On Auroville – Paradoxes and Possibilities

I have been visiting Auroville for the last 9 years. In 2021, I landed there a few months before the present situation emerged into view. My initial plan had been to be in Auroville for a month, but things changed and I stayed and volunteered there for more than a year.  

I love Auroville; I have been a recipient of the inexplicable grace and generosity of this space every time I have visited. As the divisive disruption by the Indian government with the connivance of some Aurovilians emerged, I found within myself a surprisingly deep care and curiosity to understand Auroville and to make sense of the expanding confusion. Hence, I attended almost all the Resident Assembly meetings and similar events during my stay, spent considerable time listening to various stakeholders and read several books on Auroville and its foundational ideas. After a point, I began to see the potential value of  gathering my understanding and reflections to share with Aurovilians and other concerned world-citizens. 

Personally, for the last two decades, I have been studying and contemplating on various wisdom texts and traditions with non-duality as the primary reference. I’m also a system thinker; I strive to understand the global system that includes global trade, energy politics, ecocide, institutions like nation-states and the World Bank, with reference to human rights. I also try to learn from various intentional community initiatives. 

I have great appreciation for the vision of Auroville and for the various ways it has manifested over the years. Still, owing to the present situation, the following write up is mostly a critical analysis, focusing on certain sources of confusion in Auroville. Although there are assuredly many more areas worth considering, I have mostly confined my attention to those matters which resonate with my continuing studies and my unique position as a volunteer from India. I have commented upon the aspects that seem to demand deeper reflections and more discerning discussion and have not attempted to offer any practical quick-fixes.

To make reading more engaging and to avoid the tediousness of a long essay, a question/answer format has been chosen.

With profound love and gratitude to the Gurus who envisioned Auroville, to those who are making it actually manifest, including the dear friends who honestly and passionately shared their perspectives, I offer this article to all the wise, kind world-citizens who care about one of our beloved homes.             

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How do you see the recent developments in Auroville? What do you think about the insistence on a perfect circular road in spite of all the destruction it entails or about the implementation of the Master Plan without any detailed study or planning?

What we can generally observe in mainstream religions is that, the severity of their rituals as well as punishments, intolerance to other faiths and opulence in places of worship, tends to be proportional to their sense of separation (duality) from the Sacred. Similar to this is a person thinking that spiritual progress and well-being of an individual or a community depend on a circular road or on a particular design of living space and the tendency to terrorize fellow humans in their name; there is severe disconnection within. It is not unlike killing people in the name of the most merciful God. This goes against all the non-dual principles of Yoga which proclaim you are That.

However, this kind of error or exaggeration has been prevalent in Auroville for a long time, it seems. Certain aspects related to Matrimandir, for instance. Many Aurovilians do believe that one of the main purposes of the structure is to bring down something extra-terrestrial. More than four kilograms of gold had been used to gold-plate the outer layer of Matrimandir (MM), even while Auroville had many pressing, actual needs to be addressed. Also, consider the water guzzling grass varieties planted and being maintained around MM, a drought prone area, for years. Now, there is going to be an artificial stream. Isn’t there an exaggeration? How would we explain these things to our children? The paradox is that, these exaggerative tendencies cherished in the context of Matrimandir, are the very same tendencies now creating chaos in the name of Crown road. Between these, there is no categorical difference; only one of scale. And such tendencies are more complex and widespread than many Aurovilians may tend to think.

Regarding the producers of the present chaos, there was a very short period in the beginning when I gave the group the benefit of doubt that they could be representing some perspectives conducive to the progress of Auroville; for instance, a more inclusive development of Auroville, addressing the issues faced by the residents from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. But after seeing their actions and the way they go about them, including the destruction of the green cover without any environmental impact assessment, destruction of assets without a detailed development plan, negligence in protecting Auroville land, attempts to divide people based on their nationalities, visa related harassment, utter lack of transparency, accountability and basic human decency, it became clear that the group is neither pursuing the well-being of Auroville nor is concerned with its founding principles. The recent destruction of community roads just before the monsoon, endangering the entire community, was an unmistakable display of the depth of separation and consequent fear or hate they carry.

