Offering the Best of Ourselves – by Anandi.pdf

Offering the Best of Ourselves -by Anandi

A life in the service of Auroville

There are places in the world that we visit, and there are places that somehow become part of our inner being. Places that awaken something we did not know was waiting within us, that open a door to another way of seeing life, and that gradually become our home—not only in a physical sense, but in the deepest sense of belonging. For me, Auroville has been such a place. And as it has grown, I have grown with it.

The first encounter: discovering another reality

I was born and grew up in Pamplona, a city in the northeast of Spain, with two thousand years of history and a rich cultural life.

My first visit to Auroville was in 1989. I arrived at a time when life moved at a very different rhythm. The journeys between Pondicherry and Auroville were slow, the means of transport simple, and the place itself still carried the feeling of a pioneering adventure.

There was a certain innocence and simplicity in those days, a sense that everything was still possible and that something entirely new was being born. I was deeply touched. Beyond the physical reality of the place, I sensed another possibility of living, another relationship between people, nature, work and the purpose of human existence. Auroville opened my eyes to a different reality, one that I could not simply leave behind when returning home.

This encounter encouraged me to explore further the vision and teachings of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. Through their writings, I began to understand more deeply the significance of this extraordinary experiment in human evolution and the possibility of creating a society based on a higher consciousness, beyond the limitations of ordinary human divisions and interests.

Back in Spain, a small group of people who had previously visited Auroville came together to create the Auroville International Spain branch. We also opened a little shop called MIRRA, where we sold Auroville products and shared information about the project.

In our own modest way, we wanted to keep the connection alive and help others discover this unique experiment.

Auroville had entered our lives, and we felt the need to become its ambassadors, wherever we were. Over the following five years, we also organised very successful fundraising activities for Auroville.

June 1995: finding my place in the world

After four visits, something had become increasingly clear to me: I had found my place in the world.

In June 1995, I arrived in Auroville with my husband, Joseba, with the intention of staying for good. It was not simply a decision to move to another place. It was a decision to leave one world behind and embrace a different way of life, to participate in a collective adventure and to offer my energies to something that went beyond my personal aspirations.

We had decided that our first offering to Auroville would be at the Matrimandir. Looking back, I often feel that this work was as much a gift to me as it was an offering to Auroville.For more than a year, I worked on the marble tiling of the walls in the passage between the first and second levels.

It was a very simple and repetitive task: polishing and placing, one by one, the small pieces of white marble. Yet, through repetition, concentration and attention to detail, the work acquired a special quality. There was a rhythm to it, almost like a meditation in action.

For hours, I worked beneath the Meditation Chamber, immersed in an atmosphere that was difficult to describe. The physical task, the silence, the extraordinary space above us and the awareness of participating in the construction of something so meaningful created an intense experience that has remained with me forever.

I sometimes feel that those months were the laying of the foundations of my own life in Auroville. With each small piece of marble, I was also building my inner relationship with this place. It was as if I were placing the first stones of my own belonging, establishing a strong pillar in the soul of Auroville.

The Matrimandir was not only the first major physical structure with which I became intimately involved; it became a symbol of what Auroville could be: a place where the outer construction and the inner aspiration are inseparable.

From the inner foundations to the development of the city

After this period, I was invited by Luigi, whom I had met a few years earlier during an Auroville International meeting, to join Aurofuture, the office of Roger Anger dedicated to the planning and development of Auroville.

I also became involved with the Development Office that approved any development to be built.

It was an extraordinary opportunity to enter another dimension of the Auroville adventure. I came into contact with planners, architects, developers and dreamers, people carrying different visions and possibilities for the future city. There were drawings, plans, discussions, ideas and ambitious projects. It was fascinating to discover the complexity of translating such a vast vision into a physical reality.

Listening to Roger was a constant learning experience, offering glimpses into The Mother’s vision for the city. Everything felt exciting and new.

I also discovered that building a city of this nature involves not only inspiration and creativity, but also differences of opinion, tensions, confrontations and sometimes difficult collective processes.

The dream of Auroville is immense, but bringing it into manifestation requires us to work with the realities of human nature and to learn to become more open to a higher consciousness and the action of a subtler reality upon the physical.

Through this work, I became familiar with different administrative groups and services, including the Building Application Service, Town Hall management and the Housing Service.

In 2000, I had another important opportunity to contribute to the development of Auroville. I became part of the team that brought the Asia Urbs Programme to Auroville, through which we developed and implemented two projects in collaboration with three European cities. I dedicated three years to the manifestation of these projects, an experience that opened another window onto the possibilities of international cooperation and the exchange of knowledge, experiences and visions.

One of the most tangible outcomes of this collaboration was the construction of the Town Hall, conceived as an important centre for Auroville’s administrative services.

