| Return to AVIUSA Website |
|
|||
Auroville Celebrates 40 Years |
||||
|
||||
Please visit our website to see more photos and a world map with all the of the locations which participated: www.humanunity.info |
| U.S. Pavilion and Dormitory in Auroville |
|
||
Primary caretaker Ing-Marie, along with Chris, has been doing a great job in caring for the U.S Pavilion and Dormitory. The University of Massachusetts-Amherst students and faculty, Living Routes, have been there since September studying ecological sustainability/personal and global. Due to limited space in the U.S. dormitory half are staying at the nearby Tibetan Pavilion - six students and one faculty at each location. Water supply has become a big issue for these Pavilions. For the time being, water collected from the monsoon rains will meet their needs until February. They will then have to pay for water, which can be pumped from the Visitors Center, which sometimes brings communication problems, and supply issues. If a new well could be dug for the U.S. and Tibetan Pavilions to share, this would relieve the situation. AVI-USA has offered partial funding towards this. However, permission to drill the well needs to be obtained from Water Harvest, which has to take into account the larger needs of the International Zone and this takes time. The Dalai Lama will be visiting Auroville in January and because of the close functional relation between the two pavilions, Ing-Marie is hoping to get support to help finish the Tibetan Pavilion in time for his Holiness's visit. Johnny of Fertile has been cultivating and harvesting millet ragi in a
nearby field. Chris has completed a cycle shed for residents, and is on call
for emergencies and other work. A small meditation garden is being created
as a memorial to a generous U.S. Pavilion supporter, who passed away
recently. There is a Neem Tree, "Spiritual Atmosphere" standing in a
naturally formed ring, bordered by Palmyras and a flowering hedge that have
been allocated for this Memorial Circle. Three granite boulders, for sitting on, have been placed at the base of the
Neem tree. There will be pebbles all around to keep people from sinking into For the past two years, Raji, the hired help, has been very dedicated, showing a great deal of flexibility. Ing-Marie has signed Raji and her family up for a retirement plan, which will ensure them with a financial cushion for their future. |
|||
| "Auroville Belongs to Humanity" |
|
To receive this DVD, please mail a check for $15 payable to B Sullivan (904 Sonoma Ave. Santa Rosa CA 95404). $10 of this will go to AVI USA and $5 towards duplication, shipping and handling. |
| Visiting the Land of Om-bama |
||
Being in the Aqua Bodywork World I decided to do a Water Shiatsu Course (eventually
leading me towards becoming a practitioner) with the Guru at Harbin Hot
springs, Middle Town. To discover the American species was another of my
motivations. And finally, sadly but true in our present economic crisis in
Auroville; where we are barely supported, I imagined I would return with
some cash to support the 20 acres of forest land in Auroville. Thanks to Mary and Jyoti Alexander who introduced me to the self healing world, I managed to do several courses: Theta Healing, Psych-K and Emotional Freedom Techniques – with the money that I was planning to save. I am grateful to have done these courses. My package deal was complete. And it was time for me to return home because someone remarked, “You’re starting to look Californian!” |
 |
| Anandi Fruit Mandala at All USA Meeting, Estes Park, CO |
Next, Julian brought me to meet Marvin and Sue who were warm in sharing their nice home and their loving heart. I continued my journey to be bathed in the light of Sri Ramana Ashram in New York. In Ithaca, I stayed at Anusuya and David's home on their organic strawberry farm. They had met me in Auroville for only a day, but generously hosted me for six days. I moved from there to Amherst Massachusetts, into Daniel, Monique, Simone & Pema's loving company. Then came Stone Soup Farm in Springfield where I was drowned in the love of Jarrett and his fellow farmers. Next, I spent a few days in Washington DC visiting Karen, Bruce & Leah who had been a great support in getting me to USA. Then I flew back to the west coast to enjoy the sweet home of Bill Leon, Cyndi & Evan. They filled me with love and I had the opportunity to meet the Sri Aurobindo study circle friends, Savitra and the enriching company of Karen Liftin, followed by Gina & Sally's warm company in Portland, Oregon.
Next, I visited Soleil, Wolfgang & Sonny. From there I flew to Santa Rosa, where B hosted me and we drove to meet many Auroville celebrities at the Lodi Ashram, June Maher, her husband, Dakshina, and Jack & Mary Alexander, John Robert, Karen, Rosine, Vishnu and others. I had the great joy of meeting my first yoga teacher Mindy, and Ed who gave me my first ride to Auroville from Pondy. I also luckily met Matthew and Terces, the inspiring owners and founders of the five Café Gratitude restaurants who were planting their organic farm, which has nine feet of topsoil. I was there with Sergio Lub who has been to Auroville and has organized an International Network of people through his www.friendlyfavors.org
In short, the whole was a great inner journey enriching me both inwardly and outwardly. I loved the varieties of landscapes, the vastness of America, and the water bodies, the Bay Area, Seattle and Orcas Island. I loved the birds, the deer on the road, the roadrunners in Arizona and its deserted mountain ranges. I delighted in the abundance of organic foods, the orderliness of the roads, traffic, and cleanliness, solidarity of the people and the new President Obama, the various ethnic people and their service mindedness.