Certainly some of the concerns expressed by the group are worth looking into, like instances of people treating Auroville land and other resources as their private property or instances of corruption, responses to which have been inadequate. But I wish they could also see that, consumed by hate, they have tragically become what they hate. I wish, instead of trying to rationalize or  spiritualize the grave otherness within and inventing situations to ventilate it, they would face it with courage. Then they would see that their statements in the Governing Board (GB) meetings as well as in Courts that the Residents’ Assembly is just a subordinate group or an advisory body to the government-appointed GB, defines and practically turns Auroville into a government-run township. This is the very undoing of Auroville; throwing the baby out with the bathwater. On the other hand, it is equally pertinent for the larger community to consider whether the abandonment, dismissiveness, cynicism or general lack of reasonableness which it is reaping these days, has been sown and grown by the community for some time.

We need to have unity…

The basis of Unity is the genuine acceptance of our oneness. It doesn’t mean that we would necessarily agree upon everything practical; that expectation is both unreasonable and unrealistic. What we need is a common consensus on how we disagree. There should be a method even in madness. It is also intriguing to note that quite a few Aurovilians are using unity to cover-up their lack of courage or inability to think clearly or to protect vested interests.

Anyway, in the matter of Self-governance, the present confusion majorly originates from the Auroville Foundation Act (AFA) itself, even though the historical factors that forced it into existence are undeniable. That Act is a compromise on the very raison d’etre of Auroville.

AFA, a compromise?

What AFA did is to make a nation-state an equal partner, if not more, of Auroville – a world community that is envisioned to go beyond all creeds, politics and nationalities – to achieve its goal of human unity.

But if we move past the rhetoric and propaganda of nation-states, which place themselves as the best available way of organizing society or as the representatives of common good, we could see many inherent contradictions of the institution which are categorically inimical to human unity.

But, most of them continue to exist based on democratic voting process.  

In a very superficial sense that is true. But if we look deeper into the basic structural aspects common to nation-states, it is a different story. And this would explain our actual, day-to-day experience of ever-growing political and economic disempowerment and helplessness. To understand the self-contradictions of nation-states, we need to understand the relationship between different types of regimes and different modes of production humanity has been practicing so far. It is important for Aurovilians to understand their partner well, I would say.

Can you please explain?

Generally speaking, there are four different modes of production: 1) Hunting and Gathering 2) Pastoralism 3) Farming and 4) Industrial mode of Production. For a very long time humanity led a nomadic way of life, living by hunting and gathering. Farming and pastoralism emerged much later and only very recently, just a few centuries back, arose the industrial mode of production.

Initially, farming was very limited in scale and was mostly rotational. It generated very little surplus value which effectively kept farming communities simple, sustainable and self-contained. Later followed relatively large-scale farming which supported vast regimes of kings and queens.

Then, in 18th century England, emerged the industrial revolution or industrial mode of production based on mining, chemical manufacturing and production by machines, and as a consequence, modern nation-states. It brought about an unprecedented method and scale of production in a thoroughly exploitative manner, resulting in unparalleled ills ranging from pollution to slavery. A disregard of nature has been inherent to the industrial mode of production. Nation-states, unlike any of the previous regimes, with all their paraphernalia that includes military, transportation, communication and bureaucracy are totally dependent upon such an unsustainable and violent mode of production, for its survival.

That is to say, to sustain and strengthen the institution of the nation-state continuously, the state must facilitate the continuous growth of industrial mode of production i.e. ensure an ever-growing market for the goods/services it produces. This explains the world-wide obsession of nation-states with ever-increasing production (GDP) at any cost. Needless to say, such an attempt towards infinite material growth on a planet with finite resources is exponentially self-destructive.

