AuroMag (Auroville Hungary Association)

When Bogi promptly invited me to visit AuroMag, I thought it was an opportunity that I could not miss. On the last day of the gathering, we drove twenty minutes north of Budapest on a country dirt road to an as-of-yet uninhabited settlement surrounded by agricultural fields. What stood there reminded me instantly of the photos I had seen of Auroville’s early days. There were six buildings, some slightly more modern than others, but all clearly built by hand. Grass was growing all around, with some small trees and vegetable gardens.

The project started five years ago when Bogi and her family returned to Hungary temporarily for her doctoral studies. Due to the COVID public health emergency, the family could not immediately return to Auroville and felt the need to initiate something akin to Auroville near Budapest. Together with others, they pooled money and resources and started to purchase land, amounting to around 8 hectares as of today. AuroMag currently has 40 members including children; some intend to move in while others just want to support the experiment of manifesting the Auroville Dream in Hungary. My imagination ran free through the empty plots, picturing what AuroMag could be one day.

The project has both potential and ongoing challenges, some not very different from what Auroville is passing through. The primary challenge faced by AuroMag is the gigantic Samsung factory that has come up just a few kilometers away. Apart from possible contamination of water and soil, there has been pressure from the government for residents in the area to give up land for the factory’s expansion. Still, AuroMag continues to buy plots of land in patches according to availability and affordability. The land also lacks groundwater; hence the community relies largely on water harvesting techniques.

I became curious about the name AuroMag and discovered that it carries a double meaning. In Hungarian, mag means ‘seed’, symbolising growth and potential; and magyar means ‘Hungarian’. So AuroMag is an apt name for Auroville’s representation in Hungary.

Bogi and other members of AuroMag founded the Auroville Hungary Association (AHA), part of the Auroville International (AVI) network, in 2012. AHA has invited several Auroville educators to Hungary and organised Hungarian film screenings, as well as culinary and cultural programs in Auroville. They also sought to build a Hungarian Pavilion in the International Zone, the first element of which, the Hungarian Caravan, currently stands in the garden of the European House. In their imagination, the bridge connecting Auroville and Hungary has two physical pillars: the Hungarian Pavilion in Auroville and AuroMag in Hungary.

Over the course of the day, it became very clear to me that Bogi has been deeply moved by Mother and Sri Aurobindo. Even while she focuses on completing her doctorate in Hungary, she has found her own path to continuing the work and experiment that is Auroville. Divine Anarchy seems to be the guiding principle in her life, as well as in AuroMag’s development.

As Bogi and I parted ways, I was reminded that Auroville is an experiment, a dream and possibly a glimpse of a world-future where our best methods and ideas have spread globally.