Between Auroville and the West

In Auroville as a toddler and then raised there from the age of 8, I left Auroville in 1993 at 18 to pursue university studies in America. Although I worked part-time through my education, I still finished my degree with close to $20,000 in government-funded student loans.

Since 1999, I have divided my time between Auroville and the West, visiting Auroville most years for three to six months at a time, the longest stretch being a year and a half from 1999-2001. Compounding my total debt burden, during one trip to Auroville, I used a credit card both for the journey and for living expenses on my return to the US while I re-established my work situation.

During each visit, as soon as I feel as though I’m beginning to sink my teeth into life in Auroville, I am pulled back to the West to replenish my bank account in order to continue making loan payments. Each time I leave India I invariably think, and say, “This time I will work with a one-pointed focus and wipe out all my debt, then return, free to stay without this obligation.”

So far I haven’t managed. Drawn into western life, working hard and even earning relatively well, it feels like my regular returns to Auroville take me two steps forward and one step back on the financial front. Unlike friends raised within their own culture who have worked for money since an early age, my experience in Auroville was different, and prioritized work as yoga, the focus on inner stance rather than monetary compensation. I’ve long believed and experienced that doing the right work in a spirit of offering ensures universal support for one’s needs.

This ideal stems at least in part from an upbringing within the Auroville community and financial system where, ideally, we work at what we do in order to grow and to give, rather than to get so that we can pay. The individual who works is taken care of by the community.

My higher studies in classical music and language, while immensely rewarding on a personal level, were not based on a game-plan for earning. Consequently, it has been difficult to hold any steady job in the West that is lucrative and flexible enough to both provide for living expenses, repayment of student loans, and annual travel expenses across the globe, while at the same time allowing for regular and extended absences. So I’ve turned naturally to self-employment at a variety of jobs.

Since 1993, I’ve worked as a landscaper, carpenter, painter, musician, teacher, masseur, fitness professional, and, most recently, a certified arborist on the Hawaiian island of Maui.

I recently discovered that while I had considered living in Auroville and repaying western loans at the same time a personal dilemma, it is a struggle shared by other young people there. Clearly it represents a more pervasive theme in the community.

In fact, many honorary voluntary Aurovilians of all ages grapple with generating sufficient income to support children, studies abroad, their aging parents, flights to spend time with non-Aurovilian family, or to simply to upgrade their quality of material life in India.

For the youth who have so much to give Auroville, I would caution from experience against the easy route of loans for study, as it’s far too easy to get caught in a vicious cycle of extending loan life through just maintaining minimum payments, or alternatively, of being stuck outside Auroville for long periods, perhaps working at a less than fulfilling job with minimal time off.

While it is certainly healthy for youth to leave for a period in order to develop their individuality, a time may come when there is a desire to return home and offer one’s energies through a work driven by motivation other than that of earning. The ability to choose this freely without external obligation is precious.

However, I do suspect that within the often frustrating situation of returning regularly to the West to earn lies a gift. For me the necessity has created an organic bridge between Auroville and the West, forcing a synthesis of sorts, pulling me out to engage with the world from what could otherwise easily have become a very insular existence. After all, Auroville wants to be a global experiment.