AV in 2050: Back to the future

By 2023 the community had reached gridlock on a number of issues and it became clear that the structures we had set up 35 years ago no longer served the community. At this point, those people who had been trying to infuse something higher into the groups felt that their continued presence was simply giving support to old thought-forms; one by one, they withdrew.

Until then, they had acted as individuals. Now a natural resonance drew them together in small, informal groups to explore alternative futures. Each group evolved its own way of working. Some focussed upon inner change, some on the economy or new forms of meeting and governance, but a common factor was the attempt to access a deeper guidance and to surrender individual opinions and desires to something larger.

At first, these groups explored and experimented upon themselves. Among their findings was that embodied energy is more powerful than mental energy; and that generosity evokes generosity while possessiveness evokes possessiveness.

Above all, they began to understand that the most powerful energy to manifest change derives from harmony and integrality rather than from confrontation, division and imposition.

Participants in these groups also explored the personal roots of the distrust and fear that they felt underlay so many intransigent issues in the community. They learned to drop their defenses and to speak openly about their doubts and dreams. Then they began making practical experiments. They explored how best to help each other transcend the ego, how to come to genuine collective decisions based on inner alignment, and some of the groups began pooling their financial and other resources and setting up small-scale ‘Prosperity’ systems.

In 2025, two of these groups decided to make a detailed study of the larger community. They looked at our economy, governance, town planning, health and education structures and tried to assess their utility in relation to realising the ideals. They found many aspects of our organisation encouraged behaviour that was antithetical to these ideals and were predominantly old forms that reflected a worldview which was fast losing its relevance and purpose. Remembering that Mother had said that Auroville “wants to be a new creation, expressing a new consciousness, in a new way and according to new methods”, they re-examined in this light many of her messages to the community, particularly regarding the need to make the inner discovery and the ideal form of governance and economy. They concluded that these were not outmoded but blueprints for the future.

When these groups presented their findings to the larger community, there was a mixed response. Some felt that we should continue with our present structures for the time being, as we did not have the required consciousness to jettison them. Others, particularly the young and many of those who had entered the community in the past ten years, recognised the need to replace our sclerotic and bureaucratic organisation with something much more revolutionary.

There was a deadlock. At this point, larger events intervened. By the late 2020’s the effects of climate change were undeniable. Auroville was experiencing its third drought year, and all over India crops failed and food prices escalated. There were serious water shortages in the local villages and mounting resentment of Auroville’s relative affluence.

Then, in 2030, there was a major meltdown of the global economy. This was the death knell for many of our commercial units, most of which had been struggling for years. At the same time, government and private funding for the Auroville project collapsed, as did tourism.

Auroville was confronting a situation akin to that in 1978, when the Sri Aurobindo Society cut off funding.

A chaotic period resulted. Many people left the community. For those who remained, there was a new urgency to do the inner work and to create the conditions for a new world to manifest. Realising that in difficult times the power of community was much more resilient than that of individualism, they agreed, among other things, to pool all their personal resources in one collective account and to adopt a prosperity system that would allow everybody to sustain themselves at a basic level. Building on the work of the small exploration groups, creativity was poured into exploring new forms of economy, governance, environmental restoration, education etc. that would reflect Auroville’s spiritual ideals but also meet the needs of a world plunged into financial, social and environmental chaos.

As news about Auroville’s experimentation spread, young idealistic volunteers from all over the world were drawn to the community – many were accommodated in the former guest houses – and the population began to rise again.

By 2050, almost 5000 people from many different nations were living on the plateau. Compared to 2018, in 2050 the standard of living was simple and much more egalitarian. The Galaxy had not been built, but accommodation, health care, living expenses etc. were provided free to all who wanted to work for Auroville’s ideals. The financial resources of Aurovilians, along with the income from units, most of which provided essential products for the community and the villages, went into a central fund that supported community services, research and a sustainable bioregion.

There was no longer any need for an Entry Service as Auroville was no longer attractive to those who were not willing to give up material advantage in the service of an ideal. There were also far fewer working groups and regulations as there was a high degree of self-motivation and trust. When a community decision was needed, everybody stopped work and came together for however long it took to access collective inner guidance.

In 2050, nobody believed that Auroville had yet become the ‘cradle of the superman’, but the old-timers who remembered 2018 agreed that there had been an important course correction.