Blessed are those

Pavitra's first meetings with Sri Aurobindo

Extracts from the book 'Conversations with Sri Aurobindo'

... Then one morning I arrived in Pondicherry by train. I put up at the Hotel d'Europe and immediately went to the Ashram.

I asked if I could meet Sri Aurobindo. At that time, Sri Aurobindo was still seeing people, He still saw His disciples. He agreed to see me. I explained my position to Him, what I was looking for, why I had left Europe, why I had come to India and what I hoped to find here. It was I who spoke the first day. He asked me to come again the next day.

In the evening I met the Mother. About the Mother I remember I remember especially Her eyes, Her eyes of light. I repeated my story to Her, more briefly perhaps. She spoke a few words to me and then I returned to my hotel. I remember I went for a walk on the sea - front and someone said, "Look, there are some

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Swadeshis!" that meant, the people dressed in white who were members of the Ashram. There were not many. There were - how many? - about twelve or fifteen.

The next morning I went back and Sri Aurobindo received me. And it was He who spoke. He told me that what I was seeking ... of course, I had explained to Him my desire for liberation, I had told Him that that is what I was seeking - not so much liberation from rebirth as liberation... liberation from myself, from the ego, from ignorance and sin, from falsehood, from all that makes up the ordinary human life. Liberation, Moksha, that was my ideal. I didn't place it in some other heaven, I didn't particularly want to avoid suffering - it was the weight of ignorance, of falsehood, of ugliness, all that. And more than avoiding something, I was looking for something positive. I was looking for light - not so much the avoidance of suffering, the end of suffering nor the end of falsehood, but Light, Knowledge, Truth.

Then He told me that there were some people in India who could give me what I was looking for, but they were not easy to meet, especially for a European. And then He continued. He considered that what I was seeking - union with God, the realization of the Brahman - came first, as a first step, a necessary stage, but it was not everything. There was a second step - the descent of the Power of the Divine into the human consciousness in order to transform it, and this is what He, Sri Aurobindo, was trying to do. And He said to me, "Well, if you want to try, you may stay."

I fell at His feet. He gave me His blessing and it was over. You see, a whole chapter of my life had come to an end. The search, the search for the source of light, the search for the one who would lead me to the Truth was over. Something else was beginning -the realization, to put it into practice. But this time I had found Sri Aurobindo, I had found my guru.

So that is how I came here.

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(About Pavitra [Philippe Barbier Saint Hilaire], a disciple who passed away on 16 May 1969) Not many yogis, not even the greatest among them could do such a thing. There he is, within here, quite wakeful, looking in a rather amused way at what you people are doing. He is merged in me wholly, that is dwelling within me, not dissolved: he has his personality intact.

- The Mother 25 May 1969

Words of The Mother, Pg 182, Vol 13, Collected Works of The Mother

Courtesy: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Puducherry

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