On Auroville 2022 to 2025

It was not an isolated degradation: in almost every area of the collective life, a loss of meaningful commitment occurred; assets were appreciated and houses became commodities with a market value and positions were sought and – as an ineffective counterpart - more and more rules and regulations were introduced, to the point of absurdity. The will to steer Auroville onto its supposed sacred mission as a model city along the very lines of inspiration that were now decades old and almost irrelevant in a world heading faster and faster to a breaking point, the ugliest and most damaging mode of development gaining more and more ground all over the country, this will nonetheless became now more determined to obtain the legal and financial support of the central Government, which eventually, by the logic of its current politics, came to appreciate the use it could make of whatever was already achieved - for its own ends. A number of residents thought that if the Central Government became actively engaged in the building of the “city‟, injecting in it public funds and becoming interested and committed to the realization of various projects that had been left dormant for years, the progress of the experiment would be considerably hastened. They also thought that its political and legal weight would help in the acquisition or exchange of lands so as to consolidate the inner city area and rid it of unwanted development. However, government machinery is not an inspired being in itself, but entirely depends on the drive and vision of those who have been elected to head it and on the degree of time and attention they are able to devote to any of its tasks. Where a quest such as Auroville‟s is concerned, no government is equipped inwardly to serve it with sufficient comprehension. And therefore, here we are: in great confusion, witnessing the effects of a mixture of blind goodwill, destructive “redress”, rel eased ambitions, despair and loss of motivation – and yet, here and there, now and then, a smile of trust and faith surviving no matter what.

It would seem rather delusory to, as things stand today, entertain any hope of a new equilibrium on which a new progressive harmony can be founded.

Nevertheless, the matter is plain: either Auroville is willed by the Divine to serve the Truth-Consciousness at work upon earth, and no lesser will can ultimately prevent its progress, or it is only the expression of a human ideal that has failed to overcome its own contradictions, and the whole venture can be downgraded to some other worldly purpose and nothing more needs to be said.

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