A few weeks ago I met an interesting person, a first-time visitor to Auroville. Her name was Annie Eagleton, from England.. She had stopped at Auroville on her way to participate in an international service program in a small village in Nepal.

She had very short hair and my first impression of her was that she was a Buddhist nun. It turned out that she was in fact a  long-time practitioner of Buddhist meditation, but had been spending more time traveling the world and on the Net tending her websites than in actual monasteries. We kept running synchronistically into each other and soon began sharing meals and stories. When I learned that she was a published Net-literate writer, I invited her to become a Guest Author on SCIY.

Here's her initial article, recounting her personal experiences and impressions of Auroville ...
_________________

Auroville
by Annie Eagleton
© March, 2006

The ashram's Bureau Centrale has an exhibition of photographs, anecdotes & inspirational poetry of the Mother & Sri Aurobindo. They show a weekly series of films about their lives, which are very enlightening. They also offer some tours; I 'accidentally' landed on an Auroville tour, instead of the one I'd planned around Pondy. Anyway, it was a great opportunity to get there on the cheap (only 50rps return, as compared to 150rps one way in a rickshaw) & I also met 2 really interesting European women & a very friendly group from Calcutta.

I had planned to go on a 3-day introduction to Auroville for 1000rps, till I'd found out this didn't include accommodation. I talked to a couple of people who were staying there, & after checking out the website again, I decided to just go & stay there independently. So instead of sticking with the tour group, I went off to get the info I needed re guest houses & classes. This inspired me enough to rent a bicycle from my Pondy guest house the next day & cycle over there (about 10 km) two days in a row.

En route I visited Auroville's Quiet Healing Centre, which is off the beach road on the outskirts of Auroville - what a paradise !! Located right by its own beach & shaded by coconut palms, strung with hammocks, it is a haven of extreme beauty & tranquillity. It has a large lotus pond on the approach, & the therapy rooms are a cluster of small white domes around a raised pool, where water therapies, like Watsu are done. They offered the usual variety of therapies, as well as some more unusual ones, such as biofeedback, cell-consciousness therapy & Pranic healing on a 'soundboard'. I went there 2 or 3 times, just to hang in a hammock, & I also had the latter therapy, but was rather disappointed.

However, that aside, Auroville was rich in positive experiences. After returning from Tiruvanamalai, Misty & I took a room at Ganesh Bakery for a week. It was a beautiful room with our own terrace, shaded by papaya & palm trees, which was perfect for early morning yoga & late night moon gazing. The bakery also served very good bread, cakes & biscuits & other meals. and they rented us a couple of bicycles. Once ensconced there, I discovered the weekly 'News & Notes' & there was so much on offer, I had to draw a timetable, to keep track of all the really interesting stuff & plan out my week!

The first evening we went to the MultiMedia Centre to watch a film presentation by the Ananda Community of Palo alto, California. I would've passed on it, but Misty flagged it up & my interest was piqued, when I realised the communities were founded by Paramahansa Yogananda, the first Indian mystic to come to the west. (Some of you may be familiar with his revelatory book "Autobiography of a Yogi".) The group of 7, had been invited by Auroville, to give workshops on "Sharing the Joy of Nature." The film & talk were about their actual communities, & were enlightening, if somewhat 'picture-perfect', but what was even more interesting was the discussion that ensued between the two communities. This was my introduction to Aurovileans, & gave a lot of perspective on the status quo of this experimental city, now 38 years old, with 1800 inhabitants. It was fascinating to hear the range of comments & questions & the variety of accents. Three people struck me in particular, who I later made contact with: a Berliner, Ezhard, who'd lived there 28 years, an Austrian polyglot, Edwin, who it turned out was only visiting & an American, Ron, who is a 'Friend of Auroville'. (More about the latter two later.)

Next morning I went to a biweekly class on The Upanishads, with Sri Aurobindo's translation. It was held in the Savitri Garden & the teacher, Vladimir was a Russian expert in Sanskrit. It was absolutely fascinating, both as an introduction to the profound, multi-layered wisdom of this ancient spiritual text & to the richness of the Sanskrit language & its relationship with English & other modern languages. (Sanskrit is the closest language to Indo-European, the Grandmother of most of the world's languages; it is also the language used by the ancient seers to pass on the information channeled in their meditations.)

The two classes I attended were the highlight of my Auroville stay, not least because Edwin was also there, with his enthusiastic interjections re many other languages. He is most interested in the roots of words, in the context of 'unity' . a retired teacher, he spends his time traveling & giving talks. He's just sent me an absolute deluge of linguistic jewels (43 attachments!!!), so after I've had chance to read some of them, I may pass a few on.... I ended up going to the MM Center another 3 times, to see the wonderful Andy Goldsworthy documentary "Rivers & Tides" (I'd only seen books of photographs of his work previously, & was delighted to discover he's from my part of England, it sounds like, though he lives in Scotland); the Bob Dylan movie "No Direction Home", (which affected me quite deeply) & a talk & slide show called "There is Magic in the Universe" (which was intriguing & inspiring, but so scientific, it demanded utmost concentration to follow, so I'm afraid I slept through the last 20 minutes.) All of these events drew a full house.

Another evening, at the Sri Aurobindo Auditorium, there was a very well-attended English production of Moliere's "The Hypochondriac", which was funny, but I left after an hour, being worried about cycling back home in the pitch darkness. (Rightfully so, as it turned out - that was the night I had to ring my landlord to come get me on his motorbike!)

