June Maher’s Legacy of Devotion
Part 2: From The Auroville Book Club to The Auroville Association to Auroville International USA
Written and Compiled by Binah Thillairajah
In the late 60’s, June Maher and Claire Worden, Dietra as Mother named her, 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. The group was the beginning of an enduring devotion to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother that defined the rest of June’s life. Initially comprised of parents of children the same age as June’s but open to all, the group later expanded its membership and branched off into the parallel the Auroville Association, fostering connections with various Sri Aurobindo Centers and supporting initiatives related to Integral Yoga and Auroville.
June naturally brought people together with her welcoming presence, deep faith, and contagious excitement for Auroville. Her driving force was to support other people’s spiritual development and share her excitement for Auroville, and these qualities naturally drew people’s love and admiration for her. She was known to the community as “the unifier,” and welcomed all sincere seekers. For June, there was no separation between integral yoga and serving Auroville. She seamlessly integrated yoga study with founding a nonprofit that would support seekers of integral yoga and Auroville. Everyone around her was invited to participate.
Some Aurovilians returning to the United States chose to settle near her home to foster connection to the community they loved. The nascent Auroville Association, formed as an active branch of the Auroville Book Club, hosted garage sale fundraisers and slideshow presentations on Auroville, gradually attracting donations for Auroville and related projects. According to B. Sullivan, an early member of the book club, the Auroville Association was foremost a group of friends. Some were more connected to the ashram and some more to Auroville, but all were connected June. As their work grew, June and Al’s bedroom morphed into her office during the day, and the house was filled with the sounds of clattering keys on her Selectric typewriter and her long, impassioned phone conversations.
Future Aurovilian B. Sullivan was a Jesuit Monk for 9 years in Los Gatos, and involved very early on with the Auroville group. B. became involved through JyotiPriya who gave him June’s number in 1974. He was curious to find out about Auroville. Other early book club members were Ida Corey, Ruth Villalobos, and Joyce, according to Carolyn Occhipinti, June’s daughter. June continued the book group with revolving members welcoming anyone who wanted to participate while steering the newly formed Auroville Association.
Early members of the Auroville Association included B. Sullivan, Ida Corri, Russian Prince and emigré Dimitri Von Mohreschildt, Ruth Villalobos, and Albert Maher. Albert, June’s husband, served as the treasurer and contributed to the group’s growth. He provided June and their family domestic support, embodying progressive values regarding gender roles.
In Carolyn Occhipinti’s account of Al and June’s work, her father was recruited to be the treasurer as he had a gift for finances and bookkeeping. Al’s PO box became the mailing address for the early Auroville Association. He contributed to the early growth of the group in any way that was needed. Besides being gifted in finances, Al was also an environmentalist and experimenter.
In an early anecdote from Paula Murphy – Al and June were getting ready to run errands, and had buckets of water and dirty clothes in them in their car. Al would, drive around doing errands with the buckets of dirty clothes because he had read that that was one way to do laundry. He was supportive and active partner in June’s quest to support Auroville and maintain her connection with Mother. Al took over some of the domestic tasks, tended the home, the kids, and brought in salary, and parlayed an inheritance into the stock market. Al joked that they had no good role models. Al was ahead of his time, with a clear heart and vision that women need to pursue their dreams
As an attempt to bring together supporters from around the world amidst a decade of communal strife in Auroville, and to counter the narrative that the community had disbanded, its dream abandoned, Auroville International was incorporated in 1983 in the Netherlands. As Auroville and its support networks expanded globally, the Auroville Association decided to adopt the new name, Auroville International USA, or AVI USA, in the 1980s to streamline international coordination and demonstrate broad support for Auroville’s ideals. This transition was formalized through meetings in Laubach, Germany, culminating in AVI USA’s legal establishment and name change in 1983. Its stated purpose was:
To work for the advancement of the ideal of human unity by promoting the development of the International Township of Auroville and by encouraging the realization throughout the world of the aims and ideals of Auroville as laid down in its Charter and the numerous writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.
Even though this move placed AVI USA on a certain side in the ongoing conflict within Auroville, June remained open to connecting with anyone whose aim was to serve the Mother. At a time when distrust between groups was growing, she worked tirelessly and formed connections with various organizations including the Sri Aurobindo Society, and Foundation for World Education and later Sri Aurobindo Sadhana Peetham.
June’s spiritual life and her work were deeply interconnected and fueled by an endless curiosity and sense of wonder. Her adult children recall how she ignited that sense of wonder in everyday circumstances, like visualizing a parking spot before it appeared, envisioning someone who was struggling as surrounded by Mother’s light, and writing a letter to Mother when their family was facing challenges.
Her daughter Carolyn still carries within her a prayer that June taught her, a prayer that spontaneously arises in times of difficulty:
“Divine light, eternal truth, let me obey thee alone, and live according to truth.”
Her children also remember their mother’s commitment to meditating for an hour every morning and evening and always carrying a copy of Sri Aurobindo’s epic poem Savitri with her wherever she went.
June’s deep reservoir of optimism came from a belief that Auroville had something to offer the world. In 1992 she wrote:
“I find it hard to reconcile…the suffering and poverty rampant in this country and elsewhere. It’s gone wrong somehow. It is an appearance. It has to change. For me, Auroville’s being is a chance for that change to begin.”
She was ever practical in her approach to building AVI USA. Following the guidance of her mentors, she established the precedent that AVI USA should retain a percentage of every donation that it received and sent to Auroville so it could have “a pukka office”. Not everyone agreed with this decision at the time, but her foresight in these matters helped lay the groundwork for the organizational integrity, wide network and strong relationships that AVI USA enjoys today.
Even though June’s faith was strong, she still felt pain and frustration around the slow pace of fundraising. She felt that she had accepted a responsibility along with the Mother’s guidance to
form an organization to raise money and awareness for Auroville”.
She took this responsibility seriously. As she lamented in an article she wrote in 1992:
“As for the large scale support Mother had seen coming from America for Auroville, why hasn’t it come full tide? I don’t have a ready answer. All of us have wrestled with that one and felt guilty, felt that we had fallen short of accomplishing what was expected, what was described as possible. This expectation has been a weight.”
On the other hand she knew that Auroville needed to be ready to receive the funds in order for them to be effective.
“.. [U]ntil quite recently Auroville couldn’t have handled millions of dollars dropping down, as many there were the first to admit… So I expect the flow of funds will reflect Auroville’s increasing maturity, material depth, and ability to utilize abundance.”
In the same article June reflects on the fact that dealing with money could sometimes bring out the worst in some of her fellow seekers but that, “on the other hand, I, along with my co-workers, have found handling money for Auroville a privilege. At times I’d feel bathed in a wave of gratitude that accompanied a gift.”