We've been lucky enough to have Teresa stay a few extra days with us. She is quiet the little shopping fashionista and wanted to make a trip down to Pondicherry and Shaun really wanted to go to Auroville which is near Pondi so we ended up going on a
mid week adventure today.
I know I have talked about Pondicherry but I don't think I have ever mentioned Auroville before, so here we go: Auroville is a quirky little place just outside of Pondicherry that’s a world city that doesn’t belong to any one nation. It was started around 50 years ago with funding from the world and specifically the United Nations. Ill let the pictures of their signs explain most of it, but basically it is all mother earth, organic living and Kumbaya central.
There were parts of the city we were not allowed to go to but they had several diagrams of the whole set up in the visiting center
Here are pics of the real thing:
And what would Kumbaya land be with out yogis performing/posing for pictures in front of the golden golf ball?
Plants and flowers are another huge part of Auroville and the colors of the flowers each represent a different value that helps makes up the balance of an enlightened life. I think. It somehow all came back to enlightenment.
This grove of trees is actually one tree that is continuously growing under and above ground
Shaun being Shaun
I really liked Auroville. I’ll admit that the ideas and principles of this place are
good and all but to me they seemed very unrealistic—but then I realized that
these people are basically just already living the law of consecration which
BLEW MY MIND. As soon as I framed their lifestyle and ideals in the law of
consecration light, I realized that the principles these people live by really
shouldn’t be that strange to me. To be fair, there are different degrees of
living that law and I think it is safe to say that Auroville is taking it to
the max-but it makes me wonder if in the future this community will be the
“experiment” that we model living the law of consecration after. Obviously Im sure I we
would model it after scriptures and revelation too, but you know what I mean.
The other thing that was so fascinating to me was how much
of a thriving community Auroville actually is. When I first heard of it I
pictured it as a place where old hippies go to retire, but that is not the
case at all. There are old people, but there are young people too, and families
and schools for the children. It is an actual living community that has social
structure and infrastructure and commerce and everything else. Gaining entrance
to the community is quiet the process. To be allowed to live in Auroville
you have to prove you can live the lifestyle by following the cities rules
while living outside of the actual city. This takes about 7 years. But on top
of the seven year proving period you have to be on a waiting list and be
approved by the rest of the community as well. I don’t know all the little
details on the whole process but I just know that people can't just move into
Auroville on a whim. Another rule is that you cannot live in Auroville and
identify with any specific religion. You have to be organized religion-less but
practice meditation and enlightenment. Hence the giant giant golden golf ball.
After Auroville we swung over to Pondicherry for a bite to
eat and so Teresa could do some shopping. We visited a paper making factory and visited our beloved Bakers street. Unbeknownst to us, the city of Pondicherry was having a super cool little recycling/art festival complete with a flea market type thing that we ended up spending some time at as well. I love these culturally rich little towns. They have SO much
personality.
