"It is the journey that matters..."
Wherever we went, we carried Auroville in our hearts. We travelled the world with memories of our life in the keet house stowed away like some precious treasure within a secret corner of our being, sometimes sharing them with friends we made along the way. We never presented it as the most perfect place, for that it wasn't. But, it was always a place of possibilities...the hurdles were there, and so was their acknowledgement, and the search for solutions. We all knew that Auroville is an ongoing experiment with its ups and downs and its own organic evolution. All that changed a few years ago when the Centre government decided to hijack the journey called Auroville, and turn it into a `project', where Aurovillians were expected to be 'team members' on a leash, coerced to walk a straight line, obey...and submit. This implied scrutinizing every movement of its 3000 some residents who have congregated here from around the world pursuing a dream. Stricter budgeting and auditing of its many commercial units followed. A bureaucratic machinery was devised to inspect and foresee the functioning of the community, and spur the `project' towards completion under the aegis of this government. In order to execute the original city plan as envisioned by its founder Mirra Alfassa, known as The Mother, thousands of trees have been felled, houses bulldozed, people expelled and in the process the very spirit of the place lies mutilated, charred and shrouded in fear. But, `they' are calling it progress and vigorously promoting the city as a hub for spiritual tourism. And suddenly, Aurovillians, aspirants from approximately 60 different countries, find themselves becoming part of a unique surveillance system which does not exist anywhere else in this country of 1.4 billion people. But, the supporters of the government are rejoicing.
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AV will only become when its people stop lying the Mother once said. But in addition to this the art of deception and denial have also been perfected by its inhabitants. AV was meant to be the city of future Dawn, what we have now in its place is a township of complete darkness. No Veda, no seeing, no understanding of the work, NO GENUINE, SERIOUS YOGA.
Such a transformation cannot be engineered through bureaucratic decrees, surveillance systems, audits, coercion, or masterplans imposed from above. It must arise organically, from within the individual and the collective soul of the experiment itself. Auroville was conceived as a living laboratory for human unity and consciousness, not as a state-managed enterprise to be steered by officials who neither understand nor embody the ideals upon which it was founded.
By what authority can any government decide the spiritual direction Auroville must take? Who among them possesses the wisdom to determine who is worthy of belonging here and who is not? The essence of Auroville was always freedom of aspiration — imperfect, chaotic, evolving, human — yet profoundly alive.
What we witness today is not guidance, but appropriation. Auroville has become a symbol to attach to political narratives in search of legitimacy and grandeur. In the absence of true moral or spiritual leadership, those in power attempt to wrap themselves in the names of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. Yet their vision stands infinitely beyond the grasp of corrupt political machinery driven by control, prestige, and material interests. To invoke these names while simultaneously mutilating the living spirit of their work is a tragic contradiction.
Meanwhile, behind the language of “progress” and “development,” land transactions flourish, interests align, and the labour and sacrifices of decades are quietly consumed. Many pioneers gave everything they had — their savings, their youth, their strength, their faith — to nurture this place from barren earth into a living ecosystem. Forests were planted where there was desert. Communities were built where there was nothing. Farms like Annapurna became examples of sustainability not through slogans, but through devotion, intelligence, and years of patient work.
And now, in the name of modernity and prestige, these living achievements are treated as expendable.
Yet despite the sorrow, the intimidation, and the destruction, one truth remains: Auroville does not belong to governments, committees, or administrations. It belongs to a deeper movement of consciousness that far transcends the ambitions of our present age. The project carries within it something touched by grace, something that has survived crisis after crisis precisely because its roots lie beyond human greed and ignorance.
This storm too shall pass.
The success of Auroville is not guaranteed by politics or infrastructure, but by the divine impulse at its origin. What delays its flowering is not lack of planning, but the persistence of ignorance, ego, fear, and greed — forces humanity has always struggled against. The work was never meant to be easy. Evolution itself is turbulent.
And yet, despite everything, the flame still burns.