Realizing our inner Self

Hinduism Today December 1993

Auroville is not for everyone. The perennial ashram-hopper, looking for a rustic place to roost with "meals and meditations served on time," soon moves on. The absence of a neatly-packaged religious ideology can be unnerving for others. And "for those who are satisfied with the world as it is, Auroville obviously has no reason to exist," the Mother adds. Even the visitor brochure warns: "No holiday atmosphere," "No city life" and "Visit first before deciding to stay permanently." But 900 have and 200 are children. Miss Lata of Madras interviewed some of these youths for Hinduism Today. A selection of their statements follow:

Aurovilian youths: "The life here is quite different from the 'outside world.' There are no distinctions made among the various members... Yes we, believe in God. But we do not define God in terms of any specific religion, specific customs, religious traditions, practices etc. According to us, God is everywhere-God is within you. It is within me. It is within everyone... Staying here since our birth, we have been able to realize that money is not everything in life. It is not the sole objective. Our objective is in terms of service to the society and realizing our inner Self. What we do, the community is more important than anything else in the world... Every principle of Sri Aurobindo is important to us. We are striving to adopt most of them so that we could make ourselves as good citizens in this world. There seems to be a lot of chaos in the world today. It is the responsibility of the youth to do something about this."