After being involved in bringing this project into existence, I had the opportunity to manage the Town Hall practical functioning for several years.

Gradually, however, I understood that my place was not necessarily in the offices creating plans or designing buildings, but in helping the collective process move forward, supporting the people and structures involved in the development of the city.

I always saw myself at the service of the Mother, of Auroville and its people, with the aspiration of contributing to the creation of the most beautiful and truthful society possible – one that could progressively reflect the ideals for which Auroville was founded.

One of the aspects that had always attracted me was The Mother’s vision of an economy in which money would no longer be the dominant force, and work would become an offering to the Divine rather than a means of acquiring money or positions. A society where the community would take care of all the needs of its inhabitants, allowing them to live simply and beautifully, with inner growth as the central purpose of life. This aspiration would eventually lead me towards another dimension of Auroville’s collective life.

2007: a new direction—discovering the service of everyday life

In 2007, after two difficult years as a member of the Working Committee, I reached a point where I felt the need for a profound change. Those years had brought me into contact with many aspects of collective life that I would perhaps have preferred not to encounter. They were challenging experiences, sometimes painful, but also revealing.

They made me reflect on the complexities of human relationships, the difficulties of collective responsibility and the distance that can sometimes exist between our ideals and our everyday behaviour.

I felt ready to move towards something different, something more grounded and closer to the practical needs of the community. The direction became surprisingly clear: Pour Tous Distribution Centre.

The centre had started a few months earlier, and I was already one of its members, together with around 150 other Aurovilians who believed in the possibility of experimenting with a different economic model, one more closely connected with the ideals of Auroville and its vision of Prosperity.

It felt like a new beginning. I would now participate in something much more intimate and essential: providing for the everyday needs of the community in an alternative way, connected with The Mother’s dream for the economy of Auroville.

Food, personal care, household products—the ordinary necessities of life. Things that may seem simple or even insignificant, but which touch every human being, every single day. And so began a new chapter, one that has now extended over almost twenty years…. And still continues …

Pour Tous: twenty years of learning through service

Today, Pour Tous Distribution Centre has grown from its initial group of around 150 members to more than 1,800 Aurovilians, while also serving schools, communities, guest houses, services and commercial units.

Over these years, I have had the privilege of being in daily contact with people from incredibly diverse backgrounds, cultures, experiences and aspirations. I have come to know their needs, their difficulties, their expectations and their ways of relating to the collective. It has been a rich and continuous education in human nature, and in what it means to live together in the light of our ideals.

Working in a place that responds to the basic needs of so many people means being confronted every day with the practical realities of collective life. It involves dealing with personal and collective finances, supplies, maintenance, organisational challenges, cultural differences, communication and the countless details that keep a service functioning.

But beyond all these practical aspects, Pour Tous has become a place of inner work for me.

Coming here every day, for eight or ten hours, has required discipline, perseverance, patience and a willingness to keep learning. It has also confronted me with myself: my reactions, my expectations, my limitations, my capacity to listen, to collaborate and to remain centred when things become difficult.

Sometimes, the most meaningful spiritual work is not found in extraordinary experiences or moments of silence, but in the repeated encounters of everyday life. The same situations return, the same challenges arise, and each day offers another opportunity to approach them with a little more awareness, a little more sincerity and a little more generosity.

In this sense, Pour Tous has become a field of Karma Yoga: an opportunity to transform ordinary work into an offering, giving importance not only to what we do, but also to the consciousness with which we do it. And then, be detached of all the results… quite a challenge.

Perhaps one of the greatest lessons of these years has been the importance of human relationships within our working teams. Learning to communicate, to listen, to understand different perspectives and to find common ground is an essential part of the work.

It is easy to speak about human unity as an ideal. It is much more demanding to practise it when we disagree, when we are tired, when things do not happen as expected or when the needs of the individual and the needs of the collective seem to conflict.

Yet, this is precisely where the aspiration becomes a living practice.

Hope: experimenting with another way of life

One of the most beautiful aspects of Pour Tous has always been the hope behind its existence.

The hope that another economic organisation is possible. That the distribution of essential goods can be approached through a different logic, one based more on fraternity, solidarity and collective responsibility than on commercial interests.

The aspiration is not simply to create a shop with a different name or management structure. It is to question the very relationship between human needs, money, work and the community.

Can we organise the satisfaction of our basic needs in a way that reflects the ideals of Auroville? Can we move towards a system where the spirit of sharing becomes more important than individual profit?Can we experiment with forms of collective economy that help us progressively free ourselves from the habits and values of the commercial world?

These questions are at the heart of the experiment.

Of course, the reality is never as simple as the ideal. We operate within an economic environment that imposes its own constraints, and we are all human beings with different expectations, habits and understandings. Yet, the value of an experiment lies precisely in the willingness to explore, to learn from difficulties and to keep searching for more conscious ways of organising our common life.

