Jivatma on coming home again

Auroville Today: Can you tell me about where you were born and your early childhood?

Jivatma: I was born at our home on the beach in Chinamudaliar Chavadi village, just outside Auroville. When I was around six months old, we moved to what was called back then Fertile Windmill, now known as Baraka. My mom was friends with Vijay at the time. I actually had my first birthday at Fertile Windmill. We stayed in a little dome-shaped hut which is still standing today. We lived with very little, just a mosquito net and a kerosene stove, and my first steps in life were barefoot and naked through the forest.

Shortly after my birthday, my grandpa became very ill, so we went to Spain and stayed there for about a year. That is where I spent my second birthday. When we returned to India after my grandpa’s passing, we lived in Pondy for almost three years. My mom was working at the Ashram at that time and we rented a home in town. I was about three years old then, and my older sister Xenia was about 12 years old.

How did your mother’s connection to Auroville influence your upbringing?

My mom always felt a strong calling to Auroville, and had had a connection to Mother and Sri Aurobindo for most of her life, but it took a while to make our way to living within Auroville. As our needs grew – like needing more of a social scene, schools, and nature – my mom decided to make a more permanent move to Auroville. Until then, we only visited Auroville on the weekends. Those trips are among my first memories, and I remember how exciting it was to go on those moped rides from Pondy to be in nature and run free on the red earth. Auroville felt like such a raw and wild secret place back then. I miss that feeling; everything has changed and developed so much now.

When did your family finally settle in Auroville?

It was around 1987 when my mom started looking for a place to settle in Auroville. We heard that Marco (later known as Matriprasad), was living in Existence and needed help with forest work. We visited, and my mom immediately recognized it as the place in a lucid dream she’d had – it was a clear guiding sign for her. We started by spending weekends there, and then moved into a tiny hut while my mom built our home, which was just another slightly bigger hut. We had no electricity, no running water, and we lived very simply, using candlelight and hauling water from Matrimandir with a wheelbarrow. We didn’t have a refrigerator until I was much older.

How do you feel about your childhood experiences?

I grew up very simply, and I really treasure that lifestyle. It was such a simple time, and it was so easy to be happy. Nature and the simple things around us were enough. My childhood was one of the happiest times of my life, even though it wasn’t always easy. Overall, I feel very connected to, and appreciative of my younger years in Auroville.

What about your education? When did you start school?

I didn’t start school until I was nine. Until then, I was home-schooled. When I finally started school in Mirramukhi, I could already read, write, count, etc.. I also spoke a pretty good level of Spanish, French and Italian. I wasn’t very social until much later. My family unit at that time was just my mom, me, and then my younger sister Amrita who was born when I was seven.

How was your experience at Mirramukhi?

I liked Mirramukhi, though school was always difficult for me, especially academically. Math and sciences were a nightmare. I struggled with school in general, and I was also very shy, which made things like performances or reciting poetry in class really painful. Socially, I was always the odd one out and was teased a lot. It wasn’t until I was 15 or 16 that I started to feel more confident and accepted.

You tried another school briefly?

Yes, I tried Transition School for about six months, but it was too ‘rough’ for me. I went back to Mirramukhi because it suited me better – it was more arts-focused, contained, and disciplined. But when I was 14, I started to become more aware of certain aspects of Mirramukhi that didn’t sit well with me. It felt closed off, almost cultish in some ways. My mom and I decided it was best for me to leave, so I went to Last School for two years before moving on to Center for Further Learning, which is now Future School. I graduated from Future School, doing my O and A levels there as part of one of the first groups.

What did you do after school?

While I was still in Future School, I found my passion for massage therapy. I did a massage course with Umberto when I was 19, and I immediately knew it would be my life’s path. Shortly after, I met my ex-husband Jeremy, who connected me to a dance summer programme in the USA. We traveled together, eventually moving to Hawaii, where I attended a massage licensing school on Maui. That was the start of my professional path in massage. I didn’t have any desire to pursue further academic studies, so massage became my path, and I’ve been dedicated to it ever since.

When I was living in Hawaii I met my current partner, Daniel. We met through the massage community and our journey started as a close friendship and a work adventure while creating a technique we named Sarga Bodywork.

Sarga Bodywork is a barefoot massage method that was born out of a lot of experimentation and fun. It started off with bouncing ideas back and forth, creating without a specific end goal in mind. But gradually, it became more concrete and solid. The method itself came from our shared love of barefoot bodywork, which I discovered while living in Hawaii with my mom and sister for a couple of years. At that time, I was working intensely, really overworking, and that’s when I started using my feet to do bodywork. It just made so much sense to me, and I fell in love with it.

