PROGRESS in AUROVILLE

 

Sept 79 – No. 1

 

Introduction

 

Auroville at birth, eleven and a half years ago, was a wide expanse of barely productive farmland and overgrazed fields dotted here and there with a few isolated trees, patches of scrub jungle and cashew groves, and

Scored with deepening canyons.  But there was a feeling of pregnancy in the land, people began to arrive drawn by some deep inner response to the promise and challenge of an ideal, and the manifestation of the Mother's Dream began.

 

The span of time from the beginning to the present has been full – comings and goings, of discovery, experimentation, learning, and growth, - the future constantly races to become the present and the pages often turn faster than we can read.  It  is this perpetual motion and its expression, often called the 'process', which serves as the touchstone for our individual and collective progress, the amorphous and unique 'Auroville experience'.  The process, like a multifaceted mirror constantly merging and diffracting the images, is too elusive to be caught in its entirety and to ubiquitous to be encapsulated by our limited world of words.

 

'Finally, all that one says, all that one has said

and that one will say is nothing be an extremely

clumsy and limited way of expressing something

which can be lived but never described.'  (The Mother)

 

We are left then with some necessary humility in our clumsy attempts as descriptions, our reflections of reflections, of one or perhaps a few facets of the mirror at the time, and with the hop-e that the very real underlying unity of Auroville will shine through.

 

PROGRESS will concern itself with the physical work and manifestation in Auroville with an aim to providing regular information about communities and projects for friends around the world whose contact with Auroville may be limited.  It is hoped that a broader understanding of the various areas of work and how they relate to each other, the challenges and how they are met, and the progress through the work from one point to another will generate a greater feeling of anticipation and appreciation of that of which the work is one reflection.

 

In the first two issues, a brief history of each community or project is given to provide a background for the issues to follow.  For easier reference they are broadly grouped according to purpose although in many instances it was difficult to choose one purpose among several and in true Auroville spirit there are inevitably some projects which defy any categorization.

 

PROGRESS is a service.  In order for it to be more effective we welcome your comments, questions, suggestions, references.  Correspondence may be address to:

 

Mary Helen

'Peace' Auroville P.O.

605101 South India