EDITORIAL
To pass into a New Millenium -what does this mean? Did we wake to the dawning of a New Era on the 1st of January, 2000, or was it just another day, astonishingly mundane, offering only a flashing signpost in the barren Las Vegas of our commercially constructed world-mind? Whose new millenium is it anyway? Whose experience of two thousand years have we walked into and found ourselves co-opted ? Whose dream or nightmare has spilled into our own and now occupies our minds? It is, of course, the Christian calendar, uniformally accepted in its present form throughout the world, travelling on colonial wings from Europe since its establishment as a convention by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. The Gregorian calendar itself was a modification of the Julian calendar, set up 42 years before the birth of Christ by the Roman emperor Julius Caesar and standardized across the extent of the Roman Empire. Interestingly, these two landmark moments in the history of the calendar that provides the world today with its measure of Time are moments of unprecedented hegemonic activity - the earlier, the imperial consolidation of Europe under the Caesars, the later, the moment of the Enlightenment and its world-dominating dream (epistemological foundation?). Indeed, in the second is carried the first in more ways than calendrical - the initialization of the Gregorian calendar with the year of Christ's birth is but the seal of acknowledgement of the birth of world history, the dream of a Christianized world as the inevitable fulfillment of the Apocalyptic prophecy; but at the same time, this inaugural moment of the Christian teleology coincides with another that would grow beside it, ostensibly opposed but strangely intertwined - Enlightenment Materialism, with its twin motors of Industrialism and Colonialism. Two self-fulfilling prophecies, internally rifted but travelling together. If the European Enlightenment inauguration of our modern world-calendar acknowledged its inception in the birth of Christ, its forerunner, the Julian, inaugurated at the inception of the Christian era, in its standardizing and uniformalizing strategy, prophetically incorporates its imperial reincarnation in Enlightenment Europe. Two thousand years of western civilization then, two thousand years of religious and economic/cultural/political imperialism, this is the historical significance of the New Millenium.
The millenium, of course, is a pre-eminently Christian temporal unit, the thousand intervening years since the Coming of God's (Only) Son, which would end in the Second Coming, with the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth. This indeed, is the expectational basis for the New Era that the world is supposed to have entered from January 1, 2000. But, more strident than the religious prophecy has been the euphoric culmination of a globalized secular world - technologically unified in the interests of corporate multinational competition: a thousand years of Enlightenment Materialism. Which returns us to the opening question of our consideration - was it an astral glide which catapulted humanity into the realm of the hyper-sacral or a bionic cyber-navigation into the global mall of the ultra-mundane that the two thousand years of the world-encompassing Julian/Gregorian calendar nudged us into willy-nilly on the morning of January 1, 2000? Caesar or Christ? Or both? Or neither?
For disciples and devotees of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, it is both and neither. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have advised no affinity with the sectarian religiosity of Christianity, nor have they affirmed the specifics of the Christian teleological chronology. And certainly, an adulation of the materialistic totalism of Euro-American globalization has been no part of their teaching. And yet, the fulfillment of the supramental manifestation on earth sets into motion its own clock, with its own rhythmic structures. What relationship, if any, could this calendar of the future have with our present world-calendar? To answer this question, one must make note first of the fact that neither Sri Aurobindo nor the Mother, have on principle decried the present world-calendar. Indeed, instead, they have both given some importance to a numerology which finds its application in terms of the flow of Gregorian time. Both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have spoken, for example, of the special power as chronological markers of dates such as 4.5.67 or of their own annual birthdays, in the progress of the supramental manifestation. The Mother was particularly articulate on the numerological significance of day and time measured on the present calendar, giving it thereby her sanction. The Divine may utilize the errors of Time, turning them to His/Her own purpose. After all, secret behind even these errors has worked from the beginning the Divine Intention. Grafting itself onto the deeds or misdeeds of human will, the Divine turns our positive gains towards the True, the Beautiful and transforms thereby the meaning of History. Thus, the mystic reality behind Christian teleology finds its true meaning in the arrival of the Supramental Age, holding its promise of the inner collective realization of the Kingdom of God on earth. As for globalization, the supposed culmination of the Enlightenment's trajectory only paves the way for the collective realization of spiritual Oneness by erecting the material infrastructure for planetary unity, Thus a simultaneous landmark in an inner and outer Divine Realization and the convergence of the ancient antagonists, Spirit and Matter, such is the content we may place on the turning of the New Millenium.