Using the feet for massage provided more strength and leverage, which was crucial given my workload. It was not only effective for my clients but also easier on my own body, so I gradually integrated it into my practice. Our love for barefoot work, myofascial work, and Daniel’s Rolfing background came together. We aimed to create a portable barefoot massage method, unlike others that rely on bars or ropes overhead. We wanted something that didn’t require drilling into ceilings or walls, that also focused on myofascial release.

We started to teach Sarga Bodywork in 2016, first to a small circle of people, which later grew to regular workshops. The method became more than just a technique; it was like this embodiment of our shared experiences, our travels, and all the things we had learned along the way. We wanted to create something that wasn’t just a new technique, but something that was holistic and adaptable. It was important for us to ensure that the method was accessible and could be applied in different contexts, whether it be in high-end spas or more therapeutic settings.

It was a steep learning curve because we were learning the ropes of running a business and creating something from scratch. We had to go into debt to start the business, and there were so many layers of learning along the way. Many times we asked ourselves, ‘What are we doing? Should we just throw in the towel?’ But we kept going.

By 2018, Sarga was really taking off, and we started to focus on it full-time. That’s when we began to solidify the teaching aspect, holding workshops and training sessions, first locally in Hawaii and then in other parts of the U.S. and internationally. The method continued to evolve, with input from practitioners around the world who started using it and sharing their experiences.

So, in essence, Sarga Bodywork was this very organic creation that grew out of our shared journey, and it ended up becoming something much bigger than either of us had anticipated. It brought together all these elements of our life experiences, from Auroville to Hawaii, and became a way for us to share something that we felt was truly unique and impactful in the world of bodywork.

So, has it been a successful experience?

Yes. We now have a team of about five instructors who teach Sarga in the U.S., and we’re starting to expand into Europe. Last summer, we trained two instructors in France and Italy who will be teaching courses there. It has been successful, and I feel that it could grow even more, but right now, it’s stable and it sustains us.

What made you decide to come back to Auroville?

There were many reasons for us to come back here. I would say that being closer to my mom and dad and a desire to be back home after such a long time away was the main driving force. Also, after our son Kailash was born in 2021, we were overworking just to make a living in Hawaii, and it felt discouraging. We were working all the time without time to enjoy the beauty of Hawaii or our family. It didn’t make sense anymore, and we also wanted to expand Sarga Bodywork into Europe and live away from the U.S for some time.

Everything pointed to coming back to this side of the world and leaving our base in Hawaii for a while, so that’s what we did. Now we’re mostly based here, expanding our business into Europe and Asia. We came back last December, so it’s quite fresh.

And how is it landing back here?

For me, it’s been so beautiful. I feel like I was finally ready to come back to Auroville because, after all this time and experiences, I don’t feel deprived anymore – I don’t feel like there’s anything out there that I’m missing out on. The sense of feeling ‘stuck’ here isn’t there anymore because I have something that sustains me and keeps me connected to the rest of the world.

I never felt that I could only work locally and be satisfied with that. I needed something that cross-pollinates and keeps me engaged in different areas of the world. I think that because I have those things now through our business and our lifestyle, I don’t feel stuck or deprived being here, so I can really enjoy it.

I feel so grateful to have this time back in Auroville, especially with my son now, while my parents are still around and healthy. It’s such a precious time. I think when you start getting into your late thirties and forties, you begin to have a different perspective on what things are worth – your worth, your sense of worth for the people in your life, places and experiences. It changes. In my twenties, I didn’t appreciate things and people as much. Now, I feel so fortunate to be with my son and my mom and dad, and those things become much more important because you see the passing of time and the impermanence of things in a different way.

I feel much more connected to that level of gratefulness and I feel thankful to be here, to see Kailash go to school, and to give him the experience of Auroville at such a young age – it’s really important to me to give him that.

And what does it mean to you?

I can’t put it into words. It’s just the experience of Auroville – the energy, the atmosphere and the people here. It’s very specific and yet very abstract. I can’t really say what Auroville is – is it a place, is it the people? Is it the energy of it? Is it who I am when I am here? I think it’s a little bit of all of that.

Also because Auroville is in a moment of so much change there’s a bittersweetness about the Auroville that we’ve known. Auroville is changing, which doesn’t mean good or bad, but the Auroville I grew up with is definitely changing and fading… maybe transforming would be a better word. So to be able to share it as a family, with Daniel and Kailash, to have that experience together is really valuable to me.