A4A Stepping into a 12th Year! Our 15th August 2025 News Bulletin
A4A Stepping into a 12th Year! Our 15th August 2025 News Bulletin.pdf
15th August 2025 – Sri Aurobindo’s 153rd Birthday – Above is a digitally created image of Sri
Aurobindo highlighting The Mother’s words that his birth constitutes “an eternal birth”.
Contents
1. A4A Flier – 15th August 2025
2. LFAU Letter – 15th August 2025
3. A4A – 187.14 Acres & 11 Years of Consolidating the Land!
4. Uma Prajapati – Finding Meaning and Creativity in Auroville
5. Discovering That Auroville is a Lifelong Living Curriculum – By Lalit Kishore Bhati
6. New “Art for Land” Exhibition – “The Inner Awakening and the Outer Expression”
7. Inspiring Quotes – “The Chariot of Jagannath” – By Sri Aurobindo
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Dear friend of Auroville’s bright future,
On this day, in 2014, on Sri Aurobindo’s birthday, we commenced the journey of Acres for Auroville (A4A), a special land campaign to secure and safeguard the lands of Auroville.
Looking at our results since the start – 187.14 missing Master Plan acres added to 41 Auroville communities, farms, forest areas, and nature preserves, we feel a sense of satisfaction and significance. And we are grateful to all those who have generously contributed to these results – we sincerely thank you!
On this special day, our newsletter shares details of these successes. From the beginning of Auroville’s development, land acquisition has come through a mix of exchanges of outlying non-Master Plan land for more central and strategic Master Plan land as well as purchases. Recent results also include a mix of both.
Other articles feature the accomplishments, contributions and life paths of two longtime Aurovilians – Uma Prajapati and Lalit Kishor Bhati. Their seriousness of purpose and skills have added very significantly to Auroville over the years, and continue to do so.
We are also glad to share the announcement of the new Art For land exhibition at the Unity Pavilion, just recently inaugurated in this, Sri Aurobindo’s birthday week. It is a magnificent presentation of creativity in several media, all under a theme that is based on Sri Aurobindo’s works : The Inner Awakening & The Outer Expression. Many of the works are available for sale, with the proceeds destined for Acres for Auroville for land consolidation and protection. There have been increasing attempts at encroaching on Auroville land, and resources are needed to protect as well as consolidate its physical body and base.
We finish with a thought-provoking text from Sri Aurobindo on the need for and challenges to transformation. In it, we read about one : “The end of a stage of evolution is usually marked by a powerful recrudescence of all that has to go out of the evolution.”
Despite the many challenges, in A4A’s Year 12 we continue on with our commitment to ensure Auroville’s viable future and to provide the space for the manifestation of its spiritual goal!
In solidarity,
Aryadeep and Mandakini
1. A4A Flier – 15th August 2025
In Sri Aurobindo’s “Five Dreams” he laid out his visions for the world’s future – dreams that he said were already in progress, and as inevitable realizations: “a new spirit of oneness will take hold of the human race” and “a step in evolution which would raise man to a higher and larger consciousness ….” These dreams are the force behind the Auroville vision. Accordingly, the Matrimandir’s four entrances represent the Higher Forces of Wisdom, Strength, Harmony and Perfection, the inner qualities we need in order to do the outer work – the difficult, but certain, realization of Unity and Consciousness, the reasons for the creation and existence of Auroville. Version française en pdf … எஃப்ல் தழ்ப் பப்
https://land.auroville.org/acres-for-auroville-flier-15-august-2025/
Words of Blessings – Sri Aurobindo to a disciple Transcription: Let my Peace be always with you. Let your mind be calm and open; let your vital nature be calm and responsive; let your physical consciousness be a quiet and exact instrument, calm in action and calm in silence. Let there be my Light and Power and Peace upon you; let there be ever Power and Light and Peace.
2. LFAU Letter – 15 August 2025
The Mother had said that Sri Aurobindo’s birth is “an eternal birth”. Today we celebrate that birth, and we also celebrate the start of Year 12 of the Acres for Auroville land campaign. This solidarity action has brought in 187.14 acres of once-missing Master Plan land and is the sole funding source for Auroville’s land consolidation and protection. Despite the growing virtualization of the world, the physical world and matter remain of utmost importance – for in Sri Aurobindo’s worldview, they are the basis upon which the new life and new creation are to grow. Support for A4A enables the Auroville creation to grow physically in matter, aligning with the vision carried by Sri Aurobindo”. Version
française en pdf … எஃப்ல் தழ்ப் பப் https://land.auroville.org/lands-for-auroville-unified-letter-15-august-2025/
3. A4A – 187.14 ACRES & 11 YEARS OF CONSOLIDATING THE LAND!
The Acres for Auroville land campaign was launched on August 15, 2014 for raising funds to secure, consolidate, and protect the unified land base that The Mother envisaged for the City of Dawn. This collaborative unity action has inspired thousands of donations to address this most essential need – land for manifesting the Auroville dream! As we start Year 12, we are gratified to announce our positive results: thanks to you, 187.14 new consolidating acres have been added to Auroville to date in 21 strategic City areas, and 20 Greenbelt farms, forest zones, and nature preserves. In A4A Year 12, we continue our commitment to raising funds for the land needed to ensure the township’s viability and unified future, and to manifest Auroville’s futuristic and evolutionary goals. Each day, your donations bring us closer to success – click to see photos of some of the new land that your solidarity has enabled!
