Looking back, looking forward

I walked into Auroville, as a young adult, twenty-five years ago. I did not know it then, but Auroville was celebrating its silver jubilee then and hosting talks and cultural shows to mark the event. I simply wandered into a gathering where a group of Aurovilians and visitors were sitting in a circle and sharing their reflections on Auroville’s achievements thus far. I left feeling inspired. There was, as Whitman puts it, “the quality of robust love . . . in all their looks and words.” And witnessing that fire of idealism cemented my desire to join this budding urban society.

I came to help build an ideal society. The city to me was just an outer manifestation of the inherent values of this society. To me, an ideal society was, as Sri Aurobindo envisaged it, that which gave individuals the freedom to develop to their full potential, and, in turn, the individuals’ contributions formed this perfect society. Life flowered in a perfect balance between the individual and the collective.

I joined Auroville right on the cusp when the pioneering period, where environmental regeneration was a primary occupation, was morphing into “an industrial age” with the rise of entrepreneurial activities. As opposed to the scattered self-organized settlements, the Residential Zone, with its turn-key apartments, was beginning to be developed. As the years progressed, helped by grants from outside as opposed to individual donations for the land and infrastructure, the city, with apartments and collective facilities – a kitchen, a library, a hospital – emerged.

But, that spark of love and idealism that was so evident when I first joined now seems muted and even tainted by disillusionment and cynicism. And, because of all our rules and regulations, individuals joining today do not have as much freedom as I did in the nineties. And this I believe adversely affects the society that we seek to build. For me, the city has to be built from within and not imposed from without.

So how do we shape ourselves to be “the city that the earth needs?” As a microcosm of the world, how will Auroville transcend, as Marilyn Hamilton puts it, “the differences that separate people, purpose, profits and priorities and generate fresh energy to solve 21st century problems?” How can individual human endeavour be in alignment with the trajectory of evolution?

To me, the answers to these questions lie within us. Auroville, in 2050, will be an inspiring example for humanity not by what “it is”, but because of what it “values”. The world today is an insecure place, haunted more than ever by economic and environmental uncertainties. The world is also a well-networked globalized marketplace holding opportunities for the young. The young people (barring children who grew up here), I met in Auroville, are not settlers. They are restless nomads, searching to make meaning of their lives, aware and open to the opportunities that they are presented with. Our demographic data shows that Auroville is an aging population – people in their twenties are not joining Auroville. But I believe that the young students, volunteers, interns who make their way through Auroville will take our values of love, of generosity, hard work, and community with them wherever they go. Auroville will live and propagate itself in the hearts of these globalized citizens.

If we look at the history of urbanization, we find that cities organically come into being due to greater economic opportunities. But the trail of economic exigencies is soon followed by the exchange of ideas and values. As an intentional city, we can accelerate this process and inspire all who pass through Auroville with other ideals and values.

And what about us, the mother culture that has the potential to seed the world with its values and ideals for a perfect society? I think Auroville as a society will continue to grow and develop. In the past twenty-five years, for instance, we have moved from oligarchic as well as representative forms of government to a more participatory democracy. So, surely, we will continue to evolve and transcend our current challenges and limitations. But the future can never be guaranteed. There are unknown forces, much larger than human will and motivation, which shape evolutionary pathways.

With our rational understanding of social factors and the dynamics of evolution, we can seek to construct social systems that will help us in our mission, but instead of the hubris that has so far characterized human action and development, I believe we, as Aurovilians, need to cultivate an attitude of openness and anticipatory deep presence to as Rilke says, “the miracle of the future already slumbering within us”.