Then the question is how such an institution that totally depends on an inherently violent production system could represent common good. It is, in fact, impossible. Just take one of the biggest and most urgent crises we are facing: climate change. The intertwined institutional interests of the state and the market are the greatest impediments in solving it. The Nation-States’ claim that the common good cannot be achieved without them, is not unlike the Catholic Church saying God cannot be realized without it.

Nationalism also represents a glorified, overrated and deep-seated tribalism – an old wine in a new bottle.

The tragedy that happened through the Auroville Foundation Act is that it made such a State, a major partner of a community aspiring to realize human unity. The effect of such a merger is similar to what happened to the early Christian community once it got entangled with the Roman Empire; it eventually became a church. The Foundation Act added a bourgeois¹ mediocrity to Auroville, and made the radical contemplative core of the community, so characteristic of the founding Gurus, lukewarm and complacent. That complacency penetrated deeper as the time passed. Sri Aurobindo has written extensively on system thinking – on political, economic, systems, their historical evolution and so on. But there doesn’t seem to be any substantial continuity in that vein. It looks like our system thinking is largely confined to better building materials, toilets etc.

But now, the AFA is beyond any of us.

There are certain things we can do. Most importantly, regardless of what the Act says, it should be absolutely clear for the community that Auroville belongs to Aurovilians and other world citizens, by virtue of intention and the actual dedication of time and energy to the ideals Auroville stands for. In other words, the Self-rule of Auroville needs to be understood as non-negotiable. The involvement of the government in our affairs is a historical accident and must be kept minimal. For all the reasons already mentioned and more, if Auroville takes a policy decision to not accept a single rupee from the Indian Government or Corporates, that would be an important and inspiring model for all the communities worldwide. It is the choosing of organic growth over a steroid induced one. Just like the revolution will not be televised, a true world-community cannot be state-funded. No one can serve two masters at the same time.

(XX axis represents the fundamental or necessary, YY the incidental)

I also hear many Aurovilians from outside India, calling themselves foreigners which is subconsciously alienating. Aurovilians are by definition world-citizens. No one on this planet is a foreigner – that’s what we are supposed to assert. If one needs to indicate that one is originally from outside India, maybe one could use the term non-Indian or something similar.

We turned to the issue of Auroville’s relation with the State while discussing the ongoing crisis related to Crown road and Master Plan. How do you envision the development of the City the Earth Needs?

Personally, I don’t think the earth needs any cities which burden it with highly concentrated population and resource usage. Considering all the mining, non-local materials usage, transportation and long-term maintenance issues, necessary for city building, all the rhetoric about sustainable cities in the world sounds like an oxymoron. It is like considering battery operated vehicles or solar panels sustainable, when in reality they are neither exploitation-free nor scalable². The excitement about such sustainable things is part of the capitalist-state propaganda that is desperately trying to cover up the fact that the game is over. We should not fall into such manufactured, convenient delusions; Auroville should know better, and if Auroville knows better, it must act accordingly.

Also, considering the land to be kept intact for trees, mongooses, birds and little flowers, the situation of fifty thousand people inhabiting the rest of the area seems like a nightmare. Taking Gurus’ words too literally, especially on functional matters, is a perennial error better avoided. In my understanding, Mother had always been flexible in such practical matters and encouraged people to have common-sense rather than rigid, blind obedience.

Instead of such cities, what we might need is Self-ruling village republics, something like Gandhi and others envisioned. Let’s make the whole world an Auroville, as envisioned in the Charter, with the message of integration (Yoga), I would say.

Making the whole world an Auroville? 

Yes. The primary reason for the suffering of the world is not the lack of environment-friendly buildings or cities. We are suffering from alienation from our deeper, unitive Self; this is the source of all the wars in our minds, which then takes the names of religion, gender and nationality, to manifest. It is the same sense of separation that is causing the present planetary situation wherein a very large portion of humanity and other fellow beings are facing an existential threat. None of these things can be solved by the so-called sustainable vehicles and cities. What we lack is integration, an integral vision of life, and that’s precisely what movements like Auroville need to compensate for.