https://land.auroville.org/a4a-187-14-acres-11-years-of-consolidating-the-land
4. Uma Prajapati – Finding Meaning and Creativity in Auroville
Uma arrived in Auroville in 1996 for a two-week project at Auromode. Those two weeks never ended and have become three decades. She came with the degree and technical skills of a trained fashion designer, but had no idea that fashion would become her yoga. After her work at Auromode, Uma founded Upasana Design Studio, which led her to the discoveries of business as yoga, ownership without ownership, bringing consciousness into fashion, and social projects, such as the renowned Tsunamika. Seeing work as “worship”, Uma is now involved in collective tasks at Town Hall – anti-encroachment work at the Land Service and youth housing and Campus Management at the Housing Service. She says, “I am a joyful workaholic at the feet of the Divine Mother. I only ask, how can I serve?”
https://land.auroville.org/uma-prajapati-finding-meaning-and-creativity-inauroville/
5. Discovering That Auroville is a Lifelong Living Curriculum – By Lalit Kishore Bhati
“Only a greater wholeness of being, knowledge, and power can unite life into something true and whole.” For Lalit, these words by Sri Aurobindo lit an inner fire, for a life of “wholeness” is his goal. A trained architect with a post-graduate degree in Urban Planning, Lalit did his internship with the legendary architect B.V. Doshi. Then, as part of the team preparing the urban master plan for 50,000 residents at ISKCON’s World Headquarters in West Bengal, he came to Auroville in 1997 as part of a professional study. In 1998, he was invited to join Aurofuture as a planning consultant and then L’Avenir as the urban planning coordinator. With his wife Shailaja and two children, he has built his life in Auroville. Part 1 of a two-part article shares his past 27 years of work in diverse aspects of Auroville’s collective life and development, which have shaped the path of his Integral Yoga quest. In his words, “Auroville is a Living Curriculum”.
https://land.auroville.org/discovering-that-auroville-is-a-lifelong-livingcurriculum-by-lalit-kishor-bhati/
6. New “Art for Land” Exhibition – “The Inner Awakening and the Outer Expression”
Art for Land, along with the Unity Pavilion and Acres for Auroville, is pleased to announce its new exhibition, “The Inner Awakening and the Outer Expression”. This theme is inspired by the Four Austerities as defined by Sri Aurobindo and the fifth vision of his “Five Dreams”: awakened individuals, a spiritualised society and the unification of humanity. These deep goals, integral to the founding of Auroville, have inspired the exhibition’s participating artists – working in various media and hailing from Auroville, the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, France and Italy. Many of the works are available for purchase, whose proceeds go for Auroville land consolidation and protection via the A4A campaign. Since its start in 2016, Art for Land’s work has become recognized as a dynamic showcase for Auroville as a creative artistic hub. Ongoing till
September 7th at the Unity Pavilion.
https://land.auroville.org/new-art-for-land-exhibition-the-inner-awakening-andthe-outer-expression/
7. Inspiring Quotes – “The Chariot of Jagannath” – By Sri Aurobindo
In this issue, we share an extract from Sri Aurobindo’s essay “The Chariot of Jagannatha” : “An ideal society is a vehicle of the Divine, the Divine as the inner soul of collective humanity. It is the Chariot of Jagannatha, the Lord of the World, and its four wheels are unity, freedom, knowledge and power. A society constructed by the mind or created by the impure vital agitations of Prakriti is not the Chariot of God … but the vehicle of that other many-faced god, the collective ego, which by concealing the free inner guide distorts the divine inspiration. … It is this ego which is the main barrier against divine perfection; this is as true of the collectivity as of the individual.”
https://land.auroville.org/inspiring-quotes-the-chariot-of-jagannathan-by-sriaurobindo/
There are many ways to make your donation. Please click here to know the details and recent changes for both foreign and Indian donors. When you donate, kindly send us a mail at lfau@auroville.org.in or write a letter or call us (see contacts below), informing us of your donation so we can better track and immediately respond to your solidarity!
Now in the 12h year of the A4A campaign, we thank all the many friends
who are bringing their encouragement and solidarity
for the City of Dawn, creating a dynamic space
for the ideal of human unity to flourish and grow – a hope for us all !
For the Acres for Auroville team
Aryadeep, Mandakini, Jothi
In solidarity and trust in Auroville’s bright future,
LFAU (Lands for Auroville Unified), +91 413 2622657, Town Hall, Auroville, 605101, India
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LFAU (Lands for Auroville Unified), +91 413 2622657, Town Hall, Auroville,, 605101, India
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