Almost in all places I gave workshops on live foods. This gave me the joy of giving back to America what it gave me, as well as the possibility of requesting support in the creation of a Live Food Restaurant in Auroville. May I appeal to all of you to contribute whatever funds you can to this cause. Please visit www.aviusa.org
Let me send my heartfelt gratitude and Love to all of you whom I met or not, or forgot to mention here. All of you are in me and I am part you. This is the biggest gift I received from the USA on top of being educated in live foods, which I am going to share with many people of this land.
Vanakkam and Nandri
Love
Anandi
My college background in food and nutrition helped me to choose my work in Auroville. While in the production of organic products I met a Canadian who inspired me to eat raw vegetarian food. While training myself in this new food style, I heard about the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Centre in Arizona. I visited their website, saw Dr. Gabriel Cousens, the founder, and recognized that I was part of his mission and that I was bound to meet him. I applied for their 10 week Spiritual Live Food apprentice program. I received an interview over the phone and to my total delight, the course manager Philip told me they would give me a scholarship to do the program because I could not afford the fee.
Then came the big test; getting a visa. It was very hard to get a visa because I did not fulfill the requirements of inheritance, money, property, husband and children, the things that would force me to return to India instead of immigrating to the USA. I told them about Auroville about which they had no idea. I was denied three times and this challenge was so hard that I surrendered completely to The Mother.
Then came the help of my AVIUSA friends who vouched that I would return to Auroville, and they would host me. This finally got me a visa. The Living Routes program and their students paid for my airplane ticket.
When I landed in San Francisco I was picked up by a caring soul, B (Bill Sullivan) who was a great support throughout my six months in the USA. When I went to Arizona it was nourishing and uplifting. I had a wonderful time learning about the values of living on live foods. As I had lived in Auroville using organic health foods and meditative practices, this change to live foods in combination with the spiritual presence of Dr. Gabriel Cousens was transformational. Within ten days, I experienced a feeling of the ONENESS of all. It awoke in me an intense need to share this with everyone, and to start a Live Food Restaurant in Auroville.
After successfully completing the ten-week course I offered a workshop on
live foods at Arcosanti near Phoenix. I stayed with old friends Nadia,
David, Tristan & Sasha. I visited Grand Canyon, Sedona, and Joan Tomb in
Tucson before flying with B to Denver for the AUM meeting. I felt so at
home as I met many American Aurovillians old and new. This was possible
through the generosity of Paula Murphy and Jim who drove me to their home in
Wisconsin. It was a great drive showing me the beauty of America. I had
darshan from the famous Mississippi River. Then I had the good fortune to
meet Auroville Pioneers, Bryan and Fanou.
I continued traveling on Greyhound buses and Amtrak trains to Flint,
Michigan. I enjoyed the hospitality of Indian friends whom I met in Arizona
at the Tree of Life. Then came the offer from Julian Lines and Wendy to fly
to their sweet home. I had a wonderful time with them and had great chance
to meet Eric Hughes at Matagiri, Peter Heehs, Mira Nakashima of the Peace
Table, and legendary Kirtan singer Krishna Das (Julian’s overtone group
Prana opened his concert).
Matter Itself Is Compelling Us
 |
| Miriam, Aster, Amrita and Pavan in Manhattan |
She noted that change is evident in Sri Aurobindo Sadhana Peetham, not just in the material dimension —the new building addition and the relics room, for example—but that there is a spirit of new beginnings at the ashram.
A wide-ranging discussion followed Aster’s remarks. She said that matter seemed to be more porous, more receptive, compelling change in us rather than only being the source of deepest resistance to the new consciousness. With Lynda L. she touched on the levels of the depths newly opening to the new force. With Grace A. she considered how Aurovillians’ perception of matter was changing. The implied conclusion, never explicitly stated, seemed to be that the Lodi ashram’s preoccupation with the gnostic collective experiment could well be part of this broader change Aster was sensing everywhere.
Aster noted with wonder in her voice the way the structure of time is changing, the way we perceive reality itself. The old comfortable categories of the mind are falling away. She was at a conference in Colorado before coming to California. There was quite a diverse group of people from all over the US there, and she noted a theme of unity coming through all that diversity. Matter itself seems to be compelling us to change, she said. The transformation that is drawing us is not simply a change of consciousness above (gesturing above her head), but a change in the nature of reality itself, all the way down to matter itself. This is a theme that has occupied Aster for some time. She organized an Auroville Yoga conference in January on the theme of “The New Dynamism of the Material and the Spiritual.”
I might tell you first of all that to do a collective yoga we must be a collectivity (!) and then speak to you about the different conditions required for being a collectivity. ...