Hope is not the expectation that everything will work perfectly. It is the decision to continue trying, to believe that another possibility exists and to contribute, through small and concrete actions, to its manifestation.

La Petite Epicerie

Another beautiful chapter in the evolution of Pour Tous has been the manifestation of La Petite Epicerie, our branch in the Sunship area, in February 2026. Connected to the main centre, both places are now part of the same service, allowing members to use either one according to their needs.

Thanks to the incredibly generous donation of Louis Cohen, a beautiful new building has come into existence, artistically designed and filled with light and harmony. It brings an additional workload, but also the joy of seeing a new possibility take shape: another small yet meaningful step towards making Auroville’s collective life more beautiful, accessible and harmonious. Arul (below) is its pillar.

The meaning of service: offering the best of ourselves

Over the years, I have come to understand service in a deeper way.

To serve Auroville is not simply to perform a task, fulfil a responsibility or keep an organisation running. It is to bring the best of ourselves to whatever work is entrusted to us, however ordinary or demanding that work may be.

It means caring about the quality of what we offer, being attentive to the needs and possibilities of the collective, and remaining receptive to what is seeking to manifest through us. It also means learning to be open to the unexpected, to the possibility of the Divine acting in ways we cannot always foresee or understand.

There are days when this is easy, and others when it requires a real inner effort. Days when the collective energy is inspiring, and others when the weight of practical responsibilities, misunderstandings or accumulated difficulties becomes heavy.

But service is also a daily opportunity to renew our aspiration.

In the spirit of Integral Yoga, work can become a means of transformation when we approach it with sincerity, dedication and an increasing capacity to offer our actions to something greater than our individual selves. This does not mean that difficulties disappear or that we always succeed in maintaining the right attitude. It means that every situation can become an occasion to become more conscious. The work itself becomes part of the path.

Auroville: a dream that asks to be lived

Looking back at these different stages of my life in Auroville, I see a continuous thread.

From the first encounter in 1989, when I glimpsed another possibility of living, to the physical work at Matrimandir, the planning and development of the city, and the daily service at Pour Tous, I have been moving through different expressions of the same aspiration.

First, I discovered the dream. Then I participated in building its physical foundations. Later, I became involved in shaping its collective structures. And finally, I found myself serving its everyday life, through something as basic and essential as the distribution of food and other necessities.

Each stage has taught me something different, and each has brought me closer to understanding that Auroville is not simply a place we are building outside ourselves.

It is also a work taking place within us.

The Mother’s vision was not merely to create a beautiful township or an alternative community. It was to offer humanity a field of experimentation for a new consciousness and a new way of being together. A place where human beings could progressively discover a deeper unity, where work could become an offering, where material life could be approached with a spiritual purpose, and where collective existence could evolve beyond the limitations of the old ways of living.

This is an immense aspiration, and its manifestation is neither easy nor straightforward. We are all still learning.

The gap between the dream and its present reality can sometimes be painful. But perhaps this is also the nature of a pioneering experiment: to keep discovering, questioning, correcting and renewing our commitment.

I feel deeply grateful to have been able to participate in this adventure for so many years, through such different forms of work and service.

Auroville has given me much more than I could ever have imagined when Joseba and I first arrived. It has given me a home, a purpose, a strong faith, countless challenges, friendships and opportunities for growth. It has also given me the possibility of dedicating a substantial part of my life to something that I believe is meaningful for the future of humanity.

Today, I feel that the real construction of Auroville continues in every corner, in every service, in every collective effort and in every individual who sincerely tries to contribute to its manifestation. The Matrimandir, the city, the gardens, the workshops, the farms, the schools, the services, the commercial enterprises and all the places where people work and meet are expressions of one larger aspiration.

I find particularly meaningful the movement from working on the marble beneath the Matrimandir to working every day at Pour Tous. One is a place of profound silence; the other, a place of constant human interaction and activity. And yet both can be places of offering.

Perhaps this is one of the beautiful paradoxes of Integral Yoga: discovering the sacred not only in moments of meditation, but also in the ordinary details of life, in our relationships and in the work we do together.

And perhaps the most important construction is the one that takes place through our daily lives: the slow and sometimes difficult process of becoming more conscious, more united, more open and more capable of living for something greater than ourselves.

After all these years, I still carry the same love for Auroville that touched me during my first visit in 1989. It has become deeper, more grounded and perhaps more realistic, but the essential flame is still there.

I remain grateful for the opportunity to be here, to work here, to learn here and to serve this extraordinary experiment.

Because Auroville is not only a dream we inherited.

It is a dream we are responsible for living, nurturing and bringing into the world.