A “spiritual summit” is being organised by the Secretary of the GB for the 150 th anniversary of Sri Aurobindo while Auroville processes, roads and houses are being destroyed. This summit is again one more action going against the very principle of the Charter and of Auroville’s spirit.
Here is the letter adressed to Dena Merriam, member of the IAC by Rod Hemsell regarding the so called “spiritual summit”
“Dear Ms. Merriam,
In response to your letter to J., and to hers to you, regarding your upcoming “Spiritual Summit” in Auroville, I would like to share a few observations and questions with you, as a long time Aurovilian, writer and lecturer on Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy of evolution, and an associate of AVI.
First of all we must admit that bringing together a group of people to discuss the philosophy of evolution and the future of humanity is not likely to have much to do with the actual challenges of a spiritual evolution or the future of humanity. Conferences are held all the time on every possible subject of interest to humanity and its future, and very little is accomplished beyond the event of the conference itself. I have attended many, as you probably also have, and they usually serve little more than to mutually reinforce the status and opinions of those who are present. It is not very realistic to think that this “summit” will be any different. The status and opinions that you hope to reinforce should therefore be questioned, in order to determine whether one participates in such an event.
Considering the actual situation of Auroville today we must recognize that a media event which ignores, denies, or suppresses the fact of the government takeover of Auroville and the consequent division of this community “dedicated to the ideal of human unity,” brings to light many of the fundamental obstacles to the realization of the ideals that the event wants to emphasize. Is this suppression something that you hope to achieve?
We are presented here with a situation that follows a pattern with which we have become very familiar. The repeated attempts of the Secretary of the Auroville Foundation to project an erroneous interpretation of the so-called Master Plan of Auroville as representing the substance and purpose of Auroville, the projection of Sri Aurobindo’s image by the Prime Minister as representing the fundamentalist Hindu ideology of his party, the projection of the idea of spiritual evolution proposed by your conference, to be enhanced by an atmosphere of devotional songs, for the alleged purpose of bringing the world to Sri Aurobindo, all seem to similarly distort, obscure, and demean the truth of the Yoga of Transformation taught by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. The depth and sincerity of commitment that their teaching requires, if humanity is to overcome the falsehoods that dominate human societies today, is what seems to be most obscured by each of these projections.
You have written that, “I can say I know of no other gathering that looks ahead to where we are going as a human community in terms of spiritual evolution,” while at the same time you must actually know of many such gatherings involving, for example, Deepak Chopra, Barbara Marx Hubbard (who often refers to Sri Aurobindo) Bruce Lipton and many others who have been holding such conferences for decades in many parts of the world. Your proposed “spiritual summit” strikes me as being rather of the order of the other more “political” instances mentioned above, especially as you are a member of the International Advisory Council of Auroville, a statutory member of the Auroville Foundation currently involved in the violation of Auroville’s integrity – which is also a violation of the law according to the Madras High Court. To undertake such an event in the name of Sri Aurobindo, the Mother, and the spiritual evolution of humanity, under all of these circumstances, while pretending that the actual circumstances are of no importance, serves only to put all that you are pretending to represent by this effort in a very questionable light. It is very unfortunate and regrettable that Sri Aurobindo, the Mother, and Auroville are literally being used at this point in time to promote the opposites of the truths they represent. Is this reality something that you seriously do not consider important?
Rod Hemsell”
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