The Flawed Auroville Matrimandir

Part VI – The Transcendent: Sri Aurobindo in the Shalagrama

2012-03-01T15:42:00.003-08:00

[This is Part VI of The Chronicles of the Inner Chamber; readers of this series may first want to read the blog's 'Introduction' and the Matrimandir Action Committee's 'Manifesto', Part I - Preface, Part II, Part III, or Part IV before continuing.]

‘Without him, I exist not,
without me, he is unmanifest.’
The Mother, 6 May 1957

While the Mother’s original plan of the Matrimandir’s inner chamber defines the size of the circumscribing Shalagrama by its perfect measure (see CIC 5, p.3), much more is needed from the subtle planes to grant solidity and imperishability to the structure. The chamber cannot remain suspended with ‘supports’ only at the upper reaches of the walls, as if hanging on a clothes line! A base must exist as well as other subtle points in space to define the Divine Maya unequivocally, and to integrate inner and outer. This greater definition is provided by Sri Aurobindo through his own special symbol consisting of two triangles, ascending and descending, and an inner square. In this Chronicle we will reveal the exquisite interaction between Sri Aurobindo and the Mother displayed through sacred geometry and architecture, and their allotted tasks in the Supramental Manifestation.
The magical properties of the Shalagrama allow us to insert Sri Aurobindo’s new symbol in the form, reproduced below. This diagram is taken from The New Way, Volume 2, published by Aeon Books, (1978)1981. The dates are important in order to bring to the attention of the public the continued campaign of deception Auroville engages in, involving this most sacred of symbols. For the prevailing consciousness in Auroville nothing is sacred. Knowledge is desecrated time and again by misusing it for personal ambition, or to deceive the public. To succeed in this campaign the diagrams we will reproduce in this Chronicle, all taken from the above-mentioned publication of Aeon Books, were lifted by Mona Doctor, an Auroville architect.

From The New Way, Vol.2, p. 445
Aeon Books, 1981

This has been abetted by the powers presently ruling Auroville insofar as the same material is now carried on the Auroville official website under the link to Sacred Geometry.
Discovery of this website link, with its misuse and desecration of the Knowledge, made it imperative to give a formal structure to the Matrimandir Action Committee. Concerned individuals throughout the world could no longer remain silent. Readers of these Chronicles may verify for themselves what MAC states by logging into http://www.auroville.org/thecity/matrimandir/mm_geometry.htm. At that location the viewer will discover these same diagrams but reproduced in such a manner as to give the impression (again) that the measurements are the same as in the temple, following the Mother’s original plan. Our Chronicles have already proven that this is false.
But the deception goes a step further. Viewers will note that Mona Doctor has made the following acknowledgment at the end of the article: ‘Source of figures shown in the above article is Patricia (sic) Norelli-Bachelet’s book, The Gnostic Circle.’ She has done this though fully aware that it is a wrong reference. It too is part of the campaign to mislead the public by keeping the truth hidden.

The history
By letter dated 6.10.1989, Mona Doctor wrote to the author of The New Way requesting permission to use the material in Volume 2 which is reproduced here. She claimed that she was writing a thesis on the relationship between the Matrimandir and the Great Pyramid at Giza. A two-page reply was sent to her, making all the above points absolutely clear; namely, that the Pyramid and other relationships she was to write about did not exist in the Auroville Matrimandir. She was warned that unless this fact was explicitly stated in her thesis and that the diagrams and text refer only to the Mother’s original plan, with due acknowledgements, permission could not be granted.

In true Auroville fashion, Mona Doctor paid no heed. Finally, in January 1991, extracts from her thesis were published in Auroville Today, issue No. 25. Again no mention was made of the fact that the diagrams pertained only to the Mother’s original and not the Auroville Matrimandir. But not only was no such clarification given to the public, so that there would be no misrepresentation, there was no reference at all to The New Way, source of all the material she presented as her own.
When this was brought to light Mona Doctor agreed to rectify the matter in issue No. 34 of Auroville Today. A letter from her was carried in that issue in which she simply listed The New Way among several other ‘sources’, nothing specific, nothing that could lead the reader to the truth, again compounding the falsehood.
And now, to compound that falsehood even further, Auroville’s official website reproduces the very same material with this leader: ‘Mona Doctor, one of Auroville’s architects, wrote a rather remarkable graduate research thesis: it is a study on the proportions of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt, compared to the proportions of Matrimandir.’
This time Mona Doctor does indeed list a ‘source’ at the end of the article-cum-interview, a book in which nothing of the above material figures! The reason is obvious. To give the correct source would lead viewers of the website to the true state of affairs as expounded in The New Way, - i.e., that nothing of these geometric relationships exists in what has been built in the Mother’s name in Auroville. They exist only in The New Way.

The ongoing deception
When Mona Doctor wrote her first letter in 1989 asking for permission to use the material, the theme of her research was the relationship between Matrimandir and the Great Pyramid at Giza. Yet she has been careful to exclude this most remarkable correspondence of all from the official website article; that there is an exact correlation between the entry to the Great Pyramid and the ascending 15-step entry to the Mother’s chamber, according to her original plan. We reproduce the comparative diagrams from The New Way, Volume 2, Chapter 12, p. 468.

In a superb visionary feat the Mother located the ascending entry into the room in such a manner that when the author of The New Way discovered Sri Aurobindo’s symbol in the Shalagrama several years later (1976), and the occult relationships we have described in these pages, that now defunct stairway revealed an extraordinary correspondence to the entry to the Giza Pyramid. With Sri Aurobindo’s new symbol, since its proportions are the same as the Great Pyramid, the Mother’s yogic feat has drawn ancient Egypt into her chamber. This is easily verified in the above drawings which bear the precision the Mother required to allow for these correspondences. This exact correlation involving sacred architecture, separated by thousands of kilometres and thousands of years, is one more example of the magnitude of the Mother’s visionary greatness.
However, this greatness could not be carried on the Auroville website because the public would question why that remarkable connection with the Great Pyramid is not to be found in the Auroville Matrimandir. The powers-that-be are careful to misuse and desecrate only to the extent that the reader or viewer cannot detect the deception by comparison with what stands on the ground, where there is no ascending 15-step stairway. The above diagram would make the truth obvious. Instead, another diagram has been carried on the website, also from The New Way (Vol. 2, p.458), but again without acknowledgment. It describes a 110cm band at the intersection of Sri Aurobindo’s two triangles. The point of that diagram is to highlight a ‘sensitive’ area for the individual seated in the chamber. But this too is false because no such band of 110cm exists since Sri Aurobindo’s symbol does not ‘exist’ in the Shalagrama due to the changed measurements and the lack of the necessary precision.
Why have Mona Doctor and the Auroville Governing Board done this? Obviously correct references could not be provided because these two chapters of The New Way, 11 and 12 of Volume 2, expose the truth: that the original plan does not figure in the Auroville Matrimandir; hence, neither do the relationships of Mona Doctor’s thesis hold. Indeed, these were the very diagrams used in the book to provide the definitive proof of what was lost.
Even the Golden Section Mona Doctor makes so much of in the website article is not a new discovery regarding the Great Pyramid. It follows that if the proportions of the Pyramid and Sri Aurobindo’s symbol triangles are the same, that Golden Section pertains to both. The question to ask is, where is Sri Aurobindo’s symbol in the Auroville Matrimandir? More importantly, what relevance does the Golden Section have to the Mother’s Vision? To be frank, not much at all; and certainly nothing that can compare to the new revelations which are indeed of the utmost relevance. All are free to have their own experience and follow their own preferences, but why focus on the past when the present in the Mother’s Vision is of such greater beauty and importance for us today?
Lacking the yogic capacity to make these discoveries in the Mother’s Vision, for the past 14 years, Mona Doctor and her ilk have been left free to pass them on as their own, to hold themselves up as ‘authorities’ in sacred architecture, and to make devotees and disciples of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo believe that what has been built in Auroville conforms to this body of higher knowledge, the most sacred treasure of geometry the world has known to date. In the same way that the Mother’s Vision itself was treated during the infamous 18-day fruitless struggle, so too has the Knowledge content of her Vision, as preserved in these diagrams, been similarly desecrated.

The point is, why bother? If Auroville had already made its choice to throw out ‘mathematics’ and ‘astrology’ in 1974, why go to these lengths, why steal from the very person whose work in that field they themselves have trashed time and again, and continue to do so? It is a tactic of the Lord of Falsehood, whose reign continues throughout the world, to disfigure the true thing for unsuspecting seekers. Added to this is the question of donations. It is known that these arts are central to Indian culture. An unsuspecting public will surely be more apt to donate if it is led to believe that the sacred is alive and well in the Auroville Matrimandir. But with these Chronicles the deception is brought to an end.

