Why I Donate

“The Lands for Auroville are to be brought and can be brought.The Money is needed, will you help.”

This one line from Mother made me think, if any difference has to be made it is by donating to the land purchase. Hence we started this donation to help acquire land for Auroville.

My aspirations: I am a salaried person and when I thought to give a donation to Auroville , I had quite a few obligations. Based on my expenditure plan I decided to donate a monthly amount of Rs 5000/- . per month.The object was to be in touch with Auroville on a monthly basis and also make small donations which added up over the years. It is my aspiration that many people who wish to donate can also plan to make small contribution on a monthly basis and this would be a large sum when the number of donors increases. Eg If 5 people contribute Rs 5000 per month for 60 months we will have Rs 15 lakhs. If the number of people increases the donation amount would also increase.

My Hope: One day to move into Auroville and contribute my knowledge and experience for the welfare of the people of Auroville and its projects.

My Concerns: The land records need to be preserved for the future and hope we have a proper documentation and preservation policy of land acquired. There could be encroachment on the land purchased and there could be difficulties in evicting encroachers.

My Connection with Auroville: In 1993 I qualified as a CA from Chennai and got married to Sheetal in 1996. We visited Pondicherry for the first time in 1997. We had a few friends in Pondicherry who helped us to get accommodation at the Ashram Guest house. I still remember the day, it was a full moon night and the room was sea facing. The view of a full moon with its reflections in the sea was just unbelievable. We visited the Ashram and other places in and around Pondicherry. We were informed of the development of Auroville and we did visit Auroville . Martrimandir was under construction then. We visited Pondicherry quite a few times later and also got our relatives to visit the Ashram and Auroville. I still remember my mother who was in her 70s came with us to the Ashram and on seeing Shri Aurobindo’s photograph burst into tears. She told us how great a Freedom Fighter, Visionary and Spiritual leader he was. It was during one of these trips that a person from Auroville contacted us and inquired about us and offered us an opportunity to stay at Auroville . We did stay and enjoyed it. As the years passed by, our trips to Pondicherry reduced and we moved to Gurgoan for our work. My wife works with IFC the investment arm of World Bank. We reconnected with Auroville in the last one year and have a hope to one day come back to Auroville and serve the community .

Auroville is very important. I feel that when Auroville has all the Land, Auroville will be strong and protected.

I discovered Auroville via Sri Aurobindo in 1974.  My reaction was « That’s it – the way is open ! »

When we give, the World lights up, like the Sun, so that we can see one another”!

La sécurisation des terres d’Auroville est essentielle pour permettre au projet de construction de la ville de se réaliser. Le développement en Inde, qui est une bonne chose pour la population, a fait exploser les prix et la spéculation foncière qui est importante dans un pays où le manque de terre disponible se fait sentir. Quand j’ai connu l’Inde, en 1973, la population était de 500 millions d’âmes, pour 1,3 milliards aujourd’hui.Je viens de publier un livre « Auroville80 » et les bénéfices serviront à acheter les terres manquantes. Dans un monde ébranlé par des crises successives, compte tenu des enjeux environnementaux, sociaux, le projet d’Auroville basé sur une unité humaine progressive par le développement individuel et collectif de la conscience me semble une vraie priorité de fond.

Je connais le projet d’Auroville depuis 1972. Mon père était un ami de Roger Anger, l’architecte de la ville. Et c’est dans sa bibliothèque que j’ai découvert le livre de Satprem « Sri Aurobindo ou l’aventure de la conscience ».  J’étais dans une quête existentielle, d’une spiritualité sans religion ! La première fois que je suis allée à Auroville, c’était en novembre 1973, juste au moment où Mère a quitté son corps. Gilles, mon ex mari travaillait au bureau d’architecture et moi à Auropolyster. Puis nous sommes revenus en 1978 et j’ai vécu à Auroville au début des années 80. Depuis les années 2000 presque chaque année j’y vais. Cette aventure a structuré ma vie et donné l’espoir, que l’humain de générations en générations s’améliore, pour réaliser sur terre une vie plus haute et plus vraie. Pour l’instant nous allons affronter des difficultés incommensurables avec le dérèglement climatique et notre démographie. Il est bon de garder l’espérance en nos cœurs en sachant que sur un petit coin de planète des tentatives s’essayent !

