Bindu Mohanty

Bindu Mohanty, one of the contributors of Auroville Today, passed away on July 28th in a hospital in Germany at the age of 56. Bindu had joined Auroville in 1994 and was working in Auroville as the Lead Faculty of the American Living Routes -Study Abroad Programs in India for more than 11 years. She gained a Ph.D. in Sri Aurobindo studies from the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in 2008 with her thesis “Spiritual ideals and social psychology of Auroville: A transdisciplinary interpretive inquiry.” In later years she was also active as Senior Coordinator (Research and Partnerships) of the Indian Revitalizing Rainfed Agriculture Network. In 2023, she went to Germany to be with her husband, an Aurovilian of German nationality, where it was discovered that she had cancer. She then shared this reflection.

A brush with mortality / immortality

“As kids, my brother and I would lie for hours on the terrace of our house, captivated by the star-studded skies of summer nights. Even though I was in awe of this majestic splendour, I would wonder what’s beyond. It depressed me slightly that I could not escape the universe. I would always be contained by it.

In retrospect, I believe that these childhood thoughts laid the foundations of the alternative life I built for myself. Job, career, husband, and children, all seemed a bit mundane, attracted as I was by the deep mysteries of Life, Death, and an inexplicable ever-expanding universe. And while I have had peak experiences, moments of great tranquillity, where I felt united with some universal primal force, it was never really a daily lived experience. And given the inexorable demands of life, like most people, I allowed myself to be chained to the hum-drum routine of work and feeding myself 3 times a day.

Then, out of the blue, while treating a persistent cough and chest pain, the doc announced that I had a malignant tumour that needed to be operated on. I had already gone through other scary prognoses of pulmonary fibrosis, pulmonary embolism etc., but cancer? Cancer was in its own league, and had the evil, ultimate ring of something life-threatening and terminal (even though most forms of cancer are treatable). And while I may have grandiose thoughts and experiences, I was a coward when it came to pain. I did not want to live out the rest of my days dealing with pain and disease management. All my plans for the future, of reinventing my life in Germany, crumbled before me, as I was forced to confront this death sentence that had been laid on me. I did not know then, and I do not know still, how bad the cancer is. But I found myself pondering on the reasons to live, whittling down all sentimental thoughts. For instance, I know I have a very, very caring circle of friends and family, but I also know with the relentless passage of time, I will soon fade away from the memories of my loved ones. Truly, everything in this life is marked by mortality . . . if we put aside all religious and spiritual explanations of death, death seems to be a nihilism. A negation of all that one’s life stood for, and that kind of makes the struggle to live pointless.

I found myself, as I did as a kid, wondering about the immortal primal forces of our universe, and our connection to it. On days when I struggled with pain, discomfort, and sheer lack of energy, I struggled with fear and on good days, I held on to hope. I smiled at myself for oscillating thus between dualities—hope and fear; life and death. And I told myself that the ultimate miracle would be to be free from the grip of these dualities that run through all existence.

Coming out of anaesthesia after the surgery, my first thought was that “I am part of the force that started this universe.”And that was the most comforting and freeing thought I had. Death comes to all—sooner or later. But the power that made the universe could well be immortal—this seems to be borne out by science as well—and well, if one were part of this force then death would merely be a change from one dimension to the other. As mentioned earlier, there are times when I have felt a calm, vast, primordial force, transcendent and yet united with my being. And I realised that knowing this force intimately, being able to connect with it at will, would be a reason to live. It would endow whatever days I have left on this life with meaning.”

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This page has been published in order to create a space of remembrance for all of those who lived, struggled and enjoyed in Auroville, making a conscious effort to manifest the Dream of Human Unity that is in the process of emerging.