( Some of the texts and the pictures are taken from the official Auroville Website www.auroville.org)
About Auroville
Auroville is a universal community in India, situated near the Pondicherry city. The city has been built to house a population of up to 50,000 people from around the world. The main motto of all the people living in the Auroville city, near Pondicherry, is to convert life into 'Supramental Consciousness'. It is also known by the name of Sri Aurobindo Ashram and is devoted towards 'unity of mankind'. Auroville intends to become such a city that will serve as a model to the cities of the future, cities where people will strive towards a harmonious future.
The main raison d'être of Auroville comprises of the teachings of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo. The city was inaugurated on 28th February 1968. Representatives from approximately 124 countries attended the inauguration ceremony.
The Mother (1878-1973)
Mirra Alfassa, fondly called 'The Mother', was born to an Egyptian mother and a Turkish father. She was born in France and was the second child of her parents. She studied occultism in her twenties, in Algeria, and returned to Paris to work with groups of spiritual seekers. She met Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry, in the year 1914, and immediately recognized him as a mentor she had already met in dreams.
She left India after the start of World War II, but came back to join Sri Aurobindo, in the year 1920. She was responsible behind the organization of Sri Aurobindo's followers into the Aurobindo Ashram of Pondicherry. In 1968, she commenced the project of Auroville Township as a means to implement Sri Aurobindo's vision.
No religion
"Let it not become a religion", the Mother said. "The failure of religions is... because they were divided. They wanted people to be religious to the exclusion of other religions, and every branch of knowledge has been a failure because it has been exclusive.
What the new consciousness wants (it is on this that it insists) is: no more divisions.
To be able to understand the spiritual extreme, the material extreme, and to find the meeting point, the point where that becomes a real force."
Text in italics are quotations from the Mother.
History
The concept of an ideal city, devoted to unity of mankind, came to the Mother in the 1930s. However, it was only in the mid 1960s that Sri Aurobindo Society in Pondicherry proposed the formation of Auroville to Her. After She gave Her consent, the approval of the Government of India was taken. The government took this concept to General Assembly of UNESCO and the project received approval as well as commendation in 1966.
Auroville and it’s People
Citizens of approximately 35 countries make up the population of Auroville. They belong to different religions, castes, cultures, social classes, etc. The current population of the city is around 1700, with Indians making up one-third of the population.
Auroville Charter
· Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole. But to live in Auroville, one must be the 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 realizations.
· Auroville will be a site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual Human Unity.
The Matrimandir
At the very centre of Auroville one finds the 'soul of the city', the Matrimandir, situated in a large open area called 'Peace', from where the future township will radiate outwards. The atmosphere is quiet and charged, and the area beautiful, even though at present large parts of it are still under construction.
As yet incomplete, the Matrimandir emerges as a large golden sphere which seems to be rising out of the earth, symbolising the birth of a new consciousness seeking to manifest. Its slow and steady progress towards completion is followed by many.
While walking through the lovely green Matrimandir Gardens with their great variety of flowers, shrubs and trees, one's attention is greatly drawn by this important and powerful feature at the heart of the city which was seen by the Mother as the "symbol of the Divine's answer to man's aspiration for perfection" and as "the central cohesive force" for the growth of Auroville.
Evolutionary principle
The name 'Matrimandir' means literally 'Temple of the Mother'. According to Sri Aurobindo's teaching, the 'Mother' concept stands for the great evolutionary, conscious and intelligent principle of Life, the Universal Mother, - which seeks to help humanity move beyond its present limitations into the next step of its evolutionary adventure, the supramental consciousness.
Inner Chamber
The spacious Inner Chamber in the upper hemisphere of the structure is completely white, with white marble walls and white carpeting. In the centre a pure crystal-glass globe suffuses a ray of electronically guided sunlight which falls on it through an opening at the apex of the sphere.
"The most important thing is this: the play of the sun on the centre. Because that becomes the symbol, the symbol of future realisations."
There are no images, no organised meditations, no flowers, no incense, no religion or religious forms.
www.auroville.de 
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