What was lost
The first point to note is that the Mother redesigned Sri Aurobindo’s symbol in May of 1964. Without this no correspondences with the Pyramid – and much more – would have been possible. This was not arbitrary and whimsical, contrary to what Paulette of Auroville has suggested to MAC (letter dated 23.2.2003). The change was in utter and perfect synchronicity with Sri Aurobindo’s supramental process at that very time.
In its complete form according to the official design, which includes details of the inner square, the deepest secrets of the Supramental Manifestation are contained. Above all, there is the formula for Supermind’s organisation for Earth use. And these great mysteries form the core of the knowledge the Mother captured in her plan of the inner chamber. Not fanciful, whimsical, and purposeless, as Auroville would have us believe. Rather, we see the Mother as the architect of the Transcendent’s Will, impeccable in her transposition of that Will into material creation, the field of the number 9, the Transcendent’s own number in the new supramental Order.
We know that the Mother ‘did not see the outside’ and that this was to be the contribution of the collectivity, as explained in Chronicle 5. Ironically, it is that very contribution that exposes the shadow covering the Auroville Matrimandir. For Sri Aurobindo’s symbol inserted in the Shalagrama, as in our diagram, reveals how it must serve as the ‘support’ for the Chamber, just as Sri Aurobindo did in his own lifetime for his collaborator, the Mother.
But while his support is essential for the Chamber, it must be noted that without the inner chamber of the Mother’s Divine Measure, no symbol of Sri Aurobindo arises in the Shalagrama – as if to prove via sacred geometry, ‘Without him, I exist not, without me, he is unmanifest.’ Only the Supermind could ‘organise’ a display of sacred geometry and architecture that would so elegantly and exquisitely give FORM to the Mother’s words.
When the Chamber is superimposed on the Shalagrama, the same 24m floor diameter ending at the walls is seen to rest exactly on the base of Sri Aurobindo’s ascending triangle. The area is encircled in the diagram below (B). If the diameter is altered in any way, the room cannot find the required ‘support’ from Sri Aurobindo’s ascending triangle. Therefore, the Mother insisted that ‘the 24 metres end at the walls’. Not a whimsical and purposeless idea. This was an explicit command from the Divine Executor of the Transcendent’s Will. Similarly, the pillars enclose the square of his symbol and mark off the triangles’ sides (ascending sides and descending base) at the precise location specified by the Mother. This area is encircled in the diagram, below (A). Again, not whimsical and approximate but exact as only the Supramental Shakti can be.

It is the crucial point where pillars, square, sides and base join. The required precision then knits together the entire structure by these occult demarcations of the chamber’s inner space.
In this manner, with a room diameter of exactly 24m, the chamber is supported by Sri Aurobindo’s symbol at the base and sides; while the chamber’s inner circle defines the measurements of the Shalagrama. The point is, without the divine measure which the Mother’s Vision provides, with its remarkable new precision, none of this is possible. Again we must refer to Chronicle 5, page 4, and the discussion on Vedic tradition. The proportions for the idols of Hindu temples are sacrosanct because they are taken from the cosmic harmonies and only when executed faithfully can that particular cosmic energy occupy the form.

From The New Way, Vol.2, p. 453,
Aeon Books, 1981

This is exactly the position regarding the Mother’s Vision: only when her divine Measure is respected do we find that Sri Aurobindo’s symbol and its power are occultly contained in the Shalagrama, Mona Doctor notwithstanding. We may be told that it is so, we may believe that it is so; but only the precision the Mother demanded can make it so. For Sri Aurobindo’s symbol to MANIFEST in the outer shape, certain points in the temple’s inner space have to be demarcated; and these depend entirely on the chamber’s 24m diameter.

If instead we have 23m, everything ‘falls apart’, since the circle of pillars is also imperfectly rendered and does not demarcate the innermost square of the Avatar’s sacred lotus; nor does it intercept the sides and base of the triangles.

These are occult relationships, subtle forms that exist in the eternal plane of the Truth-Consciousness. To manifest here, to infuse material creation with their power and light – and none will dispute that this is the heart and soul of Sri Aurobindo’s mission – we must respect the laws that make this possible, that allow for the Bridge to come into being between subtle and material. There is no approximation possible; either the 24m diameter exists, or it does not. Since we know that the Auroville Matrimandir chamber does NOT have a diameter of 24m, we also know that no matter how perfect the Shalagrama outer shape may be, and no matter how carefully it has been designed on the basis of the relevant geometry, Sri Aurobindo’s symbol cannot manifest in that form, with all that this implies.

The Mother’s Vision provides future generations with the history of the Supramental Manifestation. We will go deeper into these revelations in these Chronicles since for the first time in many thousands of years sacred architecture has been infused with the light of Mahasaraswati to a degree never before witnessed, not even in the best of Hindu temples. The signal that the time had come for this marvellous happening was the Supramental Manifestation of 29 February 1956. The Mother then entered a ‘new mode’, as it were. A review of her experiences and activities from that time onward reveal what this new role has been.
Through this special sacred architecture, based on the Mother’s Vision and her original plan, we SEE Sri Aurobindo in his transcendent form as the upholding and supporting power of the temple. In Savitri it would be Ashwapathy. We know that it is transcendence because it is not PHYSICALLY but SUBTLY present in the structure, yet all embracing, all encompassing, - and indispensable. Transcendent yes, but not oblivious or disregardful of the demanding laws of material creation where He is made manifest. And this very fact confirms the knowledge of the Supramental Manifestation that the Mother captured in her plan, in conjunction with her new role and the experiences she was having after 1956. Without this understanding we cannot appreciate the manner in which Sri Aurobindo serves to INTEGRATE inner and outer; how it is through him that this is achieved as a fundamental part of the Supramental Manifestation.
The next Chronicle will carry the reader deeper into this great Mystery, that of Transcendence and Immanence, - or, in the language of the epic, Ashwapathy and Satyavan.

Matrimandir Action Committee
9 April 2003

Part V: Inner and Outer: the One and the Many

2012-02-28T17:57:00.006-08:00

[This is Part V of The Chronicles of the Inner Chamber; readers of this series may first want to read the blog's 'Introduction' and the Matrimandir Action Committee's 'Manifesto', Part I - Preface, Part II, Part III, or Part IV before continuing.]

The Mother was very clear: ‘I did not see the outside…only the inside…’ Further, she indicated that she was open to suggestions. In the Matrimandir Talks, 17 January 1970, there is even some discussion on the subject, and a sketch as well. What begins to emerge is the temple’s outer shape, the Vishnu Shalagrama, one of the most sacred forms in Vedic culture.
This was to be the collectivity’s contribution to the Mother’s temple. The cosmic/yogic principles involved are the One and the Many; or else, the Unity and the Multiplicity; or the Point and the Circle; or the Centre and the Periphery. These are different ways of expressing a key aspect of the Supermind. That is, when we have a ‘supramental manifestation’, we know that in some way these two seemingly opposing positions or principles must be reconciled.
India has grappled yogically with this conundrum for two thousand years - and has been seemingly unsuccessful. From the time of Gautam the Buddha to the present, we observe how slowly and steadily the issue has been entirely shelved; no such reconciliation was possible. The only ‘solution’ was to escape, to ignore the problem, to undermine its very existence by describing the components involved as ‘illusion’. The direction of the quest was changed and consequently the goal; Sri Aurobindo has elaborated on the matter in his Letters on Yoga.
This was the fate of the Vedic Divine Maya. UP THERE she was allowed her ‘space’. When a split in the yogic perceptive capacity arose ‘down here’, she was simply Maya, devoid of any divine attributes. The yogic spirit of India succumbed to the same disease which afflicted the entire globe at the end of the 8^th Manifestation of Sri Krishna when realms BEYOND became the goal of the quest, unlike pre-Buddhist Vedic India. Some described it as the onset of a Kaliyuga.

This split was indeed felt throughout the world. It is most clearly recognisable in the occident where orthodox religions finally made a dogma of the split and Spirit and Matter became forever stark opposites in the binary creation of the mental human being, whose sustenance is this pole of tension engendered by the split. The material world of time and space was not known as ‘illusion’ in the West but evil, and a downright Hell. It became a prison, a place where sinners could find a springboard to heaven after death if they were fortunate enough to recognise the one Saviour, and only that one, who could lead them out of their misery. However he managed it, the mental human being could not reconcile these opposites because of his binary affliction.
India somehow survived the devastation simply because nothing was organised, no orthodox religion, no pope, no Imam, and above all, no dogma. The yogic realiser was free to pursue his or her preference, even when the predominant influence was the way of Advaita and Mayavada. There was, however, a price to pay: India lost her hold over the material plane that, in the language of Number, is 9, and that, according to the Mother’s designation, is defined as creation in matter. Having abdicated, having opted for otherworldliness as the goal, all else was undermined. As a result, down the centuries with the corrosion that set in, from within, India suffered invasion upon invasion, conquests, colonisations, humiliations, desecration of her most sacred treasures; and finally, every illness we see around us today. At the root of it all was the loss of the Divine Measure several thousand years ago with all its repercussions thereafter.
This was what the Mother set about to rectify in her ‘act of measuring’. This she DID accomplish in spite of the recalcitrant ignorance and the bad will she encountered during that infamous 18-day struggle to establish that Measure at the heart of her temple.

