Blessed are those

Privilege of meeting the Divine in (Francois Gautier)

a human body

- Francois Gautier

A little bit of background on how I came here. I had just turned 19 in Paris when I heard there was a caravan of cars driving to Auroville - Pondicherry in India. In my conscious mind, I was least interested about Auroville and India but I had an urge to go around the world and see the world and 'something' in me compelled me to go. And maybe this caravan was an opportunity to start my journey around the world. It is funny how fate or chance, or whatever you call it picks you up and brings you to your destiny. Actually in Paris I tried to read Sri Aurobindo because I thought maybe I should know something about Auroville but it didn't click that time - it might be two months before I set foot in India. So then I decided to take this caravan and got my parents' permission because in those days - as I was just 19, I was still a minor to leave for a year - upon the pledge that I would come back and finish my studies and settle down as a good Frenchman.

This caravan was a mixture of very-very different personalities. I didn't get along with all of them so well, though there were some great people in that caravan. There was Gerard. You know Gerard Marechal, of course, who has remained a friend till today. There was Krishna, the black Krishna who died a few years ago, who was my protector during that caravan and remained a close friend for many years. It was very adventurous, because the cars were very old and people were so different. Some people knew already about the Mother and Sri Aurobindo and they had the tendency to show off and kind of put us off. They would put the Mother's photo in the van, where we used to eat. I didn't mind but some

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people minded. So there were a lot of tensions in that caravan - it was not a very happy journey actually. It was not like as if I was - you know - coming home to my destiny. It was a difficult journey. There were 5 vehicles - in bad condition. Two of the vans, that were old and both second hand, gave up and we had to pull them with the cars. It was a difficult journey. So lots of adventures, we crossed lots of countries. I'm not going to tell the whole story of that caravan though it is an interesting story too, which I recounted in a French book, the Inner Caravan (La Caravane Interieure, Les Belles Lettres, Paris). Finally, we drove from Lahore and reached Delhi in the morning. It was end of September 1 969 and I didn't feel anything yet. Delhi was then a very beautiful place - it was green, which is not so much anymore. And I remember that Roger Anger and Navajata had flown from Pondicherry to meet us. There was a meeting in the Lodi hotel, I think. I was still not interested. I felt I didn't belong at all to that adventure.

And then we spent the night in the Ashram - what is now Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Aurobindo Marg, Delhi. In those times it was amongst fields - can you imagine that? There was a main building which was a house in the ancient styles with high ceiling and wooden beams which has been broken down since then. I immediately found the place very beautiful. There was huge pictures of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo and it touched something in me. It was evening, sunset time. So I took one of the books of Sri Aurobindo - it was the Life Divine, I think - and I climbed on top of one of the vans. I opened it at random and read a few lines and suddenly something clicked in me deep down. As I said, I didn't know anything about India and about spirituality but somehow in those 4-5 lines I read I understood so many things -like you know in a flash, in an intuitive flash. That this was my home and India was my place. I had come home and I was going to be with the Mother. And I understood concepts about India which today seem very complicated - like reincarnation and karma. So all these things flashed in my mind like a home coming. I felt that I was home and that is I know was very subjective and even now

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it seems like a dream - though a very gifted, very privileged experience.

But we still had to drive of course from Delhi to Pondicherry. It was a long drive and the vans and cars were in a bad condition but my whole life had changed. I decided that my life in France was over and I wrote to my parents that I would not come back. Then we reached Auroville. I think we reached on 2nd of October 1969 - I'm not sure about the date actually. We straightaway went to Promesse - there is a photograph taken of all of us by Barun Tagore in Promesse. We didn't meet the Mother immediately actually. We settled in Aspiration in Auroville. Aspiration even then was a very beautiful place - though it was very bare of course, you could see the sea from everywhere in Auroville, including from the Matrimandir. There were no trees of course, except palm trees. Yet, it was a very beautiful place - there were canyons everywhere sloping towards the road, including this huge Utility one and another in Forecomers... There were fantastic sunsets -I don't know why I don't see those sunsets today that I saw then. And so we went to meet the Mother one by one - it was left to us. I wanted to read a little more. I didn't know anything about Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. So I read for a month and a half, many, many books. And I had a mystical frame of mind already; I was not a very sociable person. So I spent a bit of time alone. I discovered the Samadhi and I spent a lot of time at the Samadhi. I felt closer to the Ashram than to Auroville. As I had cut off with my French past, I felt that in Auroville there was still so many connections with my western atavism and I wanted something very Indian. So my inclination was towards the Ashram and I spent a lot of time there.

