By the AUM Organizing Committee
 hy did we choose "Becoming Collective" for the theme of the 1998 AUM?
Perhaps some history would help. A few years ago, people began to use the Internet used for discussions, coordination of work, and dissemination of the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Daily "conversations" among disciples now include e-mail postings from India, Europe, and the United States. Clearly a new phase of collective work is upon us.
At AUM '97 in New York, it was apparent that many of us have been independently thinking about how our widespread community of disciples and sadhaks could move into closer contact with one another. Many perceive that the yoga force of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother is at work in disparate places, movements, and individuals. Something is afoot in the world, and whether we call it the Divine, the supramental, or the force of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, it is creating a progressive movement towards harmony, mutuality, and oneness.
The group sponsoring AUM '98 has been holding monthly retreats at the Sri Aurobindo Sadhana Peetham (SASP) in Lodi, California, since Fall 1996. Through work, meditations, informal hikes, readings, and our shared experience of aspiration in the yoga, these retreats have strengthened our growing sense of collective identity. When we sat down to discuss possible themes for AUM '98, the idea of "Becoming Collective" emerged and was chosen immediately. We see it as an emerging reality, and a promise for the future.
What do we hope to achieve?
 uring the past 15 years, AUM conferences have brought together people for different purposes. Sometimes the focus has been Auroville, at other times it has been specific points of sadhana, and yet other AUMs have been wide-ranging. In The Ideal of Human Unity, Sri Aurobindo says that a group, "like the individual, has a body, an organic life, a moral and aesthetic temperament, a developing mind and a soul behind all these signs and powers for the sake of which they exist."
For AUM '98, we want to explore and strengthen the body, temperament, mind, and soul of our collective consciousness.
Individual and collective
 ecognizing the basic psychological barriers between individuals, we will provide a structure that allows each person to meet and know everyone else, so that there are no "outsiders" versus "insiders." From the moment someone arrives, she will be welcomed and introduced to individuals and the yoga. This will be done through presentations that introduce the major groups and centers in the U.S. and through such simple things as name badges and a bulletin board with photographs. Long-standing sadhaks will be encouraged to seek out and make meaningful contact with newcomers.
Active participation
ecognizing the value of active participation, we will organize presentations at the conference to encourage group interaction and discussion. We will work closely with each presenter and suggest ways that speakers can include the audience. We will also encourage participation in the details of the AUM itself through a work-exchange program, so that everyone who wishes to do so can play a part in conference implementation. There will be collective art, music, and literary projects throughout the AUM so that the group may express and create its vision in many ways.
Common goal and aspiration
ecognizing the great power in a common goal, aspiration, and action, we will provide regular group meditations, which will be focused by specific writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother on the subject of community. We will provide presentations on the works and goals of individual centers so that these may be understood by all and as far as possible coordinated throughout our larger community of disciples. There will be many opportunities for discussion to further clarify and connect our common aspirations.
Unity in the Divine
ecognizing that our true unity lies in the recognition of the Divine in each other, we will provide specific exercises that aim at going beneath the surface and finding this spiritual reality. We will also explore the meaning of a gnostic community, which the Mother says must exist as a "real, concrete unity and identity of everyone with the other members of the community, that is to say, everyone must feel himself not as a member somehow united with the others, but as all in one, in himself."
In short, we hope to create the conditions where participants can rise to the highest level individually and collectively, where our common aspirations and visions can be explored and linked, where a spirit of "unity, mutuality, and harmony" prevails.
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The AUM '98 organizing committee includes Dian Kiser, Theresa Boschert, L.K. Rashinkar, Parag and Preeti Bhatt, David Hutchinson, Bhavi and Jyoti Saklecha, Chandresh and Lucy Patel, Paul Molinari, Girish Mantry, Vishnu Eschner, John Robert and Karen Cornell, and Sarasija Parthsarathy.
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