The supramental task at hand involving the temple can be described geometrically by the ancient symbol of the Sun, a circle with a central point, thus: . After the split, when science was divested of the sacred (as a correlation to the yogic split), that astrological symbol was incorporated by astronomy. To this day it remains in use.
The Sun is considered by Sri Aurobindo to be a symbol of the supramental Gnosis. We shall see in what way this particular symbolism takes shape in the inner chamber. These Chronicles will progressively demonstrate how this simple geometric form holds the key to the entire body of Knowledge captured in the Mother’s plan. But it is not enough to describe the elegant simplicity of the geometry involved. When the Supermind is made manifest all the Knowledge has to be applied today. In other words, it must be rendered dynamic.
The Sun’s astrological symbol indicates the One (Point) and the Many (Circle). It also offers the geometric understanding of the Mother’s mission as Divine Maya and the purpose of her ‘act of measuring’. For the inner chamber is the Point; the outer Shalagrama shape is the Circle. This simple correlation describes certain specific boundaries. Her sacrosanct domain was the Inner Chamber (‘I saw only the inside…’); the outer shape was to be the contribution of the collectivity. She did not impinge upon their domain, - but the collectivity had no respect for hers.
We must not lose sight of the fact that though the Shalagrama was the responsibility of the group (in this case represented by the architect), its measure was nonetheless established by the Divine Maya. Two key elements were given by her to grant legitimacy – or a Divine Sanction, if you will – to the outer shape.

More importantly, it could then be drawn into the integration process, thereby reconciling one of creation’s greatest paradoxes. It is the same conundrum quantum physics faces when it seeks to measure the position of point and/or wave: it is one or the other. This symbol, transposed to the respective duties of the Mother and the group, reconciles the paradox and expresses the simultaneous harmony of the two. Those two elements were, first and foremost, the 24m chamber floor diameter – no more, no less – and the placement of the chamber of 24m in a perfect circle with a consequent radius of 14.40m. They determined the correct dimensions of the Shalagrama whereby it became integrated into the whole. It was then elevated to the realm of sacred geometry.
In this simple manner, via sacred geometry applied to an architectural form, one of the deepest truths of the Supermind is made manifest and its goals are furthered.

Some basics
The classic Shalagrama is constructed on the basis of three interrelated circles. This in itself allows us to appreciate why in India it is one of the most sacred forms of geometry, revealing as it does the triune nature of reality, which Sri Aurobindo describes as Transcendent, Cosmic, and Individual; or else Sat-Chit-Ananda. Reproduced below is the construction of the three circles with their respective radii.

From: The New Way, Vol. 2, Chapter 11, p. 425,
The Inner and Outer Harmony (© Aeon Books, 1981).

The inner chamber whose diameter is 24m is placed within the central circle (in a ‘perfect circle’, as the Mother mentioned). When the walls are extended upward they meet that circle at a height of 8.65m. This ‘perfect circle’ determines the proportions of the circumscribing Shalagrama. With the Mother’s chamber of the specified measurements at the centre, it will be 36m x 28.80m.
In the Auroville Matrimandir there is nothing touching those crucial points in space. There is no 24m and by consequence no 8.65m meeting that significant inner occult circle.

There is thus no harmony between inner and outer, irrespective of the fact that the architect seems to have maintained the correct measurements for the Shalagrama.
If the floor diameter is 23m, or thereabouts, as is presently the case in the Auroville Matrimandir, then the Shalagrama cannot have a total width of 36m as advertised. It must be less. A Shalagrama can be constructed on the basis of any radius; but whatever that is, the central circle will determine the proportions of the figure which are 5:4. Width and height will vary accordingly. While this is possible geometrically, the result in the Mother’s temple is that two important harmonies are lost, which we will describe in these Chronicles.

What was lost
The idols of a Hindu Temple must be fashioned according to set rules. These were laid down centuries ago based on the visions of sages. It is only when those exact proportions are reproduced that the idol is truly infused with a certain energy that is the cosmic essence of that particular deity. If, in the fashioning of the murthi, the sculptor introduces a variation without the inspired drishti, the connection is lost. The idol is then abandoned and certainly never installed in the temple. Thus, accurate proportions are crucial to the function of the idol.
In earlier times, before the decline, idols were not required for this function, only pure geometry was used. This was the Vedic Age several thousand years ago. The construction, known as vedi, was simply a particular geometric form made of bricks. These structures for the homam were often quite elaborate and the geometry involved was complex. The sacrifice could only be ‘pleasing’ to the Godhead (Agni, for example) if the geometry was executed with meticulous care. Then, and only then, was it elevated to the level of the sacred.
It is known that the Mother did not want photographs of herself and Sri Aurobindo in the temple, particularly in the Inner Chamber, ‘only the symbols’, - i.e., only the geometry. This injunction was the signal that she was resuscitating a very ancient Vedic tradition. It is similar to the difference between Carnatic and Hindustani music. The former is like the skeleton of the structure (music); the bare and pure essence; the latter is a step or more removed from the basic structure or pure essence. In certain periods of evolution the vedi is the way; in times when the Knowledge, pure and overt, has to be covered in veils in order to preserve it, then the skeleton/essence structure acquires outer sheaths – like Guha covered in veils.
Bearing the above in mind, we can analyse the geometry of the Mother’s Vision and reveal how it is sacred only when HER plan in its complete form is the blueprint. There may be geometry in the Shalagrama of the Auroville Matrimandir, but it has not been sanctified by the innermost essence which is provided by the 24m diameter of the Chamber, since that does not exist.
Within the ‘perfect circle’ of the Shalagrama (below), as the Mother specified, we have inserted the Inner Chamber. The element of crucial importance is the floor diameter of 24m. This is where the walls are set (‘…it is understood the 24m ends at the walls’) and then extend upward to join the occult circle at 8.65m. If not, if, as in the Auroville Matrimandir, the chamber measures 23m, nothing HOLDS. Those points in the temple’s inner spaces do not exist. Yes indeed, Ruud Lohman, everything ‘falls apart’.

For only when the geometry is faithful to this inner measure can the Shalagrama bear the correct proportions with a horizontal 36m and a vertical of 28.80m.

From The New Way, Vol. 2,
Chapter 11, p.433,
The Inner and Outer Harmony,
© Aeon Books, 1981

Added to the vertical are 30cm at the top and 30cm below to close the three Shalagrama circles and seal the form, indicated by the dotted lines in the diagram on page 3. We then have 29.40m, the sidereal ‘year’ of Saturn, ruler of India’s zodiacal sign Capricorn. In future Chronicles this will be explained in full when the chamber is given dynamism, like a carousel that is set in motion.
The true measure, the Divine Maya, moves from inner to outer, be this in the Rishis’ vision or in truly sacred temple architecture. But since the Matrimandir architects and builders refused to incorporate the correct room diameter, as the Mother so clearly specified, that divine Measure does not exist in what they have constructed. The harmony between inner and outer has been lost there forever.
Had the community respected the boundaries that Supermind determined, with specified tasks allotted to all the participants, the desired integration of inner and outer would have occurred. As things stand, though the correct measurements seem to have been adopted for the outer shell of the temple, they bear no relation to the inner chamber. It, in turn, cannot ‘support’ the outer since the ‘skeleton’ that the room must provide by its perfect measurements does not exist. The entire exercise has been a pathetic waste.
There is something else that has been lost of perhaps greater importance. It concerns the very nature of the geometric forms involved in both inner and outer structures. Regarding the latter, it is essential to note that true to the Divine Principle the Mother embodied, the Shalagrama is a feminine form, unlike the angular shapes, - i.e., pyramids, squares, rectangles, and so forth. This is fully in keeping with the Avataric mission of this 9^th Manifestation.

Indeed, with the number 9 itself – the ultimate Feminine. The round form reveals a key feature of the Age of Supermind that is upon us in that perception is spherical, not linear; above all, it is a vision from the core.

But that core, that ‘centre that holds’, does not exist in the Auroville Matrimandir. Therefore the entire exercise is laid waste and with it the crores of rupees already invested in the colossus. Surely if the members of the community sought in their Matrimandir a field for their yoga and discovery of human unity, something less costly could have been devised.

The significance of this loss, this deliberate unwillingness to allow the Mother that sacrosanct inner space has had grave consequences for Auroville. Under the circumstances, any pretensions of being ‘the cradle of the Superman’ have to be seen for what they are: illusions, even arrogant illusions. In the language of sacred geometry such as the Mother has employed, this is easily explained. There must be a harmony, spherical and non-speculative, precise and not approximate, between inner and outer because only then can the dynamics of Supermind be organised for deployment on this third planet from the Sun. Indeed, this is the message contained in our luminary’s very symbol: , the Point in the Circle.
This harmony has never been achieved or even suggested in any extant example of sacred architecture across the globe. It was to be India’s contribution to the 9^th Manifestation of the Supermind.

