On Auroville 2022 to 2025

-16: 12-12-2024: “Auroville and its destinies:

The following text is addressed to ALL, without exception, to all those who are concerned with the existence and the path of Auroville. Therefore I have tried to use simple and almost ordinary terms in order to convey what seems to me to be the indispensable step ahead of us all, so as to ensure the continuation of the experiment. The real work needs no words, no thoughts even; yet for this real, true work to proceed, it requires a sufficiently favorable environment. Here, then, is a presentation of the direction to be collectively chosen, which must be communicated with clarity, beyond all of our opinions and reservations, so that the Auroville path – into the unknown – may be pursued. We are nearing the end of 2024 and soon will be in February of 2025, when Auroville will be 57 years old; at present its population of permanent residents is about 3 thousands and every day 5 or 6 thousand employees join the diverse activities and many thousands of visitors as well enter its area, while a few hundred guests are hosted any time of the year. Moreover, Auroville is directly surrounded by several villages, of which the combined population amounts to about 30 thousands. Auroville is situated partly in the Pondicherry State, which is part of the Union territories and partly in the Tamil Nadu State; in both these States, development has spectacularly increased in the last decades, with little control, and the pollution of air, water and soil has grown exponentially; the forests which Auroville worked for many years to establish have become as many attractive assets for promoters, speculators, developers and middle men and the cost of properties has reached levels one could not have imagined even twenty years ago. Although Auroville may not be compared to any existing or past collectivity, one could, at certain periods and particularly in its early years, refer to such demanding collective experiments as “Kibbutzim” in Israel or even certain “Kolkhozy” in the previous Soviet Union, but those were necessitated and inspired by a patriotic or national ideal, while Auroville refers itself to a more radical and profound intent. There has been a number of contemporary “intentional” communities – more so in *** Europe and the USA -, but none of them had at once the character of internationality and that of an active research at the service of a new consciousness, and none lasted or preserved its original thrust as Auroville has. Auroville has not yet been able to create a mode of government or organization which would be at once faithful and receptive enough to the progress of consciousness, and pursues its effort of active research trough more or less fruitful

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