Tourist day at Auroville, Indian utopian society

Tuesday  September 5 th was a tourist day. We went to south to Pontecherry which is a former French colony and was French until India became united, also when the British left in 1947. This is also when Pakistan was created, carved out of India as a pure Muslim country. There are strict regulations about coming into India from Pakistan with special registration required. 

We were brought to an interesting community, Auroville, which is named after the French word for light. It was created in 1968, the brainchild of a spiritual guru called the Mother with the Influence another guru Sri Aurobindo an Indian guru educated in Europe. The Mother was a  Turkish woman who grew up In France and then came to Pontecherry,  India. The gurus wanted to create a collective society  a " laboratory of evolution " with divine consciousness as a goal where anyone practiced spiritual advancement but had to renounce any former religion or country affiliation. You are  no longer a part of another group ( religion or country) but just part of this idealistic community dedicated to the "ideals of human society". All property is held in common. There are 2,500 people living in this community, not all of them in the campus. 43% Indian and 14 % French with a smattering of people from 50 countries. 86 people are from the US. The community employs 600 people in their many businesses. Work is part of their motto. They have attributes of divine living that everyone is supposed to adhere to. I think giving up religion was required to create unity and because of all the tension and religious inspired violence connected with the creation of the Muslim country of Packistan. 

This utopian society, with the goal of divine consciousness,  had a beautiful compound community with green environmental friendly living. They had nice shops with products made by the community, lush landscape, no garbage anywhere and filtered water. Their central building , Matremandir is like a temple  for divine consciousness--   A very funky iconic building that one could only go if you were meditating and seeking divine consciousness. The building looked like a giant gold rocher chocolate. A place for peace, quiet , and contemplation. 

We ate at a French bakery that was a nice change from curry and rice.

After Auroville and lunch ventured into the belly of a huge local market. I bought colored powder. The fish market had unrefrigerated raw fish out on wood boxes with with flies and stray dogs everywhere. The flower market was, on the other hand stunning. 

We caught up with an elephant outside a Hindu temple that had been blessed my a Hindu priest. The elephant was giving out  blessings.  Some parents were there with their kids. Some kids liked being blessed by the elephant and some kids were frightened. 

We were caught in a passing thunderstorm and had to camp out in a shop  before going to the next stop, The spiritual ashram of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo  that was the precursor spiritual center for Auroville. Their  graves were under a floating bed of flowers that people were coming up to the graves and bowing and kissing the flower covered tomb. You can come and stay at the ashram. This was a courtyard with a two story building around it. The courtyard was silent and people were meditating- sitting cross legged in the sidewalk in the courtyard. There was some silent construction going on using hand tools.  We stopped and sat silently for a while. The sun had come out after the passing storm. I had a peaceful feeling there. On the way out a man waived silently to us and showed us a small owl nestled in a recess of a large tree. It looked like a stuffed owl and then it fluttered to shake  off some rain water.   It was magical. We wandered in a bookshop with photos and books about spirituality by the Mother and Sri Aurobindo.