Finding Auroville

In the first post of this series I described a central aspect of Auroville as it has existed over the past few decades, which is that in Auroville a facade has been created for the consumption of outsiders and short-term visitors, and this facade is very different from the reality that exists in Auroville beneath. This reality gets revealed only if and when one stays in Auroville for a longer duration, or when one begins to engage with Auroville at a deeper level. This reality is, to put it mildly, much more seamy than the facade would have one believe.

In this post, I will focus on the second key factor to understand about Auroville, which is the kind of people that find this two-faced Auroville a suitable place to live and work in, those who are most “successful” in this atmosphere.

If we accept that this facade is a reality, then it must follow that there are people here in Auroville who maintain the facade. It doesn’t just happen by accident. And since this facade has existed almost from the beginning of Auroville’s existence and has evolved over the years, it follows that there has been a constant social environment here that helps to maintain the facade. This means that there have been a group of people here who have continuously created and maintained the components of this facade, while allowing a very different system to exist and evolve behind it, and actively maintaining this very different system as well.

So the next question that arises is, what are the kind of people who would be willing and able to constantly work to keep this two-faced Auroville going, and to live in it? The answer follows naturally from the description above, but will probably be quite shocking to people who are not familiar with Auroville, though not so shocking to those who are more familiar with it. It is people who have an ease and facility with lying. To maintain this facade and the very different reality behind it, you need to have people who are very comfortable with telling lies, being duplicitous, deceitful and manipulative, and who are comfortable living in – and thriving in – an atmosphere and environment where this manipulation, deceit and duplicity is a continuously ongoing affair, an ongoing fact of life. This is not just one lie here and there, but a continuous effort to maintain an edifice based of manipulation and deceit.

So Auroville has attracted, over the years and decades, not just liars, but pathological liars, people who for the most part probably do not even know that they are lying, or get a high from getting away with the lies. If this is true, then there have been people in Auroville who have been getting this high again and again for decades, and getting away with it.

I have been living in Auroville for more than six years, and I am convinced that the isolated bubble that has been created in Auroville, the centerpiece of which is the network of people we call Aurovillage, attracts these pathological liars. Of all the people who keep coming to Auroville from all over the world, the people who find the most affinity with Aurovillage are these pathological liars. They are the ones who stay on, become successful denizens of Aurovillage, and help Aurovillage continuously become more and more a fertile ground for these liars and manipulators. These are the people who have created the facade that exists on the surface of Auroville, and they continue to maintain it. It is quite shocking to hear, but Auroville has been a fertile ground for these con-artists and fraudsters to come and settle in. Many of them have been living here right from the 1960s and 70s, and more have been attracted to Auroville over the decades since then.

The atmosphere of fraud that has existed behind the facade of Auroville has led to a process of self-selection wherein manipulative people and con-artists have joined and thrived in Auroville, and the more honest and sincere people have left, dejected by the insincerity. Anyone who calls out the rampant insincerity and wants to work for a more open and sincere Auroville is targeted, hounded and ostracized. In this atmosphere, only a few hardened believers of Sri Aurobindo, The Mother and Integral Yoga have stayed on and continue to fight for Auroville to move in some semblance of the right direction.

I am also convinced (and I am not the only one) that most of these pathological liars are people who have serious personality disorders, such as antisocial personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder. Simply put, they are sociopaths and psychopaths, or have other psychological disorders. If you come and stay in Auroville for a long period of time, and observe the actions of the people who function at the heart of Aurovillage, you will realize that this quite extreme claim is simply true. It is the only explanation for how this absolutely manipulative, and emotionally abusive, Aurovillage continues to function successfully.

And these are not people who hide in the shadows of Auroville. These pathological liars are the ones who wield power here, run the administrative setup and the working groups. Aurovillage has basically been running Auroville according to its diktats for the last five decades and more. These people are attracted to the power and the control that they can harness within the bubble, and are the most successful within the duplicitous system that has been created here. The psychological and emotional disorders that these people have make them unsuccessful in the outside world, but in the bubble of Aurovillage they have found kindred spirits, a sanctuary, and a conducive environment that actually rewards their lies and manipulation. It is extremely unfortunate that in Auroville a system has evolved that allows such behavior to run rampant. And part of the high that they get as con-artists is being able to convince visitors and people outside Auroville that Auroville is a place that functions in a positive manner. Much of the success of their deception and manipulation over the decades has relied on the fact that the purpose of Auroville is not one that is easily understood, and the ambiguity that this creates about Auroville allows for the con to be perpetrated easily. Also, many people who come to visit Auroville come with goodwill and positive intent, and so they have a natural propensity to look at Auroville and Aurovilians in a positive light. They want a place like Auroville to exist, and that positive, progressive, spiritual place is exactly what the facade offers them. Aurovillage has developed an expertise in creating and maintaining this facade. Their very existence depends on it. It is deeply ironic, though not that surprising given the world we live in, that such manipulation, duplicity, dishonesty and insincerity has run rampant in a place that is supposed to be “at the service of Truth”.

