The Auroville Language Lab:
The Language of the Soul
The Inner Voice: Tapas and Mita’s Path and the Auroville Language Lab
This late spring, in South Hadley, Massachusetts, Matthew Andrews of AVI USA met Mita Radhakrishnan, the co-founder of Auroville’s Language Lab, on the campus of Mount Holyoke College. Mita was returning after a decade away, joining her classmates for the 35th reunion of the Class of 1990. The campus had changed since 2015, but it still held the memories of youth and rediscovery. For Mita, it was a moment of reflection on her youth filled with activism, an excellent education and deep friendships crossing international boundaries. What began as a casual conversation soon unfolded into a story of self-reflection, tracing her journey from the classrooms of Mount Holyoke to the first steps of the Auroville Language Lab, where healing, education, and inner transformation converge.
Mita Radhakrishan in South Hadley, MA, with Matthew Andrews, and Mount Holyoke members of the Class of ’90
The Story of the Auroville Language Lab and a Path of Healing
On a shaded, red earth road in Auroville, the Auroville Language Lab has grown into a unique center of international learning, healing, and community. It was born from the intertwined paths of two spiritual seekers, Tapas and Mita, whose vision and deep belief in education as a tool for transformation sparked the creation of a language center in Auroville. The Language Lab brought together global methodologies, international and local languages, and a reverence for inner transformation, all intended as a service to the growing Auroville
A Vision for Language and Listening
Originally conceived as a space to support language learning through media, technology, and human connection, the Auroville Language Lab today stands as a self-sufficient service unit registered under the Swagatam Trust. It offers a wide array of language resources: basic intro materials for 121 languages, with French, English, Spanish and German through donated Rosetta Stone programs via Mita’s Mount Holyoke classmates to excellent video recordings and educational series such as the Annenberg/CPB Spanish program Destinos, all housed on a dedicated media server.Classes in English, French, German, Tamil, and Spanish and other languages are offered on a sliding scale. Of all the languages, English is the most sought after especially with Tamil children and adults. The English language resources are essential for creating opportunities for both Aurovilians and bioregion individuals.Children from nearby villages, staff families, and international residents come through its doors, especially in the summer months, making the Lab a cross-cultural, intergenerational hub. Enzo, a former coordinator, helped build it into an educational community center, always coordinating complex schedules with a joyful smile. They are still looking for that one person “who loves people, languages, and community” to carry the next part of the journey forward.
The Tomatis Journey
The Alfred Tomatis method, a listening-based therapeutic and educational intervention, has been a cornerstone of the Lab’s development. Tapas, inspired by the potential of therapeutic sounds, first learned of Dr. Alfred Tomatis and his method in the early 1990s. Their initial attempt to contact him in 1998, when the Language Lab project began, was discouraging. A generational shift in leadership at the Tomatis center in Paris had gradually distanced Dr. and Mrs. Tomatis from the organization’s core activities, altering its direction and structure.
Nevertheless, Tapas and Mita submitted a heartfelt proposal that included gold CD recordings of Indian languages, including Sri Aurobindo’s Bengali poetry and texts in Tamil, Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi, and Gujarati. The proposal received no response, but they remained convinced that the Alfred Tomatis method had a natural connection to Auroville. Their primary aim was to obtain a donated machine with settings in Hindi, Tamil, and Sanskrit so that Aurovilians of all ages and nationalities could become multilingual easily, and the method could be piloted in India. They felt strongly that it should become a core component of the Language Lab.
This belief was affirmed several years later, when a series of chance encounters led them to the contact details of Dr. and Mrs. Tomatis, who had relocated to southern France. After a warm and encouraging reply from the couple, Tapas and Mita traveled on a limited budget from India to France. As they made their way through Lille and Paris and reached out to confirm the visit, they learned that Dr. Tomatis had been hospitalized. They had mentioned Auroville in their message, and Mrs. Tomatis’s reply was direct: You MUST come.
