Aurovilians gathered for a dawnfire communion near the Matrimandir in meditation and silent prayer on Monday to celebrate the 54th anniversary of its founding by The Mother (Mirra Alfassa), over five decades ago on February 28, 1968. This year’s event at the amphitheatre was all the more special as it coincided with the 150th birth anniversary celebrations of Sri Aurobindo, who was her spiritual collaborator. Apart from the Matrimandir, the dawnfire venue also featured the two other most defining symbols of the City of Dawn — the Banyan tree and the urn containing The Mother’s Charter and handful of soil from all over the country and the world at the time of Auroville’s inauguration. Recordings of The Mother’s message in French announcing The Charter at the inauguration of Auroville, organ music and a readout of The Charter in English, Sanskrit and Tamil — the official languages of the township — were broadcast on the occasion. The Charter says: Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole. But, to live in Auroville, one must be a willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness. Auroville will be the place of an unending education, of constant progress, and a youth that never ages. Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past and the future. Taking advantage of all discoveries from without and from within, Auroville will boldly spring towards future realisations. Auroville will be a site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual human unity. The ceremony that began around 5 a.m. was livestreamed to global audiences in several cities with the Auroville International chapter in the U.S. posting the estimated schedule for different time-zones, including for cities such as New York, Los Angeles, London, Berlin and Sydney. In the run-up to the special birth anniversary, a week-long Auroville Festival was held beginning with ‘Divine Flowers’ , a cut-flower exhibition at the Savitri Bhavan on February 21, coinciding with the birth anniversary of The Mother, editation sessions, music concerts and dance performances. The events also included tree planting, a clean-up of the Crown corridor around the Matrimandir and a bioregion outreach event in Bommayarpalayam panchayat. Also among the high points of the festival was an exhibition at Unity Pavilion on Roger Anger, the French architect who came up with the galaxy plan for the township that was approved by The Mother, and a series of webinars on her life and The Auroville Charter.