***

Matrimandir Action Committee
31 March 2003

[Part VI]

Part IV: Auroville Builders Trashed the Divine Measure

2012-02-14T14:22:00.002-08:00

[This is Part IV of The Chronicles of the Inner Chamber; readers of this series may first want to read the blog's 'Introduction' and the Matrimandir Action Committee's 'Manifesto', Part I - Preface, Part II or Part III before continuing.]

The Horizontal plane

‘…The outside…I did not see the outside,
I did not see it at all. I saw only the inside.’

The Matrimandir Talks, 3.1.1970

This is a clear statement. If a client were to make such a statement to his/her architect, with the explicit request for a room of 24m diameter, there would be no difficulty for the professional to implement it faithfully. Moreover, it would be incongruous for the architect to assume that his client included in this request the circumscribing walls with their then unknown thickness and would have desired the room of 24m to include those walls within the diameter of the room, especially since the client had already stated, ‘I have only seen the inside’.

With this brief introduction we can begin to explore the most disheartening part of the drama to have the Mother’s Vision reinstated as the plan for the Inner Chamber, which involved precisely the Chamber’s diameter that should have been self-evident. In no uncertain terms and if for no other reason than logic, the Mother wanted the 24 metres ‘to end at the walls’. But since on this measurement the fate of the Mother’s Vision hinged, as the pioneering example of the new sacred art, given the downright bad will that pervaded the Auroville atmosphere, this was the feature of the Vision that was most staunchly opposed. It was a determined opposition that flew in the face of all logic. Mental contortions were engaged in to make sure that this crucial 24m diameter would not come into being in the construction. Nothing was finalised at this level in 1974 when the problem involving this measurement surfaced. There was every possibility of correcting the error Udar Pinto made in his drawing for the Mother.

Yes, this error, along with several others, crept into the hastily prepared drawing by the Ashram engineer. But to safeguard the design and wishes of the Mother, Providence made sure that the Mother’s own words would correct this mistake in the subsequent recorded discussions. That should have sufficed.
It did not. Here is an example of those mental acrobatics to justify the architect and Matrimandir workers’ refusal to honour the Mother’s wishes:

‘Matrimandir – and here may lie the key – is not being built in the third dimension but in the fourth. There one has to enter, there one must understand, there one should measure, and then all the measurements are inverted. Everything flips inside out…

‘…How could one indicate symbolically, but still very concretely, this turning inside out of a ball? Well, for instance, by measuring from outside to outside. Now, who ever measures the inside of a hall from the outside of the walls? She! [the Mother] For those reversed measurements are in fact a precise symbol of the reversed, inside-out consciousness. They clearly indicate that here one enters a space which has been planned and – by means of our human clumsiness and mistakes – executed in the fourth dimension. Unwilling cooperators, we, of the great Plan, which is always certain to fall ultimately square on its feet…. So…that twenty-four meter measurement is correct, exact, most precise. Only – your tape measure must be able to span the fourth dimension.’

These are excerpts from a book entitled, ‘A House for the Third Millennium’, by Ruud Lohman, a Roman Catholic priest who established himself at the site of the construction from the day of the Matrimandir’s inauguration in 1971 and never left until his death in the 1980s. We would not bother reproducing this gibberish if it were not for the fact that Lohman was a key influential figure in everything that transpired regarding the measurements and implementation of the Mother’s plan. He opposed any idea of measurements and ‘astrology’ as having any significance other than what his own limited consciousness could grasp; and was, from the beginning a staunch opponent of the tradition in these matters.
Coming from the West, and conditioned heavily by his Catholic upbringing and priesthood, it is not surprising that he should have adopted the attitude that he did. But what is extraordinary is that such people were able to rule the day and convince every Indian involved in those early moments of the Chamber’s life, that his vision, his conclusions (see above specimen) were right. This was surely the ‘sense’ the Mother intended of the outside measurement, a flip-flop consciousness! With this sort of flippant attitude, is it any wonder that the crystal in the Auroville Matrimandir reflects the surroundings upside-down! For isn’t that topsy-turvy display just what Lohman would need to justify his theory of inside-outside/upside-down? Isn’t it the exact symbol of this sort of twaddle? Indeed, everything is ‘perfect’ in the Auroville Matrimandir.
The disheartening part was that no one listened to the Mother herself. When she asked for precision and specific measurements, was she talking gibberish? And what would the Lohmans of this world say when confronted with the sacred Mahamaya that states, ‘…If the measurement of the temple is in every way perfect, there is perfection in the universe as well’ (XXII, 92.)?

We know what Ruud Lohman thought of such matters and we can quote the same text when he describes his friend William’s conflict, after he ‘fell into the hands of an astrologer, also living in the Ashram’ (ibid):

‘…After the visions of the Mater Divina [the Mother] and the niggling humana, a third element entered: the cosmos, the planets, the interpretations of the great rhythms of creation. And what did the inspirations say? It was wrong with the Matrimandir, wrong, wrong, wrong! Stop, stop! The builders, according to the stars, did not follow the measurements given by the Mother, and all the calculations couldn’t stand up any more. Or rather, the calculations stood, but Matrimandir didn’t. One ‘mistake’ especially was stressed a lot: the twenty-four meters from wall to wall. On the original drawing, the Mother had drawn just one little line for the thickness of the wall. The execution was left to the engineers, and when the calculations for the Matrimandir were fed into a computer in Madras in 1970, the walls became forty centimetres thick, and the twenty-four meters ran from the outside of the wall to the outside of the opposite wall. So the Chamber is twenty-four minus the twice-forty centimetres of the walls.

‘Well, that was for the astrologer the reason for all the crises, wars, disasters of the world today, for when one cosmic clock is off it throws everything else off, too. And she fulminated and wrote books and pamphlets and tried desperately to stop the work, but it went on and the Room is there, twenty-four meters minus the thickness of the walls.’ (Ibid.)

It is at this point in his story that Lohman introduces his theories of the fourth dimension and the Mother’s real intention which the Matrimandir architect and builders faithfully carried out: Inside is outside and outside in when you are ‘measuring in the fourth dimension’. Therefore, everything is all right with the Chamber. ‘The great Plan’, will always ‘fall ultimately square on its feet’, regardless of any mistakes Auroville might make.
          But the Mother’s Vision is not to be trampled upon so lightly and so amateurishly. There are indeed ‘cosmic laws’ involved, which these Chronicles will establish. And it is a fact that every attempt was made to stop the construction before it reached the point of no return so that this critical diameter measurement would be incorporated, just as the Mother wanted. But the Lohmans of this world have proven to have the stronger voice, even in India, a civilisation that should know better.
          But we do not have to retreat to the 1970s to discover the consciousness that rules Auroville. We have the words of a prominent Auroville researcher, Paulette, in her recent document to MAC, when it was pointed out that the Mother was then nearing 92 and her eyesight was poor: ‘…Who do you think the Mother is? Handing over wrong plans with wrong measures because her eyes could not detect the mistakes, as you pretend?’
          Again, the implication is that Auroville is always right: if the Mother gave the builders a plan with ‘mistakes’, that too was right and it was correct for them to incorporate those mistakes, because, as we had been told then, ‘she blessed that plan’ so it must be right, poor eyesight not withstanding.
          But there were other mistakes in Udar Pinto’s drawing. Yet these were all corrected. No such argument was proffered to justify guarding them zealously, unlike the incorrect floor diameter.

       Could it be that they were accepted and corrected without bringing in the Mother’s higher consciousness beyond physical eyes, or her fourth dimension vision where inside is outside, simply because they were not crucial to the fate of her Vision?
          They were items that could always be added at a later date (or subtracted). One such mistake was that Pinto drew only eleven columns instead of the specified twelve. The unbiased reader must consider this: If that drawing’s 24m outside wall measurement was sacrosanct, though it was so obviously a mistake, why have the twelve columns been installed and not eleven, as Udar’s plan indicates (not to speak of the 15-step ascending entrance)? And why has Sri Aurobindo’s old symbol not been used for the ‘stand’, again as erroneously given in Pinto’s drawing? If these errors were all corrected without any argument, naturally we must draw the conclusion that, given the fact that the diameter is crucial in sacred geometry, and insofar as the builders chose the Troika formula of exaltation of the builders’ consciousness over any considerations of sacred architecture, it was a deliberate refusal, premeditated, obstinate. The intent was to stamp out any higher content from the Chamber.
          Indeed, this was our experience at the time. And it was this refusal to grant the Mother just this one meter more of ‘inner space’ that for all times the Auroville Matrimandir has been eliminated from the annals of great sacred art.
          Is this what everyone wanted? Why should any of us have accepted, without protest, that Auroville somehow had and has an unassailable sanction from the Divine to carry out such acts of desecration? Has anyone seriously, deeply pondered over what this attitude has engendered? Is it surprising then that a cover-up has been engaged in since then? Because how is history going to view this aberration? When future seekers read the Mother’s own words on the 24-meter diameter, how can the Auroville justifications be taken for anything other than what they were: a determination to remove her Vision from the annals of the great achievements in the field of sacred geometry?
          Here is just one clear explanation from the Mother to Satprem and Paolo on the question of the 24m diameter. Judge for yourselves, bearing in mind that when these transcripts were circulated the floor diameter had not been set in place; and in the words of the executing architect himself, ‘It would take just ten minutes [at the drawing board] to change the diameter.’