So, finally I met the Mother, I think in November and again as you know I was totally unprepared, as my experience in Delhi. I was young, innocent and only knew now that I wanted to stay there all of my life. I was not really ready for what happened to me when I met the Mother. I didn't know what a guru was, what an avatar was. She was the Mother okay but you know... after all

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who is the Mother, I thought? So those of you who met the Mother knew how it happened in those days. One would have an appointment, would climb the steps and then you sit on the terrace where you go for Darshan now, that outer terrace. And already you felt an atmosphere. Of course when you climb it was through the silence of Sri Aurobindo's room. And then it became more compact ... (I feel very emotional .. .I never cried before when I gave a talk. I have given many, many talks.) I was like a child - I was very innocent. And it was such an experience because I didn't expect anything. I mean I expected that She was 'Someone' but that Presence when you are on the Terrace - it was so compact. And when I entered the room, She was ... you know the Mother was always kind of stooped. I don't know, I guess from meeting so many people. So She was looking down, She was alone. There was only Nata, myself and I guess Champaklal and it was an extraordinary atmosphere, so compact and so strong so that my whole being froze. It was like something was happening to me and because I was so young I didn't expect it. It caught my heart, instead of my mind. Usually when I have experiences, the mind starts analyzing, observing. So it was so strong that my mind was frozen too. Then of course I knelt down - I was a bit wobbly, so someone took me and helped me kneel in front of Her. And then She looked at me. I mean, how to . . . how to recount that? When She looked at you it was so deep. They say that you should look in to the eyes to see the soul. "She looked at me and I fe lt She was penetrating me very deep. So again I didn't understand what was happening to me - it was so strong and so beautiful. I was so dazed. I don't know how long it was - maybe 2 minutes, maybe 10 to 20 minutes. She spoke in French a little bit. That time Her voice was already - you know - a little trembling ... But She spoke clearly in French. And then someone helped me get up and somehow I made it out of the room. I sat at the Samadhi for a long time afterwards. This was · an extraordinary experience which changed my life totally. She was already 90 plus - it was 1969.

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So I did meet Her many times. You couldn't meet Her as much as in the 60's. But I did meet Her maybe 5 or 7 times for my birthday and on other occasions. Of course there were Darshans 4 times a year which were powerful experiences because She would appear on the balcony. Not only you could feel Her presence but it was as if She was looking at people one by one. You could feel in those who were below the aspiration going up towards Her. That first meeting was a very powerful experience. My mind was unprepared so I fully opened myself to the Presence and the Power as much as I could within my limitations. I always had a powerful experience with Her but not like the first one when it was so powerful and so overwhelming. I guess when you meet the Divine upon Earth this is how you should meet Him or Her - with an unexpected overflowing and freezing of your entire being under the influence and the power of the Divine.

Of course Auroville was starting - it was a wonderful adventure. I didn't feel connected; I felt very Indian, you know what I mean. Of course I was brought up in France but the moment I had this experience in Delhi I felt very connected to India. My first guru was India. And that experience in the Ashram in Delhi -today if I look at it, it was Mother India It was actually like Mother but in a different form, not as I met Her in a room. I have met again Mother India over the years. Even now I do in some ways, though less, - as one ages you know, less. But I do still, in the Himalayas particularly, or once in Pune. Unfortunately I came in 1969 and the Mother left in 1973 - there were 4 years, a very short time. But they were wonderful, wonderful years. I asked Her if I could move to the Ashram and She agreed in beginning of 1970.

