Finding Auroville

After establishing that Auroville is indeed in India (for the foreseeable future), and that it is indeed an international township but for a very specific reason, we can ask why Auroville is in India. An international township can exist anywhere in the world, so what are the reasons why this one is located in India? Is it just by chance that India was chosen as the site for it, or are there specific reasons?

The simple and straightforward answer is that Auroville is a site for, laboratory for and experiment in Integral Yoga, and the historical, philosophical and spiritual roots of Yoga lie in India. But let’s explore all this a bit more.

Sri Aurobindo, The Mother and Integral Yoga

Sri Aurobindo was born in Kolkata in 1872 but spent the majority of his early years in England. He returned to India in 1893 when he was 21 years old. Between 1893 and 1910, he became increasingly involved in India’s freedom struggle, while simultaneously moving deeper and deeper into spirituality. in 1910 he traveled by ship from Bengal to Pondicherry (now Puducherry), and lived there for the rest of his life.

The Mother (Mirra Alfassa) was born in Paris in 1878 and was raised in France. She first came to Pondicherry in 1914, which is when she met Sri Aurobindo for the first time, and recognized him as the spiritual guide from her dreams. Leaving Pondicherry in 1915, she returned there for good in 1920.

Sri Aurobindo gave the name Integral Yoga to the spiritual philosophy that he developed. Integral Yoga is based on and takes forward the philosophy of Yoga as described in the Vedantic texts and the subsequent Vedantic philosophical/spiritual tradition (the primary Vedantic texts are the Upanishads, the Bhagwad Gita and the Bhrama Sutra). Sri Aurobindo has written extensively on the Upanishads (as well as the Vedas), and one of his key books, which elaborates on the basis of his spiritual thinking, is titled Essays on the Gita. The Mother was Sri Aurobindo’s spiritual collaborator, commenting and writing extensively on Sri Aurobindo’s writings and on their spiritual philosophy. They were both practitioners of and teachers of Integral Yoga.

So what does all this say about why Auroville is located where it is, in Tamil Nadu just outside the borders of Pondicherry? Sri Aurobindo moved to Pondicherry from British India because the British authorities were looking to arrest him (again) for his revolutionary activities. Pondicherry became the place where he would focus on his yoga, his spiritual pursuits and his spiritual writings. The Mother first visited Pondicherry with her then husband because Pondicherry was then a French colony and her husband had political interests there. The reason she stayed on for many months and then eventually moved to Pondicherry permanently in 1920 was because of Sri Aurobindo and their spiritual collaboration.

When The Mother initiated Auroville in the 1960s, the rest of India had attained independence from the British, and Pondicherry from the French. The Mother had stayed on in Pondicherry after the passing of Sri Aurobindo in 1950 and the complete end of French colonial control in 1962 because her aim was to continue the work that she and Sri Aurobindo were undertaking. When selecting the site for Auroville, as the land of the tiny union territory of Pondicherry was too disjointed and already too built-up, she selected a location just outside Pondicherry in Tamil Nadu state. As mentioned in previous posts, Auroville was conceived of as a universal/international township for the attainment of a true human unity, based on the spiritual philosophy of Integral Yoga.

When we put all this together, it becomes obvious that the reason why Auroville is in India is because India is the land of Yoga. And the reason it is situated near Pondicherry is because that is where Sri Aurobindo moved to and set up what was to become his Ashram, and where The Mother moved to pursue her spiritual collaboration with Sri Aurobindo. In this tale of Auroville’s location lies an interaction between the millennia-old spiritual philosophy of Yoga in India and the centuries-old connection of French (and British) colonialism on Indian soil.

