Auroville invites all those who are dreaming of a better humanity and a better world to participate in this saga of world progress.

In these days the overwhelming influence on this charming seaside town is the ashram co-founded by Sri Aurobindo and his spiritual collaborator, a French lady called Mirra Alfasa, better known as "The Mother". Aurobindo was born in northeast India but was educated in the UK, studying at St Paul's School and Cambridge University. He is perhaps best known for his fierce opposition to the British occupation of India, but has also dabbled in poetry and expounded a philosophy of "Divine consciousness", which can be reached using his method of "integral yoga".



This UN-backed utopia has as its goal "human unity in diversity" and is currently home to about 1,700 "Aurovillians" from 35 different nations and representing a range of different classes and creeds. At the inauguration ceremony in 1968 representatives of 124 nations each brought along some soil from their homeland, to be mixed in a lotus-shaped urn which rests at the heart of the township. Next to the urn sits the immense spherical Matrimandir, a pure white meditation room which has at its centre the world's biggest crystal, and through which a single intense beam of sunlight is channeled by panels on the roof. Auroroville owns a number of commercial ventures and does a lot of good work in the area. It was originally anticipated that around 5,000 people would live there.