17 January 1970

There is also the question of measurement. According to the plan you have given 24 metres – 12 metres from each side of the globe. But can we keep a little extra distance on each side for the passage? The plan shows 24 metres in diameter and 15.20m for the height.

The Mother: Ah?

He asks if the proportion can change. To keep 24m for the base of the carpet, but with the possibility, for example, of keeping 2 or 3 metres on each side for free movement.

Then where would the walls come?

They would be there [the disciple points to the passage in Paolo’s drawing].

It is the wall which must be at 24 metres.

He says that if there are to be these passages then 24 metres would be a little short.

The disciple insists several times on a ‘passage’ beyond the 24 metre diameter (‘…24 metres for the total width or for the carpet?’), but the Mother stresses the inner measurement, inside wall to inside wall.

…There would even be this possibility – to have a space between the outermost wall [of the entire temple] and the inner wall. To make a space. That is to be seen.

That means in addition to the 24 metres.

Yes, it is understood. The 24 metres end at the walls.

And further,

…So a passage outside.

The passage outside.

This makes it abundantly clear that nothing was to interfere with the diameter measurement of the Chamber. There was no doubt at all what needed to be done since Udar had made a mistake in his hastily drawn plan but which was clarified by the Mother’s explicit instructions. Like the other mistakes this one too had to be corrected. That it was not, that this became the rallying point for opposition to sacred geometry and ‘astrology’ tells a tale of its own. By refusing to grant the Mother this simple one metre of space, the Auroville Matrimandir cannot lay any claim to be ‘the Mother’s original’, as has been the case over the years, a false position that is being exposed by these Chronicles. It cannot hold itself as the centre of the new Age where the ancient traditions would find their place and serve as the foundation for renewal and renaissance. That renewal, that reestablishment of the Dharma has to rely on the printed word alone now. Auroville forfeited its claim. But let us see how it continues to fool the public; and we must question why it does so? If centimetres have no meaning, then why has the room’s diameter been conveyed as 24 metres in all Auroville publications?
Fund-raising pamphlets and cards have been issued where the impression is given that all the measurements are ‘faithful to the original’ (see Chronicle 3 and the executing architect’s statement). In this material a drawing of the temple is presented with measurements listed alongside, in such a way that the truth is obscured. Not only has the room’s true diameter been left undefined, but the entrances through the walls as well. From this drawing we would have to assume that the visitor simply MATERIALISES in the room, since no entrance has been indicated connected to the spiralling ramps.

For if by chance someone had heard of the controversy regarding the chamber’s diameter and entrance from below, all concerns would be allayed by this and similar official publications. Is this not deliberate obfuscation?

The question to be asked is why, if ‘astrology’ and ‘measurements’ have been purposely subtracted from the Mother’s Vision, does Auroville continue to hide the truth? We know the answer. The public now has the right to know.

What was lost
There are two fundamental measurements in architecture of the sacred, the vertical and the horizontal. In the Mother’s design these are accurately provided and together with the entrance by 15 steps from below, the horizontal (room diameter) is essential. These were the two elements of the Mother’s original that had already been eliminated when Piero Cicionesi, the executing architect, made his false statements to the German Publisher, Fischer Verlag, in 1977-8.
The Mother’s original Vision is like a timepiece. She has herself revealed this connection explicitly in the Matrimandir Talks (31.12.1969 – 17.1.1970). The Chamber provides all the measurements of our day and month and year. The Mother not only stated that the 12 facets of the room were the twelve months of the year; she also incorporated the day of 24 hours. With this simple specification the great secret of the Vision was revealed, that the Mother’s Vision provides humanity with the new Divine Maya, or the Golden Rod of western tradition. It is the measure of time in space. The 24m diameter holds the key.
Without this accurate measurement the whole structure ‘falls apart’. We will demonstrate this by way of diagrams in future Chronicles. There may be cement and steel which are apparently indestructible. But these are perishable materials. They are not the substance of immortality. It is only Time that can render imperishable the perishable when it is an ally in the process of transformation, for it is the builder of Form.

          The talk of the Auroville Matrimandir being the seat of a ‘yoga of the cells’ is therefore to be seriously questioned. When Time and its indispensable precision are rubbished and the Divine Measure that utilises the new precision is trashed, what transformation of matter are we talking about? Time is the building mortar, the true cementing factor. Hence its secrets are coveted by all seekers in the quest for immortality. Without the allegiance of Time, all such quests are illusions. To deny measure is to deny time is to deny form. How then are we to transform matter? Have we any right to claim that we are doing so when we do not accept the terms matter imposes?
          Mayavada has permeated the yogic consciousness of India for far too long. Everything to do with material, cosmic manifestation is considered an illusion. This is what the spiritual authorities tell us. Indeed, this lies behind the rejection of measure and the precision the Mother demanded. The ‘new precision’ involves Time in the transformation as an ally and not a destroyer. Without this allegiance there can be no ‘yoga of the cells and matter’. The Mother’s original plan gave us this precious knowledge. It exists for those who SEE. It does not exist in the Auroville Matrimandir, in spite of the mental acrobatics of the non-believers (‘…One is not going to say it. To begin with, they would not believe me…’).
          For India the loss of the Vision has done incalculable damage. This will be explained in detail in future Chronicles. It is sufficient to state for the moment that the emphasis by the Mother on time and measure was a calculated divine strategy insofar as India lost the Divine Measure a number of centuries ago when the sidereal (Nirayana) zodiac was adopted in lieu of the Vedic tropical (Sayana) zodiac. It is only with the tropical zodiac that the Makar Sankranti, the shortest day of the year and entry into Capricorn, has any relevance both within India and connected to the rest of the world. This is the true VEDIC astrology, unlike what goes by that name today.
          The reasons for this aberration are intimately connected to Sri Aurobindo’s mission and explain his statement that Kalki comes ‘to correct the error of the Buddha’. The Mother’s Vision, with its ‘new precision’ involving time and measure, was a crucial piece in the correction process. Her Vision reinstates the tropical zodiac in all its details and provides India with the Divine Measure once again, - and with it the keys to her destiny and place within the new Supramental dispensation. There is no way in which India can fulfil that high destiny without this Divine Measure. Through these Chronicles, we shall prove the point.
          This is what ‘astrology’ says – and therefore every possible attempt was made to save her Vision in spite of the recalcitrant ignorance we encountered at every step of the way.
          And yet there is an irony. For the most successful ‘mental acrobat’ of them all in Auroville was right on the mark when he connected the Chamber to the fourth dimension. But he ended by destroying his own correct perception!
          In future Chronicles we will present diagrams that will prove how indispensable the 24m diameter was to the sacred function of the Inner Chamber. We will also provide further proof that a cover-up has been in progress to make the public believe that ‘all is as it should be’, everything is ‘all right’ with the Matrimandir. For Ruud Lohman has said so, may his soul rest in peace. Amen.

Matrimandir Action Committee
15 March 2003

[Part V]

Part III: What the Builders of the Auroville Matrimandir Did Not Understand

2012-01-28T21:52:00.001-08:00

[This is Part III of The Chronicles of the Inner Chamber; readers of this series may first want to read the blog's 'Introduction' and the Matrimandir Action Committee's 'Manifesto', Part I - Preface, or Part II before continuing.]

Entering the Chamber

In the January 1992 issue of Auroville Today, there is an interview featured prominently with the executing architect/engineer of the Auroville Matrimandir, Piero Cicionesi. It is an English translation of the original Italian published in the Ashram journal, Domani. PC makes the following statement:

‘When the Mother spoke to us about the project, she told us that the important thing was that the symbols and the sphere with the sun ray upon it should be in their right place…therefore, the immense effort of architects and engineers and workers to create the structure has been nothing but a preparation for the realisation of the room according to Mother’s vision. The existing structure has been made with the maximum respect for Mother’s vision, as transcribed by Udar, an Ashram engineer. His drawing still exists and it contains the measurements of the Chamber. The room today is as faithful to the original design as it can possibly be. Only one thing couldn’t be respected: the under-ground entrance with direct access to the room at ground level. In the final project, this particular aspect has been lost due to the room being 15 metres above ground level in the middle of the sphere….’

This sounds reasonable and honest. But let us analyse carefully this statement and contrast it with other statements, as well as with facts on the ground.

