of f orce. Calmness

belongs to the strong.28

...There is the same difference betw een static and dynamic power

as between a game of defense and a game of attack... static power is

something which can wi thstand everyth ing, nothing can act upon it,

nothing can touch it, nothing can shake it - it is immob ile, but it is

invin cible. Dynamic power is someth ing in action, whi ch at tim es goes

for th and may at tim es receive blows. That i s to say, if you want your

dynamic power t o be always victori ous, it must be suppo rted by

considerable static p ower, an unshakable b ase.

I know what you want to say...a human being becomes aware of power

only when it is dynamic; a human being does not consider i t a power

except when it acts; if it does not act he does not even noti ce it, he does

not realize the tremendous force which is behind thi s inaction - at times,

even frequently, a force more form idable than the power which acts. But

you may tr y it out in yourself.29


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A poised serenity of tranquil strengthA wide unshaken look onTimes unrest

Faced all experience with unaltered peace.30

Savitri

The rishis of the Veda seemed to recognize that without this onegift of the Gods - peace, all other states of consciousness would remainwithout a sure base. To have a sense of peace within oneself andshare peace with all beings was seen as the foundation on which allsiddhis are built. This is humorously echoed by Sri Aurobindo in oneof his letters.

I don t thi nk the peace descent is in th e habit of waiti ng for

companions - more often it likes at fir st to b e all by itself and then

call dow n its fri ends with t he message, Come along, I have made

the place all ready for you!31

Thus in Vedic times invocations to the gods included a Shanti Mantra.These seers called for peace not only in the human heart but on earthand in heaven and amongst all creatures.


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Thy peace O Lord, a boon within to keepAmid the roar and ruin of wild time

For the magnificent soul of man on earth.Thy calm, O Lord that bears thy hands of joy.

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Savitri

Om Dyauh shantih antari ksham shantih p rit hivi shantih apah shantih

oshadhayah shantih vanaspatayah shanti h vishve devah shantih brahma

shantih sarvam shantih shanti h eva shantih sa ma shantih edhi.

Peace is in the heavens, the sky and t he earth, i n t he waters, the

herbs and t he woods, Peace is in t he Gods, Brahman is all p eace, all is

peace and peace alone, may that peace be also mine.(Yajur Veda)

Early in 1970, The Mother had a vision of the Inner Chamber of theMatrimandir which She described in detail. She also spoke at length aboutthe "most beautiful gardens" that were to surround the Matrimandir, in anarea of silence called "Peace".

Since then, people of goodwill from all over the world have beenworking to translate Her vision into matter, and it is through individualdonations that the Matrimandir, along with its gardens, has been and isbeing built.

A lot of work remains to be done and financial support is needed.

If you wish to collaborate in this effort, and to receive this journal ormore information on various aspects of the work, please write toMATRIMANDIR, AUROVILLE 605 101, Tamil Nadu, India.

Contributions to Matrimandir are exempt under sec. 80-G or 35(1)(ii)of the Indian Income Tax Act. Cheques, drafts or money orders may bemade payable to "Matrimandir" and sent to the address given below.

MATRIMANDIR - AUROVILLE - 605101 - TAMIL NADU - INDIA

REFEREN CES

1. Sri Aurobindo, Sri Aurobindo BirthCentenary Library, Vol.15 p247

2. Mothers Message, 21.2.693. Mother, Mothers Birth Centenary

Library (MBCL), Vol 8, p. 3304. Sri Aurobindo, SABCL, Vol. 24, p. 11985. Sri Aurobindo, SABCL, Vol. 23, p. 6566. Sri Aurobindo, SABCL, Vol. 23, p. 6427. Sri Aurobindo,Savitri BK1, Cant o IV8. ibid9. Sri Aurobindo, SABCL, Vol. 23, p. 647

10. Sri Aurobindo, SABCL, Vol. 24, p. 117011. Sri Aurobindo,Savitri BK1, Cant o III12. Sri Aurobindo, SABCL, Vol. 23, p. 635

13. Sri Aurobindo, SABCL, Vol. 23, p. 65614. Sri Aurobindo, SABCL, Vol. 23, p. 63715. Sri Aurobindo, SABCL, Vol. 23, p. 657

This first issue has been made possible by a donor.

The next issue takes up Mother's message: "The Matrimandir wants tobe the symbol of the Universal Mother according to Sri Aurobindo'steaching".

P r i n t e d a t A l l I n d i a P r e s s - P o n d i c h e r r y

16. Sri Aurobindo, SABCL, Vol. 23, p. 64417. Sri Aurobindo, SABCL, Vol. 23, p. 65018. Sri Aurobindo, SABCL, Vol. 23, p. 64919. ibid20. Sri Aurobindo, SABCL, Vol. 24, p. 132021. Sri Aurobindo, SABCL, Vol. 13, p. 64122. Sri Aurobindo, Savitri . BK1, Canto III23. Sri Aurobindo, SABCL, Vol. 24, p. 120224. Sri Aurobindo, SABCL, Vol. 24, p. 120125. Sri Aurobindo, SABCL, Vol. 13, p. 3826. Sri Aurobindo, SABCL, Vol. 13, p. 37227. Mother, MBCL, Vol. 15, p. 8828. Mother, MBCL, Vol.. 8, p. 33229. Mother, MBCL,Vol. 4, p. 368

30. Sri Aurobindo,Savitri . BK1, Canto III

31. Sri Aurobindo, SABCL, Vol. 24, p. 117432. Sri Aurobindo, Savitr i. BK XI, Canto I

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