Auroville

Matramandir Meditation Room siting amidst architectural lotus petals reminding us that the lotus bud, the mind, is opening.

Auroville was inaugurated in 1968 as “a universal town where men and women of all countries can live in peace and progressive harmony, above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities.”

It is worth breaking down and considering right now, in November 2025, whether it is possible to have a harmonious community sans a government. At this point it seems infeasible that a society could survive without a governing body. How will conflicts be resolved? Still, as accustomed to it as we’ve become, does it necessarily follow that the entities must be run by politicians with self-interests at heart? I’ve been traveling and meeting people from all over the world and the sentiment I hear most is that things would run more in the interest of the common man if we didn’t have politicians in power.

 

The inaugural address was delivered to a happy fanfare of youth representing 124 countries. It was the brainchild of Sri Aurobindo who’d passed on by that time, and his partner Mirra Alfassa a/k/a The Mother. They’d both done a good deal of spiritual work on themselves and were convinced that spiritual evolution leading to the possibility of self organization outside the frameworks of government and of religion is possible. 

See The Pilgrim Train post for a brief introduction of the founders. The Mother was only touched upon there. Her personal sadhana is a moving story and their website, Auroville.org, has an impressive compendium of her works and vision for Auroville.

Admittedly The Mother did not feel humans have evolved yet to reach the point where disputes would not arise, due to egos not yet sublimated to the greater good (not sure if they’d use the term sublimated, but I don’t have a ready vocabulary for an ideal phenomenon that has not yet occurred on this material plane). Nor would we for awhile. Still, the community was envisioned to include 50,000 in the not-too-distant future. To date there are around 3,300 Aurovillians. It’s a diverse community, representing sixty some nationalities. Largely built around tourism, the village surrounding Auroville supports many businesses dedicated to spiritual evolution: through yoga, light healing, sound healing, etc. These folks who consider themselves contributing to this goal informally call themselves the Aroundavillians. 

 

On a lighter note, no matter how “woke” you are, it doesn’t hurt to have a little extra protection around your property to ward off the Evil Eye.

Drishti Bommai is a popular ally for protecting property in Tamil Nadu. 

Back to the contributions of the Auroundovillians. The primary difference is that their efforts to elevate awareness are aimed at the personal level, which some argue elevates egoism,  and effectuated through the framework of a capitalistic economy. This is the phenomenon one sees in many towns with a new age emphasis. There is a valid argument that the end result of these businesses is creating people who are more mindful and taking their elevated consciousnesses back into the workplace and their social networks,  and certainly that is a plus for mankind. The snag is that capitalism as an economy nurtures a mindless consumerism that is adversely impacting the very biosphere which sustains us. Well, let’s call it what it is. Not just “adversely impacting” the earth. It is rampantly destroying Earth’s ability to sustain human life. The connection is invisible to most, and the sales propaganda and desire to shop till one drops motors on, unbridled. The irony is that on this trajectory we will shop until we drop.

A tangible upside of the Auroville community is that it attracts 2,000 visitors a day. People who come to contemplate the notion of spiritual evolution of an entire society,  and that in itself is Something.

Another upside is the recognition that the notion of living in harmony needs to be a worldwide phenomenon. To this end it embraces an “international zone” where countries are encouraged to set up pavilions showcasing what their culture is all about, that is, what it contributes to the world. One of these is the Tibetan pavilion.

The Dalai Lama has been onboard with the philosophical concept of Auroville from the get-go. He publicly said, “We are deeply impressed by the spiritual aim behind the building of an international city called Auroville. The importance of the effort to achieve human unity and international co-operation by the creation of such a city cannot be over-emphasized: nor can we neglect the benefit to be acquired from it.”

He gifted two thangkas to the pavilion. One is of Padmasambhava, the second Buddha, after Shakyamuni, credited with taming Tibet’s “destructive forces” so the Dharma could take root. This is to underscore the shared Buddhist heritage between India and Tibet.  The other  thangka is of a key Bodhisattva, Avalokiteshvara/Chenrezi, the Dalai Lama’s own patron deity who symbolizes universal compassion and the Tibetan commitment to nonviolence.

He also had a sand mandala created and preserved under glass to show visitors what it is. Typically a sand mandala is dispersed shorty after creation to illustrate the impermanence of things. But it is an important ritual tool for meditation and healing and provides an insight into the practice of Buddhism. Mandalas represent in a geometric form all that exists within the cosmos and have been meditated upon all over the globe under the guise of different religions over thousands of years, to the point where the renowned psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung identified them in the 1920s and 1930s as symbols from the collective unconscious that would appear to his patients on the brink of mental disassociation as a coalescing modality. 

These contributions from His Holiness, the 14th Dalia Lama are on the second floor. On the first floor there is presently an exhibit by the photographer Professor Kuo Yuma Chin called Frost Flowers, showing perfect and beautiful frost formations on glass, and his interpretation of messages he has received from water. It is interesting because this echoes the theme of the Japanese photographer Masaru Emoto whose work illustrates how water crystals react to nearby emotions. Over the years, many vastly different cultures have recognized living water goddesses. Here in India it is believed that the sea blesses the Shiva lingas and conversely, Janardana charged the sea at Papanasam Beach with the power to cleanse sins. In short, it is seen as a living element influencing and being influenced by us. Water is the element we were once, earlier in our evolution, surrounded by. As land creatures now, the ether or space (akasha), one of the other five elements  comprising existence, is easier for us mentally to comprehend and access. Like water, it is another medium which surrounds us and nurtures us. We are realizing that it too is capable of carrying thoughts and even of manifesting them. These are hints of things we don’t see. The curators of the Tibetan pavilion are showing us that there is magic in our universe we aren’t recognizing. 

Each nation has an identity and something to offer. To date, there are only a few pavilions in the international zone. But it is enough to make us realize that if we share our understandings and revelations we can come together at a very basic but significant level, that of marveling over our very existence.