In the winter of 2004, I moved with my wife, Auralice, to a town called Auroville. Situated in South India, Auroville is an intentional com...
In the winter of 2004, I moved with my wife, Auralice, to a town called Auroville. Situated in South India, Auroville is an intentional community on a plateau overlooking the Bay of Bengal. It was founded in 1968 with the ambitious goals of encouraging human unity and fostering evolution.
Some people think of Auroville as a utopia, but the people who live there, including my wife and me, reject this label. Utopia is a place that’s perfect and that doesn’t exist. Auroville is real, and highly – humanly – imperfect. I guess it would be more appropriate to say that Auroville is an aspiring utopia.
People typically move to places such as Auroville, have moved throughout the ages, because they’re searching for something new. Maybe they’re tired of their lives, maybe they feel alienated by the way the world is. They sell the house, pack their bags, travel to a faraway destination, and hope for a fresh start. But for Auralice and me, our move represented something different.We weren’t lunging toward the future; we were taking a step back, into the past.