People, who are neck deep in market materialism, need to be shown reasonably and systematically that there is a perennial stream of wisdom that says Man does not live by bread alone. It is a tradition, a common-wealth that could bring meaning, beauty and coherence to our lives. People of tribal spirituality who terrorize fellow humans in the name of their private Gods or exclusive truths need to be shown integrally that in spite of incidental geographical or historical differences all wisdom traditions essentially belong to a perennial intention³.

In other words, we need a revaluation and restatement of various wisdom approaches with reference to their universal content.  For that, the vision of the Charter and the works of Sri Aurobindo and Mother need to be studied along with other major works of wisdom and shared in living terms. In my view, this is the quintessential function of Auroville, and that is what I meant by making the whole world an Auroville

We need to build infrastructures that are necessary based on a detailed development plan. At the same time, we need to take care that such plans and actions do not become a set of distractions from our core priorities, as happens too often with too many people. The horse must be in front of the cart.

Any concrete suggestions regarding this process you consider as primary to Auroville? How can we have such an integrative learning and sharing process on ground?

Auroville’s newcomer process is a creative situation to introduce such an inclusive content. Even otherwise, we need to thoroughly reorient the entry process; its lack of substance is the mother of most of our issues.

Lack of substance?

It would be a truism to say that we are living in a confused world. From that world, more and more confused people are joining Auroville, without an educative process that could (re)orient them according to the vision expressed in the Charter. For instance, consider the aspect of money; most of humanity is confused about it. Still, people are allowed to join Auroville without gaining deeper understanding of what money is and how to place it in one’s own and that of a community’s life⁴. Later, down the line, these confused people start to make and shape (economic) policies of the community.

Is Auroville confused about money?

Let’s consider this. In the rainy season of 2021 December, my friend who has been staying in a hostel for volunteers was severely sick for a week since everything in her room got wet and mouldy due to the lack of window shutters. During winter time, such rooms feel like an ice box, for the same reason. At the same time, not far from her hostel, there is a guest house with a swimming pool, so that the money-making, money-bringing guests can have a good time. Personally, I have stayed in much worse situations and places, but I have never lived in an intentional community with this kind of class favoritism. What is the culture represented by the Visitor’s Center? What about the high food prices in all the restaurants run by Auroville or Aurovilians? These are spaces created by people earning in dollars and euros or by their affluent Indian counterparts, for people like themselves. La Terrace cafe is used only by around 5% of Aurovilians. Isn’t that an appropriation of a scarce resource, a prime building in a prime location, by a particular class? In all such areas what Auroville practises is trickle-down, green-washed capitalism.

(Integrity and trust together form the foundation of wealth creation. Gift economy is based on land, on personal human connections and is local. Economy of opulence is abstract, alienating and polluting)

Some may say that the excess money accumulated thus would help Auroville to sustain itself. This is bourgeois logic, not of Yoga. Yoga means non-duality of means and ends; that’s how we touch what is here and now, the Living Truth. The founding Gurus of Auroville received all the land and other resources because of their Yoga, their integrity. That’s how all the Gurus, genuine seekers, true artists and all the wisdom traditions have been sustaining themselves from the very beginning. That’s the culture Auroville needs to protect and nourish so that it shall protect Auroville. Instead, Auroville is making even volunteers pay lots of money (lots of money may not be so for someone from the Dollar/Euro zone) for food and accommodation. Similarly, in finding a long-term residence, a newcomer who has money has a definite advantage over a newcomer without much money. Even though there might not be an active corrupt intention in any of these, in practice, they translate as meanness and cleverness. They are, by default, exclusionary; producing otherness, humiliation and eventually resentment. This split personality of Auroville has been affecting its credibility and authenticity on the ground, especially in the eyes of local villagers. As already mentioned, the indifference we are reaping these days from different corners grew from seeds we have been sowing for considerable time.

