The aspiration of the community of Auroville is represented in it's charter formulated by the Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1968 as a noble endeavour. The charter as written is:
1. Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole. But to live in Auroville one must be the willing servitor of the Divnine Consciousness.
2. Auroville will be the place of an undending education, of constant progress, and a youth that never ages.
3. Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past and the future. Taking advantage of all discoveries from without and from within, Auroville will boldly spring towards future realisations.
4. Auroville wil be a site of material and spriritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual Human Unity.
This wonderful aspiration attracted me to the noble experiment of this community over the last fourty years. No one who has the best intentions for a better world can criticize the conception envisaged in this charter and effort to implement it on the ground in the real world. Let me begin by giving praise to the clear and positive impact that this project has had on the environment of the area. I first came to Auroville in it's early days to be astounded by the harshness and utter desolation of the land upon which the project had planted it's flag. To my utter amazement in subsequent visits there has been a triumphant improvement in the landscape. Instead of a denuded desert of red soil it has become a forested region reclaimed by wildlife that had fled the area years ago. The change is astonishing and hard to comprehend if you had not seen the early days. For the success of that alone, Auroville should be proud, congratulated and supported in those efforts. It the rest of the country had accomplished similar efforts with the scant resources but obvious dedication and will this whole country could have been a rejuvenated ecological showpiece for the world. I call on everyone to look at their methods and support those same efforts everywhere we can as they have provent their efficacy with few financial resources.
Ok, so that is the great visible achievement of this community and maybe the easier one to accomplish. Going back to the charter which formulates a psychological and social change in human life you have to admit that this experiment appears to be failing at it's core. I am not sure the participants can objectively understand this and without a clear confrontation with the facts they sow the seeds of it's eventual collapse. One wise man responded to it's difficulties by saying that at least the community had lasted fourty years and endured to fight another day. This is true and commendable but not good enough. Survival is not an answer and explanation. The community can only have a rationale to exist if it has kept it's core beliefs alive and well. thriving in an adverse environment. That really is certainly up for debate both inside and out the project. Too many people who come to Auroville and even the members themselves have serious concerns about it's status and progress. There is a sense of stalled momentum, a stilted inward thinking and defensiveness that mitigates against all the values upon which Auroville staked it's reputation. I do not expect perfection or pure enlightenment out of the community. But I think a fair person would expect to see a greater appearance that the members of Auroville are working diligently and honestly in everyway to develop and bring to fruition the concepts that underpin it's creation. I will not go into the details of the numerous flaws of the community as that is not the issue that concerns me in this commentary. I might be more concerned if there were not any issues that needed identification and resolution. In an imperfect world with imperfect people this experiment needs to move forward and be ongoing. My concern is that there is not enough serious reflection and effort on a personal level to ever properly tackle these issues so that Auroville can be seen as a true participant in solutions and be a beacon of progress and vision in a broader world. Auroville maybe the community the "world needs" but then it needs to live up to the responsibility this implies and take the necessary steps on a personal and communal level to begin to resolve it's problems in a new way that shows the way for all of us. The world is in serious trouble. God knows it needs some help and guidance but the role of Auroville has to play is being lost in the petty personal bickering and politics that we can find anywhere in the world. Until you give yourselves a collective slap in the face you will miss the opportunity you have been given to show a way out of the morass of our times. And believe me, others will leave you by the wayside if you do not meet the challenge. It is a sad tragedy that this wonderful possibility is allowing itself to be sidelined when it is needed more than ever. I am beginning to think that the process at the heart of the experiment is flawed. I'm begging you all to get your act together. You have no stronger cheerleader but I will not refuse to see the reality of what is happening because I believe that this is the crux of the problem: looking clearly and honestly and then acting upon it. Maybe Auroville can only really exist in our hearts and maybe that is where it belongs. Not in any collective experiment that cannot get past it's internal problems. Others will find a way to keep the spirit of this idea alive but maybe in a totally different way. The personal issues have to be dealt with first and the colletive will follow.
