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Welcome to Auroville

auroville.org

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Re: Welcome to Auroville

#51

Post by hutzlibu »

0x8BADF00D wrote: post #49
vr46 wrote: post #35

This is literally the last thing I expected on the front page! My family are all based in Pondicherry and have very strong historical links with the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and the Mother. And are also involved in the Auroville administration and management. I've been there a lot, I've stayed there, met many people who live there and work there. And it's an unusual place. Some of the folks in Pondy call it "Horrorvile"…

J. Krishnamurti said it the best: "Belief has no place where truth is concerned." I always view these types of movements with a lot of suspicion. Mainly because of the falsehoods they present. Self-realization is not something that can be taught by following someone else. You can spend your entire life looking for it in other people. But you have to experience it, to truly understand. You shouldn't even listen to wha…

"You shouldn't even listen to what I'm writing here"

If you believe that, why are you writing it then?

I think, because you do believe, that text can help others understand something. Not always, though.

Re: Welcome to Auroville

#52

Post by lopmotr »

jariel wrote: post #21
lopmotr wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a principle of nondiscrimination and people self-select into different roles, what can you do? Discriminate or accept their differences?

Rich people coming in and living easy, and other, very poor people moving in because maybe they need a job is not 'self-selection' it's 'a priori selection' based upon the economic systems they are coming in from, not the one they are in. These places make great sets for fun movies though ...

Whatever you call it, people are choosing their roles. Should they work against that, such as by denying employment to darker skinned people and denying membership to lighter skinned people? Or not.

Re: Welcome to Auroville

#53

Post by lopmotr »

_jal wrote: post #18
lopmotr wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a principle of nondiscrimination and people self-select into different roles, what can you do? Discriminate or accept their differences?

You can attempt to understand the pressures that lead people into "self-selecting", for a start.

If the answer is poverty and desire for the lifestyle, then what? They can't cure poverty in India or dull people's fantasies. I'd say the situation is OK and doesn't need fixing.

Re: Welcome to Auroville

#54

Post by hutzlibu »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #40
conqrr wrote: post #36

Tbh this may sound cultist to others, but it's really not. You'll need to understand the philosophies of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo first for it to make sense. It's sets the example of a Utopian society. One shouldnt simply look at it from that angle and discard it without understanding the history and vision behind it.

I agree - as far as spiritual movements go, this is one of the least cult-ish I've ever seen. Even the stuff they say - I can at least sit down and consider it without freaking out instantly. In some ways they resemble the very modern panpsychist school of thought (Giulio Tononi, Sam Harris). Consciousness is a basic ingredient of matter. Both matter and consciousness are real. Evolution is real. There is no biblical…

"The one thing that's a bit far out is the claim that consciousness could, in theory, interact with matter directly"

I think that claim like this alone, is not so far stretched, when you assume consciousness comes from brain activity, ~ electricity - and with classical physics, magnetic/electric fields or even quantum physics, everything is connected and interacts - consciousness do influences matter. So when you have a different thought, a different magnetic field is the result, etc. that does influence matter directly.

The far stretch claim is, that conscious can have a directed, focused effect and not just be random.

Anyway, the idea that mind can influence matter directly(magic thinking), is a very old one and I think the majority of the world population is still holding to it. Allmost every religious person does (in a different way). And in nonreligious, educated, western people I have seen it quite a lot, too. Most are not really conscious about it, though.

Re: Welcome to Auroville

#55

Post by jariel »

lopmotr wrote: post #52
jariel wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rich people coming in and living easy, and other, very poor people moving in because maybe they need a job is not 'self-selection' it's 'a priori selection' based upon the economic systems they are coming in from, not the one they are in. These places make great sets for fun movies though ...

Whatever you call it, people are choosing their roles. Should they work against that, such as by denying employment to darker skinned people and denying membership to lighter skinned people? Or not.

... perhaps the most false choice ever presented in a social argument.

'Kids born it poverty can't go to University so factory work is their 'choice', why should we deny them work at the factory?'

Seriously?

If it were just 'some place' then it would be more of a rhetorical question, but the entire point of the villages is to create a place where people are equal irrespective of clour or creed, so the hypocrisy looms large. Maybe they can take their free time to ponder such questions because though answers are never obvious, there are opportunities for improvement.

Re: Welcome to Auroville

#56

Post by msound »

I grew up in Pondicherry, went to Pondicherry Engineering College (class of 99). I used to bike up from college to Matrimandir a lot of weekends for meditation. There are several communities within Auroville and they each operate kind of independently. Some of them welcome guests to stay with them, and I have stayed with a number of communities. So, what accusation may be true for one community may not be true for other communities.

In the middle of all of that, I found Sadhana forest to be a wonderful community in Auroville that is far away from the madness of Matrimandir both physically and spiritually. Aviram and his family, along with volunteers, are doing a fantastic job of reforesting the area west of the Tindivanam highway. If you are going, once we are past this global Covid19 pandemic that is, I would highly recommend a volunteering stay at Sadhana forest.

Re: Welcome to Auroville

#58

Post by 0x8BADF00D »

hutzlibu wrote: post #51
0x8BADF00D wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

J. Krishnamurti said it the best: "Belief has no place where truth is concerned." I always view these types of movements with a lot of suspicion. Mainly because of the falsehoods they present. Self-realization is not something that can be taught by following someone else. You can spend your entire life looking for it in other people. But you have to experience it, to truly understand. You shouldn't even listen to wha…

"You shouldn't even listen to what I'm writing here" If you believe that, why are you writing it then? I think, because you do believe, that text can help others understand something. Not always, though.

It doesn't matter what I believe. For all you know, I could be a finite state machine. Or a similar automaton.

Re: Welcome to Auroville

#60

Post by krtkush »

Ritsuko_akagi wrote: post #20

Funny I read about this place in r/india a few times and they seem to regard it as a racist hippie colony.

I would take anything said by r/india with a pinch of salt. In fact, I would reccomend staying away from most main stream Indian subreddits. Each one is peddling some kind of disgusting agenda.
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