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AUROVILLE—AN
EXPERIMENT IN COLLECTIVE EVOLUTION
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| By Aditya Ahluwalia  The
year is 1347 BC. General Horemheb, a dictator, has sent thousands of troops
from his newly revived capital of Thebes to destroy Amarna, a modern city
founded by the beautiful queen of Egypt, Nefertiti, and her husband, Pharaoh
Amenophis IV, now known as Akhnaton. Akhnaton is a daring reformist. He
has opted for a monotheist cult and worships only LIGHT, pure and free.
This new city of Amarna is situated midway between Memphis (Cairo) and
Thebes (Luxor), on the eastern bank of the Nile. At the center of the
city, Akhnaton and Nefertiti have built a temple to the Light. Inside,
there is no picture of any god, nor any image of traditional worship.In this new city, everyone is equal: Egyptians and foreigners (many of whom are attached here), king and common people, men and women. Artists and craftsmen receive support and encouragement to express their skills fully. Money is not the sovereign ruler. For 22 years, amidst growing discontent of the traditional ruling classes, the army chiefs and the polytheist high priests, Amarna has managed to grow and prosper. The dark clouds of dust from Horemheb's troops can be seen in the distance, which has been given a single order to execute: "total obliteration of Amarna". A stiff resistance is put up by the citizens of Amarna but they are greatly outnumbered and are no match for the ruthlessness of Horemheb's army. The city is soon razed to the ground. Not satisfied with that, a layer of cement is spread over the ruins, as if to make sure that this city of LIGHT be submerged in darkness forever. Even its walls cannot be seen which bore the story of its foundation: Here is the place which belongs to no prince, to no god. No one owns it. Here is the place for all of us... The earth will find joy in it. Here the heart will be happy. Will Amarna ever rise from the darkness again? |
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It is February 4, 1997, and I am once again in Auroville. It is my third
visit in as many years. What am I doing here again? Certainly not on a
vacation. I know of more beautiful places with better amenities and comforts
(and fewer mosquitoes). So what is it that draws me back here again and
again since my first visit, purely by chance, three years ago? Is it the
atmosphere? The need to know more, maybe the need to be a part of this
community, for however short a period it might be? Despite my having informed
an Aurovilian friend, Aster, a couple of weeks back of my arrival, there
is no accommodation available in Auroville, and I am forced to stay in
a second rate hotel in Pondicherry, about 10 kilometers south of Auroville.
This is the tourist season, and Auroville is bursting at the seams.
What is Auroville? For an answer, we'd have to return to the beginning of the Auroville story. Does Auroville have its genesis in the Irumbai legend? On the banks of the river Nile? Or in the birth of consciousness itself? In the physical sense, it all began on February 28, 1968, during the inauguration ceremony when a crowd of about 5,000, including young people representing 121 countries and 23 Indian states, gathered at the amphitheater near the center of Auroville and listened to the Auroville Charter being read out on All India Radio by the Mother: Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole. But to live in Auroville one must be a willing servitor of the divine consciousness. Auroville will be the place of an unending education, of constant progress, and a youth that never ages. Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past and the future. Taking advantage of all discoveries from without and from within, Auroville will boldly spring towards future realizations. Auroville will be a site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual human unity. Auroville's context, purpose and work is difficult to envisage.  Try
to imagine a community of 1,200-odd people (300 of them children) spread
over 20 square kilometers of land over which they have no ownership rights.
Yet this community provides itself housing, public services including
post office, bank telephone, water, electricity, roads and transportation,
medical facilities including a health center and an assortment of alternative
healing systems, crèches, schools up to the final grade, playgrounds and
a food distribution system. Auroville has its own architecture and town planning bureau preparing itself for an eventual city of 50,000. It has archival facilities, an auditorium, greenwork resource center, and scientific research, educational and cultural research institutions. Further, imagine 40-odd industries, three restaurants, 35 guesthouses, farms and nurseries within this community. It has artists who hold concerts, exhibitions and theatrical performances, and photographers, poets and writers. It has a monthly newsletter (Auroville Today), a quarterly newsletter in French (Regards sur Auroville). And a weekly paper (AV News). Imagine such a place with administration, financial visitors and newcomer services to ensure a smooth functioning of the community. Imagine a high density of computers (you will even find one in a keet hut), its own internal e-mail network (auronet) and an Internet web site (http://www.auroville.org/ ). Imagine such a place being run without a hierarchical order, by an assembly comprising every adult resident. Imagine this motley assembly of 900-odd members from over 30 different nationalities, languages and cultures, who sometimes do not even understand one another. If you have managed to imagine all that, you have a description of Auroville—a physical description. And this is just the aperitif; words still fail to describe the community's internal struggles, its spiritual quest, its raison d' etre. After all this, one stubborn question remains: Why have Auroville? For me, the reason came from the Mother herself: |
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One wishes that life were like a puranic tale—it isn't easy here to find a specific marker of where the first level ends and second begins. The churning process has many stages—Auroville is currently undergoing the first two. My answer to the question of how I find things in Auroville is unequivocal and always, "Great!" Things are going as planned (well, not as planned by some collective human mental entity but by a higher consciousness). Even the current delay in the construction of the Matrimandir because of protracted arguments between architects didn't faze me at all. You could blame my equanimity on my being an outsider and thus less affected.  But
it doesn't ring true: if anything, I should have been more affected by
the ostensibly negative events, with my outsider status rendering me incapable
of seeing beyond the physical manifestations of tension or of appreciating
the ongoing process of evolution of the community. I have made my point
but it still begs the question: why is there a restlessness in the ranks
of the Aurovilians? Have they made no progress towards a future society
