The story of a spiritual path starting in southern France, a dream, and 50 years of service in Auroville.
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Written May 2023
I have spent the past 50 years of my life dedicated to building Auroville in service to The Mother. Looking back, I see that my path was laid out for me from the start, developing step by step with the unexpected events that turned out to be positives – leading me forward to my deep and deeply-desired inner goal.
These surprising turns in my life began with my childhood. I was born in a small village of southern France on 28th March 1951 from a poor family. My life completely changed to drama in 1964, when I was 13. For reasons I didn’t understand, the government’s social welfare system shifted us kids to a childcare center, then to a foster family. The man under whose care I was put undertook to instruct me in spiritual subjects. From early childhood, at around the age of 10, I had experienced awakenings to my inner consciousness born by the will of God.
For the first time I discovered the beginnings of faith in something that I had not yet perceived. Slowly but surely this fragile flame started to burn strongly in me to become an inextinguishable fire. My godfather carried on with his spiritual teaching, but at age 15, I soon found it was far from enough, and my quest pushed me to ask more and more deep and precise questions seeking replies. Pretty soon, I “trespassed” beyond normal limits to tread into the unlimited domains of spirit where it sails beyond the understandable and the admissible. It was something else that I was looking for, and apparently, it was not in France that I could find it. I became a disciple of Paramahansa Yogananda.
The next landmark moment on my path came one day in June 1970, when my godfather became unwell and I couldn’t see him for three days. After that, he finally related to me a vision that he had had: “I saw a city, round, crowned with a column of white light climbing towards the sky; the inhabitants of this city look like happy, spiritual people… While visiting the city (which he called New Jerusalem, due to his Christian background), I was in the company of a lady wearing a long white dress. After this visit, the lady took me outside the city; however, to do so, I had to go through a kind of fog, dark and slimy, and the lady told me that this fog was the world’s resistance to the change that is coming…”
Then, I prepared my trip to India. I was a boy who didn’t know much other than his immediate entourage, had never travelled very much or far in France, and never alone; I spoke only French. Then as if struck by lightning, embarked for the unknown – India! In April 1972, I took a flight to Patna in North India, and from there a local train to get to Ranchi. There I went to the Ashram of Paramahansa Yogananda, where a place to stay had been offered to me. When I arrived in front of the Ashram’s main building, in less than 3 minutes, my decision was taken: “Go, this is not your place!” So I went on to Calcutta and arrived at the railway station where there was a huge crowd. Calcutta is normally like an ant-hill swarming with people, however, now it was overflowing with refugees fleeing the war with Pakistan for the liberation of Bangladesh. Not knowing why I was in this city rather than in another, I started to look for another place to stay in India, so I decided to go to Pondicherry.
In Indian trains one can find a good sample of the population of the country. At the age of 12, I had already made a firm resolution to learn the language of any country in which I would later live, and it was in that train that my taste for communication grew. Today, I can communicate without any problem with the local population of the villages around Auroville in their mother tongue, Tamil.
From Madras, the train took the complete night to reach Pondicherry (160 km) arriving at 7 am. From there, I was taken by rickshaw, whose driver, without asking my opinion, dropped me in front of the main door of what I later learned was the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. I didn’t dare protest, I waited for the Ashram to open. It was at that moment that I realized my situation, which was depressing: I was in Pondicherry, a place totally unknown to me, 13 thousand kilometers from home, in a western suit in the scorching month of April. When the door opened at 8 am, I was taken to an office where I had an interview with Mr. Andre (who was the son of The Mother). He then sent me to Cours Chabrol, the administrative offices of Auroville, a city under construction north of Pondicherry. This was where I could find employment. I was given a room in the Auroville Guest House in Pondicherry and spent the rest of the day and night sleeping. The next morning, as instructed, I took the Auroville bus in front of the office. After a few kilometers, the bus climbed a rough canyon to arrive at this place which my godfather had foreseen – even if I still didn’t know it yet!