In so doing, it will become clear that from the very beginning there was no real intention of following the Mother’s directives as given during the 18 days of her discussions with Satprem and Paolo. For it is to those discussions that PC refers, since there is no other record where the Mother makes mention of the sphere, the ray playing upon it, accurate measurements, and so forth. Before proceeding, note that in this same issue of Auroville Today, in the ‘Chronology of Mother’s Construction’, page 3, the dates go from 31.12.1969 (before the Mother had her Vision) to March 1970 with the presentation of Roger’s designs. Those precious, historical 18 days, when the Mother explained and defended her Vision and handed Satprem and Paolo her plan, are eliminated. They just do not exist for Auroville and its followers.
It would therefore appear from this interview that the executing architect made every possible effort to create the Chamber of the Mother’s original vision, using Udar Pinto’s drawing as his guide.

In this Chronicle, we will take up just one aspect of PC’s statement for analysis to demonstrate that, 1) there was never any intention of following her directives with accuracy, professionalism and sincerity, and 2) there has been a deliberate campaign to convince the public – and perhaps the community of Aurovilleans themselves - that it was all ‘according to the Mother’s original plan’.
Consider the statement in a Publisher’s Note of the German translation of The Gnostic Circle (Fischer Verlag, 1977, first edition 18,000 copies), by the same person. In The Gnostic Circle the author’s text on page 256 reads:

(Translated from the German): ‘It must be mentioned here that it is getting clearer and clearer that the measurements and the plan given by the Mother are not being followed accurately in the construction. All the arrangements and dimensions we speak of here are, however, taken from the original plan the Mother had drawn up by an Ashram engineer, and her recorded talks about her vision-experience of the Temple which already exists on the subtle plane and is influencing ours.’

Below is the Publisher’s Note by the editor in charge of the edition for Fischer Verlag, Ms Crystal Falk, with a statement from the architect regarding this text:

(Translated from the German) ‘During the last supervision of the manuscript before printing on 14.6.1977, the master builders of Matrimandir who are presently in Europe to get the marble for the Inner Chamber, have categorically stated that after some technical discussions the construction is now going to be done exactly according to the measurements and instructions of the original plan which the Mother had drawn up by the above-mentioned Ashram engineer [Udar Pinto]. For some time this appeared uncertain because of structural difficulties in building the outer supporting construction of Matrimandir, which required a spherical shape.’

When the book was released and this outrageous falsehood was discovered as a ‘Publisher’s Note’, without the author’s knowledge or consent, the publisher Fischer Verlag then agreed to make amends for the liberty taken by the person in charge, Crystal Falk, and print a corrigendum to be included in each copy.

Receiving this news, the executing architect immediately sent the following letter to the Publisher. It is reproduced here in order to show the manner in which the Auroville letterhead and symbol are abused, sullied. For those who do not know German, the translation follows:

(8.4.1978) ‘It has come to my attention that the additional correcting Editor’s Note (page 256) referring to the Matrimandir construction in Auroville, is to be removed by Fischer Verlag. As the executing architect of the Matrimandir, I wish to repeat that said note absolutely conforms to truth and therefore has to remain in the book. In case Fischer Verlag really removes the Note, I should be obliged and forced to institute legal proceedings against the Verlag.’ (Signed) Piero Cicionesi

This transpired in the fall of 1977 and spring of 1978. But already by 1975-76, two years earlier, the construction had reached the point of no return. Two items in particular were fixed for all time and could no longer be changed, the two that the executing architect knew were in the original plan and would never find their way into the Chamber he was constructing in Auroville, even as he issued this statement. One was, of course, the entrance by way of a 15-step stairway, emerging into the room through an opening in the floor.

This was given with great precision in the Mother’s original plan and further clarified in the 18-day discussions, when the disciple and the Italian architect, Paolo Tomasi, simply refused to take the Mother seriously about her desired entryway.

What is significant to note is that at the very time the executing architect was issuing his statement to the Verlag while in Europe, his wife and fellow architect, Gloria, together with Matrimandir Workers, circulated an Open Letter in which they enumerate ALL THE CHANGES THAT WERE MADE compared to the Mother’s original! On the one hand he claims that NO CHANGES WERE MADE and the original is being followed in every detail since the ‘structural difficulties’ had been solved, while his wife and co-workers reveal just the contrary in their Open Letter. Which statement is true? We shall proceed to find out.

PC knew at the time of issuing his threat of legal action to the Publisher, on Auroville stationary, that his statement was false. And fifteen years down the line (1992), he admits what he knowingly lied about then, - that the entry to the Chamber of the Mother’s original Vision could not be executed because of ‘structural difficulties’ – those very same ‘difficulties’ that had been ‘resolved’, according to his statement in the German The Gnostic Circle.
This is an example of the deliberate efforts made over the years to hide the truth, to convince the public that it is indeed the Mother’s Vision that stands in Auroville. These Chronicles, one after another, will finally expose the lies.

What was lost

Let us now return to the Mother’s Vision and try to appreciate why she designed the entry in the manner she did and what the Knowledge states to confirm the perfection of her Seeing.

          Positioning of the entry into a temple, or any important edifice, is held to be extremely important in India, one of the very few countries in the world where sacred architecture is still practised, as it was throughout the ancient world. This passageway sets the tone for the entire experience of the aspirant thereafter. On this basis the rest of the Harmony unfolds. Therefore, if the first experience and the impact it produces is flawed, it can safely be said that the rest of the experience will be affected significantly.
          In a remarkable manner, the Mother captured almost the entire store of Vedic wisdom just by the 15-step stairway ascending into the Chamber from below – a rise into the room. She specified in her original plan that this passageway was to be positioned south, at a precise location in the floor. None of this was left to chance; all details were covered. There was no room for guessing or improvisation.
          Let us retract a bit and view this passageway within the entire structure. The Mother located the entrance into the temple itself according to the position of the rising Sun on April 4^th. This would correspond to approximately the 14^th degree of the Sun’s apparent motion along the ecliptic, beginning at 0 degree Aries on the March Equinox. This indicates that the entire structure has an orientation based on the four Cardinal Points. Already we note a correspondence with Vedic culture in no uncertain terms.

This section of the ecliptic, the December Solstice and the shortest day of the year, is called Uttarayana in India, or the northernmost gateway. It is entrance into the North Cardinal Pole of the ecliptic and is held as the most sacred of all to this day. The entire nation continues to pay homage to this yearly passage on Makar Sankranti (Pongal, in Tamil Nadu), though the timing is woefully incorrect (by 23 days), and most do not understand its profound meaning and supporting knowledge. We find it revered even in the ancient Rig Veda where that ‘tenth month’ (Makar/Capricorn) is the period of victory of the Aryan Warrior.
          In all ancient cultures the December Solstice was known as the Festival of Light, because from that shortest day of the year the light begins to increase. Insofar as the focus of the Chamber is a descending solar ray, this solar experience of increase and effulgence is emphasised throughout the structure.
          The Mother honoured the ancient Vedic tradition in this way, specifically creating the entrance in such a manner that the aspirant would see the descending Ray throughout his/her rise into the Chamber, on the backdrop of this sacred most Uttarayana. For in the Mother’s words, ‘Each facet [of the 12 walls] represents a month of the year.’ (The Matrimandir Talks)
          This is the tone set for the Chamber that was to resonate throughout the being of the aspirant; indeed, throughout the world like expanding ripples in the sea of the Earth-consciousness. The North Pole, or the tenth month/facet of the Chamber, encapsulates the entire destiny of India. It is the point on the ecliptic of the soul of the Earth, which is geographically located in India. This is the ‘note’ sounded throughout the entire Chamber, according to the Mother’s Vision, and confirmed in each aspect of the room.
          Because of this centre/soul connection, when the precision the Mother sought is honoured, then via the traditional Laws of Correspondence and Equivalence associated with Vedic Knowledge, everything she established in her plan is extended beyond the confines of not only Auroville and India but to the whole world. Without the required ‘precision’ no such connections are made. Above all, and this is what the builders of the Auroville Matrimandir do not understand, a revelation of this highest order depends for its success on a precision that is implemented on the basis of wholeness, a discernible thread weaving throughout the plan and design. In the original, this consistency of knowledge exists. It does not exist in the Auroville Matrimandir. The first mistake was having changed the entrance into the Chamber. It did indeed set the tone for all the changes that followed, together with all the attempts to make the Chamber appear as ‘faithful to the original’, when in fact this was never possible.
          Apart from the knowledge content captured in the 15-step rise into the Chamber, there is the visual impact to consider, as well as the attitude engendered in the aspirant through this approachway. It is an act of reverence to enter the Chamber beneath the Core (pedestal and globe/ray) rather than on the same level and towering above. Insofar as the Ray is visible during the entire ascent into the room, (‘… On voyait le rayon…’), the aspirant has his vision squarely on the descending shaft of Light, from top to bottom where it meets the globe and fills it with an effulgent luminosity.

