A wide-ranging set of reflections on the history of Auroville from its founding to today’s difficulties.
.
Written May 2023
In 2020, my wife and I moved to Auroville. She chose the place and I followed. Coming in my late 50’s, it was clear that Auroville was the place for me. In other places in India, people are slowing down. Retirement is a passive activity with most time spent in front of a TV.
While I cannot claim to be a follower of Sri Aurobindo or The Mother, I am constantly inspired by people influenced by them. In their 70s and a few in their 80s, they show no signs of slowing down. They embrace life fully and live with gusto.
—
The Mother gave a call in 1968 to create a space where people from the entire world can come and work on human unity at a higher consciousness level. This miraculously attracted the attention of the many nations who sent a representative and some soil to put in an urn on a patch of desert. And many who wanted to be part of this great adventure.
From this starting point, Auroville grew, too slowly in the eyes of some, into an amazing place around the Matrimandir. Auroville has had many successes over the past decades in so many diverse areas (including reforestation, healing, transportation, …). These were done through money raised by individuals including accommodations, offices, schools, restaurants, studios, and pavilions. All done in a way that makes Auroville the future that India needs.
In the factions that exist in Auroville, two stand out. One has recently gained access to tax-payer money to build the very old ideas of infrastructure such as wide roads, projects that today still generate good income for the entire chain. These roads are clearly not for the residents, who do not own cars, nor for a pedestrian-friendly centre. They are not in response to today’s reality of climate change and air pollution — they exacerbate the problems. They are not futuristic in any way nor are they objects of beauty. By destroying thousands of trees, they make a mockery of Mother’s observation that we are creating a ‘moon-like’ earth.
Another faction, financed by a wealthy individual, is building a huge, deep lake that is plastic lined and threatens the bio-region. In the many thousand-year history of building lakes in Tamil Nadu, never has such a lake been built: one that does not connect, does not flow, nor does it recharge the aquifer. One that only collects. Technology has been used to isolate Auroville, to create selfish communal behaviour, and reduce jobs. This is not the future the earth needs. Nature has responded by sending the highest rainfall in 80 years and causing the lake to breach.
Other groups include reforesters who have greened Auroville, and passive locals who see their role only to watch (and ignore the words given to them in the Thirukural [Ed: a classic Tamil text on ethics and morality]), and a new set of religious-minded and politically-charged people from the North.
While many things are blocked, what is proceeding is driven by quick money. Not only incorrect actions, but carried out with conspicuous scorn, lack of empathy, absence of any regard to the work that was carried out for decades and the current situation of climate change and deteriorating air and water quality.
Auroville has to resist the forces of destruction, the very same forces that have destroyed every Indian city. They promise progress, but it is a very seductive call into a false progress. It is progress only for a one-dimensional selfish creature; progress based on the worst of human tendencies: greed, ego, and the rest of the seven deadly sins. Auroville has to stay firmly on the path of true progress for humans with a spark of divinity inside each one: a path that uplifts the soul, that achieves human unity, that uplifts all life, and also helps resurrect a damaged planet.
By Rajesh Shah
Excerpted from article published August 15, 2022
https://link.medium.com/Le1ag6tgwsb