Collectivity

Auroville exists in more than one dimension – there is the occult as well as the material dimension – which makes it difficult to assess what really is most important or influential in terms of the community’s development.

Lakshay Dharan shifted to Auroville in 2015 and became an Auroville resident in Feb 2018. Since then, he has been active in art, communication, strategy, and organisational work.

“In absolute silence sleeps an absolute power” — Sri Aurobindo, Savitri Sometimes I feel I am drowning in words. And not only mine. For it seems that every day someone in Auroville is bombarding us with words, telling us what to think, to do this and not to do that, to listen to them and not to others.

Recently longtime Aurovilian Divakar circulated a paper entitled ‘Auroville and its destinies’ in which he suggested a possible way forward which seeks to integrate the present reality as a way of continuing our collective progress.

After nearly three decades of engaging with Auroville (along with over 100 other ‘sustainable communities’ around the world), a twice-aborted Newcomer process (first due to Covid and then to pursue my ‘dream job’ as Director of Education at the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland), and having just spent of 2.5 months there, I would like to share a few radical questions about the future of Auroville for your consideration.

As befits chroniclers of our real lives, the organisers of the 8thAuroville Film Festival acknowledged in their address on the essence of the festival, the unique times Auroville is experiencing: ‘In the midst of the challenges we currently face, the Auroville Film Festival 2024 stands not as a conventional celebration but as a contemplative and reflective gathering.

“Midway in the course of our life I found myself within a dark wood, where the right way was lost.” First line of the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

Many years ago, Kireet Joshi gave a series of talks about Auroville’s organisation. As the architect of the Auroville Foundation Act, about which there is so much discussion and litigation at present, it is important to understand how he envisaged the role of the Residents Assembly in particular.

Maurice Shukla grew up as a child in the Mother's School and now helps wherever he can be useful at the Ashram: translating, editing, teaching and, evidently, forever learning.

Organisation research Responding to a call from the Auroville Council, a group gathered every week from mid November onwards to try to answer a “call for organisation”.

The Chairman of the Governing Board and Hon’ble Governor of Tamil Nadu, Shri R.N Ravi, accompanied by three members of the Governing Board, Smt.

Today, more than ever, we need to trust that that Force is active here, and that we can contact it. For it means that what is happening now has a purpose, and those who are here now are meant to be here; that for the moment we are the perfect ingredients for something that needs to be worked out through the ‘pressure of consciousness’ which is exerted upon all of us.

Our dreams at night can offer perspectives that our cognitive mind can’t reach. They are potential doorways to understanding different dimensions of what is going on in our lives individually and collectively.

Understanding Auroville with the mind is like grasping a handful of ash that wafts away in the breeze. You say something about it, then realize that the opposite also is true.

Jean-François Noubel recently visited Auroville. He assisted key working groups and gave public workshops and presentations on collective intelligence and a new form of economy.

Mother gave broad and clear directives that form the basis of Auroville’s socio-economic organization and vision: a communal economy with no private property and no exchange of money between community members, each of whom would contribute to the collective in one of three ways – work, kind, or money – and whose basic needs, would, in turn, be provided for by the community.

Recently, Auroville residents were invited to participate in a new series of the Evolutionary Café which take place every two weeks in the Unity Pavilion.

Over the past two months, Aurovilians have been invited to participate in a new experiment called The Joy of Learning. What is the idea behind it?

Stuart, a student of Sociology from Canada, has visited Auroville three times since 1981. This year he hopes to become a resident of Auroville.