- Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole. But, to live in Auroville, one must be a willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness.
- Auroville will be the place of an unending education, of constant progress, and a youth that never ages.
- Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past and the future. Taking advantage of all discoveries from without and from within, Auroville will boldly spring towards future realisations.
- Auroville will be a site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual human unity.
Raison d'être of Auroville
A City with a Soul, A Future with a Flame
Auroville is not an accident of history. It is a deliberate call to the future. Born from the vision of The Mother, it was never meant to be a quaint community of idealists—it was meant to be a crucible for human evolution. A city where unity is not a slogan but a lived experience. Where growth is not measured in concrete, but in consciousness.
On February 28, 1968, soil from 124 nations was poured into the earth—not just as symbol, but as seed. That seed was a dream: of a place beyond nation and religion, beyond ego and competition. A place where humanity could take its next step. Not by force, but by aspiration.
Today, that aspiration stands at a crossroads. Auroville must choose: to stay comfortable in its past, or rise courageously into its purpose. This moment is not just about land or planning. It is about fidelity to the flame lit in 1968—a flame of truth, progress, and transformation.
To be true to our beginning, we must evolve. For the world is watching. And the world is waiting—not for perfection, but for possibility. That possibility is Auroville. If we dare.
There should be somewhere on earth a place which no nation could claim as its own, where all human beings of goodwill who have a sincere aspiration could live freely as citizens of the world and obey one single authority, that of the supreme Truth; a place of peace, concord and harmony where all the fighting instincts of man would be used exclusively to conquer the causes of his sufferings and miseries, to surmount his weaknesses and ignorance, to triumph over his limitations and incapacities; a place where the needs of the spirit and the concern for progress would take precedence over the satisfaction of desires and passions, the search for pleasure and material enjoyment.
In this place, children would be able to grow and develop integrally without losing contact with their souls; education would be given not for passing examinations or obtaining certificates and posts but to enrich existing faculties and bring forth new ones. In this place, titles and positions would be replaced by opportunities to serve and organise; the bodily needs of each one would be equally provided for, and intellectual, moral and spiritual superiority would be expressed in the general organisation not by an increase in the pleasures and powers of life but by increased duties and responsibilities.
Beauty in all its artistic forms, painting, sculpture, music, literature, would be equally accessible to all; the ability to share in the joy it brings would be limited only by the capacities of each one and not by social or financial position.
For in this ideal place money would no longer be the sovereign lord; individual worth would have a far greater importance than that of material wealth and social standing. There, work would not be a way to earn one’s living but a way to express oneself and to develop one’s capacities and possibilities while being of service to the community as a whole, which, for its own part, would provide for each individual’s subsistence and sphere of action.
In short, it would be a place where human relationships, which are normally based almost exclusively on competition and strife, would be replaced by relationships of emulation in doing well, of collaboration and real brotherhood.
The earth is certainly not ready to realize such an ideal, for mankind does not yet possess the necessary knowledge to understand and accept it nor the indispensable conscious force to execute it. That is why I call it a dream. Yet, this dream is on the way of becoming a reality. That is exactly what we are doing on a small scale, in proportion to our modest means. The achievement is indeed far from being perfect, it is progressive; little by little we advance towards our goal, which, we hope, one day we shall be able to hold before the world as a practical and effective means of coming out of the present chaos in order to be born into a more true, more harmonious new life.
- The first necessity is the inner discovery in order to know what one truly is behind social, moral, cultural, racial and hereditary appearances. At the centre there is a being free, vast and knowing, who awaits our discovery and who ought to become the active centre of our being and our life in Auroville.
- The fulfilment of one’s desires bars the way to the inner discovery which can only be achieved in the peace and transparency of perfect disinterestedness. One lives in Auroville in order to be free from moral and social conventions; but this freedom must not be a new slavery to the ego, to its desires and ambitions.
- The Aurovilian should lose the sense of personal possession. For our passage in the material world, what is indispensable to our life and to our action is put at our disposal according to the place we must occupy. The more we are consciously in contact with our inner being, the more are the exact means given to us.
- Work, even manual work, is something indispensable for the inner discovery. If one does not work, if one does not put his consciousness into matter, the latter will never develop. To let the consciousness organise a bit of matter by means of one’s body is very good. To establish order around oneself helps to bring order within oneself. One should organise one’s life not according to outer and artificial rules, but according to an organised inner consciousness, for if one lets life go on without subjecting it to the control of the higher consciousness, it becomes fickle and inexpressive. It is to waste one’s time in the sense that matter remains without any conscious utilisation.
- The whole earth must prepare itself for the advent of the new species, and Auroville wants to work consciously to hasten this advent.
- Little by little it will be revealed to us what this new species must be, and meanwhile, the best course is to consecrate oneself entirely to the Divine.
[When this was to be published at the end of 1971, Mother added:]
The only true freedom is the one obtained by union with the Divine. One can unite with the Divine only by mastering one’s ego.
