The young Auroville emerges

“A new half-century for Auroville is starting,” said Michael in his introduction. “This place has been shaped by people with a certain aspiration and now a new generation is here who have been shaped by a different political, ecological and social environment. We want to show our aspiration in our own words.”

How they came or why they returned

Seven of the ten young presenters, whose ages ranged from the mid twenties to early thirties, had either been born or brought up in Auroville. The other three had joined Auroville in the last few years. One of these was Juan Andres from Chile. Juan Andrés’ parents were both psychologists, and this made him particularly curious about himself and the world. “I was questioning many things and having deep conversations with my parents from a very young age.”

He loved using the mind but also sensed there were other dimensions to be explored. He went to medical school to explore the physical dimension, but was disappointed by the narrow approach. However, while there he began working with an international federation of medical students who were working to empower young people. Later he dropped out of medical school to take a degree in psychology, but continued to work with the federation.

His drive to comprehend more dimensions, to live and work more holistically, continued and he explored integral psychotherapy, which was beginning to consider spirituality as an important realm of experience. “But still something was missing. I was dealing with people confronted with issues which had larger boundaries than the discipline I was bounded by.

“That was the crisis that drove me to look for another place to explore another way to embody the search to complement the way I could be of service to humanity. I took a trip around the world to experience a more holistic way of being and Auroville picked me.”

Aparajita was trained in graphic design and communication. However, she became disenchanted when she realised that the industry only used these tools to sell things. “I constantly looked for a wider space which would give me the freedom to use the tool in a broader way.” Her search led her to explore the symbolism of Indian mythology which she realized could be a powerful way to reconnect people with spirituality, the source, which she felt had dried up and been replaced by the ‘dry pond’ of religion.

This became her mission: through art to reconnect people with that ‘flow’. Recently she gave an exhibition in Auroville. “I felt I was able to give so much to the community because people here appreciated what I was doing. So then I took the decision to come and live here.”

Michael also came relatively recently. Born on the border between France and Italy, with a German mother and Spanish father, he felt different from other children. But for a long time he tried hard to fit in. “So I ended up being a business lawyer, tax lawyer, financial analyst and a chartered accountant and even an HR manager, but it was not me at all. I was always feeling alone.”

One night he had a dream where he saw himself ten years in the future. He was immensely successful, with a family and big house, “but my eyes were empty”. He decided he had to escape and in the dream discovered he could fly.

“I started flying around the world and finally came to India. I didn’t know anything about Auroville, I was allowing myself to be guided, but I ended up in Auroville or Auroville ended up in me. But then the real magic happened because the little robot that I’d been before became human, became a real boy, and I started to feel a deeper sense of myself.”

For those born and/or brought up in Auroville the journey was rather different. A common factor, however, was that at a certain point they all experienced the world outside the community. “Growing up here,” says Manjula, “you keep hearing that Auroville is special. But in what way? And what was my role in this? I had to go out to discover these things.”

After gaining her first degree in Chennai, she moved to Brussels to pursue a Masters in Human Ecology. “My experience of studying taught me what Auroville meant to me. Auroville was home. Within one month of stepping out, I knew I was going to go back but I realised it would take a few years to discover what I could take back. Every minute I spent there I was thinking, what can I take back to my community?”

Luca came to Auroville when he was nine. He went to all the schools but decided, after Future School, that he didn’t want to spend more years studying. “I am more of a doer so I built myself a house here. Over the years I went to Europe quite a few times. It was always nice but I was always really happy to come back because there was something missing there for me. So now I know this is my home.”

Kim was born in Auroville. “I had a great time growing up here but when I became a teenager I didn’t know what to do. All I knew was that I didn’t want to study for five years and end up behind a desk.” He decided to do a five year carpentry apprenticeship in France with the Compagnons. “It was a good thing because if you were a bit of a rowdy like me you need structure. After that I travelled the world a bit, went to Australia for a year, to Asia and then came back to Auroville. And once I was back here, I realized what it was all about. I finally realized Auroville is a place where you can do things differently and you have the freedom to express yourself.”

Aurrima, who was born in Auroville but only came back much later, feels the same way. After studying at the Lycée. Français she left for Paris with the idea to pursue a career as a designer working on cultural events. However, during her first internship in a corporate agency “I discovered the money aspect of graphic design which made me uncomfortable because it wasn’t what I wanted with my life. That year I came back to Auroville and I knew this is the place where I wanted to be.” She went back to France to graduate and returned to Auroville six years ago.

What they are doing now

Juan Andrés is continuing to use the tools of social empowerment and individual discovery he learned about in the federation of medical students, but now in an Auroville context and adapted to Auroville needs. While working in Sacred Groves, he noticed that the young Indian architectural students who interned there were encountering new experiences, like living in community and connecting with nature, but were not having a space in which they could reflect upon the processes they were going through. So he began having counselling sessions and deep conversations with them to help them understand the changes they were experiencing. “I told them that though they would return to their cities, they were never really going back. From now on they will always be moving forward.”

He also observed that some Auroville youth were having issues with sexuality, substance abuse etc. and these and their own existential crises were not approached or dealt with in an open way. Using peer-based learning methodology, he is working with them to “explore deeply with a non-moralistic approach and connect with the deeper side of young people, with their visions and lives. I am very happy to be of service here.”

Michael is also working with youth. As part of the Youth Link team he is trying to incubate new communities in Auroville. “I am trying to help people find all the resources to create their own space and their own project in a real spirit of service. To not think about money, money, money, but to look beyond and see how to do things differently.”

Krishna was born in Auroville and left when she was sixteen. While she was out, she studied midwifery and became a professional birth attendant. Two years ago she returned and is now working with Paula Murphy and her team on creating the Morning Star birthing centre in Auroville.

