Matrimandir

They called her 'The Mother'. I find her intriguing, Mirra Alfassa: this intense Frenchwoman of Sephardic origin who ends up running an ashram in southern India.

It was Alfassa who oversaw the establishment of Auroville in 1968 – a settlement which, according to its charter, 'belongs to humanity as a whole', is dedicated to 'unending education' and 'constant progress' and is a 'site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual human unity'. I am sceptical of utopian endeavours in general, but find myself sympathising with the ideals behind the foundation of Auroville. In 1954, Alfassa wrote:

There should be somewhere on earth a place which no nation could claim as its own, where all human beings of goodwill who have a sincere aspiration could live freely as citizens of the world and obey one single authority, that of the supreme truth; a place of peace, concord and harmony where all the fighting instincts of man would be used exclusively to conquer the causes of his sufferings and miseries, to surmount his weaknesses and ignorance, to triumph over his limitations and incapacities; a place where the needs of the spirit and the concern for progress would take precedence over the satisfaction of desires and passions, the search for pleasure and material enjoyment.

One of the key focal points in Auroville is the Matrimandir (pictured above). I had assumed this was a shrine to Alfassa, and in a way I am not wrong: the Matrimandir is a shrine to the Mahashakti – the universal Mother – of which Alfassa was regarded as an incarnation.

I have missed the shuttle to the Matrimandir, so will have to walk.
'Just as well it's a nice day for it,' quips the Aussie chap who hands me my free pass for an 'outer view'. (Access to the inner chamber is restricted and requires a prior booking which I have not made.)

Alfassa was 93 at the time of the groundbreaking in 1971 and never lived to see the Matrimandir completed. What would she have made of it, I wonder? It is certainly imposing, but when I get there all my irreverent mind can see is an oversized pineapple.

I suspect I am not quite ready to join the community of Aurovilleans!