Finding Auroville

Auroville is known as a Universal Township or an International Township. People from all over the world have been living here since its founding in 1968. However, there is currently and has been in the past a questioning of what exactly this means. Is Auroville simply an experiment that entails people coming from different parts of the world and attempting to live together? What are the parameters and the framework within which Auroville is to function as a Universal Township? Are there supposed to be any parameters and guidelines at all?

To answer these questions, we need to first ask a more fundamental question: why is Auroville supposed to be an international township?

The Mother established Auroville in 1968, based on the spiritual philosophy taught by her and Sri Aurobindo, which they termed as Integral Yoga. In previous posts I have written briefly about what this philosophy is in relation to Auroville, and how we should see Auroville as an experiment in Human Unity. To answer the question at hand directly and simply, the central reason why Auroville is a universal township is because Integral Yoga is universal. Integral Yoga posits that the world will move, either quickly or slowly (it depends on us), towards a transformation of consciousness at both an individual and collective level. This transformation will therefore be at a fundamental psychological and sociological level, and in evolutionary terms will ultimately be at a physiological level. This transformation does not require anyone to believe in or practice any ritualistic religious or cultural practices or customs. It is not restricted to any cultural or religious group. It is and will be a universal transformation of humanity at an individual and collective level. And since Auroville is an experiment in Integral Yoga, the township must be universal in nature, open to all who want to partake in the experiment, and not restricted to any nationality or religious affiliation or grouping thereof.

This is the fundamental reason for the universality of Auroville, and why Auroville is open to people from all over the world. However, it is universal only because of the basis of the township as an experiment in Integral Yoga. It is not universal just for the sake of being universal, or for any other reason. It is not to get a group of people together from different parts of the world and then see what happens. There is a framework that has been given to us. The pursuit and propagation of a universal Integral Yoga is the central focus of the township. And this central focus is exactly the reason why the Government of India supports the project, and the universality of the project.

Anyone reading the posts of this blog will quickly realize that I am focusing a lot on Integral Yoga as being the central focus of Auroville. The reason I am doing this is because there is presently too little focus on it here. Auroville is presented as a place where one can come to “find” one’s spirituality, echoing the cliche that India is a place where people can come to “find themselves”. So Auroville becomes a place for “mindfulness”, “wellness”, alternative therapies, getting-away-from-it-all etc, apart from its constructed ecological focus. While these are all aspects that can and should exist in the Auroville milieu, it is important for people to realize that all this exists within the overarching purpose of pursuing Integral Yoga. As I will discuss in an upcoming post, this does not even mean, in my opinion, that everyone in Auroville needs to be oriented towards Integral Yoga, but it does mean that there should be an understanding that Integral Yoga is the central focus of Auroville.

Another trope that is a common refrain in Auroville is that of “flexibility”. This narrative insists that the activities of Auroville need to be varied, multitudinous and diverse, allowing a wide range of themes, attitudes, foci and viewpoints within its wide umbrella. This narrative goes on to state that focusing on Integral Yoga is too “dogmatic”, restrictive and narrow an agenda. What this narrative conveniently misses out is that Integral Yoga itself is basically limitless in its flexible, allowing and embracing a variety of paths, activities and viewpoints, and asking only for the recognition, understanding and realization of a core Truth as a unifying factor. In a future post I will address in more detail this notion of Integral Yoga being dogmatic and restrictive. I have already touched upon it in a previous post.

Coming back to the issue at hand: Auroville is fundamentally a universal, international project. However, there is a framework within which this universality exists, and this framework is Integral Yoga. This framework allows for a vast, flexible and diverse (theoretically limitless) set of activities and actions to take place in Auroville, with a fundamental Truth at the center of all these actions and activities. To come to Auroville should mean an understanding and acceptance that its universality is yoked to this Truth at the core of the purpose of Auroville.