How to build a “city of dawn” at your house
There is a city in the South of India called Auroville (“city of dawn”), where people are trying to live by overcoming religious, political and national differences. The city is developing under the auspices of UNESCO. All continents living there, different religions and people representing nations (about two thousand permanent residents) are open to communicating with people, they are friendly, tolerate each other, are not jealous of each other and most importantly, are very calm. Auroville was founded in 1968, at the peak of “Hippies” movement. People had come from all over the world, had created their “ashram”, a place where people are engaged in intense spiritual practice. They had brought with them the soil of their homeland and created Mitramandir – temple of substances – where they are going to practice meditation. Everyone is dealing with his own work, there are farm fields, bakeries, small factories, cinema houses, a music school, canteen, which are operating with solar batteries, and even a local newspaper editorial. Creative workers: artists, architects and musicians make the significant part. There is no municipality, the decisions are made based on the research of sociological group, there are no vehicles, people are traveling on mopeds.
Utopia, sectarianism, entertainment of rich parasites: these labels are easy to attach to the Auroville. But let’s not rush to give an appropriate description to our stereotyped notions about life. I am far from thinking that we must drop everything and flee to the South of India. I am thinking of how it is possible to create something like Auroville in our families, our workplace, in every place where we are present. In other words, to create such a human relationship, which would be comfortable both for us and those who surround us.
In my opinion, the key is to look at these relationships with a fresh look and view it not vertically but horizontally. To this point, I would like to remind you about the myth or maybe a true story, which is told about the genius mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss. When he was 7 years old, the teacher has asked the class to add all numbers from 1 to 100, being sure that the children would be busy with it the whole class-hour. Imagine how much time it takes to add 2 to 1, then 3, 4 and then add 5 to 7 and so on, one academic hour will not be enough. And suddenly, two minutes later, the seven years old Gauss said that he knows the answer and it is 5050. How? Very simple. The child has imagined all the numbers not one after the other but in a vertical row and begun adding up from two sides. How much will 1 plus 100 be? One hundred and one. And 2 plus 99? Again, 101. And 3 plus 98. Again, 101. And so on. 50 times 101 equals 5050.
Finding an “algorithm” of human optimal relations is something like that. When you “on top” are looking at you as number “1” and then starting from this point begin adding by sequence and align people “by importance”, you get messed up in the complex “pyramids”. And vice versa, if you perceive people of given community (family, work staff) as absolutely equal, then grouping them in a “horizontal system” and making them work is a matter of techniques (but, of course, also having a certain imagination).
American architect and inventor Buckminster Fuller wrote, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” In Auroville, people seek one of the models of living in peace and happy, which is based on the “horizontal algorithm.” But I repeat, no worth going so far in the search for it. You can start from your own dwelling house.
Unfortunately, the pyramid within the state is inevitable. Certainly, it is not possible to build an Auroville at the state level. But when people are able to create free, harmonious, void of stereotypes and prejudices relations in-between themselves, the state becomes merely a structure, which is “impersonal” and delivers its services to the citizens without intensively emotional and discrimination.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN,
Aravot Daily