We were talking about the confusions in the world and our entry process… 

Yes, and money is just one of the confusions. We have personal as well as collective trauma issues, we have deeply buried and unchecked dogmatic religious influences, racist inclinations, casteism, patriarchal-sexist assumptions, mediocre-bourgeois spirituality, ‘spiritual’ delusions, half-baked philosophical studies, tribalistic attachments to nations, capitalist utilitarianism and so on. Some of us are suffering from imagined inadequacies and are looking for hiding places. Many of us have incapacities in leading a healthy community life – people from the west tend to err on too much individualism and have avoidant behavior patterns while people from places like India, tend to get stuck in herd mentality or be insensitive to boundaries. Practically speaking, Auroville managed to keep its coherence in spite of all these issues because of its sparse population compared to land availability. We are bound to face chaos proportional to the increase in the number of Aurovilians, and after a certain point, things could get totally out of hand.

Considering all these issues, and the lack of substance of the present entry-process as compared to the great potential of newcomers who receive it, our entry-process is a crime against humanity. Our (entry-board) mentors very often serve only the purpose of community tour guides.

Is there an educational model that you would like to suggest?

I already mentioned the inherited, core content of Auroville – Integration. I also mentioned one of the most creative situations to share it – the newcomer process. In order to bring together both these aspects, we need a re-envisioning of our mentoring process.

Auroville is based on universal values. That is also to say, Auroville is about value education – an educative process that could bring out a world-citizen from someone confused by relative, self-contradictory identities and conventions. It goes without saying that values cannot be found in bank lockers and hard disks; they are embodied and expressed by human beings. Thus, a core aspect of any universal value education is a personal, intimate, human connection – an affinity between a world-citizen established in the integral appreciation of life (mentor) and a genuine aspirant of integral living (mentee). Through that personal connection based on what is universal, the universal becomes personal – embodied, grounded and inter-connected. It is a liberative love affair, an osmotic process, the heart of all oral tradition, an educative process as intended by Nature.

The mentor and the mentee need to live together for a considerable amount of time, so that the student can understand wisdom in living terms or experience Yoga as an everyday affair across all sorts of life situations. Equally, the presence of the mentor helps the mentee to maintain a presence of mind, a continuity of contemplative orientation, conducive to deeper integration. This co-regulative process needs to continue for at least 2 years followed by another 1 to 2 years of general appraisal.

The mentor has to point out, integrally, various wisdom approaches and traditions, the complementary and compensatory value exchanges between them, and the history and evolution of the same.

It is pertinent to have an overall, detailed consensus among different mentors about the educational contents and the process; otherwise, it could produce rival camps of pride and prejudices.

But people are in different phases; all of them may not need this kind of process.

All of us may not need this, but almost all of us do. Obviously, the process should not be a one-size-fits-all thing. While there are general principles involved in the process, the approach needs to be unique according to the needs and abilities of each individual. The whole program also needs to be trauma informed; the mentor has to consider the possibility of both personal and collective traumas specific to the mentee as well as to the community he or she was raised in.

We already mentioned the maddening confusions in the world. So, somebody needs to thoroughly verify and make sure that the new aspirant understands Auroville’s vision and is capable of living it, as the entry-board already attempts to do. This is not necessarily to deny anyone entry into Auroville, but to help people to get rid of their unhealthy baggage or delusions and to make them more resourceful; enabling them to embrace a balanced (yogic) lifestyle and be in communion within themselves, so that we could be a genuine community. In other words, through such an educative process, there could emerge a living consensus between the mentor and the mentee about the core values and aspirations of Auroville – a consensus well aligned with the general consensus in the community.

Currently, Auroville in many ways resembles a story from the Old Testament – the confusion of tongues among people of Shinar when they tried to build a tower (the Tower of Babel) supposed to reach heaven. Without a proper process, this confusion will only exacerbate as the number of participants increases.

