Auroville

Auroville, “the city of dawn,” is a religiously based community in South India with a utopian, global vision. Founded on Wednesday, February 28, 1968, in Villipuram District in the state of Tamil Nadu, 10 kilometers north of Pondicherry in South India, its mission statement states that it aims to be “a universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony above all creeds, all politics, and all nationalities.” The purpose of Auroville is to realize human unity. These are the words of its founder, Mirra Alfassa (1878–1973), more widely known as “The Mother.”

Mirra was born in Paris to a Turkish father and an Egyptian mother. In 1906, she founded L'Idée, a small group dedicated to spiritual experimentation. In 1909, she married Paul Richard. The following year, he traveled to Pondicherry in French India, where he met Aurobindo Ghose (1872–1950). Mirra joined him and on meeting Aurobindo claimed to have immediately recognized him as the figure in her visions whom she had identified as Krishna. After a year with Aurobindo, she left India and spent some time in Japan. In 1920, she returned to Pondicherry and stayed in India until her death 53 years later.

Aurobindo's “integral yoga” and philosophy, which informed all Mirra's work, claimed a knowledge of reality from “supramental” planes of consciousness above the normal human level. Central to his thinking is the evolution of reality away from the material and the release of the conscious mind. Central to this process is a cosmic energy (Shakti), which he identified as a god-dess—“the Mother.” The point is that he identified Mirra herself in terms of the descent of the divine to the earthly plane. Hence, as “the Mother,” Mirra was at the heart of Aurobindo's mission. In 1926, she took over the leadership of the ashram.

Mirra was concerned that there should be a place where people could live in harmony and focus on the development of the inner life. She also felt that the ashram was not providing this and began to develop the idea of an experimental community, a spiritual laboratory—Auroville. In 1960, she established the Sri Aurobindo Society in Pondicherry, which acquired legal status through its registration in Calcutta (now Kolkata) under the 1961 Bengal Societies Registration Act. As such, it became the organization legally responsible for Auroville and, in 1968, the overseer of its finances and the official channel of funds from UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) and the Indian government.

In 1962, at the age of 84, she withdrew from close physical contact with the ashram but continued to work on the Auroville project. In 1966, Auroville received an endorsement from the Indian government, and the General Assembly of UNESCO “approved” the plan for the township.

Auroville's inauguration in 1968 was attended by delegates from 124 nations. Its perceived potential was evident in UNESCO's third resolution (1970), which stated that steps should be taken within the [Page 87]budgetary provisions to promote the development of Auroville as a significant international cultural program.

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