A place without boundaries
Down to the present day this is the ultimate maxim of this township without boundaries. The concept of a place without political and national boundaries – realized to this extent – is unique all over the world. Though, in everyday life we are not constantly aware of the fact that boundaries determine our world (-view), our language and consequently our thinking, boundaries are implicitly present at any time and any place. By dividing the earth on which we live we build concepts like national states and as a consequence also national consciousness. Just think of the concept of ‘home’ respective ‘homeland’ by which we create a feeling of belonging to a certain place and culture and defining distinct behavioral patterns.
For most people ‘home’ is a quite special, enchanting, intimate and consequently a defendable thing. The special thing about home is that on the one hand most people know what is meant by this term or associate certain ideas and concepts with it; on the other hand its meaning also depends on each individual. For some people home is the place where one is born, for some others the crucial thing might be a certain dialect or possibly special conditions that you may only find at this place. To make a long discussion short: All these aspects, embedded in the phrase ‘home’, have something to do with boundaries and consequently with excluding others. There are just two possibilities: Either you include someone in your concept or you exclude someone.
This idea can also be transferred to other concepts like culture or religion. For our purpose it doesn’t matter to define terms like home, culture, religion, language or worldview in a precise way or to speculate where the possible lines between two concepts could be drawn; in the course of these considerations the only thing that really matters is to be aware of the fact that these concepts only exist by dissociating themselves to others.
It is almost superfluous to mention that dissociating oneself from others or repulsing from others also means staying in competition with other ways of conceptualizing, thinking and seeing the world. Auroville sees itself as a response to this system of mutual repulsion. By eliminating any of these distinctive features mentioned above they build an experimental township where these concepts shouldn’t matter (anymore). As a result, Aurovilleans also eliminate their own possible prejudices against people from other countries and also against their various cultural and social implications. After a while, the boundaries and fixed dogmas indoctrinated beforehand will become obsolete and meaningless.
These fixed concepts don’t just exist in the areas mentioned above but also, and especially, in the field of education. Before focusing on the educational aspects, we want to, by underlining the relevance of language, refer to a quote of the famous Chinese philosopher Confucius who emphasizes the importance of a proper use of notions in the following way:
“If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant; if what is said is not what is meant, then what must be done remains undone; if this remains undone, morals and art will deteriorate; if justice goes astray, the people will stand about in helpless confusion. Hence there must be no arbitrariness in what is said. This matters above everything.”
Reflections upon education
We want to take this as an example for our short reflections upon the commonly used terminology in educational contexts. Transnationally, there exist many different views what education might be and how a succeeded educational process should look like. Starting with the first question, what education might be, it’s relevant to mention that the division into ‘education’ and ‘non-education’ is mostly a unilateral one. What is meant by this is that a small group of people make the decision what should be commonly considered as education. It starts by dividing children’s activities [2] into ‘playing’ and ‘learning’ at school. It’s needless to mention that in this case the term ‘playing’ is pejoratively connoted compared with ‘learning’. In this circumstance it would be also useful to reflect upon the question why children just play, pupils learn and adults work. The difference between these cases is that the first two groups have to behave in a certain manner. It is expected from children to play, from pupils to learn and actually from adults to work; but adults naturally don’t have an explicit authority like children or pupils. There is no human being or certain group which forces adults to work. Nevertheless, it’s also quite redundant to mention that external forces and factors caused by the system we live in implicitly do force adults to earn money and to travel their path. It’s the circle of life in our system. Probably, the reason why adults seldom reflect on this aspect is that they are used to do this and the system offers almost no alternatives than to earn money. The great profit of Auroville is that it questions these supposedly determined realities and power structures in order to stimulate people to reflect on that. The judgmental character of these terms and the coherent hierarchy depending on age and the duality between children’s and adults’ activities should be visible now.
The one who claims sovereignty over expressions also has the power to structure and divide the world into ‘positive and negative’. In this case, adults have the power to decide what should be perceived as educational effort or just as almost useless playing.
The Mother stated about her vision of an ideal type of school the following:
“Up to the age of seven, children should enjoy themselves. School should all be a game, and they learn as they play. As they play they develop a taste for learning, knowing and understanding life”[3].
We can see the same idea by reflecting upon education per se. In so called ‘western contexts’, high education is socially perceived as the highest aim to achieve. The first aspect I want to emphasize is that so called ‘western countries’ see their educational methods as a role model for the whole world – as a best practice[4]. Taking the colonial history of Europe into consideration it can be stated that some European governance forced the colonialized countries to adopt and implement and accept their ideas of education.