or towards transcending themselves? To the community's credit, the tangible manifestations of the progress made over the past 30 years are there for all to see. When you do come across most Aurovilians like Anu, Deepti, Arjun, Angad and Bhaga, you cannot guess their age. They look at least 10-20 years younger than they actually are, and even those more than 70 years of age are extremely active and contribute to Auroville in their full capacity. Which is why this question is not merely rhetorical: isn't the slowing down of the aging process a precursor to eventual immortality? The costs of such a grand experiment and at such a grand scale are bound to be enormous. So who, or what, funds Auroville? Contrary to what one would expect, grant-in-aid from the Government of India is minuscule, most of which is spent to maintain the government's own office of secretary to the foundation; aid from other international organizations forms a small part of the total yearly turnover. Strange but true, in this age of transnational handouts to "just causes", most of the funding here comes from the Aurovilians themselves. Questions beget questions. Who are these Aurovilians? One is immediately tempted to conjure up an image of neo-hippies leading an easy life. The truth is that life is tough in Auroville. In the normal run of things, each person does more than one job in order to man the numerous departments required to run and build this city of the future. The job and the worker can be as seemingly incompatible as chalk and cheese. The celebrated soldier Major General Krishna Tewari, now mans the Auroville Archives; Angad, an Oxford graduate, runs Mantra, the pottery unit; Bhaga, a teacher of Greek and Latin literature from France, looks after the Laboratory of Evolution; Arjun, a commerce graduate from Delhi University, handles the accounts of the upcoming Matrimandir; Aster, a former professor at Benaras Hindu University who taught Sri Aurobndo's philosophy, heads the Center for Indian Culture. Prem Malik resigned from a senior position in a multinational company against the advice of his managing director; Roger Anger, Luigi and Ashatit are architects from France; and Tapas is an M.Phil. in cultural management—each one is representative of the Aurovilians. What is it that draws these professionals to Auroville when they can do far better, in the material sense, in the outside world? Arjun, the only son in his family, packed his bags and left for the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and subsequently came to Auroville. He was just out of college, and his exasperated father couldn't comprehend why his son had decided to depart for good to a place he had never been to before. Deepti, 19, had visited the Ashram with her father three years ago. She returned to the community with a one-way ticket. Anu, all of 22, arrived despite stiff opposition from her parents who thought that she was joining a hippie commune. And there are those 70 per cent Aurovilians, who are non-Indians and came leaving behind their families, their countries, their jobs, their social security and much else, driven by nothing more than the belief that if there is indeed a purpose to life, it is the purpose of Auroville. And there are those whose parents were already involved with the work of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo before relocating in Auroville or were born here-100 percent Aurovilians, in every sense. And this smorgasbord is seasoned with people like Tapas and Alok, who had to venture out to erase all doubt that Auroville is what they wanted and were irresistibly drawn back to it. |
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Ask each of them why they are here and the most common answer you'll get is that they "simply had to be here", as if hauled back by an invisible force. Many of them knew little about Sri Aurobindo's philosophy or the purpose of Auroville when they first came here. As for me, during a previous visit, I had asked my wife what her single primary reason would be for settling in Auroville (if it ever came to crunch). Her reply was prompt: "To be able to meditate inside the Matrimandir every day would be reason enough for me."  What
is this Matrimandir? Please, not another religion. The Mother herself
had this to say about religion in Auroville: "We want the truth.
For most men, it is what they want that they label as truth. The Aurovilians
must want the truth whatever it may be. Auroville is for those who want
the truth whatever it may be. Auroville is for those who want to live
a life essentially divine but who renounce all religions whether they
are ancient, modern, new or future. It is only in experience that there
can be knowledge of the truth. No one ought to speak of the divine unless
he has had experience of the divine. Get experience of the divine, then
alone you have the right to speak of it. The objective study of religions
will be a part of the historical study of the development of human consciousness.
Religions make up part of the history of mankind and it is in this guise
that they will be studied at Auroville-not as beliefs to which one ought
or ought not to adhere, but as part of a process in the development of
human consciousness which should lead man towards his superior realization."
Regarding the Matrimandir, the Mother vehemently said in her talks and her writings that it should not become the center or the rallying point of a new religion. Some visitors believe that the Mother named the Matrimandir after herself. On the contrary, she emphasized that the temple was named after the Mother. "…but not this Mother (points to herself), the Mother, the true Mother, the principle of the Mother. I say 'Mother' because Sri Aurobindo used that word, otherwise I would have put something else; I would have put 'creative principle' or 'principle of realization' or-I do not know…" The inner chamber of the Matrimandir is a place for silent concentration. It is devoid of any pictures (even of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother), idols or rituals. It is a temple of LIGHT. A single stream of light (natural sunlight during the day and through an electric bulb at night) falls on the largest crystal ever built: light passing through it diffuses and bathes the entire chamber in a surreal atmosphere. As I sit down to meditate, I can feel the light beginning to stir the outer reaches of my consciousness, and I wish I weren't going back to Delhi so soon. I agree with my wife: To be able to meditate inside the Manrimandir every day is reason enough to become an Aurovilian. |
Aurovilians
themselves have varied viewpoints. Ironically, most of them were eager
to know my views, because I was an outsider and therefore, at least
in theory, objective and with a clearer perspective. What I did feel
was a certain restlessness among Aurovilians, perhaps engendered by
the Government of India's recent refusal to extend the visas of many
Aurovilians, some of who have been staying here for as long as 25 years;
or because having spent many years in this sadhna (to evolve
into a new species), they may have realized that its culmination is
not in sight and they may not be able to achieve it in their lifetime.
Life Positive, May 1997 |
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