June Maher’s Legacy of Devotion
Part 1: Discovering Auroville
by Binah Thillairajah
In the 1960s, Auroville was being born on a patch of desertified soil in rural South India. News spread through spiritual communities around the world about this new experiment in collective living. It penetrated and ignited the imaginations of seekers and aspirants: the possibility of living unfettered by the religions and dogmas of the day, a cradle from which a new humanity could emerge, attuned to living in alignment with the Divine Consciousness.
One of these aspirants was June Maher, who had turned to the Unitarian Church for a spiritual connection that was broader and more free than the Protestant community into which she was born. It was at the Unitarian Church that she met Claire (Dietra) Worden, who introduced her to a book about Sri Aurobindo that had been sweeping the world, introducing seekers far and wide to the spiritual action brewing in a remote corner of Tamil Nadu. Claire and June formed a study group on Satprem’s “Sri Aurobindo or The Adventure of Consciousness” which was often hosted at June’s house in Aptos California. This study group was the beginning of an enduring devotion to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother that defined the rest of June’s life.
Born in Hawaii in the 1930s, June’s family moved to Virginia, where she grew up. In her early 20s, she traveled across the country to California to attend Stanford University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in International Relations. Stanford is also where she met her husband and life partner, Al Maher.
Al was a socialist and an animist, and he quietly supported his partner’s passion for Integral Yoga and Auroville that flowed through the four decades of their marriage and life together. They had four children, and naturally, their children had friends. It was the parents of her children’s friends, including Ruth Villalobos and Ida Corey, that formed the first study circle.
Similar study circles and centers were springing up around the world, sharing the works and words of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. They also welcomed representatives from Pondicherry bringing news about the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and the nascent Auroville. These messengers from the other side of the Earth invited people to come help build Mother’s dream of an international city of dawn that would take advantage “of all discoveries from without and within”. In 1969, Claire, newly named Dietra by the Mother, followed the call and brought her children to live in Auroville. This left June holding the study circle together, which she did faithfully.
Always outgoing and gregarious, June’s growing passion for Sri Aurobindo, Mother, and Auroville inspired many. According to her daughter, Carolyn, “June was the extrovert in their family”. She was a natural networker, always making connections and bringing people together. In 1971, she and another member of the study circle named Joan Tomb decided to go to Pondicherry to meet the Mother, visit Dietra and see Auroville for themselves.
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In the words of her son Grant Maher:
“She had been invited to Mother’s Darshan. She was with others. When it was her turn to see the Mother, she knelt and the Mother put her hand on the top of her head. June instantly felt something transformative. This came with sensations of warmth and pressure on top of her head. The Mother suggested if she wanted to serve the Divine, she should return to the USA and form an organization to raise money and awareness for Auroville.”
Before leaving Pondicherry June requested and received a written message from the Mother. It said:
“No recruiting, but money may be obtained.”
Filled with inspiration and energized by her meeting with the Mother, June returned to her home in California. In 1973, she and other members of the study circle incorporated an organization called the Auroville Association. The organization was
“[t]o operate for exclusively charitable and educational purposes by supporting projects in Auroville, India as the first attempt anywhere to create a universal town where men and women of all countries can live together in peace and progressive harmony, above all creeds, all politics, and all nationalities; and by promoting wherever, whenever possible, understanding and peace between nations and individuals, a living embodiment of an actual human unity, and an environment for unending education, constant progress for mankind.”
June and the Auroville Association applied for nonprofit status, which was granted in 1974, just a few months after the Mother left her body.
Despite the immediate and progressive setbacks and challenges that Auroville faced in the years following the Mother’s departure, June and the Auroville Association continued to raise funds and awareness for the community.
The Maher home was the crossroads for all things Auroville and their dinner table was filled with stories and updates on the work in Auroville. As Anie Nunnelly remembers:
“June was ‘Mother Auroville.’ I cannot begin to imagine how many Aurovilians stepped through her portals in Aptos, California seeking comfort and rest from their long and weary journeys from India. She fed them, housed them and embraced them all.”
The Auroville Association continued to develop through the years under June’s watchful eyes, changing it’s name from the Auroville Association to Auroville International USA, becoming a haven for Auroville travelers and starting to manifest Mother’s instruction of bringing support to Auroville.