Beauty against Bureaucracy!

In 20^th September 2019, we have contacted the “Foundation of World Education” (a NewYorker nonprofit organization) for a grant request. We read in its website (https://foundationforworldeducation.org/):

The Foundation for World Education (FWE) grants money to incorporated nonprofit organizations to support the vision of a transformed world espoused by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. The FWE provides a continuous stream of funding for current and future generations through responsible management of the endowment, receipt of donations and bequests, and discerning selection of grant recipients.
The FWE aspires to be instrumental in transmuting financial energy to its true purpose in the unfolding evolution and manifestation of a greater consciousness on earth.

After some months, in which we are producing the required documents (they asked us to write and rewrite it, so as to be slavishly compliant with the rigid forms they produce, with a bureaucratic pedantry that goes beyond the worst Italian custom!) they finally gave us their response (dated 7^th October, 2020). We reproduce it here integrally:

Dear Leonardo,
The Board of the Foundation of World Education was extremely impressed with your beautiful production of ERIK. The scenery, costumes, and attention to detail far exceed most anything we’ve seen, and the dramatization of Sri Aurobindo’s own words is extremely strong and will reach a great number of admirers, former and new, nearby and abroad.
However, the Board was also extremely troubled by your connection to the video, “Message to Humanity.” We were surprised and disturbed to learn of your close association with this message, and, although once again, the beauty of its production and its musical score are exceptional, we feel that we cannot financially support a production so closely related to this video. As you know, a proviso of the Mother is “no politics,” and we are disappointed that you seem to have disregarded her wishes in this regard.
We do wish you well with your impressive production of ERIK, however, and I wish you good fortune as your rehearsals continue.
Sincerely, Jean Eisele
For the Foundation for World Education

The day after (8/10/2020), we answered to them with the following words:

Dear Miss Jean Eisele,
we thank you for your reply.
About the “Message to Humanity”, yes, we have done it (Tommaso Iorco, our Director, has written the text and we have realized the video). In doing so, we are very proud to have followed what Mother asked from us.
As for Her proviso about politics, we totally agree (of course!) but we know also Her precise advice to don’t take Her words as dogma. For us it is more important to give voice against the essay of instituting a world- regime based upon fear.
Obviously we accept your decision. Best wishes,
Leonardo Cellai and the Freya company

We give also the links of our “Message to Humanity” cited above:

In English: https://odysee.com/@arianuovaOM:6/message-to-humanity:c
In French: https://odysee.com/@arianuovaOM:6/message-l-humanit:5
In Italian: https://odysee.com/@arianuovaOM:6/messaggio-all-umanit:5
In Spanish: https://odysee.com/@arianuovaOM:6/mensaje-a-la-humanidad:7

Here below we reproduce also (in anonymous forms, to ensure privacy) what we have received from some faithful collaborators (English, French and Italian people) about this decision related to our project…

Toujours la même chose: c'est tous ceux qui ont choisi la sécurité "spirituelle" au lieu de l'Aventure et qui se cachent derrière le paravent des "mots de Mère" pour justifier leur lâcheté et leur inertie, quand ce n'est pas leur trahison.
Je ne vois pas où est la "politique" dans la dénonciation de l'énorme mensonge qui est en train d'étrangler le monde. Quand Mère disait: "Hommes, nations, continents, c'est la Vérité ou l'abîme", elle faisait de la "politique"?
Courage à vous, à nous tous. On continue.

Let us remember what Sri Aurobindo wrote in The Mother: “When you ask for the Mother, you must feel that it is she who is demanding through you a very little of what belong to her and the man from whom you ask will be judged by his response”.
I know perfectly that we have done our part in the best way.

Voilà des gens qui ont dû lire les Agendas ou les œuvres de Sri Aurobindo et de Mère avec des lunettes de fonctionnaires. Ces gens ne sont absolument pas branchés pour ne pas voir et sentir ce qui se trame et qui est en opposition absolue avec l'évolution future évoquée, incarnée par Mère et Sri Aurobindo.
Dans le contexte actuel, pour le moins inquiétant, force est de devoir se positionner. Cela ne veut pas dire "faire de la politique" mais faire de l'évolution en conscience en utilisant tous les moyens qui sont à notre disposition chacun suivant son niveau de conscience. C'est un impératif catégorique. Mère et Sri Aurobindo qui se sont opposés au nazisme faisaient-t'ils de la politique? Bien assurément non! Ces gens n'ont pas compris l'ampleur critique dans laquelle nous sommes et qui menace dangereusement le travail et sa réalisation. Comme le disait Satprem "les petits Hitler" se sont reproduits partout sous diverses étiquettes, sanitaires et autres. Hitler n'était qu'un petit garçon en comparaison quand on voit tous les moyens technologiques qui sont entre les mains de l’asoura ainsi que des méthodes de conditionnement dignes des stratégies employées par les nazis dans les camps de concentration, lire de Primo Levi "Les naufragés et les rescapés" quarante ans après Auschwitz.

Mère e Sri Aurobindo avranno anche consigliato di non occuparsi di politica, ma hanno sempre fatto appello alla sincerità.
Essere sinceri e dire la verità è un modo per servire il Divino. Denunciare un tentativo di genocidio non ha nulla a che vedere con la politica!

Est-ce surprenant? Tout est tordu. Plus le fond sera clair et direct, plus ils trouveront des prétextes pour empêcher la Vibration de se répandre.

