Freedom

“What to make of French writers, who, to stay on the right side of the occupation authorities, decide to write about anything but the one thing all French people are thinking about, or worse still, who, out of cowardice, bolster the occupants’ plan to make it appear as though everything in France continues as it did before?”

Societies are very complex organisms. Authorities in totalitarian societies attempt to diminish the complexity – which they see as a threat to asserting their will – by rigidly controlling the population through indoctrination and various instruments of coercion.

Those who have put forward the idea of a “Spiritual and Material Refresher programme” [a condition for living in Auroville mentioned in the Auroville Residents Criteria Standing Order] to be given at regular intervals to Auroville Residents have either – at worst – not read Sri Aurobindo’s works or – at best – have only read them superficially.

As a child, growing up in a Hindu household in Odisha, I was always intrigued by the images of Lord Jagannath and his siblings. Like most Hindu households, an entire room was reserved for the gods, and the main icons from Hinduism’s rich pantheon of reportedly 330 million gods were prominently displayed and revered.

Jay Naidoo, former leader in the South African struggle against apartheid, and former minister responsible for Reconstruction and Development in the country’s first democratic government, where he worked closely with Nelson Mandela, recently visited Auroville.

H.P. Rama is a successful hotelier based in the U.S. He is also a devotee of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, and has founded a university – AURO University – in Surat based upon the former’s educational principles.

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.

Although relationships between Iran and India have been close for centuries, less than ten Iranians have joined Auroville. Is this because of Iran's conservative theocratic regime?

Everyone here knows the expression “Children of Auroville”, but they’ve grown up since, and some now have children themselves! As various waves of ‘children of Children of Auroville’ – i.e. youth that has grown up in Auroville to parents that have themselves grown up in Auroville (monikers: GenZ, iGen or even Zoomers) are born and grow up here, the older ones now represent a category that is starting to be more vocal in the community.

Many people come to Auroville as adults, but some of us were born here or came as kids. What is it like, being a child of Auroville? How is it different to grow up in an intentional community?