Report for Auroville, India February 2024

Introduction
Arrived in Auroville February the 9th to participate at the International Spiritual Summit/Toward a Collective Awakening: Experiments in Evolution organized by GPIW and the Secretary of the Auroville Foundation.
The first meeting with group meditation happened on the 9th. The duration of the conference was February 10-13, 2024

Picture from Unity Pavillion, participants entering the conference space.

This conference felt as it had an influence on different levels, the individual, the community of Auroville and the communities beyond since some participants were citizens of villages in bioregion of Auroville.

Picture from the peace room at Unity Pavilion.

We started with the meditation in the peace room (a beautiful space to begin such a gathering!) which felt as a powerful symbolic action of what the overall message of this conference was about. The chant offered by the secretary of the foundation was very special and touched my heart.

I offered a 45 minute meditation. I begun reading a greek poem as somehow felt it was precious for greek language to be heard in the room…“Εἶναι παιδιά πολλῶν ἀνθρώπων ηα λόγια μας…” Γιώργος Σεθέρης, «Επί ζκηνής» Τρία κρσθά ποιήμαηα. “Our words are the children of many people…” George Seferis “epi skinis”

During the conference some very important themes were touched and the idea of having conversations and creating the constellation of trio was an organic scheme where with natural flow the speakers were weaving together and unfolding the themes.

So precious the “bridges” through out the conference such as the morning meditations/rituals and music/chants to bring heart’s presence in our gathering!

Grateful for this amazing team with whom we cocreated and contributed in the conference.

i presented evolution in education and Way of Council as a way for bringing authenticity in our lives. We had a beautiful panel/ conversation with Dr.Ananda Reddy, SACAR and Daniel Abreu, Ecology retreat leader. Dr. Ananda Reddy was invited by The Mother to support with the educational work in the community. It was special to meet him!

– How do we create space for intimacy in community with large number of people (like a city)?
– I observed that this need for intimacy and space of expression was keep coming in some working groups. People were feeling alone and needed support on how to confront leaders that misuse their power or on
ways to create more intimate relationships and collaborations co creations in the community of Aurovile and beyond.
– The magnetism of a community is so essential. It is the core energy field that it is created and vibrates. How do we create this magnetism and how we make this stronger so people can feel and tune in?
– Administration decisions aligned with spirituality. Decision making creates the vibrational direction of our work as community and this relates to magnetism!
– In many conferences/ gatherings i have participated in the past usually felt there is not so much attention to Nature and usually i had to bring this in. In this one felt the voice of Nature had enough space. Also, the importance of hands on activities with soil, water and the connection and communication with non human beings is so healing and important for inner balance and community spirit!
– Important reminder that was mentioned in this conference: We do not grow in comfort we grow in challenge. This is the only way to grow!
– May we truly listen and then speak so we can support in this way the individual and collective awakening.

Panel with young leaders

Since the beginning of our conference i was impressed with the presence of the young people and fully connected with them.

The big panel with young people it felt to me “as the birds singing on the trees” in Auroville. Their fresh energy, love, dedication and serious work is an inspiration for other young people and brings a lot of hope for the future! During this panel i was moved with the beautiful work is done by young and their leadership ways!

Some young people asked me and were very keen to participate in Way of Council training and it is something i would love to offer to support them to live the heart way in their lives!

The circle for the heartweavers

The circle for the heartweavers’ presentation was another offering in this conference.

I share some harvesting from this sharing circle:

“To see a person as an evolving Soul can evoke and inspire a feeling of trust

Voices to acknowledge, voices of a heartfelt initiative a heartfelt initiative where we are the experiment!

Communication within communities is precious for the heartweaving which invites the evolutionary intelligence.

Remember that your contribution is important and just enough, for Balance, Love and Growth.

With our heartfelt living way we invite the Garden of the unexpected birth. May we witness this birth!”

The period after the conference.

This time spend in Aurovile after felt not separate from the conference. Actually, it was a powerful continuation. Grateful that i had this time to spend more in this land!!

I had the opportunity to meet further the community and speak with many people who all together create a synthesis of some of the parts that create Auroville and who are in a way see the conflict from different perspective.

I met people from different perspectives like people from the ioregion villages which are in the land territory of Aurovile but are not Aurovillians, young people, people from government, volunteers and new comers.