In Auroville there is often an emphasis, most commonly stressed by the French Aurovilians, on the French aspects of the roots of Auroville. For sure The Mother wrote and spoke mostly in French. In the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry there is a connection with the French language. And French is one of the four languages of Auroville (the other three being English, Tamil and Sanskrit/simplified Sanskrit). Another French connection comes in the form of Satprem (Bernard Enginger), who was a prominent disciple of The Mother. He was a key figure in the formative years of Auroville, and his books inspired many in France and Europe to come to Auroville. However, if we look at the long term goals and objectives of Auroville (looking at the longue durée, so to speak, which happens automatically with Integral Yoga), this French connection is a short-term historical particularity. If we look forward speculatively into the future of Auroville a hundred, five hundred, or a thousand years from now, this French connection will be of receding importance (as will hopefully all national separations).

So, to summarize, the specific location of Auroville next to Pondicherry has to do with the connection between The Mother being French and Pondicherry being a French colony. And in the wider, long-term and more comprehensive context, Auroville is in India because its purpose and focus is (or should be) Integral Yoga. And in fact in a still wider and even longer-term context, given the universality of Integral Yoga, ultimately even the origins of Integral Yoga in Indian philosophy and culture will become a historical facet. Auroville should attract people from all over the world who are interested in Integral Yoga. The fact that The Mother was a proponent of Integral Yoga is itself a testament to its universality.

However, if we return to the time-frame of the foreseeable future, Auroville is in India and has its philosophical and spiritual roots in the Indian cultural context.

India and the Spiritualization of the World

There is then the aspect of what India’s role is in the true human unity that Auroville strives for. There are numerous quotes by Sri Aurobindo and The Mother that mention the role of India in the eventual spiritualization of the world through Integral Yoga. Only a few of these quotes are presented here.

Sri Aurobindo has written about the spiritual legacy of India and its role in the future of humanity:

Out of this awakening vision and impulse the Indian renaissance is arising, and that must determine its future tendency. The recovery of the old spiritual knowledge and experience in all its splendour, depth and fullness is its first, most essential work; the flowing of this spirituality into new forms of philosophy, literature, art, science and critical knowledge is the second; an original dealing with modern problems in the light of the Indian spirit and the endeavour to formulate a greater synthesis of a spiritualised society is the third and most difficult. Its success on these three lines will be the measure of its help to the future of humanity.

…

Either India will be rationalised and industrialised out of all recognition and she will be no longer India or else she will be the leader in a new world-phase, aid by her example and cultural infiltration the new tendencies of the West and spiritualise the human race.

…

Indian culture recognises the spirit as the truth of our being and our life as a growth and evolution of the spirit. It sees the Eternal, the Infinite, the Supreme, the All; it sees this as the secret highest Self of all, this is what it calls God, the Permanent, the Real, and it sees man as a soul and power of this being of God in Nature. The progressive growth of the finite consciousness of man towards this Self, towards God, towards the universal, the eternal, the infinite, in a word his growth into spiritual consciousness, by the development of his ordinary ignorant natural being into an illumined divine nature, this is for Indian thinking the significance of life and the aim of human existence.

…

But always to India this ideal inspiration or rather this spiritual vision of Self, God, Spirit, this nearness to a cosmic consciousness, a cosmic sense and feeling, a cosmic idea, will, love, delight into which we can release the limited, ignorant, suffering ego, this drive towards the transcendental, eternal and infinite, and the moulding of man into a conscious soul and power of that greater Existence have been the engrossing motive of her philosophy, the sustaining force of her religion, the fundamental idea of her civilisation and culture.

Sri Aurobindo, The Renaissance in India and Other Essays on Indian Culture (pages 15, 65, 214, 215, written between 1918 and 1921)

The Mother was even more direct about India’s role in the world:

India must be saved for the good of the world since India alone can lead the world to peace and a new world order.

The future of India is very clear. India is the guru of the world. The future structure of the world depends on India. India is the living soul. She incarnates the spiritual knowledge in the world. The government of India ought to recognize this significance of India in this sphere and plan their action accordingly….

The Mother, Words of the Mother – I: India (mid-1950s)

True spirituality is not to renounce life, but to make life perfect with a Divine Perfection.

This is what India must show to the world now.

