Perhaps you are referring to Sri Aurobindo’s letter to his Barin in 1920 where he speaks of the importance of Sangha saying that what one can achieve collectively is much more than what one can achieve individually. Later he himself clarified that the Ashram is not a Sangha but a field of growth individually. It is only in 8 after the Supramental Manifestation that the Mother spoke of the Ashram having become a collectivity. She added that this collectivity was not limited to the Ashram but contained all who had turned towards the teachings of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo.
‘For a very long time the Ashram was only a gathering of individuals, each one representing something, but as an individual and without any collective organisation. They were like separate pawns on a chess-board—united only in appearance—or rather by the purely superficial fact of living together in the same place and having a few habits in common—not even very many, only a few. Each one progressed—or didn’t progress—according to his own capacity and with a minimum of relations with others. So, in accordance with the value of the individuals constituting this odd assemblage, one could say that there was a general value, but a very nebulous one, with no collective reality. This lasted a very long time—very long. And it is only quite recently that the need for a collective reality began to appear—which is not necessarily limited to the Ashram but embraces all who have declared themselves—I don’t mean materially but in their consciousness—to be disciples of Sri Aurobindo and have tried to live his teaching. Among all of them, and more strongly since the manifestation of the supramental Consciousness and Force, there has awakened the necessity for a true communal life, which would not be based only on purely material circumstances but would represent a deeper truth, and be the beginning of what Sri Aurobindo calls a supramental or gnostic community…. He has said, of course, that, for this, the individuals constituting this collectivity should themselves have this supramental consciousness; but even without attaining an individual perfection—even while very far from it—there was at the same time an inner effort to create this “collective individuality”, so to speak. The need for a real union, a deeper bond has been felt and the effort has been directed towards that realisation.’
In other words this collectivity is not limited to the physical Ashram which itself is a condensation of the subtle Ashram which is in the subtle Space that connects all who are turned towards and trying to live the truth of Sri Aurobindo’s teaching regardless of their physical location. In fact even before 1950, in fact right from the beginning there have been as many disciples of Sri Aurobindo living outside Pondicherry as in the Ashram.
What is true however is that it helps immensely to visit the Ashram and breath the atmosphere around the Samadhi, recharge oneself and then return back to the place where one is engaged in the sadhana of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.