And I moved in a beautiful garden - She put me in the beautiful garden, which is called Mare garden, which is 2 to 3 kilometers outside the city beyond the railway station. There were 600 coconut trees there and we cultivated the flowers that used to go on Sri Aurobindo's Samadhi and I felt extremely happy there. I was alone; I didn't have friends. I used to meet Satprem very often but otherwise I didn't have any friends but I felt extremely

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happy. Everything was possible. It was like a second childhood, a true childhood, like blooming. Everything was blooming, everything was beautiful and I spent a lot of time in the Ashram. I used to sit at the steps that go up to the Mother - I used to sit there for hours and just prayed to Her and wrote to Her. She sent me beautiful things. Once I sent Her a flower and She sent back a plate with different flowers of different meanings put in a certain manner. Once I had a strong experience with a photo of young Sri Aurobindo which is at the entrance. It is the one you see when you enter the Ashram - in the room there is the big photo of Sri Aurobindo in black and white - and I had very strong experience. Again I felt overwhelmed; my mind went blank. Then She wrote to me: 'You had the experience of the silent mind but you were not able to keep it because you started thinking '. So, wonderful years, - say from 1969 till 1 972 - they were the best years of. my life. We all thought that the Mother would never go, of course. Those of us who were young or innocent or who had faith, thought that She would never go. And some of us even thought that we too would never go. (That is another matter.) After 1 972 - of course you know that She was not well so we were worried - some of us a little bit. For a long period She would not see anybody. Then She would come out again looking more frail. When She left in 1973 . .. I don't want to sound negative. Recently I was interviewed for the Auroville Radio and I didn't feel I spoke negatively but then I was told afterwards that it was very pessimistic and very negative. When the Mother left something left from our life. I mean I saw myself, and this was what I believed - it might sound pessimistic. Something went out of our life, of everywhere, of the Ashram, of Auroville and even of our personal life. Ok, the presence of the Mother is still there, Her Grace is still there, but what we lived . . . Those of us who knew Her.. . I can speak for myself: the extraordinary Grace of the Divine upon the Earth, that went away. I never thought about this with emotion like that because it happened. But yeah, for me it was a dramatic event. And I feel that we all suffered from it, whether it is Ashram or Auroville. It is

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true that Auroville today is not what it should be. The Mother told us it would be .... We know that when She was there sometime She would despair and said: "Oh, it will take 300 years, you know. These people, they..." But then everything was possible when She was there. Everything was fast, everything was immediate. Everything was possible. When She left, I don't know whether it was a defeat because at that time it sounded like a defeat for all of us. And we felt responsible in some ways that She left but immediately, practically in life one could see around us and in us the effect of Her withdrawal. How things started going haywire and people started fighting whether it is in the Ashram departments or the trustees or in Auroville. And the dream looked like it was receding away.

You know there were such wonderful people in the beginning of Auroville. They were great souls. It was clear that She had called whether directly or indirectly people who were instruments, were connected. I mean I was connected, recalling now how I came here without knowing why I have come here. These great souls either left Auroville or died. And that happened very quickly after She left, I think. Every time the Divine incarnates upon Earth the same thing happens. There is blooming, there are instruments who come, wonderful dreams that seem to be getting materialized. Then slowly the disciples are not up to the mark or the avatar dies because He or She takes the human body and plays by the human rules. But in our case - of course because the Supramental of which nobody can doubt the inevitability, but one could doubt the timing now - we thought that She would stay.

Of course when She left, I think for those of us who were either young or had faith, it was a. terrible trauma that I never understood till today. Actually those who don't know the Mother maybe are more fortunate because they can find the Presence without having known Her. They have to find the Presence and they do find the Presence. And She is there in many ways. Directly as a Mother who manifested Herself as a Divine Mother - many of Her aspects whether they are personal or impersonal. So She is

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there for everybody to reach. But for us, for me it was very traumatic, Her going away. She said that She would ren1ain with us and why did She go? And also what happened after She left? So one ages and in one's life one does things. I did things in my life. Now I'm married to a wonderful person here- Namrita - she brought so much in my life. India has brought so much in my life also. After that I started doing some journalism and writing. I traveled all over India and met so many wonderful people. And I am still in some comer or the other of India. I feel that She is present, it is happening. I hope this is not a talk that is going to make you sad and I hope I was able to convey the extraordinary Grace of meeting the Divine. Very few of us had the privilege of actually meeting the Divine in the human body and feel that Divinity. That is something extremely unique and I feel very privileged for that and I'm happy that today we had the occasion to talk about it. Thank you very much. (04-11-2007)

(Francois Gautier is a noted columnist in prominent national newspapers in India and France and has authored several books. He is living in Auroville.)

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