In 1972, Auroville was being built on what was then a desert plateau over which dusty winds blew in summer and in the monsoon heavy downpours flushed the little remaining top-soil into the ocean through the surrounding heavily eroded canyons. When I came down from the bus, on that day of 26th April 1972 while walking to Matrimandir, I knew that I had reached the goal of my search. It was here that I would live from then on, in this piece of hot, arid land, because there was a task to be done. I was invited to a great Adventure and I had arrived on the shore of this desert to plant and build an as-yet non-existing world. It was as if I disembarked on a new planet. For the task, one would have to roll up one’s sleeves, take a spade and get to work! And this is how I started to teach carpentry to some of the school children of Aspiration.
My first encounter with the Mother took place on 16th July 1972. A few days before, I requested this meeting via the persons in charge of Auroville’s administration. Normally, the Mother would not receive the visit of Aurovilians unless it was for their birthdays; nevertheless, my request was accepted! After a never-ending time, I also entered Mother’s room and saw her sitting on her elevated armchair. In silence, I gave her a bouquet of rose flowers and she put one of her hands on my head and gave me a sachet of blessing flowers. After a while, I went out of her room, climbed down the stairs and went out …
The second time I saw her was the next month in very special circumstances on 15th August: Sri Aurobindo’s centenary birthday, a day when the Mother came out on her balcony to observe the crowd of disciples who gathered in the street below. It was also Indian Independence Day and in that year of 1972 it was the celebration of Sri Aurobindo’s birth centenary. Several thousand people were waiting for The Mother to come out.
I was led to the roof of a house where I sat down with the others who were there. On that blessed day of Sri Aurobindo’s birthday, not only did I see the Mother for the second time, but I also met Satprem, Sujata and Roger Anger all together on that roof! This is for me an unforgettable memory. Shortly after that, I was accepted in Auroville by the Mother.
I saw Roger more than 100 times, and I had the honor of working on buildings designed under his direction at Auromodel with my friends Cristo, Alain Antoine and Pierre Elouard. In the nineties, I also worked in his office of urban planning then known as Aurofuture.
Starting in 1974, I started to work on a building site in Auromodel for all the carpentry work. Then in 1975, I was asked to shift to a larger workshop in the Economic zone of Auroville, north of the Matrimandir in what would later become the Auromode workplace. I had a workshop with about 40 workers and some old machines doing all sorts of carpentry work, mostly for Auroville. It was an incredible experience with the local population. Having been a manual worker in France helped me to mingle easily with them, and it was a great opportunity to really learn spoken Tamil.
After creating the Park of the city as per plan, I moved on to other places, and I’m no longer living in any of them – passing them on as service offerings to Mother. And in so doing, I was able to create and build in other ways for Auroville. Since then, I have worked for Auroville’s development and the community’s benefit in a variety of areas, all enriching and gratifying to me:
– From 1982 up to 1991 and again from 2001 till 2006, I was responsible for security arrangements, court cases and police relations for Auroville.
– In 1985, I had the honor of being part of an Auroville team visiting the Prime Minister of India in Delhi.
– In the same year, I was involved in a youth camp conference on religion and peace at Gandhigram University, by Doctor M. Aram, member of the Parliament of India.
– Then in 1989, worked in the Auroville architect’s office with planning and data gathering.
– In 1994, I was deeply involved in the move to secure the Auroville Master Plan as foreseen in the Auroville Foundation Act.
– And in 1999 I was part of the Working Committee to secure approval of this plan by the Residents Assembly and by the Governing Board.
– In the hard and dramatic event of the tsunami in 2004, I was present and helping the refugees and the Tamil Nadu Government officials at our villages’ refugee camp.
Now, I am still looking after land-related issues for which I have a mandate from a former Secretary of the Auroville Foundation and from the then Town Development Council.
And with all of this creating and building together, I’ve had years of happy interactions and collaboration with fellow hardworking Aurovilians.
In fact, it’s hard to distinguish between my life and Auroville’s – and impossible to give all the details of a whole existence dedicated to Auroville.
I thank the Mother for having allowed me to be of service to her project for so long, working with dedication for over the past 50 years!
By Paul Vincent Baptiste
April 2023