This report is a brief about our visit to Aurobindo Ashram, School & Dining. Overall this report gives a glimpse about their institutional setup and Functioning.

1. YOUTH ENGAGEMENT PROGRAME
VISITED ON 21.05.2019
AUROBINDO ASHRAM VISIT
VISIT TO ASHRAM, SCHOOL & DINNING HALL

2. AUROBINDO ASHRAM VISIT REPORT
Date of Visit: 21.05.2019.
People visited: Entire Intern team of Raj Nivas.
People in-charge: Mr. Chandrasekar, AC, RajNivas, Mr. Purushotham, Mr. Sudheer & Mrs.
Gayathri.
PART I- AUROBINDO ASHRAM
About Aurobindo Ashram
The Ashram is located in the eastern part of Pondicherry. Inmates live and work in a number
of buildings spread throughout the area. The focus of community life is the Ashram main
building, usually called simply "the Ashram", which consists of an interconnected block of
houses, including those in which Sri Aurobindo and the Mother lived for most of their lives.
At its centre, in a tree-shaded courtyard, lies the Samadhi, a white marble shrine where their
bodies are laid to rest.
The Ashram provides its members with all they need for a decent and healthy life. Various
departments look after the basic requirements of food, clothing and shelter, as well as medical
care. There are also libraries for study and facilities for a variety of cultural pursuits including
music, dance, theatre, and the arts. Members regularly participate in physical education
activities such as sports, asanas, strength training, and swimming.
The Ashram is administered by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, a public charitable trust
formed by the Mother in 1955. This trust is managed by a board of five trustees.
About Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo was born in Calcutta on 15 August 1872. At the age of seven he was taken to
England for education. There he studied at St. Paul's School, London, and at King's College,
Cambridge. Returning to India in 1893, he worked for the next thirteen years in the Princely
State of Baroda in the service of the Maharaja and as a professor in Baroda College. During
this period he also joined a revolutionary society and took a leading role in secret preparations
for an uprising against the British Government in India.
In 1906, soon after the Partition of Bengal, Sri Aurobindo quit his post in Baroda and went to
Calcutta, where he soon became one of the leaders of the Nationalist movement. He was the
first political leader in India to openly put forward, in his newspaper Bande Mataram, the idea
of complete independence for the country. Prosecuted twice for sedition and once for
conspiracy, he was released each time for lack of evidence.

3. Sri Aurobindo had begun the practice of Yoga in 1905 in Baroda. In 1908 he had the first of
several fundamental spiritual realisations. In 1910 he withdrew from politics and went to
Pondicherry in order to devote himself entirely to his inner spiritual life and work. During his
forty years in Pondicherry he evolved a new method of spiritual practice, which he called the
Integral Yoga. Its aim is a spiritual realisation that not only liberates man's consciousness but
also transforms his nature. In 1926, with the help of his spiritual collaborator, the Mother, he
founded the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Among his many writings are The Life Divine, The
Synthesis of Yoga and Savitri. Sri Aurobindo left his body on 5 December 1950.
About the mother
The Mother was born Mirra Alfassa in Paris on 21 February 1878. A pupil at the Academie
Julian, she became an accomplished artist, and also excelled as a pianist and writer. Interested
in occultism, she visited Tlemcen, Algeria, in 1905 and l906 to study with the adept Max Theon
and his wife. Her primary interest, however, was spiritual development. In Paris she founded a
group of spiritual seekers and gave talks to various groups.
In 1914 the Mother voyaged to Pondicherry to meet Sri Aurobindo, whom she at once
recognised as the one who for many years had inwardly guided her spiritual development. After
a stay of eleven months she was obliged to return to France due to the outbreak of the First
World War. A year later she went to Japan for a period of four years.
In April 1920 the Mother rejoined Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry. When the Sri Aurobindo
Ashram was formed in November 1926, Sri Aurobindo entrusted its full material and spiritual
charge to the Mother. Under her guidance, which continued for nearly fifty years, the Ashram
grew into a large, many-faceted spiritual community. In 1952 she established Sri Aurobindo
International Centre of Education, and in 1968 an international township, Auroville.
The Mother left her body on l7 November 1973.
Figure 1 Photo of Sri Aurobindo

4. People at Aurobindo Ashram
The people at the ashram are the devotees and followers of the spiritual path laid by Sri
Aurobindo and mother. People are full time volunteering without any kind of expectations. The
need and basic facilities are taken care by ashram.
PART 2- ASHRAM SCHOOL (school with no examinations & time bound)
About the School
Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, an integral part of Sri Aurobindo Ashram,
serves as a field for experiment and research in education. For years Sri Aurobindo considered
the formation of a new system of education as one of the best means of preparing the future
humanity to manifest upon earth a divine consciousness and a divine life. To give a concrete
shape to his vision, the Mother opened a school for children on December 2, 1943. Since then,
the school has continued to grow and experiment with various educational problems and issues.
In 1951, a Convention was held at Pondicherry which resolved to establish an International
University Centre in the town as a fitting memorial to Sri Aurobindo. Accordingly, the Sri
Aurobindo International University Centre was inaugurated by the Mother on January 6, 1952.
In 1959, the Mother decided to rename it the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education.
The Centre of Education provides education from kindergarten to college levels of study. Its
faculties include Humanities, Sciences, Languages, Engineering Technology, and Physical
Education, and it has facilities for learning drawing, painting, handiwork, music and dancing
(Indian and Western), dramatics, and arts and crafts. In addition to several libraries and
laboratories there are also opportunities for practical and manual work.
As an international centre of education, it aspires to represent the cultures of different regions
of the world with the ideal that every nation should make a unique contribution to a cultural
synthesis, promoting mutual understanding and human unity.
Figure 2 Picture of Mother

