Aster Patel: Presenter

Aster Patel, Ph.D., grew up in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, where she studied at the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education. Later, she graduated from the University of Paris (Sorbonne). Her doctoral dissertation was titled A Comparative Study of the Philosophies of Sri Aurobindo and Henri Bergon.

She has taught at the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education in Pondicherry and has conducted a number of workshops in integral psychology. She held the Sri Aurobindo Chair of Philosophy at Banaras Hindu University.

Aster has participated in seminars and conferences at various centers and universities in India and at UNESCO, Paris, and the United Nations. She was a guest presenter at AUM 2003 in Los Angeles and at the 2003 Third International Conference on Integral Psychology in San Francisco. In December 2004 she spoke on the confluence of Indian spirituality and science at the National Conference on Indian Psychology, Yoga, and Consciousness organized by the Indian Council of Philosophical Research in Pondicherry, India. She has also written and published papers in philosophy, psychology, education, and yoga.

For nearly three decades, she has been engaged actively in the experiment of Auroville, with direct responsibility at the Centre for Research in Indian Culture and the Centre of Indian Studies of Bharat Nivas. She is a member of the governing board of Auroville.

Her personal quest has always been for a lived experience of wholeness, from the inmost core of consciousness to the densities of matter. The activities of life have provided her with a rich field of learning.