A talk and satsang at Cultural Integration Fellowship, 8/7/2022

The crisis humanity faces as we create uncontrolled climate change, pollute the planet, deplete the resources, and allocate them inefficiently is one that is causing the 6th planetary die off (the last one killed off all the dinosaurs and was caused by an asteroid strike) that is eliminating species at an unparalleled rate, destroying the integrity of the food chain and harming the life-sustaining natural cycles and systems of the planet.  At the same time, we see the advent of a new consciousness that seeks to achieve new, global insights and find new ways to interact, both between people and their environment, and interpersonally as well. We will explore the evolution of consciousness, Sri Aurobindo’s vision of the next stage of evolution and how it is impacting the present and the future of humanity and the survival of our life on the planet. This new consciousness is leading to breakthroughs in many fields of endeavor. It has also led to the development of a dynamic intentional community in south India called Auroville, where people from over 70 nations have come together to try to build a community, and create a laboratory for experimentation in new ways of seeing and dealing with the world and its resources from a balanced perspective.

Auroville has over 55 projects that span the range from re-envisioning food and food production, water management, architecture, reforestation, sustainable building materials, as well as setting up a resource sharing system among the residents.  The projects are focused on providing solutions accessible to the “developing” world as the high-tech, high-cost, high-maintenance approach of the “developed” world does not solve the issues for most of the people of the world.  The projects are being started and tested locally, and those that succeed are being reproduced and scaled to provide a model for development globally.  

At the same time, the challenges of bringing together people from numerous diverse cultural backgrounds, educational backgrounds, languages and religious training is an experiment in human unity that also takes up the almost impossible struggles we face in the world today to achieve peace and cooperation, and works through the inevitable difficulties that arise to eventually find a way to achieve understanding and cooperation, even after going through the normal human reactions of anger, opposition and attempts to impose one’s own viewpoints.  In this way we see the struggle between the old consciousness embodied in all of humanity and the new consciousness that is slowly making itself felt and guiding people toward solutions. 

For more information about the Auroville projects and overview of the comprehensive nature of these projects as experiments in developing a sustainable future, you can visit the website at https://aviusa.org/flourish/  and for more general information about Auroville, visit  www.aviusa.org/auroville   

For more information about the writings of Sri Aurobindo which underlie the approaches taken as humanity searches for a way to survive and thrive in the future, you can visit www.lotuspress.com as well as visit the daily blog postings at http://sriaurobindostudies.wordpress.com  and the web page www.aurobindo.net 

Video presentations, interviews and podcast episodes are allavailable on the YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@santoshkrinsky871

More information about Sri Aurobindo can be found at www.aurobindo.net 

The US editions and links to e-book editions of SriAurobindo’s writings can be found at Lotus Press www.lotuspress.com

#spirituality #evolution of consciousness #Sri Aurobindo #The Mother #Auroville #evolutionary crisis