Among those who want to be Aurovilians, there could be people who are merely seeking a more pleasant life or vertical social mobility, or even good retired-life. Their presence seems evident from the consistent absence of too many Aurovilians from residents’ assemblies and related activities even when the very existence of Auroville is being challenged. Knowingly or not, they are selling (a grand vision of) Gurus for the glittery coins of private interests.

Auroville is not a charity project. Misplaced compassion would be detrimental to the community in the long term – one more reason to have a proper entry process.

Would that amount to giving too much power and authority to a group of mentors?

Mentoring is not policing, it is midwifery. Mentors are not to be conceived as infallible. They are people always open to critical feedback and change, if necessary. They are good students of life themselves, and that’s what makes them inspiring. Likewise, being a mentee doesn’t mean saying goodbye to reason or kowtowing to someone.

Modern world in general, especially the West, has many collective, historical traumas that make people distrustful about individual authority in guiding others in their deeper self-exploration. Trauma produced by the hegemony of the Catholic Church, lasted more than a thousand years. The trauma of Hitler’s political absolutism added to modern skepticism regarding authority. Oppressive Casteism in India is a story with similar implications. Postmodernism in many ways has exacerbated this trend.

But if we delve into the word authority, we can see that its meaning comes from authenticity. A person’s authenticity in a field comes from the time and energy he or she has invested in that particular field and also from the person’s natural capabilities in that area. We take these things for granted in all fields. No one would ask for a first year engineering student to build a bridge; that is the job of a senior engineer with sufficient expertise and years of experience. This engineer was once a student trained by seniors. Yet, when it comes to education for the human soul, we are wary of this natural situation. We confuse authority with autocracy and Hierarchy with hegemony. Education is about betterment, which basically involves accepting that there are more knowledgeable people than us. It is indeed a paradox that a community founded on the words and lives of two Gurus is confused in this regard.

Only when we allow such a possibility of integrity and authenticity to others, can we invoke the same within us. Confusions in these matters in a community make people subconsciously abandon such potentials within their-selves. In my experience, the vertical lifeline that still largely sustains and gives coherence to Auroville is the direct inspiration received from Mother and Sri Aurobindo by early Aurovilians, which they embodied and shared with younger Aurovilians. Nothing can replace such an inter-generational value-sharing between a wise educator and a wisdom seeker. Auroville cannot afford to be careless about its continuity. Mother’s saying that Auroville is not an Ashram, is not to be confused with such a truly natural process. It is as natural as parenting. Some parents could be misattuned or even traumatising in impact; but this cannot be a justification to decide that parenting or parents are not needed.

How do you see the recent disruptions in Auroville, in the larger context of India and the world?

What Auroville is going through now is exactly what is happening all over the world – brutal State encroachment of local communities, destruction of nature, negation of basic human rights, absence of reasonability and accountability, violence, indifferent or criminal politicians and  bureaucrats, corrupt media, real-estate mafia, fake news and dishonest reconciliatory initiatives. The whole situation can be seen as a churning of values which is eventually necessitating a revaluation and restatement of life in its entirety, a rediscovery of who we really are. Understanding Auroville’s crisis in this larger context and orienting our responses accordingly, is one of the key responsibilities we need to acknowledge. It is also important for Aurovilians to recognize that there is no going back to the good old days.

In this greater context, there are a few things related to the modern world and especially to India, worth understanding: The modern world owes its origin mainly to what is popularly known as Modern Science i.e. Empirical Methodology. During the Enlightenment period in the West, it replaced the age-old wisdom traditions and religions to be the sole authority of knowledge and the way of knowing (methodology). With its studies and technological innovations in the fields of modern medicine, communication, transportation and military, it also became the practical lifeline of the world. However, with its reduction of all life into what is measurable, modern science has failed us miserably and catastrophically in understanding the meaning and value of ourselves or life in general.

