The Fruit and the Seed

Introduction

When Elio and Luciana knocked at our front door for the first time, I could not have imagined that they would enter my life and heart. ...

They were simply two of the many Italians Nata welcomed and helped on their arrival in Pondicherry. Since that day 20 years ago they came back punctually every year for the Christmas holidays, loaded with gifts.

Then Elio had a major surgical operation. He retired from his job and began spending the winter months in India. He enjoyed the Ashram and its atmosphere. At the first ray of dawn he would join the other Ashramites at the Dining Room to take his bread and milk.

Then he would go to the seafront for a walk and in thanksgiving gaze at the sun rising from the sea in a festival of colour. He was always happy and beautiful in his Indian silk shirts, with his silvery hair and his suntanned, golden face.

Elio was weaker by the day. He would never complain, never ask for help, never solicit compassion.

For him the illness was an act of Grace, an opportunity to grow, to pay his karmic debt, to dig ever deeper within himself until he touched the heart of transparence.

Behind that courage, that style, that gentleness was the Force and Love of the Divine. He was deeply and therefore happily aware of the purpose of our earthly existence and of death as life and not merely a fistful of ashes or a cup of oblivion into which all is dissolved. Even in the most difficult moments, Elio did not stop repeating, "How very blessed I am!" He knew how to receive and give love and finally, of course, Luciana, after long suffering, came round to understanding what it was that Elio had achieved.

We in the Ashram were struck by his radiant presence, moved by his decision to leave his body here, and many ashramites sustained his inner work with prayer, with gestures of tenderness, gifts, discreet visits.

Every evening a very high fever would inexorably overtake him.

And quietly Elio would announce, "It is time for me to go down into my tomb." Wrapped in woollen blankets for hours on end he would attempt to sweat the fever out, though normally his skin could hardly bear the touch of the lightest of cotton shirts, so hot and humid is our Indian summer. In silent and ceaseless prayer he would offer his gratitude to the Lord. In the evening he would change his clothes, comb his hair, wrap himself in his elegant gown and go and sit in his armchair padded with cushions. The smallest movement meant a cruel effort, yet he was bent on keeping himself exquisitely groomed, not so much out of a sense of his own dignity as from a wish not to offend his visitors and those around him. A smile always lighted his emaciated face.

Elio was ... submitting himself to the Lord. A self-surrender with folded hands, trusting heart, fearless and without attachment. ... For a long time during the painful X-rays, tests, check-ups and treatments in the hospitals and nursing homes, he had felt a warm protective Presence accompanying him...

In the very last days Elio lost his voice. He continued radiating love with his extraordinary smile. He asked Luciana for a pen and paper.

And with a trembling hand left his message:

Everything is falling silent: it is as if a new air has descended - more light, more light, more Light!