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Travel Log
Auroville, India 8 Feb. 2002

"Auroville is not India"

So we've been told, and so is the reality. Unfortunately, we have not been in India long enough to really appreciate this haven, but we are having a great time and we can definitely appreciate the communal values that guide this place.

Aspiration's dining room

Auroville is made of about 80 small communities, ranging from a few individuals, to the one we are in, Aspiration, the oldest and largest, consisting of about 60 people, including 10 children up to age 7 and about 10 guests like us (some staying as long as 6 months). Upon arrival we registered, opened an account and now pay only with our "Guest Pass," which acts as a local credit card (The truth is that we don't really even need the pass - we just provide our number and sign). It is clean, beautiful and the people smiling at you are not trying to sell you anything.

Auroville is based on a short charter which says that Auroville does not belong to anyone in particular, stresses education and strives for human unity. The 1600 people living here come from 36 different country, half from India.

Matrimandir from the outside

The physical setting is interesting in that Auroville is spread over 20 sq. km. The master plan calls for a massive building program that will eventually make Auroville the shape of a giant Galaxy. This shape was directed by their spiritual leader, who died (or as they say "left her body") in 1973. She is known as the Mother, and still seems to control a lot of what happens here. In the center of Auroville is the "soul of the community" Matrimandir, a huge sphere with a giant crystal in the middle. Very impressive. It is surrounded by meditation halls and a urn filled with sand from each of the 128 countries in existence on the inauguration day of Auroville in 1968.

Our first experience at Matrimandir was rather interesting, and I wrote a piece for the Auroville paper about it. If you download it, you should know that following the first visit, you are free to enter between 5-7 PM daily to meditate. It is quite an amazing experience, the inner room is completely white, with the huge crystal in the center, and about 50 people in complete silence circled around it.

Uriah in front of our hut

While here in Auroville we have visited schools in the area, and even spent some time with a Jewish woman named Simi from the town of Pondicherry, who has been working in the Ashram's kindergarten for 30 years.

We have made some good friends here and it will be very difficult to leave.

For more information about Auroville, you can go to the Auroville web site (where my Matrimandir article can be found as well).

Planting at Auroville on Tu B'Shvat

To Auroville Photos

To Thanjavur - Next Log

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