Books

This is the charming illustrated story of a young boy who seeks, in the midst of an arid landscape, for a way to restore the monsoon, and who finds the clue while asleep “on the mountain where all journeys end”.

Vijay (Vittorio Gresele) passed away on 30 August at his home in Baraka.

Bob Zwicker has worked in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives for 52 years, with particular responsibility for the Mother’s works. Recently, three new books have been published containing new material not published in the Centenary edition of The Mother’s Collected Works.

Consciousness-Based Psychology: Sri Aurobindo’s Vision of Yoga, Health and Transpersonal Growth presents a pioneering framework for psychology and psychiatry rooted in the spiritual philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother.

Tucked away in a small room at the back of Auroville’s Vanaville unit is Michel’s bookbinding sanctuary — a quiet space where hundreds of worn books have been given a new lease on life.

Romulus Whitaker (‘Rom’), the world-renowned herpetologist, has had a long association with Auroville. He first visited around 1970 when ‘Cow John’ showed him around what was then the beginning of what he came to see as a fantastic experiment.

The seven volumes of The Mother’s Entretiens (Questions and Answers) are a treasure trove. They cover a wide range of topics in considerable depth, giving us a glimpse not only of Sri Aurobindo’s and The Mother’s vision of life and the future of humanity, but also providing many answers to questions on how to live one’s life and follow the spiritual path.

A few weeks ago a new biography of The Mother was published. The Mother: A Life of Sri Aurobindo’s Spiritual Collaborator is written by Peter Heehs, a reputed historian who has been a researcher in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives for over 50 years, writing biographies of Sri Aurobindo and publishing papers on related topics.

It takes a brave individual to write a biography of Sri Aurobindo. This is because Sri Aurobindo himself doubted the value of such an attempt – “Why write my biography at all?

This 280 page book is a tribute to Kireet Joshi composed by two of his close Auroville friends, Frederick Schulze Buxloh and Alain Bernard.

PRISMA, one of the Auroville units that specialises in publishing and distributing books, has increased its international presence. More than twenty PRISMA books are now accessible in about thirty countries, offering readers a choice between digital and print formats on platforms like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound, Indigo and more.

A new book, “Prefiguring Utopia: The Auroville Experiment”, by Aurovilian Suryamayi Aswini Clarence-Smith and published by Bristol University Press has just been released.

Many people have met The Mother. Some were blessed by Her responding to their questions in writing. One of those is Frederick Schulze Buxloh, who first came to India in 1960 when he was 20 years old and then met The Mother for the first time.

Last year Prisma released a second edition of their 2015 compilation on the theme of death. As its title indicates this includes the ‘death of death’, exploring Sri Aurobindo’s passing and his journey into the unconscious and Mother’s grappling with the transformation of death.

On the occasion of Sri Aurobindo’s 150th anniversary, the Sri Aurobindo Centre for Advanced Research (SACAR) in Pondicherry received a grant of Rs.12 lakhs (approx.

As my partner and I were talking about the history of Auroville’s on-going crisis, she encouraged me to read a specific book chronicling the early days of Auroville.

On November 3rd, Dr. Ananda Reddy released his new book Sri Aurobindo: The Grand Synthesis at a function in Unity Pavilion in the presence of the Vice Chancellor of the Pondicherry University Prof.

Paulette has published an interesting new compilation in celebration of Sri Aurobindo’s 150th birth anniversary. ‘Crossroad: A New Humanity’ contains extracts from “The Human Cycle”, “The Ideal of Human Unity” and “War and Self Determination”.

Every so often a story comes along that captures the spirit of Auroville in a unique way, bringing to light aspects of its deeper purpose of transforming the world we live in to create a spiritualized life on our planet.

On the occasion of Sri Aurobindo’s 150th birth anniversary, Penguin India has published Reading Sri Aurobindo, a book that introduces in 31 chapters each of the works of Sri Aurobindo through the words of 21 contributors.

For Claude Arpi, the Bangladesh Liberation War symbolises a promising uniting event. Claude is an Aurovilian, historian, and journalist, whose journey of historical discovery of Tibet, China, and the Subcontinent started with a visit to the Himalayas in 1972.

In the growth and busyness of today’s Auroville we can forget the many small miracles that contributed to its formation, those men and women of goodwill mysteriously drawn here, via dreams, books, synchronicities and all that chance entails.