5. OBJECTIVES AND APPROACH
Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education (SAICE) strives to evolve a system of integral
education in an environment that inspires children to develop the five essential aspects of
personality: the physical, the vital, the mental, the psychic, and the spiritual. The Centre
encourages its students to choose subjects without regard to specialisation or the pressures of
having to choose a career.
Life has a divine purpose and one of the most important tasks of education is to lead the student
to discover for himself the aim of life and the specific role that he himself has to play in it. "The
new aim is to help the child to develop his intellectual, aesthetic, emotional, moral, spiritual
being and his communal life and impulses out of his own temperament and being," says Sri
Aurobindo.
The Centre's approach is therefore not merely academic but dynamic. Knowledge is not
something that it seeks to impart to students; rather opportunities and carefully selected
material are presented to them in such a way as to stimulate them to an inner activity by which
they can discover the recognise the knowledge within them.
A child needs to be helped to develop integrally and harmoniously. The Centre seeks to provide
the fullest possible development of the physical, a fruitful channeling of the life-energy into
pursuits that contribute to the growth of the personality, a thorough training of the mental
faculties in the humanities and sciences, and, through a powerful spiritual atmosphere, the
conditions for the soul to come forward and gradually begin to govern the rest of the being.
With about 400 students the Centre is relatively small. This ensures that teachers and instructors
can pay as much attention to each child as possible. A typical class has only twelve or thirteen
students; many classes and other activities have even fewer.
"The aim of education", the Mother wrote, "is not to prepare the individual student to succeed
in life and society, but to increase his perfectibility to the utmost." In keeping with this aim,
the Centre of Education awards no degrees or diplomas, but attempts to provide an atmosphere
where knowledge is sought for the sake of knowledge and for the building up of the character.
Figure 3 Pictures of students at school

6. Pillars of education system
Figure 4 Pillars of Ashram school
The school majorly functions on the above five pillars and it make sure that all the student is
equally involved in all. So, it develops their carrier, life, physical & mental health altogether.
“This system is not a career-based education”
Languages taught
S. No Subject Language
1 Maths & Science French
2 Humanities English
3 - Sanskrit
4 Mother tongue Tamil, Gujarati, Hindi, Oriya, Marathi..
Table 1 Language of instruction & taught
Levels of Education
Mental
Artisitc
SpritualPsychic
physical
Figure 5 Level of education at school

7. Human Resources
The school maintains a ratio of 5:1 and maximum of 15:1, student: teacher respectively. The
teachers here are mostly the alumni of the school. As for now 400 + students are studying. Few
teachers are coming out from different school & universities to teach the students on their own
interest.
PART 3 – ASHRAM DINNING
About the place
The Sri Aurobindo Ashram Dining Hall, located on the Ananda Ranga Pillai Street, is one of
the many heritage buildings of Puducherry. It has been serving food to the inmates of the
Ashram as well as its guests since 1934.
During recent times, the number of visitors to the Ashram has increased significantly. To feed
this ever-increasing number, the Dining Hall has had to scale up its production which also
increased its consumption of electricity. To control this upward trend in consumption of
electricity, the Sri Aurobindo Ashram installed a 32.4kW on-grid solar energy plant in 2015.
Sunlit Future, Auroville, designed, constructed and performs maintenance of this site. With
more than 1.5MW of on-grid solar energy plants installed or under contract in India, Sunlit
Future has the experience and capacities for design, procurement, integration, management,
installation and maintenance of solar energy applications and services.
Learnings and observation from our end
❖ We came to know about the way of living of followers of Aurobindo and Mother
teaching.
❖ Brief about Sir Aurobindo and the mother.
❖ Insights about the education system at Centre for education.
❖ Functioning and system at Ashram Dinning hall & Kitchen.
❖ Visited the book store and library at the school.
❖ Visited the Marine research setup at the school
Acknowledgement
We extend our sincere thanks to team raj nivas for providing us this wonderful opportunity.
We extend our hand to thank Mr. Chandrasekar, Mr. Purushotam, Mr. Sudheer & Mrs. Gayathri
for taking us in and around the places visited.
Prepared by: Karthikeyan.K.H, Intern, YEP.
Content: Bharathy Kumar, Sai Kiran Boghyam, Interns, YEP & Official website of Aurobindo
Ashram