What was ‘gained’

In the Auroville Matrimandir the experience is entirely different. There are two entrances in what appears to be through the east and west walls. This indicates the opposite to the soul connection of her original plan and its single south entry from below.
          According to the Knowledge, it is only the north month/facet that affords an entry to the soul point, for both the aspirant and the world. All men and women of wisdom know this. Therefore it is held as the most auspicious time of the year, the most sacred of all the months. It is this month (facet) that Krishna extolled in the Bhagavad Gita as ‘the best of all’. It is this day, the December Solstice, that Bhisma chose for his passing, as the Mahabharat informs us; indeed, as the very day the Epic begins. Throughout the culture, throughout the Scriptures this period is elevated above all others. And this is what the Mother captured in her design. She did not wish to eliminate that tradition but rather to enhance it, to elevate it to greater heights.
          Because those who received this treasure lacked this Knowledge, for all times it must stand that what has been constructed IN THE MOTHER’S NAME, lacks this profound sense. The revised model enhances, rather, the ego. This is because the UNITARY poise is lost by the dual entry. What is enforced is the BINARY CREATION; that is, a creation orbiting a void at the centre. A creation strung up on the cross of atavism and nailed to the sex centre.
          Indeed, this is the definition of the human ego: a consciousness in orbit of a void. The soul is lacking as a unitary support through which the individual remains always in contact with the Source of Fullness and not emptiness. Indeed, we have that very symbolism reproduced in the AMM where the crystal is transparent, empty and dark. Contrast this with the luminous globe of the Mother’s Vision.

In this manner it is shown how unless ALL items of the Vision are incorporated, beginning with the south floor entrance rising into the Chamber, the remaining elements will conform to that deviation. And so it has been, as we will note through these Chronicles, item after item. The point is, we cannot tolerate that these deviations, which lack any higher knowledge content, continue to be called ‘The Mother’s Vision’. They must be acknowledged for what they are: an architect’s improvisations, which he is determined to hide from the public. He must be asked why.

(See the following diagrams, taken from The New Way, Volume 2, pp. 196 & 198,
Aeon Books, 1981).

Matrimandir Action Committee
1.3.2003

[Part IV]

Part II: The Disfigurement of the Mother's Temple Vision

2012-01-21T22:59:00.001-08:00

[This is Part II - the 'Introduction' of The Chronicles of the Inner Chamber; readers of this series may first want to read the blog's 'Introduction' and the Matrimandir Action Committee's 'Manifesto', or Part I - Preface, before continuing.]

The Mother was the executive power of the Supreme Lord. She was his own ‘executing architect’. The ancient Veda describe this magnificent power/principle as the Divine Maya. It is she who fashions material creation in the image of the Lord. She is the executor of his Will.
Measure is the keyword, the very root of the word maya. It is, to be sure, a divine Maya, not human. The human maya is the ‘illusion’ of Advaita, a concept that has thoroughly conquered the yogic mind of India.
Sri Aurobindo came to Earth to change that, to ‘correct the error of the Buddha’, as he wrote. The Mother was his formidable tool. Her most potent weapon was the Divine Maya which she brought to the Earth. And that is the essence of her original plan.
Very few have grasped the Mother’s greatness in its fullest dimensions. Her original plan of the Inner Chamber reveals that greatness in all its multiple and singularly unique facets. Above all, it reveals her as the incarnation of the Vedic Divine Maya, the executor of the Transcendent’s Will.
Precision was the Mother’s call; an engineer not an architect because she demanded this precision. Why was precision so important? It was so that the Divine Measure she brought to Earth in early January of 1970, in an extraordinary yogic feat, could be transposed into our world of time and space and measure. In this act her purpose for incarnating was encapsulated; in that plan we have the condensation of everything that the Mother was – what she came down with and what she grew into once she was born on Earth. The entire trajectory of her yoga is captured first in her own symbol, which forms the overall basis of the Chamber’s plan, and then all the other elements of the design as given by her. We will cover them all, one by one, in these Chronicles.
The Mother’s Vision and its accompanying geometric plan is her legacy to humanity in that it reveals exactly what she accomplished up to that point in time; and also the exact stage of the Supramental Manifestation in January 1970. Her final gift to us was given during those eighteen days when she explained and defended her Vision before the non-believers (…’One is not going to say it. To begin with, they would not believe me’…). Nothing more would be needed.
From that date, 17.1.1970, her consciousness was intensely occupied in the subtle planes where she consolidated the knowledge content of the temple so that in its complete form it too would be fixed for all times. The very first demonstration of her action across time and space was in March, barely two months later. It took the form of inspiration for a symbolic story in which the Chamber itself was described in Chapter Ten of the book. This was done without any contact between the Mother and the writer who was many thousands of kilometres away. Apart from its architectural form, in the same chapter the function of the Inner Chamber was described and, most importantly, its connection with Time. This was the very first demonstration of the Mother’s action as the Supramental Shakti in the subtle planes ‘to sort out the people’. It transpired immediately after rejection of her Vision. But there was much more to follow.
To execute this in our world of material forms a new precision was required. The bridge between subtle and physical could only be constructed on the basis of these laws of a New Precision. From Sri Aurobindo’s A God’s Labour, the magnitude of her accomplishment is described…

…The gulf twixt the depths and the heights is bridged
And the golden waters pour
Down the sapphire mountain rainbow-ridged
And glimmer from shore to shore.

Heaven’s fire is lit in the breast of the earth
And the undying suns here burn
Through a wonder cleft in the bounds of birth
The incarnate spirits yearn

Like flames to the kingdoms of Truth and Bliss:
Down a gold-red stair-way wend
The radiant children of Paradise
Clarioning darkness’s end…

We entered at the stage of disfigurement in 1974. The Vision was already gone. But the history of its disfigurement is as fascinating as the revelation of the Divine Maya itself. To appreciate what follows, it is necessary to understand that it was fundamental to preserve a record of the original Vision and plan.

Those eighteen days of recorded discussions together with the original plan preserve what needs to be known to unravel the mystery; and also the ‘measure’ of all things. We will see how meticulously this works.
The Mother’s Vision is reality, not what stands in the Auroville Matrimandir. True, the latter is ‘reality’ as we know it today. It is the misaligned human being with no luminous perfectly poised core – the human creature who, try as he might, can only spawn reproductions of his own misaligned binary condition in orbit of the ego’s emptiness.
On the other hand, the Mother’s Vision described the true reality UP THERE, but in the process of manifestation, of descent. The greatness of the Mother was not the Vision itself but the subsequent ACT OF MEASURING. By this act she brought the Divine Maya into our world of time and space and imprinted it indelibly in the Earth-consciousness. It can now never be erased. She did this by way of a precision involving the measures of our contemporary world: metres and centimetres, backed up by a vast body of knowledge, the accumulation of thousands of years of inspired drishti by the ancient Rishis. Without that act of measuring there is no descent – no link is made, no imprinting. Therefore the Power preserved the record of those blessed eighteen days during which time the Mother imprinted her Vision on the Earth.
Satprem showed no interest and supported Paolo in full. Paolo was interested in his own vision and nothing more. That was seconded by Satprem to the Mother herself in spite of the fact that she was handing them this greatest of rahasyas, this greatest of divine mysteries. To make his preference clear, in the midst of her laborious defence of her Vision, Satprem told her,

           ‘But when Paolo showed me his plan I had the impression that it was something very
            beautiful…I will tell you what I felt. I felt: I am witnessing the birth of Auroville.’
            The Mother’s reply was quick and blunt, ‘No, it is not true.’
            Again he insists, ‘I mean the material birth.’
           The Mother once more replies, ‘Yes, yes, I understand, but it is not true.’
                                             (Source: L’Agenda de Mère, Vol. 11, L’Institut de Recherches Évolutives, Paris, 1981)

It defies human understanding how the Mother’s Vision could have been so totally rejected in favour of a simple architect’s ‘mental ideas’. Added to this is its perverse rejection by the whole community later. The answer to this baffling development lies in the nature of the Supermind and its revolutionary significance for ‘the birth of a new world’, as the Mother announced in 1957. These Chronicles will help to clarify the mystery.
Finally, having completed the task of drawing that Vision into the Earth plane through the act of measuring and experiencing its rejection, the Mother handed it over to ‘the Consciousness’ to ‘sort out the people’ – those who would vibrate to her vision, and those who would vibrate to Satprem’s and Paolo’s and their executing engineer, Piero Cicionesi. She then began to ‘sort out the people’ by a meticulous action in the subtle planes utilising that very same ‘new precision’.
The collective choice in favour of this Troika (Satprem/Paolo/Piero) was made in 1974.

