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One of them is that the International Zone, which would obviously draw the interest
of most visitors, is not yet built, except for the Bharat Nivas, the Pavilion of India –
which has not only remain uncompleted for many years but has also been
extensively used for collective services and administration.
Another factor is the profit motivation driving the majority of agencies that form the
tourism industry, intent as they are on providing their customers with products
rather than with more participatory experiences; a quick visit to a golden globe in
South India, as one of the two most striking modern temples in the country (the
other being the Ba’hai temple in Delhi), is easy to sell.
Still another factor is the very physical configuration of Auroville, spread as it is
over a large area which appears as mostly green and uninhabited to the casual
visitor, who meets of Auroville nothing but a stretch of shaded road between the
Visitors Centre and the Matrimandir.
But the most determining factor is precisely our collective state of unreadiness in
meeting end receiving the public and presenting it with a vision and a living
atmosphere filled with purpose.
The Matrimandir needs to be situated, in the public awareness, as the spiritual and
physical centre of a rich and intense collective search – instead of being so widely
perceived as a costly monument or a religious centre of some kind of international
movement.
For this to happen, people must be provided with the necessary elements of
understanding.
The approach to the Matrimandir must be gradual and meaningful and the physical,
human and spiritual context in which it stands must be made tangible.
So that, when visitors eventually reach the entrance to the Matrimandir area, they
have already experienced a difference – a difference in quality, a difference in
outlook, a difference in atmosphere -, and are, in their respective individual
capacities, as receptive as possible to the contact of the Matrimandir.
At present the regulations and facilities are both cumbersome and rudimentary.
Apart from the lack of proper transportation and proper buildings, the fact that the
entire physical area is not yet consolidated, sections of it still belonging to private
land owners and the internal roads being still temporary public roads, considerably
complicates the organisational requirements that must be met in order to have a
fairly quiet and disciplined movement to and fro of the many hundreds of visitors on
any day.
The following is a summary of the main features that must become manifest on a
permanent basis for the reception of all visitors to the Matrimandir – including the
Auroville residents.
A-
We have already mentioned that for visitors from the general public, the
main transportation will have to be organised from the Visitors Reception
Office in Pondichéry to the Visitors Centre in Auroville. As for the
transportation from the Visitors Centre to the Matrimandir and back, which is
presently chaotic, polluting and rather dangerous, the only practical, clean
and efficient system is a small electric railway. This railway system would run
throughout the day, every half hour; during the special visiting hour it would