The Mother, Words of the Mother – I: India (1963)

In February 1968, just before Auroville’s inauguration ceremony, The Mother wrote this message:

India has become the symbol representing all the difficulties of modern humanity.
India will be the land of its resurrection, the resurrection to a higher and truer life.

While explaining the inspiration for this message, she said:

India is the representation of all human difficulties on earth, and it is in India that there will be the… cure. And it is for that – it is for that that I had to create Auroville.

For Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, India had a definite role to play in humanity’s spiritual future. And as the last quote from The Mother shows, Auroville is a site for the enacting of that role.

Even if we question the future amplitude of India’s role as “guru of the world”, what is certain is the role of India as the land that has given us the philosophy of Yoga and Integral Yoga, which has charted the course for the transformation of human consciousness and the spiritualized evolution of humanity.

India, The Indian Government and Auroville

We now move to another aspect of the question “why is Auroville in India”, which is: why is the Indian Government supporting the presence of Auroville in India? Here is another short historical snippet:

The Mother initiated the project of Auroville in early-1965, and the inauguration ceremony of the township took place in February 1968. She oversaw the administration of Auroville from the Ashram in Pondicherry, and most of the land and assets of Auroville were held by an organization called the Sri Aurobindo Society. After The Mother’s passing in November 1973, a protracted battle started between the Sri Aurobindo Society (SAS) and some Aurovilians over control of Auroville’s assets, the day-to-day conditions in Auroville and the direction that the project should take. Both sides were politically well connected, but it seems that the Aurovilians were more so. In 1980, the Auroville (Emergency Provisions) Bill was passed by the Indian government, which temporarily took control of the SAS’s assets in Auroville and placed them under the control of a government administrator. In 1988, the Auroville Foundation Act was passed, which permanently gave the newly formed entity of the Auroville Foundation control of Auroville’s assets. So one could say that control over Auroville passed from The Mother to a tug-of-war between the SAS and some Aurovilians to the Government of India, which granted Auroville a degree of autonomy under the Auroville Foundation Act.

So why did the Indian government decide to take on and support the Auroville project? What potential value did it see in the project? Why did it agree to channel resources to this universal/international township whose purpose is the realization of an actual human unity? I am of course going to start sounding like a parrot now. The reason is that that Auroville is established on the spiritual philosophy of Integral Yoga. Integral Yoga is what Sri Aurobindo and The Mother propounded and taught, and is the basis of the township that The Mother created. As a continuation and development of the philosophy of Yoga, Integral Yoga is part of India’s culture, tradition and ethos. Sri Aurobindo has said that the setting forth of humanity on the path of a spiritualized evolution through Integral Yoga will be India’s main contribution to the world. And Auroville could be a site for this movement, this transformation, to happen.

This then is the reason why the Indian government has taken on the project of Auroville. The Indian government has seen the potential value of Auroville in being a setting for India to manifest its role as a leader in the spiritualization of humanity, for Auroville to be a place where humanity charts out its course towards that spiritualized evolution. This is the value, the potential it sees in Auroville, even though that possibility seems very distant at the moment, and the task absolutely monumental. It has supported Auroville in the hope that this destiny will come to fruition. Even though this support seems audacious when seen in this light, there is no other reason for India to lend its support to Auroville, and make space for the project. And no other nation could be the host of this project at the current time, because no other nation has the legacy of Yoga.

The corollary to this is that the Indian government did not give its support to Auroville because, as some in Auroville believe, a few clever Aurovilians went to Delhi in 1988 and were wily enough to convince the Indian government to grant them an administratively autonomous enclave. The autonomy given to Auroville has been given very specifically for the pursuit of Integral Yoga.

This then is why Auroville is in India. The continued existence of Auroville in India is a symbol of the stupendous aspiration that India has for humanity to move towards the Divine, towards a transformation of consciousness, towards a spiritualized evolution of humanity as foretold by Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. And people coming to Auroville should understand this immense task, and be willing collaborators in the work, willing servitors of the Divine Consciousness.