It is something she is very passionate about. “Paula did a study on women’s health here and found there is a great need for a place in Auroville where they could give birth and feel safe, secure and respected. The present state of maternity services is pretty dire. Peaceful, quiet births don’t happen very often. Caesarean sections are common and these have impacts on the future health of the child and the larger community.

“So we work with women and families to educate around pregnancy and conception and around the continuing development of the child. Everybody has to understand this concept in order to create a space where women can conceive and give birth in peace in order to promote the best development of ourselves and the species.”

Personal passion in the service of the larger community rather than making money is a common theme of these young Aurovilians’ stories. Sandra wants to find ways to build community through art and cultural events. Bhakti is initiating an art residency for visiting artists so that they can experience Auroville, respond creatively and offer a work as a contribution to an Auroville art collection.

Kim is building tree houses and passing on his skills to the younger generation, while Aurrima is using her skills as a graphic designer to work on community projects like the Auroville festivals in Chennai and Baroda.

Luca’s passion has always been motorcycles. He started tinkering with them while still young. A few years ago he heard there was a racetrack in Chennai.

He and a friend built a couple of race bikes and within a few years they actually became Indian national motorcycle champions in their class.

Today. he is working on building a better electric bike because “many of us in Auroville ride around on old motorbikes and I feel we should do better than this. My plan is to make them more affordable, then everybody in Auroville can drive them.”

When Manjula returned to Auroville she was clear that she wanted to work on environmental projects and be a bridge: between the past and future, between Aurovilians working on similar projects and between Auroville and the rest of the world, where many exciting things are also happening. “Taking all the advanced things we are doing here out into the wider world and incorporating the best that the world can offer here is the next step.”

At present, she is working with Pitchan-dikulam Forest Consultants – “which is the best place to share what we have achieved with the rest of the world”. She is helping manage ecological restoration projects outside Auroville, including a project with Tata Consultancy Services on the outskirts of Chennai. “They own 300 acres of land, so if we manage to clean up two of their polluted lakes we can work on 50 more lakes. While this may be a drop in the ocean regarding cleaning up cities and returning nature to them, we are hoping it will cause ripples.”

The challenges they met and how they dealt with them

It hasn’t necessarily been an easy ride. Many of these young Aurovilians have had to overcome challenges and resistances in pursuit of their passion. Krishna says that while the educational side of the birthing project is going very well – they are already giving well-attended classes for people from Pondicherry – “we are running into some walls” regarding the physical manifestation of the building they need. “We are coming up against a lot of obstacles and this is incredibly frustrating because everybody has the same positive reaction to the project. However, we are doing so much other work that I see this as just part of the process. Eventually those barriers won’t be there any more.”

Michael knows about experiencing frustration. “If there is a really strong aspiration in yourself, many times you will encounter a wall and want to go through that wall. You will bang your head against the wall thinking you’re going to break it before finally you realise you have to open yourself to finding another way.

In other words, the only limitation, the biggest limitation, is oneself.

I think things happen if we are really in tune with our environment, the divine, and you just roll with this. I’ve seen this happen so many times.”

Aparajita learned that artists are not necessarily appreciated in Auroville. “Some people come to my exhibition and say, “this is fine but what are you doing for Auroville?” They assume I am doing this work only for myself. They don’t appreciate that this is my way of keeping the flow of spirituality going, and only if I keep my flow going can I share it with and inspire others.”

However, a young Aurovilian in the audience put all these challenges in perspective. “I went out and came back and my experience is that, compared to the outside, Auroville is a place where it is way easier to manifest anything that you want to do. Outside you have to work within the system, you have to get certificates etc., but here it is more up to you. If you have the energy, motivation and drive you can manifest whatever you want to manifest here.”

What would they change in the present Auroville?

Juan Andrés observes that it is difficult for young people who were born here to get their basic needs covered and to explore the world because the community is not yet self-sustainable. The community should focus upon achieving this. Aparajita agrees. “First of all we should try to have the basic needs met before we try to create architectural extravagances like the eighth wonder of the world.”

On the same note, Michael regrets that accommodation is so expensive in Auroville. “You have to spend at least 25 lakhs for an apartment, but you don’t have this money when you are twenty five years old. If you want more young people here, you should let them build their own simple, inexpensive accommodation.”

Aparajita feels that the community is presently focussed upon the wrong things. “We are making too much fuss about building the city and we are not getting the time to build ourselves. If we go on like this, I’m not sure something different is going to come out than has already happened elsewhere. If, on the other hand, I have the space and the time to work on myself and become a beautiful person, all I create will be beautiful.”

Michael agrees. “When I heard Roger Anger saying in an interview that what we are really building here is a new man, it really spoke to me.” He would like to see an attitudinal change. “Sometimes things are a little bit stuck here because there is this pressure to be perfect, so we can’t allow ourselves to do anything because it has to be perfect. But I’ve seen a lot of beautiful things that happened by accident. We should have the space to make mistakes because we are meant to be a laboratory for experiments and we don’t know what will come out of them.”

He also warns against creating ‘mental boxes’. “Why do we have to put kids of the same age in the same class? It’s not helping them prepare for the diverse environment they will experience when they leave school. And why do we want to put all the old people together in homes when research shows that this is the quickest way to shorten their lives? We have to learn to embrace diversity rather than uniformity.”

Juan Andrés concluded by emphasizing the need for greater unity. “I would like us to grow in unity by stopping these judgments we easily make about others on the basis of ‘truths’ we think we understand. We really don’t know, so let’s live humbly in this unknowingness and open ourselves up for a deeper dialogue to co-create a truth that is bigger than ourselves.”