Modern market economy, where everything is a commodity to be sold or consumed, is a practical manifestation of this matter-of-factness in the domain of knowledge. The corollary of such a reductive modernity is the relativist postmodernity, where all values are relative, where truth is merely a belief, an opinion or convention, where a human being is nothing more than his or her context⁵. It is a negation of even the possibility of universal values. These value-void, relativist world-views and the confusing, if not traumatizing, daily life they produce, are causing an avalanche of reactions across the world. Very often people are falling back to instinctive, tribalistic value assumptions fundamentally corrupted by otherness or exclusivity. Such reactions range from white supremacism and neo-nazism to ultra-technocracy, the Hindutva movement in India being one of them.

The Hindutva cult originated among a section of people in pre-independence India, who were blindly immersed in traditional ways of living, as a (trauma) response to British colonial rule which uprooted them from such lives. Devoid of both the simple, common-sense universalism of indigenous people as represented by Gandhi as well as the sophisticated, bourgeois universalism as represented by Nehru, these miscreants have since been trying to manufacture a history and hence a future of a homogenous culture for the subcontinent based on delusional ideas of good old days. Actively participating in the massacre during the partition of India and further traumatized by the same, ever feeding on hate-filled superiority complex towards other religions and equally by inferiority complex towards imperial powers (especially their technological capabilities), indulging in patriarchal moralism, flirting with dehumanizing casteism, subserving oligarchical capitalism, all the while pimping the plunder of nature, these forces are out to privatize Gurus (including Sri Aurobindo) and wisdom traditions, to monopolize the cultural ensemble of the subcontinent, to build a Hindu Church and embrace a China-like one-party dictatorship. Briefly, these forces are the very antithesis of human unity.

In India, the entire spectrum of political parties has the same ingredients of the Hindutva forces; differing only in degrees. In spite of all their rhetoric, most of the social movements and organizations, including the left-leaning and Gandhian ones, fundamentally know nothing more than a man of materialism – the quintessential vacuum the Hindutva movement is capitalising on. This is precisely where Auroville-like initiatives need to intervene with their vision of life, inclusive of values from food to freedom⁶. Auroville needs to realistically understand and embrace this direly critical but distinctly creative challenge while avoiding tendencies to lean back towards a conveniently-enlightened, bubbled life.

So far you have been commenting on general themes. Any suggestions regarding the practical, daily life of Auroville?

Only an Aurovilian, who has been deeply involved in the community at least for a few years, can comment meaningfully on daily life aspects of Auroville. I can make suggestions from a general viewpoint.

From a communitarian perspective, it is a basic and important thing to arrange free food two times a day, for Aurovilians, newcomers and volunteers and for a reasonable price for guests as well. Necessary grocery items also need to be freely available for Aurovilians and newcomers, just like health care, clothing and education are already free. Housing crisis seems artificial; temporary, relatively inexpensive structures need to be allowed wherever they are possible, and newcomers and volunteers could be encouraged to take initiatives in this regard. In the same vein, a universal basic income has to be provided to all Aurovilians, by dividing the total net income generated by Auroville in a particular period. A periodical evaluation process to understand how each Aurovilian is able to (practically) contribute to the common good – not necessarily to money making – as well as to help them to improve the same, if required, would also be desirable.

Auroville has to see its farms not as merely food producing plots, but as fields for the whole community to come and practise (farming) Yoga – to be grounded and connected together. A few hours of farming or forestry in a week by all capable Aurovilians could be a great community consolidating process. It could melt that bourgeois element present in the community body. A similar Yoga space is the Solar Kitchen.

Aurovilians need to be encouraged to initiate and maintain commercial ventures not for making private profits, but for the sake of creativity and for the joy of sharing. That is to say, private, monetary profiting needs to be minimal. To show the gratitude of the community to such people, various recognitions and perks may be provided.

