It was an intense, charged and very Aurovilian gathering in a youth hostel setting in southern Sweden. Some 40 participants took part from Auroville International centers in Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the U.K. and U.S.A., from possible new contact centres in Denmark and Romania, and from Auroville itself.

The hosts for the meeting--5 members of AVI Sweden--did an excellent job in creating the framework for the gathering, providing the opportunity for the development of group sensitivity and personal appreciation over the first part of the week while keeping the 'business' for later. Field trips were made to national parks, the countryside and beach, and the Swedish habit of working with candles--whenever a person or group was focussed upon, a plate with little wax lights was placed before the spokesperson--provided a lovely, golden touch to the meeting. A walk one day included a visit to a beautiful Stonehenge-like formation where we sat for some time. The same evening, with a lego-Matrimandir (made by one of the children) and a portrait of Mother in our midst, members from various countries tried--through stories, poems, slides and songs--to communicate something about the fundamental aspects of their culture's soul. The openness, sincerity and almost childlike courage displayed was very touching and showed how close and trusting the group had become. Throughout the years, the exchange between the centers has gradually deepened and the theme of the meeting--human unity--swiftly became less and less philosophical and more and more alive and tangible as the days unfolded.

Woven in amongst the 'fun' were the explorations of various sub-groups which were preparing presentations of topics for the 'business' part of the week. One morning, AVI Germany spoke about Expo 2000, the next World Fair, which will take as its theme 'Man-Nature-Technology'. They believe that it would be wonderful if Auroville could make a beautiful, carefully designed presentation at this Expo, a proposal that was enthusiastically endorsed by the other centres. It was seen as as a good opportunity for working together as a group while closely collaborating with Auroville on the considerable work involved in pulling this off.

Other topics discussed included:

Matrimandir--deep concern yet appreciation was expressed regarding the present process and the meeting directed encouragement and trust towards all those involved

Bioregional outreach and land issue--these were recognised as two very important issues, and the general commitment is that when Auroville gets a realistic fund-raising scheme together concerning the above, the centres will participate

Town planning--it was felt it would be useful to have a seminar in Auroville on the development process in general, and the International Zone in particular, to which could be invited city planners and other people with relevant expertise. Taking the already existing, vast pool of knowledge in Auroville as a starting point, the invited participants could possible provide a fresh look at things

Funding requests--the AVI centres reiterated once again that they can only accept funding requests from Auroville that have been recommended by the Project Coordination Group

AVI secretariat in Auroville--the centres appreciate that Auroville provides maintenance and other running costs for an Aurovilian to work full-time in linking Auroville with the various centres; the experiment has proved successful and will continue

The format of AVI annual meetings--due to the success of the longer meetings, it was decided to adopt a five day format for these meetings in future, with the very strong request that all centres should be present as well as as many Aurovilians as possible

The presence in this meeting of eight committed and motivated Aurovilians was widely appreciated. Among the highlights of the week were Bhavana’s update on Auroville’s increasingly bio-regional approach, Peter CS’ reporting on the situation of the land, and Suhasini's slide presentation on architecture in Auroville. If Auroville is to work more closely and effectively with the AVI centres, an increased Aurovilian presence at these meetings will greatly help the process.

During the final evaluation of the meeting, many of the above quoted statements were voiced. Perhaps the most accurate summary was given by Bhavana Dee, who summed it up as follows:

"A meeting like this is a spiritual experience. There's a special spirituality at this time on earth. The ego is breaking down, because we are finally recognizing how much we "need" each other. No one of us could possibly hold all that is coming down, it's so much. We are learning to share that realization with each other. I can't thank Sweden, the whole AVI, enough. It's so wonderful. Each time we do this, it's a definite drop among many drops, a step among many steps.

There was a definite change when the meeting switched to the working stage. We also took on some of the "hard" parts of AV. We integrated that energy. Now that it has happened, we can see how important it is that we do this. It's another part of human unity, a part that we need to work on. We need to concentrate on our soul. We here have touched our soul."

Next year's meeting will be hosted by AVI France. See you there...

Mauna