Issue Nº320

On the evening of 29th February, Deepti Tiwari gave a much appreciated talk, the fourth and last in a series, organised by Cinema Paradiso, on the theme of consciousness which have been given by different Aurovilians.

“This evening the Divine Presence, concrete and material, was there present amongst you. I had a form of living gold, bigger than the universe, and I was facing a huge and massive golden door which separated the world from the Divine.

Auroville recently hosted a two-day festival to celebrate Tamil heritage and culture, a first of this scale and vision. The brainchild of Balu from Mohanam Cultural Centre, and Meenakshi from Auroville’s Tamil Heritage Centre and Ilaignarkal School, the festival brought together artisans, performers, farmers, VIPs and visitors for festivities on Auroville land.

The Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment oversees the interest of the Scheduled Castes, and intervenes in critical sectors through various schemes.

From November to March it’s always busy in Auroville, with the community hosting performances, workshops and exhibitions and welcoming the outside world.

The Auroville Urban Farming project was started by Riccardo, a long term volunteer studying Food Security in Auroville, with the aid of Luigi in late 2014.

On February 7th, the ‘Landing Auroville Celebration’ held at the Unity Pavillion was an encouraging success. Organised by the joint land fundraising teams of Acres for Auroville, GreenAcres and LFAU, the event’s central message was the sacredness of the land, and the need for an intense collective effort to acquire land in Auroville’s Master Plan area now.

Food is very much in the news these days. Recently, the Joy of Learning team presented two sessions on farming in Auroville, where the issue of Aurovilians’ food tastes, and how this impacts the farmers by determining what and how much organic food they grow, was an important topic.

David Hutchinson has been deeply involved with the Integral Yoga for 35 years. He has been a member of the Sri Aurobindo Association in the U.S., co-editor of the magazine Collaboration, organizer of AUM conferences, and moderator of several online lists on yoga.

When I first arrived three months ago, I imagined I was going to learn about new governance and economic structures, a new way of making decisions and managing money.

The Joy of Learning is an experiment in collective learning which addresses a wide range of themes associated with life in Auroville. It tries to (re)familiarise the residents with important issues in a stimulating and respectful learning environment, and is supported with funding from Stichting de Zaaier.

Correction The last line of the article ‘Leaking roofs, lack of privacy, plenty of sound pollution’, which appeared in Auroville Today # 319 of February 2016, disappeared due to a lay-out error.