And yet, this spiritual landmark is not the fulfillment of a "world-religion", however many adherents it may have; nor is this material culmination the victory of global neo-colonial Capitalism. This is important for us to understand, for the ignoble beginnings of the world calendar are by no means absent from our collective and personal lives. Raucously, they clamor for attention, inscribing themselves into our daily acts, loud claimants to the Future. It is not by a blind scramble for positions of power in the World-Machine, nor by replacing the proclamations of Christianity with those of the "new religion" of Sri Aurobindo that we will come one whit closer to the promise of a Supramental Age. For this age will not accept our outer badges of allegiance. What it demands is our integral self-giving, with sincerity and quiet certitude. In the words of Shri Nolini Kanta Gupta, the watchword for the "second century of the divine manifestation" is Integration - integration of the planes and parts of the individual, of the inner and the outer, of the individual and the collective, of Nature and God, of Matter and Spirit. And it is as selfless workers for this Integration that we need to offer ourselves to the Supramental Power at work in the world, with quiet faith and receptivity towards the Divine Future. In this, it will stand us in good stead to remember two messages given by the Mother: "The greatest victories are the least noisy. The manifestation of a new world is not proclaimed by beat of drum" and "Supreme Lord, Eternal Truth, let us obey Thee alone and live according to Truth."
Thus, with this first issue of the New Millenium, we focus our attention not with fanfare on the announcement of a Glorious Future, but with modesty on the nature of the Work to be done. The Themes section in this issue accordingly focuses on Integration as the program for the new century, on the Mother's Birthday, on Auroville's inauguration and on the Golden Day, whose anniversary, occurring every leap year on February 29, repeats this year for the 12th time. The keynote that suggests itself cutting across these themes is Collective Yoga and we feature this also among the themes for this issue.
Under Reviews, we feature a recent book by Robert Minor, dealing with the history of the involvement of the Indian government in the governance of Auroville; and three videos on Indian spirituality by Dr. Karan Singh.
In the Creative section, we continue our featuring of Shri Manoj Das's adaptations from the Panchatantra. We also carry seven poems by Amal Kiran, the 95 year old poet, scholar and yogic disciple of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Two other inclusions of the Creative Section are a children's story by Kathy Propst-da Silva, evoking the transforming power of the psychic and a hilarious hypothetical encounter between Sigmund Freud and D.T. Suzuki, penned by Michael Miovic.
Following up the focus on Amal Kiran, in the Articles section we carry an interview with him taken in December '99 by Anie Nunnally and feature him as a personality in the People section. Under Articles, we also feature Jyotipriya's retelling of Sri Aurobindo's Savitri, a transcript of a talk by Ameeta Mehra on the psychic being and a scholarly article by Debashish Banerji relating the "international style" of architecture spawned early in the 20th century at the Bauhaus in Germany with the ideas behind Auroville and the Matrimandir.
Other People featured include the musicians Reena and Rajeeb Chakraborty, who will be visiting and performing at the Center on April 8, Sanjeev Aggrawal, who heads the Sri Aurobindo International Institute of Educational Research, (SAIIER) at Auroville and Anie Nunnally, a prominent member of our Center and of Mother's family at large and a regular contributor to Jyoti.
In the Studies section, we carry summaries of the study groups on Savitri, the Life Divine and On Education, held at the center on Saturdays, Thursdays and Mondays respectively. The continuing music programs, special events, guests and celebrations at the Center find expression in the News and Events sections. Circulations continues to be the spiritual market-place of community exchange and Projects outlines the continuing collective operations of the Sri Aurobindo Center of L.A. Apart from the ongoing projects, this issues features the Center's physical renovation drive.
We look forward to your emailed comments. As before, Volume 1, Issue 3 is being removed from the site, but will be available to anyone interested on a disk or as email attachment in .zip form for $5 (include an additional $2 if you prefer snail mail).