Met with Indian people living and connected with Auroville on a working level. It was shared to me that locals are not really respected in the work even though they work very hard. From some sharings it felt there is a lack of connection between the locals and “foreigners” and the idea of colony somehow is still alive. It seems this colony issue is a wound for some people and could be interested to create space for this to explore further.

Also met with Arun a young leader elected in the working unit of Auroville. Who would like to connect further for supporting the young people in Auroville and bringing more young people in the community.
I searched for any groups, gatherings that were taking place for the conflict situation in Auroville.

So i attended several meetings and i came to discover three groups who i believe are more involved on working for the situation in Auroville.

The 3 groups are

1. The Call for Organisation (The Council of Auroville asked them to form this group). I attended their meetings and shared about our global way of Council community and you Gigi and your special connection with Auroville and that you are interested to support.

They were interested to meet me again before i go and talk about possible collaborations. i met with Eric. He asked me if Way of council was ever introduced in Auroville and told him that as far as I know it didn’t. Also Pala an American lady who was there in the last meeting i attended with Call for organization group was interested to meet the way of council further.

I asked him what was the intention of this group and answered: “To create sacred space and out of it to manifest” This sounds very powerful to me!

They would also like to have an online meeting. https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:EU:74b495ae-345d-4e01-9451-c689a8f01eca

The Mother on organization pdf send to me by Eric.

2. Heartweavers (Naveen is the young leader of this group. I met him in the conference and spend some time with him and the group) .

Heartweavers participated in the Conference as well. I met Naveen and spoke to him about Way of council and that we are here to support. He is interested to reconnect and see what is possible for further collaboration. Document that Naveen send to me: https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:EU:637901c9-590e-46b4-b15a-d3783fa2cda4

3. Dreamvision group. I didn’t have the chance to meet as their meetings were happening same days with Call for organization group.

They are a group of young architects who are dreaming and envisioning Auroville. They want to built a new common space and probably will collaborate with Call for organization group. In this group are mainly young people and Henrik is one of them who met personally.

Since i left i heard from my friend Nadim that he is supporting them on democratic dialogues and regenerative communication.

Few more visits i did in Aha kindergarten (where the basis of education is the nondirect learning) and Sadhana reforestation project (a community which lives in the forest).

Also, connected Joe Provisor with Jeff from U.S.A interested for research on Way of Council and Sundaram Research Scholar, Pondicherry University, Puducherry India.

Connected with Debora the woman from Brazil who was connected with Gigi through Bori from Tamera. She resonated with my conclusion and sense that in Autoville there is lack of communication among people and different parties!

I was informed that there are elections in Auroville and by April we will know if the same persons continue or not.

Two young people, Elze and Rohan who participated in the conference came to meet me and asked me to give a Way of Council workshop. It took place on the 29th of February at the magical place of the Botanical garden in Auroville. The space was offered by the core group of the Botanical garden to do the workshop. The participants created a diverse group including Aurovillians, new comers, long stay visitors and short stay visitors. I felt that offering the workshop of Way of Council was complementary to the presentation i gave in the conference and people could really experience what i was talking about.

Grateful to young people who insisted to do this workshop and to all participants for their genuine opening to experience living way of council!

Picture from the Botanical Garden
Sharing here some testimonies from some of the participants in order to get a sense of the magic that we cocreated:

“Thank you so much for the amazing opportunity to experience the Way of Council. The guided practices took our hearts into a space of genuine expression. The looseness to nature made us dive deeper and meet our own selves face to face. It was a wow moment when we were doing the clopening-closing but really opening more” Nirmala

“A wonderful circle of healing and sharing that gave me a chance to interact and meditate with people from different cultures and backgrounds. And to top it, was the silent and calming green cover of Botanical garden all around. Thank you for such a magical experience” Debashish

“I found the workshop very powerful in inspiring connection with the natural surroundings and my inner space. I was able to instinctively and authentically connect with myself and the soil and soul of my past and my homeland. A clear sense of trust was established among the participants. The whole process felt very natural, well timed and cohesive. I would definitely appreciate further work on way of council” Anita

“It was Love ….and this atmosphere of Incredible Love. So everyone was opening to this Love, motherly love. Everybody opened in their own way. And of course needs the right words and structures which was offered. I found so important to connect further with way of Council and learn more about this way” Beatrix