My experience of Satprem

And, as the year began – I was always eager for the smallest bit of news, whether through the Bulletin or from friends returning from Pondicherry -, Mother remained more and more silent and withdrawn and much of the time kept Her eyes closed. Her New Year message “Only when you become conscious of the whole world at the same time, can you become conscious of the Divine”, was at once cryptic, mysterious and terrible: terrible, because it laid down the terms of the indispensable change in such a way that no one could pretend any longer… It was no more a matter of “spiritual realization”, but of each one incarnating, and manifesting Unity. There was no doubt in any one of us: Mother would hew the path, She had remained for that very purpose after Sri Aurobindo’s departure and the entire work was taking place through Her and in Her body.

Clearly we were not up to the mark and had little understanding.

But how to serve her, how to accompany Her, how to help lightening the load instead of aggravating it as we all did…?

The opposition which had forced me to leave Pondicherry and which I had yet to elucidate, although several indications had concurred in pointing Françoise (by then renamed “Pourna Prema” by Mother – I had learnt that her first name had in fact been given to her by Mother at birth but that she had later wanted a more spiritual one, which Mother had eventually given her) as a vector or main relay… this opposition, then, was still just as active, since she had even intervened to stop me from participating further in the activities of the Auroville Association in Paris, where I had nonetheless made good friends. Nata, on his part, while he remained confident in a positive resolution, now declared himself powerless.

It was thus alone – alone before the Supreme – that I took the decision to return.

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