... And what should this collectivity be?
It is certainly not an arbitrary structure like those made by men, in which they put everything pell-mell, without order or reality, and the whole thing is held together only by illusory links, which were symbolized here by the walls of the hotel, and which, in fact, in ordinary human constructions – if we take as an example a religious community – are symbolized by the monastery building, identical clothes, identical activities, even identical movements – I’ll make it more clear: everybody wears the same uniform, everybody rises at the same hour, eats the same things, offers the same prayers together, etc., there is a general uniformity. And naturally, inside, there is a chaos of consciousnesses, each one going according to its own mode, for this uniformity which goes as far as an identity of belief and dogma, is an altogether illusory identity.
This is one of the most usual types of human collectivity: to be grouped, linked, united around a common ideal, a common action, a common realization, but in a completely artificial way. As opposed to this, Sri Aurobindo tells us that a true community – what he calls a gnostic or supramental community – can exist only on the basis of the inner realization of each of its members, each one realizing his real, concrete unity and identity with all the other members of the community, that is, each one should feel not like just one member united in some way with all the others, but all as one, within himself. For each one the others must be himself as much as his own body, and not mentally and artificially, but by a fact of consciousness, by an inner realization.
|
(Silence)
That means that before hoping to realize this gnostic collectivity, each one
should first become — or at least begin to become – a gnostic being. This is
obvious; the individual work should go on ahead and the collective work
should follow; but it so happens that spontaneously, without any arbitrary
intervention of the will, the individual progress is controlled, so to
speak, or held back by the collective state. Between the individual and the
collectivity there is an interdependence from which one can’t totally free
oneself, granting that one tries. And even a person who tried in his yoga to
liberate himself totally from the terrestrial and human state of
consciousness, would be tied down, in his subconscious at least, to the
state of the mass, which acts as a brake and actually pulls backwards. One
can try to go much faster, try to drop all the weight of attachments and
responsibilities, but despite everything, the realization, even of one who
is at the very summit and is the very first in the evolutionary march, is
dependent on the realization of the whole, dependent on the state of the
terrestrial collectivity. And that indeed pulls one back, to such an extent
that at times one must wait for centuries for the Earth to be ready, in
order to be able to realize what is to be realized.
And that is why Sri Aurobindo also says, somewhere else, that a double
movement is necessary, and that the effort for individual progress and
realization should be combined with an effort to try to uplift the whole
mass and enable it to make the progress that’s indispensable for the greater
progress of the individual: a mass-progress, it could be called, which would
allow the individual to take one more step forward.
And now, I shall tell you that this is why I thought it would be
useful to have some group meditations, in order to work on the creation of a
common atmosphere that’s a little more organized than…my big hotel of last
night!
So, the best use one can make of these meditations – which are
gradually becoming more frequent since now we are also going to replace the
“distributions” by short meditations – is to go within, into the depths of
one’s being, as far as one can go, and find the place where one can feel,
perceive and perhaps even create an atmosphere of unity in which a force for
order and organization will be able to put each element in its place and
make a new coordinated world arise out of the present chaos. That’s all.
A Call for ‘Who Wants more Auroville Info?’ If you don’t want to spend time searching the web for current Auroville news, I receive updated information from Auroville regularly and could forward it on to you. If you have specific needs I am also happy to do a search for you. |
You can let me know which aspects of Auroville interest you; Matrimandir Gardens, Meditation in the Inner Chamber; Reforestation, Green Work and the Greater Bioregion; Auroville Produced Foods; Decision-Making Processes, Boards and Assemblies; International Advisory Council; Financial Management; International Zone and National Pavilions; L’Avenir d’AV (the town planning group); Entry Services and Newcomers; Housing, Architecture, Alternative Energy; Tamil villages in the Auroville Region and Village Action; Education and Schools; CIRHU (Center for international Research in Human Unity) and UHU (University of Human Unity); Savitri Bhavan with its lectures, exhibits, meditations and OM choir; Auroville/Village Arts, Crafts and Exhibits; Music and Plays; Auroville Business Units Products and Marketing; Healing Centers; Auroville Radio and TV; Auroville International or any other categories you may think up like divine anarchy.
If this interests you please e-mail me at
or feel
free to call me at 608-583-2626.
Some relevant sources of information:
Auroville’s main Web site
www.auroville.org
Auroville Radio
www.aurovilleradio.org
And Even TV!
www.aurovilletv.org
AVIUSA
aviusa.org
Bryan Walton, President, Auroville International – USA
 |
2009 WALL CALENDAR Auroville Children on "Dress Up Day" $10 portion of proceeds benefits Education in Auroville |
|
2009 MATRIMANDIR DESK CALENDAR Twelve Meditation Petals $10 portion of proceeds benefits Matrimandir |
|
| A brief report of a recent visit to Auroville |
|
||||
|