This is too important to be allowed to utterly fail.
1. Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole. But to live in Auroville one must be the willing servitor of the Divnine Consciousness.
2. Auroville will be the place of an undending education, of constant progress, and a youth that never ages.
3. Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past and the future. Taking advantage of all discoveries from without and from within, Auroville will boldly spring towards future realisations.
4. Auroville wil be a site of material and spriritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual Human Unity.
This wonderful aspiration attracted me to the noble experiment of this community over the last fourty years. No one who has the best intentions for a better world can criticize the conception envisaged in this charter and effort to implement it on the ground in the real world. Let me begin by giving praise to the clear and positive impact that this project has had on the environment of the area. I first came to Auroville in it's early days to be astounded by the harshness and utter desolation of the land upon which the project had planted it's flag. To my utter amazement in subsequent visits there has been a triumphant improvement in the landscape. Instead of a denuded desert of red soil it has become a forested region reclaimed by wildlife that had fled the area years ago. The change is astonishing and hard to comprehend if you had not seen the early days. For the success of that alone, Auroville should be proud, congratulated and supported in those efforts. It the rest of the country had accomplished similar efforts with the scant resources but obvious dedication and will this whole country could have been a rejuvenated ecological showpiece for the world. I call on everyone to look at their methods and support those same efforts everywhere we can as they have provent their efficacy with few financial resources.
Ok, so that is the great visible achievement of this community and maybe the easier one to accomplish. Going back to the charter which formulates a psychological and social change in human life you have to admit that this experiment appears to be failing at it's core. I am not sure the participants can objectively understand this and without a clear confrontation with the facts they sow the seeds of it's eventual collapse. One wise man responded to it's difficulties by saying that at least the community had lasted fourty years and endured to fight another day. This is true and commendable but not good enough. Survival is not an answer and explanation. The community can only have a rationale to exist if it has kept it's core beliefs alive and well. thriving in an adverse environment. That really is certainly up for debate both inside and out the project. Too many people who come to Auroville and even the members themselves have serious concerns about it's status and progress. There is a sense of stalled momentum, a stilted inward thinking and defensiveness that mitigates against all the values upon which Auroville staked it's reputation. I do not expect perfection or pure enlightenment out of the community. But I think a fair person would expect to see a greater appearance that the members of Auroville are working diligently and honestly in everyway to develop and bring to fruition the concepts that underpin it's creation. I will not go into the details of the numerous flaws of the community as that is not the issue that concerns me in this commentary. I might be more concerned if there were not any issues that needed identification and resolution. In an imperfect world with imperfect people this experiment needs to move forward and be ongoing. My concern is that there is not enough serious reflection and effort on a personal level to ever properly tackle these issues so that Auroville can be seen as a true participant in solutions and be a beacon of progress and vision in a broader world. Auroville maybe the community the "world needs" but then it needs to live up to the responsibility this implies and take the necessary steps on a personal and communal level to begin to resolve it's problems in a new way that shows the way for all of us. The world is in serious trouble. God knows it needs some help and guidance but the role of Auroville has to play is being lost in the petty personal bickering and politics that we can find anywhere in the world. Until you give yourselves a collective slap in the face you will miss the opportunity you have been given to show a way out of the morass of our times. And believe me, others will leave you by the wayside if you do not meet the challenge. It is a sad tragedy that this wonderful possibility is allowing itself to be sidelined when it is needed more than ever. I am beginning to think that the process at the heart of the experiment is flawed. I'm begging you all to get your act together. You have no stronger cheerleader but I will not refuse to see the reality of what is happening because I believe that this is the crux of the problem: looking clearly and honestly and then acting upon it. Maybe Auroville can only really exist in our hearts and maybe that is where it belongs. Not in any collective experiment that cannot get past it's internal problems. Others will find a way to keep the spirit of this idea alive but maybe in a totally different way. The personal issues have to be dealt with first and the colletive will follow.
This is too important to be allowed to utterly fail.
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