Issue Nº395-396

On the night of April 19th – 20th, 2022 a special milestone was reached with the completion of the installation of the waterproofing liner in the 7.5 metre wide water channel, one kilometre long, which now surrounds the Matrimandir gardens.

Auroville’s Residents’ Assembly Service is tasked with organizing decisions of the Residents’ Assembly of the Auroville Foundation. Lately their job has become very challenging.

For me, it was an absolute delight to listen to Kireet Bhai on the governance of Auroville. He, so beautifully, explains it in the larger light of Sri Aurobindo’s vision.

Mandakini Gupta, a former student of the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education (Ashram school) in Puducherry, was a member of the Working Committee from December 2014 to December 2019 and has been active in the areas of Auroville’s internal conflict resolution and governance.

Richard Hartz works as a researcher in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives.

In 2014, Mandakini Lucien-Brun of Auroville International France teamed up with longtime land fundraiser Aryadeep and secretary Jothi Raj of Land For Auroville United (LFAU) to create the Acres for Auroville fundraising campaign.

Deepti Tewari joined Auroville 47 years ago and teaches at Last School. She is editor of the Bharat Nivas Journal. Earlier she had edited the Matrimandir Journal.

Working in Auroville has its own specialty. As novice honorary volunteers, drawn to the idea of Auroville and with stars in our eyes, several years can go by slightly tinted.

Didier Weiss joined Auroville in 1994 and started a few years later Sound Wizard, an Auroville unit that specialises in turnkey design of high-end acoustics and audiovisual environments such as music studios, auditoria, and elite home cinema theaters.

Pushkar studied at the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education (Pondicherry), where he started studying music. He furthered his musical studies in Spain and at Oberlin College (USA).

Amudha joined Auroville 43 years ago. She helped start the Kindergarten in 1984 and continues to teach there today. Along with her husband and two sons, she runs Kottakarai Farm and Ganesh Bakery.

In Future School, students can choose to follow an elective course in which the writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother as well as the ideology of Auroville are discussed in an informal manner.

Spirituality is a very perilous word because its meaning can be adapted to whatever you feel like at any given moment. It is the magic hat of consciousness.

Covering about 25 acres in the northeast part of the Greenbelt, Aurogreen is one of Auroville’s oldest farms and was the first to go organic.

On April 14, Tamil New Year, a frantic voice message for help was heard by many in Auroville. A bulldozer was uprooting the living fence bordering Eternity, a densely forested Auroville community located between the beach and the East Coast Road near Kalapet.

Auroville youth are often asked why they choose to go abroad. The majority answer that they wish to pursue higher education. Others want to travel to see the world or take up work outside.

Vega is a facilitator of Nonviolent Communication, a “language of compassion” focused on deep listening and deep awareness of what we perceive, feel, and need.

As a species, we tend to anthropomorphise everything. Kids’ books are full of stories of animals and plants wearing clothes, living in houses etc.

One of the biggest mysteries, for me, has been the process of change itself. The transformation of one thing into another has fascinated me since a very young age.