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A gentle orientation into Auroville’s purpose, structure, and lived reality.

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This page exists to help you begin rightly.

Auroville is not a place that yields itself to quick conclusions or surface understanding. It is a living experiment—one that unfolds through time, context, and participation. Many arrive with curiosity, some with strong opinions, others with a quiet inner pull. Wherever you are coming from, this page offers a simple point of orientation.

Here, you will find pathways to understand what Auroville is—and what it is not; why it was founded; how the city is structured; how governance functions; and how people participate in its daily life. These sections are not arguments or instructions. They are frames of reference, offered to support clarity rather than certainty.

Auroville asks for a different kind of engagement: slower, more attentive, less transactional. It invites listening before interpretation, and experience before judgment. This page is designed to support that approach—to replace assumption with context, and noise with perspective.

Take your time. Follow what calls you. Understanding here is not consumed—it is grown.

What Auroville Is

Auroville was conceived as a place where humanity could take a conscious step forward. Founded in 1968 by the Mother, on the vision of Sri Aurobindo, it is meant to be the City the Earth Needs—a living experiment in human unity.

Auroville exists to explore new ways of living together beyond nationality, belief, religion, and habit. It is a place of unending education, material and spiritual research, and collective becoming—where the city is built alongside the human being.

“[…] this birth of Auroville wasn’t preceded by any thought; as always, it was simply a Force acting, like a sort of absolute manifesting, and it was so strong that I could have told people, “Even if you don’t believe in it, even if all circumstances appear to be quite unfavorable, I KNOW THAT AUROVILLE WILL BE. It may be in a hundred years, it may be in a thousand years, I don’t know, but Auroville will be, because it has been decreed.”
 
The Mother, 21 September 1966 

Auroville is...

  • Not a normal city
  • Not an ecovillage
  • Not a tourist destination
  • Not a forest project
  • Not a lifestyle retreat
  • Not a political movement
  • Not a social experiment
  • Not a special economic zone

Why It Exists

Auroville exists to serve a future possibility of humanity.

Its purpose is not comfort, perfection, or completion—but progress.
Progress towards unity, towards conscious organisation of life, towards a synthesis of matter and spirit.

The city is still unfinished by design. Its incompleteness is part of the experiment.

How the City Is Structured

Auroville is organised around the Galaxy Plan—a symbolic and functional layout expressing consciousness in form.

The city includes:

  • A central Peace Area

  • Four zones—Cultural, Industrial, Residential, and International

  • A surrounding Green Belt

Beyond physical planning, Auroville functions through a web of working groups, services, and collective processes—imperfect, evolving, and constantly under learning.

What do Aurovilians do?

Aurovilians are not defined by a single profession or lifestyle. They are builders of a living experiment. Residents work across education, ecology, governance, arts, technology, health, farming, research, and service—often wearing many roles at once. Work here is not only economic; it is also a form of practice, a way to grow in responsibility, collaboration, and inner alignment. Life in Auroville is simple, collective, and demanding. There are no private owners of land, no fixed hierarchies, and no guaranteed comforts. What sustains the city is commitment—people choosing, each day, to serve a larger purpose while learning how to live together beyond habit and division.

 
 
AWARE Auroville-Affairs-Organisation-Residents' Assembly-Featured-The Heart of Decision-Making, Residents' Assembly in Auroville
AWARE Auroville-Knowware-Organisation-AVI-Featured-Response to AVI to UNESCO

How People can Participate?

Auroville is sustained by participation, not spectatorship.
Different paths of engagement exist, each with its own responsibilities.

Visiting

Short stays meant for orientation and discovery—ideally approached with respect, curiosity, and restraint.

Volunteering

A time-bound commitment to work and community life, supported through formal processes and inner readiness.

Serving Long-Term

For donors, associates, and long-term collaborators who offer their life, work, and growth to the collective journey.

Joining Auroville

A long-term path requiring discernment, alignment, and willingness to become willing servitors of the Divine Consciousness.

 

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AWARE is an information portal, run by Auroville residents, to provide unbiased, timely and right perspective to various unfolding events. 

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