The Mother on Auroville

Mother once described Auroville as a “centre of accelerated evolution”. (“Auroville is the place where this new way of living is being worked out; it is a centre of accelerated evolution where man must begin to change his world through the power of the inner spirit.”)

From clunky prototypes to a thriving EV ecosystem, Auroville’s journey mirrors India’s evolving electric vehicle landscape – driven by innovation, resilience, and a vision for sustainable transport.

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.

To: Shri R.N. Ravi, Chairman, Governing Board, Auroville Foundation. Subject: The MoU with IIT Madras & Land Use Concerns Dear Shri R.N. Ravi ji,

In 2018, Amrit published ‘Children of Change’, a memoir recounting his early life and the difficult years in Auroville when he and others chose not to take sides in the bitter conflict between the Sri Aurobindo Society (SAS) and the then-dominant Auroville collective.

There are important questions to be asked regarding the population of Auroville. Firstly, who decided that the intended population of the township would be 50,000, and is this figure immutable, fixed, or can it be adjusted?

It is no secret that there are divisions within the community at present.

The following is the first in what may become a series of articles featuring Aurovilians who hold the city deeply in their hearts, even though they may disagree about the details of its manifestation

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.

“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.

Nothing happens by chance and we are therefore entitled to wonder what is the meaning of the crisis which has been shaking Auroville for some time.

Dear Editor Alan This is my first ‘Letter to the Editor’ of Auroville Today but I am not nervous. You usually graciously publish all the letters you get, and you get very few.

Auroville can be seen as the latest in a chain of ideal city experiments stretching back thousands of years.

Louis Cohen, who first came to Auroville in 1971, is one of the original pioneers. He continues to be very active in the development of the town.

Little is known about those early days before Auroville’s inauguration, when land purchase and the first Auroville developments were started by the Sri Aurobindo Society.

Records of Auroville’s history during Mother’s lifetime are found in periodicals (Mother India, the Bulletin of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, the Information Letter of the Sri Aurobindo Society and the Gazette Aurovilienne), in books published by disciples (Satprem, Shyam Sunder, Huta, Savitra), in archives (Sri Aurobindo Society, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Auroville), in personal archives as well as in published and unpublished interviews of disciples (Roger Anger and others).

To the Editors, Auroville Today, Please refer to the Editorial of your 2nd issue: “Between 1968 and 1972, a whole team worked on the plans of the city of which Mother dreamt.