A powerful auditing committee that thoroughly cross-verifies various income-generating activities of Aurovilians, as well as a whistle blower system needs to be established for accountability and transparency. Frauds including financial ones need to be countered uncompromisingly, which may include suspension or even expulsion from the community. Any advantage for the haves over the have-nots in the community is also a form of corruption, something to be eliminated from all arenas of Auroville life. Class favoritism in areas ranging from food to housing, is taking away from too many Aurovilians, new-comers and volunteers, that precious sense of belonging and dedication, so conducive to the progress of Auroville.

We need to make sustained efforts to integrate the lives and activities of children from Indian background, including those of Tamilnadu, with children of non-Indian background. It is of utmost importance for the healthy future of Auroville.

How do you see the future of Auroville, especially in the context of the on-going world-wide crisis? And how are these issues personally affecting you?

The number of people, especially youngsters who are getting disillusioned with both the system and its propaganda is exponentially growing, and that trend is going to stay. All such people need actual spaces and communities resonant with their emerging sensibilities. Therefore, the relevance of communities like Auroville cannot be overstated.

In a certain sense, I see the present crisis as a blessing. Even though it is immensely frustrating and thoroughly exhausting, it is creatively humbling. It is, essentially, an invitation for a deeper practice of Yoga – to embrace a youth that never ages, to be the bridge between the past and the future and to embody human unity, by being the willing servitor of the Divine. Or a call to put into practice what Gurus say: to act unitively without attachment to results. The situation is also a great opportunity to reorient the community. If this kind of crisis had taken place at a later stage, after Aurovilians had doubled in number, it would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible, to get back to the trail.

Nonetheless, sometimes I do cross that thinnest line between caring and worrying. Only when we are disconnected and hence forgetful of the Sacred, we could worry. I wish all of us could remember that more often.

To Summarise?

I have tried to point out that the soul of Auroville is the vision of Mother described in the charter. A mentor dedicating his or her life to that vision, and a mentee aspiring to assimilate the same, are the very lifeline of Auroville. Both the mentor and the mentee should be free to lead their contemplative love affair without being forced into any scarcity-based mentality/economy, as far as possible. Their true counterpart is a trust based gift-economy. To safe-guard this sacred process as well as for the community to go beyond all creeds, politics and nationalities as envisioned by Mother, Auroville needs to be Self-ruling. In that context, it becomes pertinent to understand the historic entanglement of Auroville with the State and its ramifications, and the self-contradictions of the State itself. We saw that the on-going situation in Auroville mirrors what is happening all over the world. As we analyzed the reductive, relativist tendencies of modernity and the worldwide reactions to the same, we arrived at the critical role that Auroville could play to restore the balance by sharing wisdom, in living terms.

Is not there a possibility of Auroville turning completely into a government-run absurdity, or worse, a hub of hindutva forces?

Yes, there are such possibilities. But is Auroville merely a piece of land? Suppose an unprecedented natural catastrophe happens and the present Auroville space becomes unlivable. Would that be the end of Auroville? If not, why? (If yes), what is Auroville? Reflections on such questions would necessarily lead us to something essential in all of us – a timeless intention, a unitive vision. That’s our Auroville within, our Home, where we can truly rest. When we are at Home, we could see the Greater Will involved in all that happens, know the gravest disruptions as the most gracious manifestations – an accelerated involution.

The issues faced by people all over the world are not any more distant news for us; they became totally personal, intimate and part of our daily lives. Instead, if we had continued like before, we may have ended up as a stupefying community irrelevant to the world – as often happens with intentional communities. Now, Auroville and the larger world are converging into a single point of great Self-discovery in a mutually enabling way; together we carry the birth pangs of a brave new world.

Hence, until these days of (creative) chaos pass into those of serenity, let us do everything (im)possible to save our home. We may not succeed in the near future. For a while, many of us may have to spread-out to the larger world. But that could be one of the ways for the whole world to become Auroville. We never know, thankfully. What we know is that never a truthful word or an action is lost and a lie never succeeds.

Let us remember that the Universe is both wiser and kinder than us. Let us be present with that Beloved.

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