We were completely sold on Auroville after we ate at the cafeteria-style Solar Kitchen. They gave us mashed potatoes and raw veggies...I was sold, it was ao good and it just felt good to be there. We then wandered to our community . It was called "Vikas" and seemed to be run by this rather abrupt Russian woman named Anna. We stayed in a capsule, which is basically a bamboo hut set 20feet off the ground on huge granite pillars. It was pretty cool and the perfect accommodation for us and our budget. The only time it sucked was in the middle of the night when we really had to go to the bathroom because in order to do so we had to climb down a ladder and walk to the bathroom. It had a shared kitchen and it just proved to be a nice place to hang out.
We did a three day bike introduction tour. It was not as thorough as I expected but it was still fun and the facilitators were very friendly. They explained the foundation of Auroville to us, talked about the Mother's essay "The Dream", which Auroville is modeled after and gave us an intrioduction to some of the communities and some of the people that live in Auroville. We visited schools, a farm, a forest, a women's group, a woman that works with the neigbouring Tamil villages, an art gallery, restaurants, tea shops in a couple of communities and the "heart and soul of Auroville", the space-like Matrimandir.
We did a three day bike introduction tour. It was not as thorough as I expected but it was still fun and the facilitators were very friendly. They explained the foundation of Auroville to us, talked about the Mother's essay "The Dream", which Auroville is modeled after and gave us an intrioduction to some of the communities and some of the people that live in Auroville. We visited schools, a farm, a forest, a women's group, a woman that works with the neigbouring Tamil villages, an art gallery, restaurants, tea shops in a couple of communities and the "heart and soul of Auroville", the space-like Matrimandir.
The tour was pretty informative and one of the guides, Ross, was pretty memorable and wonderful. We went to an art opening at his community (mainly because of chai and cookies) and he gave us a tour of his apartment and continued to share little tidbits of information with us about his 13 years in Auroville. Nikki and I visited the inner concentration chamber of the Matrimandir twice and the meditation pedals once. What a crazy experince. The silence is amazing and time passes very quickly when you are in there.
We got around Auroville on bikes, very rusty bikes. It was a fun way to get around and a good way to work off all of the baked-goods we ate over the course of the week. On our last day we visited the beach. It was very quiet and the Bay of Bengal was spectacular. We both have sunburns to prove we were there.
I am not sure how to accurately describe my Auroville experince, so I am not going to attempt to. The week we were there felt right and it felt like it was time to leave when we left. If you want to know more about Auroville I wuld be glad to talk about it, but right now I am a bit too tired to attempt to organize my thoughts concisely enough for others to read. danielleyf.spaces.live.com/ 5:55 AM
We got around Auroville on bikes, very rusty bikes. It was a fun way to get around and a good way to work off all of the baked-goods we ate over the course of the week. On our last day we visited the beach. It was very quiet and the Bay of Bengal was spectacular. We both have sunburns to prove we were there.
I am not sure how to accurately describe my Auroville experince, so I am not going to attempt to. The week we were there felt right and it felt like it was time to leave when we left. If you want to know more about Auroville I wuld be glad to talk about it, but right now I am a bit too tired to attempt to organize my thoughts concisely enough for others to read. danielleyf.spaces.live.com/ 5:55 AM
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