Tapas and Mita traveled to Carcassonne and found their way to the hospital where Dr. Tomatis, nearing the end of his life, had been admitted. The meeting was deeply meaningful. Mita recalls his intense presence with an aura “immense and green,” that seemed to stretch beyond the hospital window, radiating a sense of healing. Mrs. Tomatis welcomed them with warmth and care. In a symbolic gesture, she asked Mita to recite the Sanskrit alphabet three times in Dr. Tomatis’s presence.
Though Dr. Tomatis passed away shortly after their meeting, a promise had been made: to bring his method to India and adapt it for Indian languages. Since then, the Auroville Language Lab has carried forward that commitment. The Tomatis Research Centre celebreated its twentieth anniversary celebration in December 2024.
Dr. Tomatis and the early French CaravansEstablished in the 1950’s, the Tomatis Paris center was a listening training center where Dr. Tomatis focused on the profound connection between the ear, the voice (the audio-vocal loop), the brain and the nervous system, and how improving listening can effect profound transformations and unleash potential.It was also, unexpectedly, a place where people in France learned about Auroville for the first time.Dr. Tomatis was an ENT surgeon, with a focus on audiology and the ear. His last operation happened to be on Big Patrice, a future Aurovilian, who eventually took the name Shankar. Big Patrice was a good friend of Alain Bernard and Christine. They were in a theatre group together. Big Patrice learned about Auroville from Dr. Tomatis, who was versed in the writings of Sri Aurobindo and Mother. Patrice shared the news of Auroville with his friends from the theater group. And they became part of the first French caravans that went to Auroville.
Mita’s International Roots
Mita’s journey began far from Auroville, initially at the Army Public School in New Delhi, then in an international high school in Rome, then to Mount Holyoke College in the United States. There, she majored in Politics and Women’s Studies and threw herself into student activism. The intellectual environment at Mount Holyoke encouraged her to challenge inherited truths and think independently. It also marked the start of her lifelong involvement in social movements, with a strong voice in student organizing and community outreach.
Facing exclusion from her cultural peers due to her political and personal identity, Mita found a new family among those fighting for equity and dignity. She co-founded groups, gave workshops, and cultivated a life rooted in service and truth. After returning to India, she completed a Master’s in Political Science at Jawaharlal Nehru University and worked in an NGO before her life changed drastically. She met Tapas in Delhi in 1995 and learnt about Auroville, Mother and Sri Aurobindo for the first time. She came to Auroville right after, and Tapas initiated her into the path of Sri Aurobindo and Mother’s Integral Yoga, and she resigned from her job, joined Auroville, and never left. It is now 30 years.
Tapas’s Spiritual Path
Tapas, a French educator with a background in experimental education, working with children with autism, and deep engagement in the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, left behind a structured life in France to live simply and in surrender, in the tradition of spiritual seekers. Inspired by Satprem’s “The Adventure of Consciousness,” she traveled with her daughter and partner, throughout Europe, from place to place, living without guarantees, trusting in the guidance of the Divine, and knowing they would be taken care of.
They taught, healed, traveled, and built, with each step building new relationships, offering workshops, yoga classes, French classes, artwork, translating Mother’s “On Education” and living it in their day-to-day. Finally, they arrived in Auroville in 1987. Tapas’s daughter, Elodie, 14 at the time, immediately knew it as home to her soul. Tapas joined Auroville for good in 1992.
A Community of International Friends.
Mita’s ties to Mount Holyoke continue. Reunions take place every 5 years and she returned in 2010, 2015 and now in 2025. The reunions are moments of joy and connection with the group of friends that continue to deepen their relationship. Friends from college have visited Auroville. Many of Mita’s friends from Mount Holyoke supported the Language Lab in its first fundraising effort on a crowd-funding platform. Many donated games and materials for the Lab. The international connections of Mita’s school days in Rome and South Hadley, are now expressed in daily life at the Language Lab, in the languages, the students, the music, and the methods.
Language Lab Today
Today, the Auroville Language Lab remains a space where spiritual inquiry, and education meet. Whether it’s a Tamil speaking child accessing English for the first time, or a visitor exploring the healing power of sound, or an Aurovilian using the listening training as a means to go deeper in their Integral Yoga, the Lab holds space for transformation.