Pour collaborer et mettre ma pierre à l’édifice, j’ai crée le livre de photos “Auroville 80 – La poésie du quotidien” dont les bénéfices des ventes iront à “Acres for Auroville”s et servent à sécuriser les terres d’Auroville.

Thank you for inviting me to share my views and opinion on donating for the land cause. Donations to the land are so important to me because to me land is the physical foundation of the Spirit of Auroville and it has to preserve its unity in totality according to The Mother’s vision of the Auroville.

To me, the land has to be secured immediately and by any means possible.

My first visit to Pondicherry was in 1978, and I had an opportunity then to visit Auroville briefly. Now I can see Auroville has grown to be a
very beautiful city. Maybe one day I will have the opportunity to visit again. My name is Yogesh Vithalbhai Amin, I was born and raised in Gujarat, India and have settled in Pennsylvania, USA.

I remember the Auroville land offered to us in 1972 after the Mother agreed that we begin a handicraft training center for local Tamil villagers near Kuilaypalyam.  She named it ‘Fraternity’ and wrote it on a paper with the date of its inauguration “2-2-1972” and Shyam Sundar gave us the message from the Mother.

Land, land for a new project that the Mother named and wanted to happen!

We began with a ceremony on the assigned date and a Blessings Packet was placed beneath a corner stone and cemented in place by a young French girl Rose, and a young Tamil boy Selvaraj.  A bamboo-and-thatch building was slowly erected in the next days and we began planting trees, and building fences around just part of the acres to keep out the goats and cows.

We began a temporary house at a northern edge of this land, and eventually the rest of the 15 acres was developed with thousands of new trees and quickly grew into the Fraternity Community.

Fraternity flourished in the next many years, with permanent handicraft buildings, a kindergarten for workers’ and village children, and an overhead tank for fresh water – for both us and Kuilaypalyam villagers too.

We hope that new lands purchased by gifts to Acres For Auroville can be nurtured and thrive as did this!

I am connected with the Mother and Sri Aurobindo for about 40 years now and paid my first short visit to Pondicherry and the Ashram in 1991. I still remember very vividly the one-day trip to Auroville during that visit – I was invited to climb up to the top of Matrimandir, which had no outer shell yet, so it meant clambering over scaffoldings with beating heart, wobbly knees and sweaty hands, I’m rather acrophobic. But I knew I had to overcome my fear and it was a life-changing experience. Being aware of the once barren land, which was already turned into lush green all around, I was filled with a deep gratitude for the work of the early pioneers, for their incredible efforts in preparing the land for the realization of the Mother’s Dream. Since then I tried to visit Auroville every year and to support it mainly through my engagement with Auroville International (AVI).

I am so grateful to the team of A4A for their untiring energies which they put into securing the land for Auroville’s further unfolding and I am happy to support their work by all possible means. Giving safety and protection to the sacred earthly body of this “undertaking of the Divine” is one of our most noble tasks!

The Mother had said in 1968 that the earth of Auroville aspires, and the first time that I visited India in 1969-70, I felt this very  concretely and was much happy to even just cycle on Auroville’s barren land – I felt a joy that I could not explain. Already, Auroville, as it is presently, has much impact. This influence will  increase exponentially and proportionally with the growth of Auroville.  And the full impact will reach its climax with the completion of Auroville.

«If we keep ourselves separated something can be accomplished, but united we can achieve one hundred times more» and I try to live by what Sri Aurobindo wrote in « The Mother » where he wrote : « In your personal use of money look on all you have or get or bring as the Mother’s … always consider that it is her possessions and not your own that you are handling. »

So, has one to be rich to offer money to Auroville? It all depends on the definition of “rich” and the way one lives.Whether I am a poor-rich or a rich-poor, I don’t know, but practically: it is like this : I live richly. Consequently, I am very happy to contribute to « Acres for Auroville ».