Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. It belongs to humanity as a whole, but to live in Auroville one must be the willing servitor of the divine consciousness.
Mira Alfassa known as the Mother, also a disciple of Sri Aurobindo, a yoga guru dreamt that there should be somewhere on earth a place which no nation could claim as its own, where all human beings of good will who have a sincere aspiration could live freely as citizens of the world and obey one single authority, that of the supreme truth. For in this ideal place money would no longer be the sovereign lord; individual worth would have a far greater importance than that of material wealth and social standing. There, work would not be a way to earn one’s living, but a way to express oneself and to develop one’s capacities and possibilities
 This dream gave the concept of Auroville an ideal township devoted to an experiment in human unity. In 1966 UNESCO passed a unanimous resolution commending it as a project of importance to the future of humanity, thereby giving there full encouragement. On 28th Feb 1968 some 5000 people assembled near the banyan tree at the centre of Auroville for an inauguration ceremony, attended by representatives of 124 nations including all the states of India.
The representatives were a girl and a boy from each nation. They brought with them some soil from their homeland to be mixed in a white lotus shaped marble clad urn, now sited at the focal point of amphitheatre. Auroville is a n universal township in the making for a population of up to 50000 people from around the world. Presently there are 2000 people residing in Auroville.
Aurovillians come from 35 nations of all age groups, all social classes, backgrounds and cultures representing humanity as a whole.
We visited many places and one of them was Pitchandikulam, where we explored the ingenious and beautiful Tropical Dry Evergreen Forest
One of our Aurovillian friend Shankar took us around his school, The New Creation Bilingual school which gave free education to children under 13 from nearby villages. He also took us around one of these villages to show us the way people lived. We also paid a visit to the very famous and known Matrimandir, which looks like a huge golden golf ball.
Most of us went inside Matrimandir for meditation. Inside Matrimandir is the white meditation chamber which fascinated all our conscious minds.
Since, Auroville is known for its artefacts we visited various commercial units. It focuses Auroville’s efforts towards a self supporting township.
One of them was Angad’s pottery where he showed us how the pots are baked in different temperature kilns. Unique part of this pottery is that it is double glazed and can store eatables. And the other was Shradhanjali a labour-intensive boutique.
Where people working, were from nearby villages. It is a dry flower product boutique where you can find different things like lamps, coasters, mats, etc made by dry leaves or flowers.
In the middle of our packed schedules we went to Pondicherry. There we were taken on a Heritage Walk by INTACH i.e. Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage.
We also visited the well known Sri Aurobindo’s Ashram and school. The school was very different; over there students chose their subjects and teachers. They made their own time table and we were amazed with the idea that there were no exams. But the students weren’t provided with any degree and they had compulsory physical education every day. There teachers were not paid and most of them were ex-students of the same school. The rest of the day was spent visiting the local markets.
Next morning we woke up at 4:30 am and left for trekking up the Gingi Mountain along with Jean. The weather was very hot and humid but we managed to complete the trek in 7hrs. After the exhausting 7 hr trek we went to the Auroville Beach where we thoroughly enjoyed. Apart from all these visits, on our way to Auroville we stopped at Dakshin Chitra in Chennai and tried our hands in different crafts like pottery, candle making, pal leaf decoration, puppet making, etc.
Every evening we watched various thought provoking documentaries like Dream Of The Divine, Genious Of India and an Inconvenient truth which is a must see.
We also saw a Spanish movie the Motorcycle Diaries in Auroville’s own Auditorium.
We usually had our dinner at visitors centre. With that our stay in the city of dawn came to an end. However, the journey of inner discovery still continues……
|