Friedrich Max Müller specified:
“Let us take the old saying, Divide et impera, and translate it somewhat freely by “Classify and conquer.” In this essay F. Max Müller reflects upon how the colonial forces conquered countries like South Africa or India by classifying the given realities according to their own ideas. Coming back to our example – education – ‘western countries’ divided and thus tried to find out if the local educational conditions might comply with their own concept of education. As a matter of fact they didn’t comply. The educational systems of two countries were completely independent from each other at that time. As a result, the colonial forces decided not to classify and to consider the educational realities in the colonized countries as ‘education’. Of course, they did it without taking the diversity of educational processes depending on many parameters into account. From then on western countries have tried to force countries located on the southern hemisphere to adopt their own conceptions of education. This process of forcing others has been realized by making other countries dependent on foreign concepts, techniques and methods. Education, according to a western view, is mostly synonymous with ‘schooling’. So, to be precise, the aim is not educating the world, but rather schooling the world. [5] This quick sketch of a transnational view on education should represent a small extract which we want to compare with the educational system of Auroville in the following considerations.
As mentioned before, the educational ideas conceived by the Mother and practiced in Auroville were to draw a defined line to commonly understandings of education[6]. According to her perspective, the aim was to be “to acquire a body of knowledge or skills undertaken to enhance one's ability to do a particular job and be able to earn more money”[7]. Even if liberal forms of education also emphasize the importance of one’s personal development and refinement by neglecting the economic advantage, Auroville’s Charter strictly differs itself from those approaches[8].
This idea was specified by the Mother in the following way: "We are not here to do (only a little better) what others do. We are here to do what others cannot do because they do not have the idea that it can be done."
These perspectives of a utilitarian or liberal way of education were not rejected by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, but they rather build just a small part of their whole vision of education[9]. Their vision is rather built upon the perception that “man is seen as a multi-layered being composed of the physical, vital and emotional, mental, psychic and spiritual personalities, whereas each of these is further sub-divided” [10]. For our context it’s important to mention that Aurovilleans believe that “Each human being has his/her unique path to arrive at this union”[11]. Compared with our educational realities it’s quite difficult to find the idea of a unique process of development of each human being. Even if there exist paradigms like ‘individual study’ or ‘private tutoring’, these concepts rather have the aim to improve the pupils’ more or less individual learning strategies in order to achieve general requirements of a fixed curriculum. The aim remains the same, even if the paths had changed a little bit. As a consequence it is difficult to conceive a learning process as ‘unique’ if the aims are not open, but rather determined and fixed.
Furthermore, the Mother perceives education as a lifelong learning process which begins at birth and continues through the whole life[12]. At first glance, one might say that this idea is equal to most western countries. On the other hand, if it were really the same why is the idea of a lifelong learning always seen as a prerequisite of changing realities and requirements within economical contexts? Isn’t it rather the idea of staying updated in order to stay qualified for one’s own job or task? In other words: Would those who created the paradigm of lifelong learning also be interested in it if others just educated themselves in a way which has no other purpose than being intellectually educated – without economical meaning?
After this short sketch of the theoretical aspects, we now want to focus on education as it is exercised in Auroville. In Auroville there are four languages to be studied: “Tamil, French, Simplified Sanskrit to replace Hindi as the language of India and English as the international language”[13].
What could also be relevant for our comparison is the following statement of the Mother:
“I find tests an obsolete and ineffective way of knowing if the students are intelligent, willing and attentive. A silly, mechanical mind can very well answer a test if the memory is good and these are certainly not the qualities required for a man of the future”[14].
Especially in our time where the whole educational context is penetrated with and characterized by the idea of testing, this quote is a relevant contribution to this discourse. Testing is a crucial part of our educational reality. The question is what would remain if we eliminated the concept of testing from our educational system? There are some people who claim that the whole life would be just a big test. Anyway, it is sure that nowadays testing already begins at an early age and actually only ends when one has reached his/her personal aim or a position where he/she has not to be tested anymore. But when is this point reached? Even, and maybe especially, persons with great responsibility are not aware of being tested. For them, testing is like a constant confirmation for their own localization. So, we can state that one has to be constantly tested until he/she reaches his/her aim. However, even if he/she reached it he/she is constantly being tested to confirm his/her location in social, cultural and commercial contexts. So, the only way in our system to evade being tested would be to isolate oneself and consequently to give up any thinkable responsibility.
Applied to education and the question what would remain if we eliminated testing from it, we want consider which aspects would disappear with it. Without testing the general pressure which forces human beings to behave in certain manner would disappear. Testing is a general method of locating oneself – according to test results – on a scale which reaches from ‘good to bad’. The question arises how achievements would be measurable and comparable without such a scale. How would the decision look like if someone is allowed to study this or that subject?
What is sure is that testing produces competition among the tested people. Competition should improve the general achievement potential and therefore should lead in a general improvement of knowledge, cogitation and innovation. But is that conclusion really true? It’s a matter of fact that the amount of university students in 2015 compared with 1975 has tripled. At first glance, this shows a general increase of the three factors above mentioned. But does this relation also represent an actual increase in knowledge, cogitation and innovation? Is Mirra Alfassa perhaps right with her claim that students just improved their technical and memorial methods and therefore just learned how to behave best in test situations?