The next question that arises is, is everyone in Auroville/Aurovillage a pathological liar and a con artist? The answer of course is no. People come to Auroville for all sorts of reasons. A few even come here for the right reasons. But the thing is, all the people who are a part of Aurovillage and support Aurovillage, if they are not pathological liars themselves, have been supporting a system run by these liars, a system that is blatantly manipulative. At a minimum, the denizens and supporters of Aurovillage are people who have their head firmly in the sand. They ignore and deny the abuses of the system because it is convenient for them to do so, so that they can continue to live here. And for sure to live here peacefully and quietly, one has to support the system and conform to it. For many, Auroville is a cheap and convenient place to live, away from the complexities and difficulties of the outside world. So they live here quietly, ignoring and denying all the problems of the system, and allow for the manipulation to continue.

The atmosphere of lying, deception and manipulation that has been created in Aurovillage is so rampant and pervasive that it has become the norm here, the default setting. Lying is the foundational trait of Aurovillage. The con is perpetrated, to a lesser or greater extent, by everyone in Aurovillage. The real pathological liars, psychopaths and sociopaths constitute a network of con-artists who run the show, but all the other denizens of Aurovillage are implicated in the ongoing and continuing fraud. One of the more surprising things about this is the number of “children of Auroville” who are part of this. These are people who were either born in Auroville or came here at a very early age with their parents, and are now in their 20s, 30s, 40s and even 50s. The ones who stay on here and become part of Aurovillage seem to be completely at home in this manipulative environment, constantly helping to continue the con, and often being at the heart of it. It just goes to show how deeply the social environment that one lives in can influence one’s behavior, as can the necessity and desperation of emotional survival. Emotional desperation is in fact the cornerstone of Aurovillage, up and down the line. I will address this topic further in subsequent posts.

One of the questions that people who critically analyze Auroville and Aurovillage (yes those do exist) keep going back to is: aren’t some of the people in Aurovillage actually sincere in their actions of coming here and helping to create and maintain the liberal/progressive space that exists as the facade of Auroville? The thinking is that these people have sincere intentions, but their understanding of the purpose of Auroville is very limited. So within this limited understanding of Auroville as a space for certain liberal-minded activities, they have come here to work sincerely. And part of this limited understanding includes the notion that “problems exist everywhere”, and the problems of Aurovillage are just manifestations of these ubiquitous problems.

The problem with this line of thinking is that the lying and manipulation here is so rampant, and becomes so obvious after a few weeks or months (or sometimes years) of living here, that anyone who has been here for a few months or years and continues to support the system is doing so for reasons that have little to do with cerebrally curtailed notions of liberal sincerity. The problem is not cerebral, it is emotional. Each person who is part of and supports Aurovillage, and ignores, denies, goes along with or actively participates in the huge manipulation and deception that goes on in it, does so because they have an emotional or psychological need to do so. They are getting emotional succor in the bubble that has been created here, and the desperation of maintaining that bubble and continuing to live in it makes them partake in the manipulation and deception.

On the other hand, one could say that this whole situation is a somewhat heightened example of what goes on in the world everywhere, and is nothing new. This could very well be a fact. Manipulation and deception occurs all over in the world, and in fact we could say that the world as it exists today runs on it. Auroville then is, once again, a microcosm of the world at large. But even if this is so, it is no reason to allow things to continue as they have for the past five decades. Auroville aspires for a much higher way of living, and what has been going on here is completely unacceptable. People who come to Auroville to live here permanently should realize that the task here is a monumental, audacious one, and that we have to rise to the challenge of taking it on. This is not a place for liberal activities mixed with a sprinkling of spirituality. This is a place for spiritual transformation, and the transformation of the world. Aiming for anything less than that would be tantamount to fraud here, as has been on display for the last five decades. No one is being forced to come to Auroville. We come here of our own volition. If, as some people say, they have been compelled to come here by the Divine or the Mother, then it cannot be to live an easy life and to perpetrate a con on others. Nor have we been compelled to come here to wait passively for the energies of the universe to act on us while we live ordinary lives. We have come here to aspire and work tirelessly towards the true purpose of Auroville, that of transformation. We need to shut down the con that has been perpetrated here for the past five decades, and work with compete sincerity for the purpose that Auroville was created for.