Issue Nº404 – In Memoriam

On February 19th Ellen left her body in her Arati apartment. She would have been 95 in April this year.

After a career as a hatha yoga teacher in Germany, Ellen arrived in Auroville in 1996 and was accepted as an Aurovilian the year later. Starting out as a welcome presence in Ilaignarkal school, she subsequently joined the Auroville Library, where she worked for years. On the side, she would translate works of Sri Aurobindo into German for a publishing house connected to her husband.

During the last ten years Ellen was confined to a wheelchair as she suffered from spondylolisthesis, a degenerative spinal disease leading to gradual paralysis of both legs. Helped by her no-nonsense and strong-willed character, she took it in her stride and managed to keep taking care of herself until the most recent years.

Ellen’s remains were cremated at Auroville’s mandapam on the afternoon of February 22nd.

On March 1st, 2023, Ulf Meuller, passed away in Auroville.

Ulf was a well wisher of Auroville ever since he first came in 2001 together with his wife Birgitta. During that first visit they organised a programme of organizational training for Auroville’s working groups, mainly the Working Committee and the Auroville Council, which was repeated and intensified in the next three years. During that time Ulf also arranged for the Chief Architect of his hometown, Halmstad, in Sweden to participate in the EU Conference held in Auroville.

Many Aurovilians will remember him for his warm personality. Ulf had a positive outlook on life, always seeing possibility, love, and that The Mother and Sri Aurobindo are at the centre of what Auroville is.

It was during this trip to India that Ulf has left his body. His body was cremated at the Auroville cremation grounds on March 3rd.

On February 3rd, former Indian Independence fighter and Auroville’s oldest resident Mahalingam Sangukrishna left his body, at the age of 103. 

In the 1940s, Mahalingam had joined the Quit India Movement, staying at Nehru’s home in Allahabad for some weeks and also meeting Gandhiji. In 1945 he visited the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry for the darshan of Sri Aurobindo. Standing in the long queue and trying to catch a glimpse of Him, he suddenly felt His grace: Sri Aurobindo was looking at him and smiling.

From then onwards, until Sri Aurobindo’s passing in December 1950, Mahalingam regularly visited the Ashram for the darshan of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. In 1950 he permanently joined the Ashram. But Auroville attracted him. After The Mother’s passing in 1973, and for a period of almost 20 years, he visited Auroville regularly, teaching part-time Tamil in Udavi and Arulvazhi schools. In 1994 he joined Auroville, settling in Pitchandikulam Forest. He continued his Tamil teaching, now also at Transition school. Six years later he started translating into Tamil the Collected Works of the Mother, Sri Aurobindo’s Letters on Yoga and other works. The material was published in Vaigarai (Dawn), a well-read Tamil magazine published by the Ashram.

In his later years, Mahalingam lived in Fraternity community from where he often walked over to the nearby New Creation’s Sports Resource Centre to see the trainings and matches. It was in that location that Aurovilians came to honour and congratulate him on his 100th anniversary. A video of the occasion can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APcxqOK_4XA. An interview by Lourdes Epinal can be seen at https://vaasalmagazine.wordpress.com/2017/12/23/mahalingam/

Mahalingam’s uniquely humble presence and old-school devotion added a delicate, special quality to Auroville’s communal life. His remains were buried at the Auroville burial grounds on February 4th.

Cristof Alward-Pitoëff, who met Mother in 1969, passed away in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram on 28 February. In the early years, Cristof stayed in Auroville for a short while after which he went to live in the Ashram for good and functioned as head of the French section of the Ashram Press, SAICE professor, translator and theatre director. Quite a few members of the elder Auroville generation remember him as their friend and teacher in the Ashram school.

Cristof has been translating into French a good number of books by Mother and Sri Aurobindo, especially The Life Divine. In 2020 he published L’aurore d’une vie nouvelle, available from SABDA, in which he describes the adventure of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother as seen through his eyes. 

In a 3.5-minute clip on Facebook, Cristof movingly speaks about his experience in Auroville in 1969.

His remains were cremated at the Ashram’s crematorium near Muthialpet on Thursday March 2nd.

A tree planting ceremony for Cristof took place on March 12th in Forecomers community. 

On February 11th, Eva passed away in her apartment in Citadines after a brain haemorrhage. She had just celebrated her 77th birthday on February 8th with her fraternal family in Citadines community, full of joy and deeply happy.

Eva came to Auroville in 1987. When she arrived she said she had come home. She first lived in Aspiration, then moved to Revelation, later to Djaima and finally to Citadines.

Eva served in the Auroville Council and in the Entry Group, worked as a teacher in the pre-crèche and helped in the creation of Deepanam school. She will primarily be remembered for her artistic work: her paintings, sculpture and collages. She had several exhibitions in Pitanga and in Centre d'Art. She considered that each painting was the result of an inner experience that she was happy to share with anyone interested in her art. She never sold any of her paintings, but offered them to those who were touched by her work. 

The Mother's Agenda was her bedside table book, she read and re-read the 13 volumes over and over, rediscovering them each time; it was a deepening process. She would surrender everything to the Divine and to The Mother. 

Eva’s remains were cremated at the Auroville cremation grounds on February 18th.