My experience of Satprem

Origins and tendencies

Through the preceding years, my relationship with the French group had fluctuated and generally been uncertain. Whenever my positions or my orientations were too far from theirs or seemed too ambiguous, the tradition was to accuse me of the worse ills and to see in me the “asura”, the enemy – a face of the falsehood or of the adversary: I was then made responsible for all that went wrong and my “influence” was perceived as iniquitous and one must protect oneself against it… It happened at times, however, that one of these Frenchies would be working with me or in the same team and that his/her opinion, unverified until then, modified itself in my favor: I earned back a few brownies. Likewise, if I managed to have a letter of mine passed on to Satprem and if he actually answered it, I would then meet with lots of smiles and a return of fraternity. On my part, I had little affinity and I felt infinitely more at home with the people of India, the simple workers and villagers or the individuals of more refined class and culture. Besides, where my own daily life was concerned, at the Matrimandir, there were few Frenchies; to participate day in and day out and all day long to the construction work, with hard materials, in scorching heat and without much of a chance to speak, required a more individual commitment – this was the difference between team work and group action. But above all, and from the beginning, I found myself in profound disagreement with any group identity, which seemed to me to express a counter-sense and defeat the very intent to give oneself to the path of Auroville – beyond culture, race, class, origin or gender to offer oneself, among other human beings of all sides, to the transforming action of the truth-consciousness… It never lasted long.

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