There were several art exhibitions running concurrently; my personal favourite was "All Life is Yoga", a collection of close-up photographs of about a hundred flowers, with the Mother's descriptions of their essential qualities. (she had 'codified' over 300 flowers in this way.) The exhibit was in a circular white brick building, suffused with sunlight. My friend & I had it all to ourselves & spontaneously did some Om chanting & yoga in there! Oh & a few cartwheels!

Another exhibition was called "The Nose of the Rose", for some obscure reason, & was quite beautiful flowers crafted from recycled plastic of many colours. (Plastic waste is ubiquitous in India, though Auroville is almost spotlessly clean.) On the Saturday I attended an all-day workshop for teachers, in the Botanical Gardens, led by the Ananda people. We had a lot of fun playing games & doing activities to "Share the Joy of Nature" (very Californian!) & "Flow Learning" (which may come in useful for Nepal & the future). The teachers were all Indian & from Auroville & surrounding village schools. I met some more Aurovileans there, from Australia, Britain & America, as well as a 33 yr. old woman, who was born there to French & American parents - she spoke French, English & Tamil. The Australian had lived there 35 years. Later I cycled for a stretch with the American, who'd moved there 5 years ago. I got some good insights into the process of joining, for future reference....

Sunday morning I did a "Continuum" workshop, led by an American lady. I'd never heard of it before - it was a combination of breath, sound & movement on the premise of 'fluidity' & the spiral. Quite profound stuff.

It was amazing how so many of the concepts explored in one event, would be mirrored or sparked in another one .... and the synchronicity of meetings & conversations.... The American, Ron, who I'd seen the first evening, I 'bumped into' again several times. He is a scientist from California, who spends 3 months a year at Auroville. He was a great source of information re many aspects of the community, & led a very high-powered conversation re quantum leaps in evolution & the complexity & luminosity of what were thought to be primitive cells. He also invited me to join a 'Webzine' on Science, Culture & Integral Yoga. I felt quite honoured. It's got some, shall we say, 'heady' stuff on there...

Talking of 'heady', I cannot end without telling you about the Matrimandir (Mother's Temple). I described it previously as looking rather like a golden golf ball, or more bizarrely like one of the radons at Menwith Hill (American Spy Base in N Yorkshire). It is still under construction & for guests, it's quite a rigmarole to get a pass to see the inside. On my second attempt, I found myself wandering inside the innards of this major construction zone, circling up plank stairways to 'nowhere'...before I found out it was closed! I felt like I was inside a huge spaceship!

On my next visit I succeeded in entering a "Petal" (I don't know if there are 4 or 12 of these), which is a small, cool chamber of violet-white light with a huge mandala on the wall, reminiscent of a sunburst & the 3rd Eye. Next day I was allowed into the "Inner Chamber", which is quite high up inside the structure. It is a massive white-carpeted, white marble-clad hall with 12 marble pillars & a giant crystal ball in its centre, on which sunlight falls. I felt like I was in "2001: a Space Odyssey"! It was very quiet & rather surreal in there. I have to confess, I much prefer to meditate under the nearby banyan tree, (the actual epicenter of Auroville), but the Matrimandir is definitely an 'experience'. I was also moved to question the priorities of funneling so much money into such a project... but then it seems temples have to be extravagant & imposing...

Later that evening, I attended a gathering in the open-air Amphitheater [Ed. - where took place Auroville's Founding Ceremony in 1968, with a boy and girl from each of the 150 member nations of the United Nations placing stones from their countries into an eternal urn located at the top of a spiral ramp at the center of the Amphitheater] near the Matrimandir to sing the Mother's Mantra, unbeknown to me till then - "Om namo baghavate" & I'm sorry, I don't know what all the words mean [Ed. - Om: "the ancient Indian symbol for the Divine"; namo: "not myself (my ego-I)"; baghavate: "Is Whom/What I serve"], but it was very beautiful to softly chant that, with a hundred others, under a starry sky.

On my 'last'day, I went to the beach! It's Auroville's private beach & it was a bit crowded, but then it was too hot to stay long, just long enough for a swim.

Then we squeezed in a couple more events before leaving again for Pondicherry: the premiere of a film of paintings of one canto of Aurobindo's epic poem "Savitri", recited by the Mother, in advanced age, along with her organ music (sorry about that sentence!). I was not impressed by the paintings, & the Mother's voice was very hard to understand. Neither did I like the music - found it a bit maudlin!

Luckily, it was not my last impression of Auroville, as we immediately walked over to the Tibetan Pavilion to see a slide show of the Dalai Lama's 'Kalachakra' Initiation in January. Thousands of Tibetans risked torture & death by crossing the border, for perhaps a once in a lifetime sight of their spiritual leader. Many had got frostbite in the process. It was a very moving presentation & in a wonderful space. Downstairs, on the way out, we took in the exhibition of reproductions of Nicholas Roerich's paintings. I was not familiar with his work, he was a Russian, I believe painting in the 1940s. Most of them were mountain scenes, with a mystical, mythical quality -
very beautiful....

And so ended my sojourn in Auroville, a 'city' that feels still like a village, tropically green & tranquil, yet buzzing with cultural & intellectual stimuli, in homage to the Divine.

- end -