Auroville — A City From the Future
On 9th July 2022, I visited Matri Mandir in Auroville for meditation. If I had to sum it up in a word, it was life-changing.
It all started when I was planning my trip to Pondicherry and messaged Simran, a dear friend, to know about her itinerary for her visit there. She sent me a big list of things to do and told me not to miss Matri Mandir’s concentration. “I was not able to do it, but I have heard it’s brilliant”, she urged, and I promised not to miss it, and not only fulfil my wish but her wish too.
Fast forward to Pondicherry. I had already spent a couple of days there and was still unaware of what I needed to do to get a slot for meditation at Matri Mandir. After Covid, they stopped allowing any visitors to go inside Matri Mandir. I talked to a couple of locals and understood that visitors can do the concentration only on Saturdays and only a certain number of participants are allowed. I emailed them, wrote a story to show how interested I was, and finally after exchanging a bunch of emails, they ended up agreeing to my plea. As a result, I was selected among the hundred people allowed to visit Matri Mandir for meditation on the 9th of July.
Fortunately, my two friends also got in, and all of us were very excited about it, so much so that we completely changed our future itinerary to make sure we could spend enough time in Matri Mandir. It is said that the harder it is to get something, the more desperately you want to get it. That’s how I felt about the Matri Mandir experience. Tens of thousands of visitors come and have to see the place from 500 meters away, and only the fortunate few who apply and get in are then allowed to experience the grandeur of it all.
Three things stood out for me.
The Concept —
The place is built to help people practice concentration, meditate, and to reflect on their inner selves. There’s no barrier based on caste or creed the treatment is the same for all, including the ultra-rich and the poverty-ridden. Nobody there would preach about a specific way of living or for that matter about anything. The few people who come across as the gatekeepers are only there to assure that the place functions well, and they call themselves caretakers. Matri Mandir is owned by humanity and not any government, city, or organization. Once there everyone is free to believe in whatever they wish to, nobody tells you how to meditate, how your posture should be, or how much time you have to be in a state of meditation. If at all anyone tells you anything, it is only to make sure the place and its decorum are not disturbed. There is no food inside, hence no chance of littering, and absolutely no electronic devices are allowed making sure that people don’t end up in the mindless loop of trying to capture everything into cameras without actually relishing the place. The place is about just one thing, knowing your inner self better.
The structure —
Matri Mandir’s outside is made of around 14kgs of pure gold, and the shape of it is like a globe. Next, there is a huge banyan tree that probably has 20–22 barks that act as roots, easily the largest tree I have ever seen. The inside of the Matri Mandir is built out of white marble, and it has a couple of floors. To get to the top floor there are steps in the shape of a spiral. I wish I could put in words how perfectly it is designed. The top floor is where people can go to meditate. The meditation hall has a giant crystal at the center, the diameter of which is about 70 inches. A ray of sun falls on it from the opening at the top and lights up the entire concentration hall. The hall itself is circular and has a seating of around 50 people. In addition to this, a fountain at the base of the temple has the appearance of lotus petals. The fountain is surrounded by twelve smaller chambers, each one depicting a different human quality. Eg. peace, generosity, gratitude, perseverance, etc. You can walk into any of the chambers and meditate or reflect on yourself in order to strengthen any of the twelve qualities that you feel passionately about or would like to improve.
The exterior of the place is magnific. It has twelve gardens, the work of which is still in progress, each different from the other and very unique in its ways. There is one amphitheater at the center of which is a lotus bud-like structure, it has soil from 124 countries and 23 states of India. Another garden has giant crystals larger than the size of humans. One other garden has tonnes of different types of flowers and trees, and so on. Around the area is a stream of water flowing, isolating the Matri Mandir and the campus around, from the external world. All in all, I feel this can easily be up there with the seven wonders of the world. I have been to the Taj Mahal, and I can safely say this was more pleasing.
The Ecosystem —
First-timers like us had to first see a small video, and then a guide was explaining to us all about the Matri Mandir. I loved the part where they emphasized that this was not a religious place and that they didn’t wish to incorporate a new religion. Nor was it a shady way of creating wealth and pestering people to donate. The place neither supported any kind of religious rituals nor does it celebrate a particular festival. No amount of money can get you a VIP entry, nor was anyone given any kind of special treatment. The goal is straightforward to have a place where everyone was treated alike and people with all their hearts can go and connect to their inner selves.
I’ll drift on a bit to the city where this is, it is called Auroville, a city of future is how they call it. A city where no one is a foreigner: anyone and everyone across the world can come and call it theirs. A city that wants to build itself on the principle of peace and socialism, and not become another hub for capitalism to take over. A place where if you go for a healing session you are allowed to pay as much as you like. A place where recycling is given priority over replacing and where animals are loved and truly cared for. Nature is given importance above everything else, and this is a city where let alone kids but even adults can spend time learning what they love. A professional can switch career paths, s/he can volunteer, or just do nothing and support the ecosystem in their own way. The city tries to use renewable sources of energy as much as possible, they thrive to live as closely with nature as they can.
No Aurovilliean I met was keen to add luxury to their lives, rather almost everyone believed in a simple living high thinking kind of lifestyle. This is where all people are one. This ecosystem that they are building is mind-boggling and feels like a place where every human being would flourish.
A little bit about my experience now, I loved every bit of it. I hugged the banyan tree just to feel one with nature, and the twenty minutes I spent inside the Matri Mandir meditating felt like twenty seconds. I was initially scared that I will keep getting distracted, but I got distracted only once, and the time post that passed within a blink of an eye. In the end, they had to tell me to get up because our session time was done. I went to one of the rooms below, tagged generosity, as I felt very full that day and felt that this was an experience I wish to give back to the world, hence I am here penning this down. I also spent hours roaming around the gardens outside the Mandir to allow all of it to sink in.
So to end this, I would insist each one of you go there, and I can assure you it will be life-changing.
PS — The numbers I have added might not be the most accurate, please feel free to dig deeper and learn about them in detail.
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