On Auroville 2022 to 2025

She would also warn that self-scrutiny is indispensable and no one has the right to impose one‟s view as exclusive but must, i nstead, try and integrate all viewpoints into a progressive and inclusive practical approach. She issued a number of statements, such as: “I can work with you only if you do not say a lie and are at the service of Truth.” This here is one of Mother‟s last hand-written messages: “18 -3-73 Auroville will become what it must be only if and when the people living there will stop lying . M.”

She the Mother, She the Shakti, withdrew on November 17, 1973, at 7.25 pm, at the very minute the concreting of the four pillars of Her temple in Auroville, the Matrimandir, was completed. Her emaciated frame, with its fierce expression of concentration, was exposed for all to see until it was placed in a casket and laid over Sri Aurobindo‟s i n the central courtyard of the Ashram, on the morning of the 20 th of November, in utter silence. Almost 49 years have passed. As I write these pages, my laptop marks the date as 4/22/2022 – the 22 nd of April of the year 2022, and Auroville is experiencing what is perhaps its most crucial crisis; the year is also marked as the 150 th anniversary of Sri Aurobindo‟s birth, which the present dispensation at the apex of the Central Government of India intends to celebrate demonstratively as a boost to its program of revival cum development. And now, what?

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