Detailed considerations upon this question would go beyond the scope of this paper. Anyway, it’s important to raise such questions and to reflect upon educational systems like the one exercised in Auroville which show us some valuable considerations about possible alternatives. My postulate is to stay open for intercultural ideas of seeing and structuring and organizing the world. By means of an open mind we are able to broaden our horizon and stay mentally active. The other point I want to make with these considerations is not to accept everything as preexisting, but rather train our mind to stay in motion.
General considerations
The 2,300 inhabitants of Auroville live in a kind of a utopian socialism. Every utopia requires creativity and imaginative power. Compared with the communistic utopia, Auroville also seems to be similar to communism, though there are some crucial differences: Auroville is neither the result of a conflict nor the continuity of the capitalism; Auroville also exports and imports some goods, a fact which cannot be done without currency. Furthermore, there is no economic class in Auroville and each Aurovillian works as much as he/she needs. Although it’s important to work for the community, the main focus in Auroville is not on work. For Aurovillians it’s much more important to live according to Aurobindo’s philosophy – the evolution of consciousness. What is meant by this term is that the human mind is too imperfect to be the final resting point of nature. According to that, there has to be a development of more complex and higher forms of consciousness. These transformations can be compared with plant and animal life where consciousness begins to emancipate itself a little. Aurobindo’s message for human beings was ‘to play with ideas in one’s mind’ and to rise above the immediate situation. That’s how people should lead their lives. So, what can we learn from his philosophical leftover – Auroville – today? In some way, to be an Aurovillian also means – compared with the western world – to live in a simpler environment in order to have fewer choices to make. It’s no secret that the more choices you have, the harder it is to be satisfied with your own decisions. Against the background that more and more people in western countries are “suffering” from uncertainty induced by unreliable structures and a variety of choices, the question arises how many options we really need to lead a happy life. In his descriptions of modern societies and the transformation of religion Peter Berger named it “The heretical imperative.” There he describes the circumstances under which “religion becomes a matter of choice”[15]. Nowadays, we can find this circumstance in various spheres of life.
In this context, some ideas of the social philosopher Richard Gregg should be added: He states that “simplicity is a relative matter, depending on climate, customs, culture, the character of the individual”[16]. As a matter of fact, one has to be careful calling the Aurovillian’s life ‘simple’ because depending on your own socio cultural background simplicity is just a relative matter. In this context it should also be emphasized that the term simplicity should not necessarily be connoted with negative associations. In western contexts, simplicity is often seen as some kind of ‘regression to the bygone days’ or with some kind of ‘deprivation of something necessary’. Simplicity should rather be seen as voluntary step of freeing oneself from unnecessary burdens. This could be a useful decision in giving one’s own life a more transparent structure again.
Conclusion
Within this context, Auroville could be seen as a possible answer to the plurality of modernity. Though Auroville can be seen as a fruitful and creative realization of an alternative society, the question has to be asked if a classless society would also be possible if Auroville had 50,000+ inhabitants. Probably, this question will be answered as soon as Auroville will gain more public interest and consequently have more followers in the future.
[1] http://soundwizard.net/admin/images/media/pdf/ForbesIndia.pdf (latest opened on the 15th of November).
[2] Even the division into ‘children’ and ‘adults’ underlies certain conceptions.
[3] http://www.auroville.org/contents/2811 (latest opened on the 15th of November).
[4] http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/best-practice “Commercial or professional procedures that are accepted or prescribed as being correct or most effective: the proprietors are keen to ensure best practice in food preparation, storage, and serving”. (latest opened on the 15th of November).
[5] C.f.: http://schoolingtheworld.org/ (latest opened on the 15th of November).
[6] C.f.: http://www.auroville.org/contents/397 (latest opened on the 15th of November).
[7] http://www.auroville.org/contents/397 (latest opened on the 15th of November).
[8] C.f.: http://www.auroville.org/contents/397 (latest opened on the 15th of November).
[9] C.f.: http://www.auroville.org/contents/397 (latest opened on the 15th of November).
[10] http://www.auroville.org/contents/397 (latest opened on the 15th of November).
[11] http://www.auroville.org/contents/397 (latest opened on the 15th of November).
[12] Cf. http://www.auroville.org/contents/2811 (latest opened on the 15th of November).
[13] http://www.auroville.org/contents/2811 (latest opened on the 15th of November).
[14] http://www.auroville.org/contents/2811 (latest opened on the 15th of November).
[15] C.f. http://www.spectacle.org/1099/lee.html (latest opened on the 15th of November).
[16] http://www.nonviolenceunited.org/pdf/voluntarysimplicity_richardgregg.pdf Page 1. (latest opened on the 15th of November).