Manoj Das, who passed away on 27 April 2021, was an inmate of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and a well-known Indian author who wrote extensively in Odia and English.

This small book is a recollection of J.R.D. Tata’s involvement with Auroville as well as a meditative reflection by the author, Frederick (Friedrich Schulze Buxloh), of his very special relationship with this great man, one of India’s foremost industrialists who in 1992 was awarded India’s highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna, for his contribution to India’s development as the head of the then largest industrial conglomerate.

“This book is offered as an explorer’s source book in the mapping of various psychological problems inherent in the practice of Sri Aurobindo’s integral sadhana,” is how Dr.

Two of the most important, and opposing, trends in the modern world are internationalism and chauvinism, or narrow parochialism. Proponents of internationalism, of a world where countries are no longer divided by narrow nationalisms, often point to the European Union as a promising supra-national experiment.

In Eyes of Evolution Aurovilian psychologist Gerard Beusen (Jerry) presents a brief manual for self-discovery and transformation. It is based upon the ‘Seven Eyes’ approach which he has developed over many years through inner work and the contributions of people who participated in his workshops.

Auroville’s Institute of Integral Health Santé and the Auroville Village Action Group have issued the booklet “Nal Valvu” (Good and meaningful life), which aims at raising awareness about COVID-19 – how it spreads, how to manage the risk of infection, what Community transmission and herd immunity are, and how the Covishield vaccine effects immunity.

Awareness Through the body (ATB) is one of Auroville’s truly groundbreaking programmes. For almost thirty years, Aloka, Joan and people who have since become facilitators in ATB, have helped generations of students, as well as adults, to know and manage the complexity of their own beings through simple tools rooted in sensory experience.

Awareness through the Body (ATB) is one of Auroville’s truly groundbreaking programmes. Beginning in 1993, Aloka, Joan and people who have since become facilitators in ATB have helped generations of students, as well as adults, to know and manage the complexity of their own being through simple tools rooted in sensory experience.

Auro e-Books has published a bilingual English-Chinese version of the book “The Spirit of Auroville”. The Chinese translation was done by Anandi Zhang and proofread by Ni Hui, while Olivier Barot took care of the English text and picture selection.

Some years ago, Vikas (Alan Vickers), one of the pioneer Aurovilians, brought out a slim anthology of Auroville poetry called 50 poems from Auroville.

Radicle Network is a fast-paced thriller by an Auroville greenworker, Paul Blanchflower, that takes a look at the world we live in and the current environmental crisis that we have created.

It is sometimes difficult to place the 1980s in Auroville. The 1970s was a period of pioneering and high drama – including, as it does, Mother’s passing and the conflict with the Society – while the 1990s witnessed a Cambrian explosion of projects.

From August 2-9, the 7th Auroville Children’s Book Fair was held at Ilaignarkal Education Centre in Auroville. This highly anticipated scholastic event showcases no less than 50,000 books in Tamil and English, specially selected for the young student audience.

It took Paulette Hadnagy twelve years to compile the material for this book from The Mother’s writings, she writes in her book announcement.

Savitri Bhavan has published its fifth volume of The English of Savitri, which deals with the first four Cantos of Book Two, the Book of the Traveller of the Worlds, the longest chapter of Savitri.

How can you encompass something as complex and as multi-layered as Auroville? You can’t, of course. But it may be easier to capture something of this extraordinary adventure through images than through words.

The Dawn of Auroville, which is published by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, is a book of early photographs along with an outline history of Auroville’s conception, inauguration and growth during the Mother’s lifetime.

“I want to insist on the fact that this will be an experiment, it is for making experiments – experiments, researches, studies.” The Mother on Auroville

Barely three months after the publication of the third volume of The English of Savitri series, Savitri Bhavan has published the fourth volume, dealing with Book Ten, The Book of the Double Twilight.

Let the Matrimandir be the living symbol of Auroville’s aspiration for the Divine. - The Mother In the 300-page book What is the Matrimandir: the most mysterious monument of modern times, author Iris Gaartz presents the personal experiences of 31 residents and guests of Auroville in visiting this building.

During the community interaction with the Governing Board members on September 8th, Dr. Kiran Bedi, the Lt Governor of Pondicherry, lauded Dr.