To Serve the Divine Consciousness
Auroville is not a lifestyle choice. It is a sacred commitment. To live here is to align one’s entire being — thoughts, actions, relationships, aspirations — to the service of a higher consciousness. Not a god of dogma or religion, but the Divine as presence, force, truth, and evolving light. This is not metaphor. It is the deepest reason for Auroville’s birth.
The Mother called Auroville a “site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual human unity.” But unity cannot be built on ego. Nor can truth be realized through ambition. The bedrock of this collective experiment is consecration — the quiet, fierce act of offering every moment to something greater than the self.
To serve the Divine here is not to withdraw from life, but to enter it fully — while stripping away its falsehoods. It means doing the dishes with awareness. Managing a farm as yoga. Hosting a guest as worship. Designing a building as prayer. It is about using daily life as the ground of inner transformation.
This is not easy. Nor is it meant to be. Auroville is not for those who seek safety or escape. It is for those who burn to serve the Divine, not in name but in practice — with sincerity, humility, and unwavering aspiration.
To Be a Living Laboratory of Human Unity
Humanity is fragmented — by nation, religion, language, culture, class. The world has become a battleground of identities. Auroville was born to offer a different possibility: that unity is not only necessary, it is natural — if we are willing to go beyond the surface.
In Auroville, the aim is not tolerance but transformation. Not integration by force, but by deeper understanding. Unity here is not the flattening of differences, but their conscious harmony. Tamil and French, Korean and Russian, urban and tribal, elder and child — each voice has its place, not in competition but in concert.
This laboratory of human unity is not theoretical. It is tested in kitchens, on work sites, in meetings, on dusty paths. Every misunderstanding is a mirror. Every conflict is a curriculum. The goal is not to eliminate friction, but to transmute it into compassion, clarity, and growth.
This is not easy work. The past clings. Conditioning returns. But the aspiration remains: to forge a collective being that is more than the sum of its parts. A humanity that is not divided by its origins, but elevated by its shared destiny.
Auroville stands as a living promise that another way of being together is possible — one not of fear or survival, but of unity in consciousness and joy.
To Build the City the Earth Needs
Auroville is not a village. It is a city in the making — not just in scale, but in spirit. Its purpose is not to preserve the past, but to prototype the future.
The Galaxy Plan is not just urban design. It is sacred geometry — a blueprint where form follows force. The Matrimandir is not just an architectural marvel. It is the soul of the city, a space of silence where the future can descend. The greenbelt is not just a buffer — it is a living experiment in ecological regeneration and harmony with nature.
Every part of Auroville — its energy systems, roads, economy, education, governance — is meant to reflect a new paradigm. This is not a commune in retreat from the world, but a city moving ahead of it. A city where beauty and utility co-exist. Where growth is inner before it is outer. Where the built environment uplifts the human environment.
Yet, Auroville remains incomplete. The city is still a dream in many ways — scattered, fragile, unresolved. But that is part of the process. True building is not just in concrete, but in consciousness. The work is slow because it is deep.
But the Earth needs such cities — where soul and soil meet, where the future can find form. Auroville must rise to this call.
To Accelerate the Evolution of Consciousness
The deepest raison d’être of Auroville is not sociological, ecological, or architectural. It is evolutionary. It exists to accelerate the birth of a new kind of human being — one no longer ruled by ego, division, fear, or desire.
This is not spiritual escapism. It is conscious engagement with the totality of life — body, mind, heart, and soul — in the service of something greater. It is a field for the practice of Integral Yoga in collective terms. A laboratory where inner work meets outer life. Where every challenge is an invitation to evolve.
The Aurovilian is not meant to be a settler. Not a resident ticking off tasks. But a seeker in action. A builder of bridges between the old and the new. A participant in the long, luminous labour of becoming more conscious, more true, more whole.
In this, Auroville holds immense promise. Because the evolution of consciousness is not abstract. It becomes visible — in how we work, how we relate, how we build, how we create. Each act can either reinforce the past or open a door to the future.
Auroville’s role is to open that door. Widely. Boldly. Humbly. So that humanity may glimpse what it can become — and begin, finally, to walk toward it.
The Fire We Must Keep
Auroville was not born of convenience, but of a call — a daring gesture toward a different future. Its essence is not in its infrastructure, its policies, or even its people, but in its aspiration: to serve the Divine, to unite humanity, to embody a new way of living, to build a city the Earth needs, and to hasten the evolution of consciousness itself.
This is no small dream. It demands everything — not once, but every day. It calls for an honesty fierce enough to confront our failures, a humility deep enough to dissolve ego, and a courage vast enough to walk the unknown.
The choice before us is real.
To settle, or to strive.
To defend the illusion, or to live the truth.
To drift, or to burn.
The dream of Auroville is not guaranteed. It must be chosen. Again and again. Not in sentiment, but in substance — in how we work, live, relate, build, and serve.
Because the real city is not made of earth and concrete.
It is made of consciousness.
And the true Aurovilian is not one who merely stays —
but one who dares to become.
Let us not inherit Auroville like caretakers of a shrine.
Let us embody it like torchbearers of a future still waiting to be born.
The flame is still alive.
Let’s keep it burning.
