Last updated: 10 May, 2023

Aurogames

“Our consciousness is like a young bird; it must learn to use its wings” 

The Mother


Kaleidoscope Puzzles offer a whole brain activation, exercising and stretching your mental faculties of seeing, thinking and understanding to become open-minded and willing to consider different perspectives and solutions. This practice promotes inclusiveness and the experience of unity in diversity through colourful and creative puzzles.

Like the turn of a kaleidoscope, every pattern created is different. The unique puzzle pieces show that there is not only one solution, but infinite ways, and all answers can be correct. If two people with the same puzzle pieces make a pattern each, the patterns will probably be different, but both solutions are correct. If they instead build a pattern together, they will create a third solution that is just as perfect, but again different.

Kaleidoscope puzzles challenge our minds to become conscious of this and find harmony in the diversity.

Kaleidoscope Puzzles are designed to offer moments of mindfulness and self-discovery. You will see patterns, colour combinations, layers, similarities, and differences in the puzzles. Regular engagement will naturally develop your concentration, mental agility, attention to detail and problem-solving skills.

Recognizing that no two people on our planet are the same, Kaleidoscope Puzzles are designed for multi-age, inter-generational, and pluricultural contexts. Taking you through progressive levels in the material, you can allow yourself the right challenge to push your ability to analyse and problem-solve forward. 

To develop flexibility and open-mindedness, the Kaleidoscope Puzzles allow you to decompose, create and recreate infinite patterns. You get opportunities to think out of the box, by seeing different solutions and possibilities. You learn to let go, become open to change, and see the beauty you create in your own puzzles.Kaleidoscope puzzles activate both the right and left hemispheres of the brain, putting reasoning, imagination and emotions at work alongside each other. The plasticity of your brain will begin to form new structures, expanding your mental abilities to embrace unity in diversity, a quality presently dormant in humanity. This kind of exercise is Yoga for the Mind.

Evolving the human mind to form new connections outside of what we see today is at the heart of education for peace and sustainability. To extend your mindset beyond your own well-being, to learn to value otherness, and recognize that there are as many realities as there are people on this planet. To each problem everyone may have a different solution, and there is no one universal truth. Therefor Kaleidoscope Puzzles are beneficial for people of all ages, from every culture. By educating the mind to navigate through different realities, become more accepting of other human beings, and develop a new awareness striving to realize peace and human unity for coming generations.

Auro.games​ is an educational initiative developing tools designed for Integral Education, the new educational model being researched in Auroville that aims to serve a conscious and positive evolution of humanity. Such an education strives to build self-awareness, working on mental faculties such as openness, flexibility and attention to detail to widen and deepen our consciousness. To view life and learning as a kaleidoscope of systems, forms and natural hierarchies in evolution. 

​Visit the auro.games (link www.auro.games) website to exercise online, order our handprinted games, download pdf’s to create your own materials or register for our facilitator training.

Auroculture

The original Aurogame prototypes were created by a woman called AuroCulture (Helga Ahy). Her adventure in puzzle creation began in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Puducherry in the 1970's and continued in Auroville where she moved in the 1990's. She worked on inspiration until a puzzle materialized, and created over 40 beautiful handmade educational material prototypes and sketches. AuroCulture's wish was for these materials to be shared with the children of the world and of the future. She expressed that her role had been to create the seeds for this work through the prototypes, but did not have the knowledge or ability of how to take it forward beyond that. For many years she stored the game prototypes, waiting for "the people who will be a part of realizing this project to come together at the right time".

In 2015 she put the game prototypes in the care of Maya Shakti, who built a team to start to explore how to take the project forward. After an initial few years of experimenting with the games and trying to understand how to sustain the project, Ishay Botbol joined Aurogames as creative director, to build the strategy needed to share Aurogames with the world. During the past years Maya and Ishay have taken the games far beyond the original prototypes, through facilitator training, learning materials, and into the digital world, creating over 500 puzzles and a variety of different functionalities to reach people of all ages, everywhere, as well as schools in India and beyond. AuroCulture followed the work and development with enthusiasm until her passing in 2020.

 

Maya Shakti - Auro.games management and project coordination

Auro.games development, design and facilitator training. Maya has worked in the field of education for more than 25 years and is presently doing research on education for human unity and sustainable development in Auroville. She has a B.Ed. in Science of Education, a B.Ed. in Pedagogy and an M.S. in Education for Sustainable Development (Integral Education) - University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Ishay Botbol - Creative director

Project management and development of Auro.games from the physical puzzle prototypes into the revolution of the digital world. Ishay has a B.Ed. F.A. in Digital Media and Photography - WIZO Haifa Academy of Design and Education in Israel.​

​Do you want to help contribute towards this work? Donations are welcome!

(link https://aviusa.org/?form=aurogames) (90% of all donations go toward project implementation, 10% goes to cover transaction fees, platform fees and administrative costs).