With the gleaming golden sphere of the Matrimandir, which also features on the cover of this book, as its centrepiece, Auroville is the plausible location for an imagined future when our species has left behind the ugliness of cruelty and violence.
However, the reality of Auroville with all its struggles is far more fascinating and instructive. As a resident of Auroville for the last 36 years and a disciple of the Mother, Anu Majumdar’s mission is to introduce readers to the deeper context of Auroville — a place which is now largely known only as a centre of green living and elegant handicrafts.
Fifty years ago the Mother first envisioned Auroville as “a universal town where men and women from all countries will be able to live in peace and progressive harmony above all creeds, all politics, and all nationalities, straining to realise human unity.”
Majumdar’s narrative is partly an attempt to address the oft-asked questions: What has Auroville achieved and what lies ahead. But more importantly, this book offers a compact account of the spiritual universe at the heart of Auroville. Therefore, the book opens by describing the unique spiritual explorations of Sri Aurobindo and his (divine) partnership with the French woman, Mirra Alfassa, who went on to inherit his mantle and be known as the Mother.
Like much other literature that comes out of the Aurobindo Ashram, Puducherry, and Auroville communities, this text can leave the outsider a bit befuddled. The realm of the ‘Supermind’ and ‘Supramental Consciousness’ is not easily accessible to those who cannot, or refuse to, delve into the esoteric realm.
Nevertheless, it is both possible and worthwhile to suspend disbelief about these dimensions and enjoy this brief history of the Auroville adventure and those who have dedicated their entire life to it.
This book is a particularly timely reminder that Auroville is not just one more quixotic international community of dreamers and dropouts. Auroville’s umbilical cord is tied to Sri Aurobindo’s unshakable confidence that India has a special role to fulfil in the transformation of our species to a higher level of consciousness and being.As Sri Aurobindo said, the initiative for this “can come from India and, although the scope must be universal, the central movement may be hers.”
This is a powerful antidote to the cacophony about Indian nationalism as a largely territorial phenomenon. For the spiritual and civilisational energies of India, that Aurobindo believed could transform our species are beyond the limits and boundaries of a nation-state. By sharing the human strivings and challenges behind the Auroville story, this book makes the endeavour more accessible and relatable.
Auroville: A City for the Future ; Anu Majumdar, HarperCollins, ₹499.
