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Essential Auroville texts
Charter of Auroville
Auroville belongs to nobody in particular.
A Dream
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.
To be a True Aurovilian
The first necessity is the inner discovery by which one learns who one really is behind the social, moral, cultural,
racial and hereditary appearances. At our inmost centre there is a free being, wide and knowing,
who awaits our discovery and who ought to become the acting centre of our being and our life in Auroville.
One lives in Auroville in order to be free of moral and social conventions; but this liberty must not be a new slavery
to the ego, its desires and its ambitions. The fulfilment of desires bars the route to the inner discovery
which can only be attained
in peace and the transparency of a perfect
disinterestedness.
Work, even manual work, is an indispensable thing for the inner discovery. If one does not work, if one does not inject his consciousness into matter, the latter will never develop.
- The Mother
