Date: April 14, 2025
Part 1 – A Calling from the Soul
Editor’s Note: In this 2-part blog, Preeti Mahurkar, who is currently a pre-newcomer at Auroville, shares some deep reflections on the vision of Auroville – a city that the Earth needs, according to the Mother, – what it means to live and work at Auroville, and the intense inner work one needs to do in order to grow into the true spirit of Auroville.
Read more by the author on BhāratShakti Blog
A Calling from the Soul
I came to Auroville seeking something beyond the known—a whisper in the wind, a calling from the soul, a promise of a place where the old world dissolves, and a new consciousness takes birth.
Auroville is not just a city; it is an aspiration, a living breath of the future woven into the present. It is not built of brick and stone alone, but of dreams, of surrender, of the silent and unwavering call of the Divine.
Here, under the vast expanse of the open sky, with the red earth beneath my feet, I stand at the threshold of something greater than myself seeking a higher and truer way to live. And the Mother’s words rise like a dawn within me, illuminating the path ahead.
“Greetings to all men of goodwill. Are invited to Auroville all those who thirst for progress and aspire to a higher and truer life.
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 Charter, 28 February 1968
What does it truly mean to live in a place that belongs to no one and yet to all? To wake up each morning in a city that is not meant for personal ambition, power, or possession, but as an offering? What does it mean to be part of an evolving experiment, a sacred ground where human unity is not just an intellectual ideal to speak about, but a guiding truth to sincerely practice in actual life everyday – despite all the challenges, inner and outer?
Auroville was not conceived as just another town, nor as an escape from the world. It was envisioned as a nucleus of change, a center of supramental influence radiating outward, shaping the future of humanity itself. The Mother and Sri Aurobindo saw Auroville not merely as an experiment but as a vehicle for transformation, a conscious force accelerating human evolution toward a higher, divine life.
If this city is meant to embody a new world, a supramental consciousness made manifest, then the onus on each of us is multiplied. This is not just a place to live; it is a model for the world. It was not meant to function as the old world does, with its divisions and attachments, but as a living testament to unity, sincerity, and progress.
If Auroville exists to embody and manifest human unity, then what else truly matters? Can we let go of the small things—the ego-based preferences, the arguments, the battles over possessions, the hunger for influence?
Do any of these hold any real weight when we are here to show the world what a small community can create when it rises above differences and unites in the pursuit of something higher?
Shedding the Burden of the Ego
“Auroville will be a site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual Human Unity.”
~ The Mother, 28 February 1968
To be in Auroville, the true inner call must be there. Do I have what it takes to be a true Aurovilian?
“The first thing needed is the inner discovery, to find out what one truly is behind social, moral, cultural, racial, and hereditary appearances.”
~ The Mother, 13 June, 1970
Who am I, beyond the names and roles I have played? Who am I, if not the echoes of a past that clings, a self that struggles between the light and the shadows?
Auroville calls me to strip away these masks, to step beyond inherited identities, and to stand bare before the Divine, listening to the quiet rhythm of the soul. Here, nothing belongs to me, and yet, I am given everything I truly need.
“The Aurovilian should lose the sense of personal possession. For our passage in the material world, what is indispensable to our life and action is put at our disposal according to the place we must occupy.”
~ The Mother, 13 June, 1970
And so, I walk forward, not in the hunger for ownership, but in the abundance of surrender. What is mine is only what the Divine places in my hands for service.
For in Auroville, it is not the years spent here that make one an Aurovilian. Not position, not power, not possessions, nor qualifications. These are measures of the old world, the remnants of a past that must be left behind.
Here, only one thing matters—how well have I imbibed the divine qualities that shape the very soul of Auroville?
The Mother’s symbol teaches us this: humility, sincerity, perseverance, peace, receptivity, aspiration, courage, goodness, generosity, equality, progress, gratitude. These are the foundations upon which Auroville must rise. Not in structures alone, but in the hearts of those who walk its paths.
How often has my own self clung to its desires, mistaking longing for truth, mistaking personal will for the call of the soul?
“The ideal of the Aurovilians must be to become egoless—not at all to satisfy their ego.”
~ The Mother, 23 October, 1971
This city is not built for comfort, nor for indulgence. The stones of Auroville are laid with aspiration, the walls raised with surrender, the pathways paved with the dust of our vanquished egos.
It is not an easy road. The ego protests, the mind seeks to claim, the heart wavers between the call of the higher and the pull of the lower.
Am I willing to let go of the little things that separate? The need to be heard above others, the attachment to my way, the quiet walls I build between myself and those who think differently?
Auroville does not ask me to erase who I am, but to refine how I engage with others. To step beyond personal likes and dislikes, to move past the familiar rhythm of “mine” and “yours” and enter a larger, more fluid space.
“When we have to work collectively, it is always better to insist, in our thoughts, feelings, and actions, on the points of agreement rather than on the points of divergence.”
~ The Mother, 29 March, 1966
But can I do this? Can I hold onto unity, even when confronted with difference? Even when my mind resists, even when my emotions pull me elsewhere? Can I soften, not as a weakness, but as an opening.
So, I learn to unchain myself—not from the world, but from the grasping hands of my own illusions.