The Auroville Effect

This led to stress and insecurity, causing confusion in their relationships. I grew up in an atmosphere of conflict. But as a child I hardly noticed it, thanks to the love potion I was born into. Embedded in my being from the onset was the seeker, the inquirer, the believer. I lived in the unpredictable and ever changing landscape of dreams, one moment wandering carefree through the hills, grazing cattle, and the next staggering hopelessly through the parched deserts of desire. A longing for something I knew not.

A longing that led me on a dance through life, from one experience to another. It lured me across continents and carried me over the threshold of every relationship. It brought me to Auroville, first when I was nine and then later as a young mother. It was a heaven for our daughters, a place where anything is possible. My first ten years in Auroville were wonderfully dynamic. I was endlessly hungry for more, and always filled with hope. I was brimming with a fertile vitality of raw power. I was (or at least I thought I was) the turbine that drove several projects, an active participant of the community. I could have kept going, but there was a flaw I couldn’t put my finger on. Everything around me crumbled. Separation was at the core of the crisis. A wound that has followed me throughout my life. My path turned to healing and understanding the underlying mechanics of conflict.

I clearly saw that certain confused conditions made me nervous. These were moments of uncertainty or insecurity. I was caught in a loop, charged by emotion, which was causing more conflict. Locking me into a futile battle with my own mind, exhausting my energies and leading me to a profound feeling of isolation. This is not an uncommon experience in Auroville, and many will recognise it. Throughout this time, I had a distinct feeling that this was not my battle alone. It is this nervousness, stemming from insecurity, that forms the background frequency of our whole planet. No wonder countries spend so much money on defense, and communities like ours are constantly seeking restorative solutions.

Through the art of contemplation, I discovered that my battlefield was actually the fertile ground for transformation. This is what I have come to call the Auroville effect. It starts by taking you to war. It was only then that I realised the single flaw that resided within my old dynamic self. It was self-obsessed. Unwilling to see beyond my own needs, unwilling to rest – no matter how great the achievements in the outer world, my inner world was up in arms. I turned to tools that synthesise practical wisdom in order to gain a deeper understanding of myself and to try to find my higher purpose.

One day in a yoga class, the instruction was to roll my eyes to the back of my head. In that brief moment I experienced silence on the battlefield. From that day on, I was hooked. To discover that this fundamental state of being had its counterpart in the body was a turning point in my journey. The practice of yoga is the offering of this body to the altar, alone and clean, focused in attention and will, not a burnt sacrifice but simply myself raised to my highest potential. It demands a complete and total effort in which there is no space for mechanical repetition. By its very nature, it is each time and in every moment a living act. It is in the asana that I can grasp the most counter-intuitive aspect of life: that opposition brings concord.

With a mumpty on my shoulder, I walk into the forest each morning feeling the winds of change upon my skin. Still saying my goodbyes to summers of the past, and all their fruit. There is no room for fear or doubt. I have to leave that behind, take off my chappals, feel the bare earth beneath my feet. I look at my life, whatever shape it’s currently taking, whatever winds are curling around, whatever fate has brought me and whatever stage I am unfolding within the drama of my life. Here in the forest I can step out, off the stage into the real, into the eternal, into the magical place within my being, a body of infinite softness and ease, a place of wonder and silence and light. My troubles drip from my body as I sweat. There are no faces here, not loved ones, nor ones I fear. Just the smile of the forest. There’s a great simplicity and mystery, and as I work, I begin to feel this within my body. I have to give myself up to it, and it makes me disappear.