Description
About the Mother’s vision of the Inner Chamber of her Temple: she saw a Ray of light descending into the translucent Globe and gave this Ray a precise measure of 15.20 meters. She called it ‘the symbol of the future realization’. You would expect that the community surrounding the Mother would have been overjoyed to receive and execute this glorious vision, Thea recounts; but sadly this was not the case. The author’s compelling Chronicles lead us to see that not only was every single item in the Mother’s vision changed to suit the aesthetic tastes of the architects, there was a consolidated campaign to present the architects’ vision as true to the original. The Matrimandir Action Committee was formed to expose this deception.
‘In the first days of January 1970, the anticipated vision (of the Mother) did materialize. It was so precise that she was able to draw up plans for its construction with specific details of design and, above all, measurement. She immediately called an Ashram engineer to undertake the task, and by 10 January she was able to present the plans for this special chamber to her disciple, and finally to the architects. A series of discussions on the chamber with the architect/designer and her disciple were recorded (and later released and published in 1981).
These recordings reveal that the architect and disciple made no effort to give shape to her vision according to her plans. Rather, for 18 days they argued each point with her until finally her vision was dismantled entirely, though she had made it clear, as the dialogues reveal, that she did not want an architect, rather an engineer, since the work had to be very ‘precise’, something the architects were not capable of, she felt. She also made it clear that there were to be ‘no changes’. These tape recordings are available… In 1971, Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet came to the Ashram. Gradually an entire body of knowledge came to her, a new cosmology. Ultimately, at the heart of this cosmology was the original vision of the Mother’s Chamber…’ (Preface, Thea, Genesis of the Mother’s Temple, 2002, xiii)
’Our world is replete with marvels of architecture and contemporary technology. However, as impressive as they may be, none have any Gnostic content. They are examples of human endeavours divorced from a higher reality. The Mother’s, on the other hand, is an uncontaminated transposition direct from the solar world by means of the Divine Maya, which only an incarnation of the highest order can realize.’ (Thea, The Future Realisation Exhibition, Pondicherry, 2014)
‘What exactly has been lost of the Sacred Vision in what was constructed in Auroville? The 24-metre diameter does not exist; the 15.20m measure of the Ray does not exist; the 15-step entry from below into the floor of the chamber facing north does not exist; Sri Aurobindo’s symbol in the Shalagrama does not ‘exist’; the translucent Globe does not exist; the stone Pedestal does not exist. Is there anything then of gnostic significance and value in the structure? And even if only one or two items of the Vision have survived – such as the 12 columns – the fundamental feature proper to all great sacred art is absent: its unity. In these matters it is all or nothing. Unfortunately, for disciples and devotees of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, they are left with nothing. But the Vision itself lives on; its Knowledge has been revealed and preserved. This is the focus of these Chronicles.’ (Chronicle 9, p 74)