It is expressed succinctly in Satprem’s own words which have been a mantra for the builders, particularly at times when they were faced with opposition to their designs, times like now when again they throw the same words at us. He wrote, ‘In the vision from above there are no centimetres; there is only an inner perfection that fits itself spontaneously into certain measures.’ By this sophistry he has effectively eliminated the Mother as the Divine Executor of the Supreme’s Will, as the Divine Maya. And further, ‘It is this inner perfection of the builders of Matrimandir that should be the exterior perfection of the temple [emphasis ours]. Not, then, a question of discussing centimetres or columns, but of working towards that unity of our consciousness. All the waverings between the Mother’s vision and the workers’ translation gives the exact measure of the ego’s interference.’
Perhaps when he wrote these words Satprem did not realise just how true they were and their implications. For if we do indeed wish to discover ‘the exact measure of the ego’s interference’, it is only possible by holding that ‘translation’ up to the Mother’s Vision. That, and that alone, is the Divine Measure. Therefore, in these Chronicles we will analyse point by point what stands in the Auroville Matrimandir, measuring it up to the Divine Measure of the Mother’s plan. We will prove the truth of Satprem’s prophetic statement because the Divine Measure will give us the exact measure of the human ego that has been rendered in cement and steel in the Auroville Matrimandir. This imperfect form of the Measure of Man now serves as the focal point for aspiration of all the residents of Auroville, the Ashram, and the devotees of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo throughout the world, by their own conscious choice.
But is this how Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s work is to end, with the human ego as the symbol, as the model to emulate? Or did the Mother have another ‘agenda’?
Succinctly, we have a monument to human imperfection in place of the Mother’s Vision of Perfection. The choice for this was made in the mid 1970s. The present exercise aims at exposing this fact, while reinstating the Mother’s Vision at the heart of her work. The two versions have to be clearly defined now. The time has come.

Matrimandir Action Committee
February 21, 2003

[Part III]

Part I: The Flawed Auroville Matrimandir

2012-01-17T17:55:00.000-08:00

**[This is the Preface and Part I of The Chronicles of the Inner Chamber; readers of this series may first want to read the blog's 'Introduction' and the Matrimandir Action Committee's 'Manifesto']**

Those readers of Matrimandir Action Committee communications who live in India or who have had contact with Indian culture are very much aware of the fact that, to quote the Mahamaya, ‘…If the measurement of the temple is in every way perfect, there is perfection in the universe as well.’(XXII, 92.) It is unthinkable in India to establish a noble endeavour around a Symbol that is imperfect, flawed; or else distorted purposely or out of ignorance by impositions of the human ego. For these reasons all sacred art, sculpture and architecture were anonymously executed to lessen the prominence of the ego. In the place of honour there is, traditionally, the highest symbol of perfection, fashioned with meticulous care particularly in what concerns proportions and measurements. To stray from those ancient injunctions is unthinkable.

Simply put, this perfect form then generates an atmosphere that UPLIFTS, or allows for an uplifting of the surrounding environment. The perfect form central to a town or any cherished endeavour in India is the MODEL TO EMULATE, to GROW INTO.

In the Auroville Matrimandir we have just the contrary. We have a flawed, imperfect and deceptive form with no redeeming features. This is the focus not only of that community’s life but it has imposed itself and become the focus of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram as well, and has spread throughout the world via the numerous ‘centres’ connected to these establishments that have sprung up everywhere. All are part of a web woven from this central symbol-form. Most caught in this web are Indians. The confusion is so great that they reject their own millennia-old tradition in favour of the Auroville theory that the Matrimandir ‘cannot be perfect because we are not perfect’. The flaws and distortions, if indeed they are there, are justified on the basis of a sanction established in 1974 for the community by Satprem on various occasions but particularly in his letter to ‘D’, dated 12 September 1974. We will quote from this letter further on because it entered MAC archives on 5. 2. 2003, sent to us by Paulette in defence of the Auroville Matrimandir.

There are a number of points that could be taken up for discussion in Satprem’s letter. MAC has officially replied to Paulette. If readers do not have that document in hand, it is available on our website www.matacom.com or else we may be contacted at matacom@msn.com. Here we must only add that there can be no sanction from any quarter for what Satprem’s letter advocates. Logic alone is sufficient to expose the off-centred poise in these exhortations.

Lamentably, this was the ‘vision’ that Auroville chose in 1974, in contrast to what we offered: the Divine Measure that the Mother herself handed to those very people who would go on to lead the community, but after having first dismantled her Vision.

That was the year of a great turning point or crossroads of destiny. We had made the perfection of the Mother’s Vision known to the architects and to all those who took an interest in the temple in the spring and summer of 1974, pleading with them to execute that Vision (nothing had been built yet) because it was PERFECTION. Our files are replete with this documentation.

The Matrimandir Talks had not been released by Satprem yet; that was to happen in 1975 after The Gnostic Circle was sent to press, the first publication in which this perfection was revealed, but without yet having the Mother’s own words on the significance of her Vision as recorded in those taped discussions. The executing architect released the Mother’s original plan to a select few in May of 1974, while The Gnostic Circle was in progress, on which basis the Matrimandir section of the book was written and published. Finally, when in the midst of the Urn controversy, he circulated the released transcripts sometime in late 1974-1975 (incomplete and strategically edited, we must add); they confirmed everything written in The Gnostic Circle regarding that Vision.

This is the point. The Mother’s words were required only for the purpose of establishing beyond question what that perfect form is since errors had entered the plan drawn up by Udar, the Ashram engineer. A person of knowledge sees just that plan and knows what it is, its perfection, its purpose, and the laws it embodies and utilises to fulfil a superior function. This is the way Knowledge has been preserved in India for thousands of years; not only in India but throughout the ancient world. Even the sacred mantras are treated in the same way, with that same reverence for perfection in every detail; indeed, in deference to Mahasaraswati, the reigning Goddess of our Age. The disciple is trained to chant the riks and mantras flawlessly. The Word in such instances is just another ‘temple’. One is the ‘sound’ from the human temple; the other is the Word of the constructed form. Both embody that supreme perfection, - the one more ephemerally, the other more lastingly. Hence the greater emphasis on strict adherence to the commands of the Rishis in sacred architecture and sculpture. And though the aspirant himself is not yet an embodiment of that perfection, he knows that in concentrating on that Vision he can become THAT. This is his yoga of Perfect Works.

Consider the model Satprem offers: forget the form of perfection with its centimetres (and ‘astrology’, i.e., the ancient traditions) and project your aspiration into what you build, whose actual form is only secondarily relevant, if at all. When you reach ‘perfection’ the Matrimandir will be perfect – spontaneously, he states.

There are two major flaws in this concept which we would like to expose. One is described above and conforms to ancient traditions of all times: we start not by cementing our flaws but by reproducing as exactly as possible the Mother’s Vision in order that in the process we grow into that perfection.

And second, Satprem’s exhortation does nothing but strengthen the ego of the instrument, a pitfall of yoga that Sri Aurobindo has detailed extensively in his writings on yoga. It can be succinctly conveyed as follows: It is not what you build but the consciousness of the builder; it is YOUR consciousness alone that matters, not the Mother’s Vision.

In 1974, when offered the choice between the Mother’s Vision and Satprem’s, the builders of the Matrimandir chose the latter. This act of choosing had grave consequences as revealed in the document reproduced on page 4.

Apart from the building itself, the next decisive ‘choice’ after that 1974 turning point was when the community, in an entirely misguided movement led by the same people involved in the temple issue, opted for Government control of the project, and finally a complete take-over. Auroville now belongs to the Government of India, a development totally against the Mother’s will and known to all those who spearheaded the drive into Government’s arms. That Divine Will was emphatically spelled out in the two letters we reproduce here. No amount of sophistry will alter in any way the Mother’s express will in this crucial matter.

This is a coherent process. The choice of the temple plays itself out almost immediately in vital areas of the project’s life, guided by the same choice made for the Inner Chamber and, incredibly, spearheaded by the very same people. All the way down the line decisions must be influenced by the central symbol, the focus of the community’s life. It cannot be otherwise because it is the Law.

Let us see how this works because in the process it will reveal the greatness of the Mother and how faithful and true she was to who she was.

Matrimandir Action Committee
February 18, 2003

[Part 1 continues with - 'A Letter of the Mother on "Auroville"']

A Letter of the Mother on "Auroville"

2012-01-17T17:43:00.001-08:00

[A continuation of The Chronicles of the Inner Chamber, Preface (Part 1)]

From 1966 to 1970 UNESCO passed three Resolutions on Auroville. The Resolutions affirmed that Auroville was being established by, and was a project of, Sri Aurobindo Society‒a non-government organisation. The appreciated the great ideals of Auroville and invited all States and non-governmental organisations to support it.
Around 1970 one of the functionaries of the Sri Aurobindo Society heart that a decision had been taken to offer Auroville as an experiment for the UNESCO's project of "The Design of Integrated Living". The Mother was asked whether She had approved this decision. This was asked in a letter and in the left-hand margin of the letter, the Mother replied, as follows, with reference to the word "decision": ‒

('if it has at all been taken, it is without my knowledge ‒ because I say to it an emphatic NO')

Below the letter the Mother gave the following statement on the general question in regard to Auroville: ‒

(I do not know who told you that ‒ but there is a misunderstanding somewhere because to hand over the management of Auroville to any country or any group however big it may be is an absolute impossibility. Blessings, The Mother)

[Part 2]