Très évidemment, ils ne veulent pas se compromettre…
Les institutions sont toutes comme cela... Alignées au Système même quand ils proclament une possibilité AUTRE.

About this last (the sixth) quotation, let us express a clarification: is it simply a fear of not compromising themselves? in that case, they could have donated anonymously, which did not happen. Then, a legitimate doubt arises in us: perhaps that they too, like almost all world Foundations, are linked with the ongoing attempt at world dictatorship?

Finally, for the sake of information, here is another excerpt taken from the website of this Foundation of World Education:

The history of the Foundation for World Education begins in the early 1950s when its founder, Mrs. Eleanor Montgomery, was inspired by Margaret Woodrow Wilson’s spiritual search to read Sri Aurobindo’s writings and visit the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry and meet the Mother. Mrs. Montgomery was particularly moved by the work being done at the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education and asked Mother, “How can I help?” The Mother replied, “Return to America and raise funds for the school.”
In 1955 a foundation was incorporated in New York City under the name “Sri Aurobindo International Center Foundation, Inc.” By 1974, Mrs. Montgomery had changed the name of the foundation from the Sri Aurobindo International Center Foundation to the Foundation for World Education (FWE), so that its work could embrace related activities and be more widely accessible.
When Mrs. Montgomery passed away at the age of 74 on Mother’s birthday, February 21, 1983, she left her entire estate to FWE. In 1984, a board of directors was formed in order to organize and reactivate FWE. Anie Nunnally became secretary and served FWE until 1999. Other board members were Sam Spanier (who served on the board until 1999), Julian Lines, John Kelly, Connie Buckley, Robert McDermott, and George Nakashima. In 1985, Rudy Phillips became the president and Margo MacLeod the treasurer.
In 1990, board membership changed with Julian Lines and Robert McDermott leaving for other interests and George Nakashima, John Kelly, and Jesse Cohen passing away. Sudha Hunziker and Jerry Schwartz joined the board at that time.
Currently the board consists of Bhuvana Nandakumar (president), Jerry Schwartz (treasurer), Jean Eisele (secretary), Mateo Needham, Heidi Watts, Dakshina Vanzetti, Aviram Rozin, David Lauerman and John Schlorholtz (Advisor to the Board: Paula Murphy).

We strongly suspect that not only Eleanor Montgomery, but also ex-members like John Kelly, Robert McDermott, George Nakashima and others would have strongly opposed the choices of these latter Board members.

“Opposing a regime does not mean doing politics. Rather it is not opposing dictatorships that is a political choice (of cowardice). Therefore, it is the Board in charge of the FWE, and not us, who acted politically by refusing our request, even though they considered our theatrical project excellent from the artistic point of view. If out of cowardice they do not dare to oppose the financial lobbies that - manipulated by the Asura - strangle the planet and its inhabitants, it is their problem, not ours.
We Italians are well aware of the repressions exercised by the Catholic Church against artists. For two millennia the ecclesiastical authorities, extrapolating quotes from the Bible, have tried to prevent the spread of free art and free thought in the name of Jesus Christ. Now these FWE officials would like to do the same, using Mother's sentences. Shame on them!”

Tommaso Iorco

Anyway, that’s the history!

Gaia Ambrosini
Freya Research Center
www.eric.theater

After our last newsletter (dated 1.11.2020) we have received words of encouragement from many of you. Thank you so much. We publish one of this letters, anonymously, which best expresses the feelings of those who answered us. Thanks again!

I am an Indian and I am really amazed and astonished at the response you have received from FWE! First of all, we must remember that Mother’s injunction not to engage in politics clearly refers to those who lived next to Her, since their political statements could have been interpreted as coming from Her (all the same, in the correspondence of Sri Aurobindo we find epistles in which He asks to be very careful and not to pronounce on political matters, unless one receives a precise indication directly from Him or from Her). Moreover, we can consider Mother’s injunction as an advice not to be the spokesperson for a political faction, be it Right or Left, as politics — much more today than in the past — is immersed in corruption and too many lies and falsehood. But if I decide to fight against a Hitler or a Stalin, do I have the reprobation of the Mother? Certainly not!
I would like these FWE gentlemen to kindly explain to me what is meant by politics. If, for example, from India I refuse to buy goods through Amazon and choose to turn to local producers and sellers, am I making a political choice that Mother can blame? If I decide not to buy for my children toys made by a corporation that exploits child-labor in poor countries, am I making a political choice that Mother can blame? If I deliberately choose not to invest my savings in Microsoft, Glaxo, Monsanto stocks, am I making a political choice that Mother can blame?
So, kind trustees of the FWE, please tell me to whom are you making your foundation’s money available? Only to those who are silent or subservient to the current world regime?
I am a poor Indian, but I will try with the few means at my disposal to help this courageous “ERIC Project” which, in so difficult moment, tries to bring something of the Vibration of Mother and Sri Aurobindo into a torn and confused world. Since those who have the financial means refuse to help this inspired Project (and they will have to answer to Her, I am sure), we poor people must do it.

We report here below our answer —

Dear Friend,
we thank you for your very touching words. We cannot accept money from poor people, therefore we have immediately refunded the amount of money you generously sent us; but we are very grateful and happy to perceive fine souls who understand our enormous efforts and our sincere aspiration.
Priyo namaskar,

Gaia Ambrosini
www.eric.theater