AUROVILLE: A universal city in the making in South India [photo essay]

Last updated: March 4th, 2015

“Auroville wants to be a universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The purpose of Auroville is to realize human unity.” That is the vision of Auroville, a universal city in the making in South India. First established in 1968 by The Mother and inspired by the teachings of spiritual visionary Sri Aurobindo, Auroville is home to 2300 people from 46 different nations who live there to manifest the community’s intention of human unity and to act as willing servitors of Divine Consciousness.

Whether the community lives up to its vision of Human Unity or not is up for debate. Auroville has drawn criticisms from the very start, yet it continues on, disproving the many naysayers who thought an idea like this wouldn’t even survive. Aurovillians are open about their community. They do not deny that Auroville has a lofty vision which it has not yet realized, but they embrace the fact that the community is a human laboratory where ideas comes and go. And maybe, through enough trial and error, that vision will one day be realized.