Down Memory Lane

Carlo Schueller

I met him for the first time in 1961. It was also my first trip to Europe and I carried a letter of introduction from Navajata who, I discovered on reaching there, had never met Carlo till then, but was known to him by name due to his association with Mother India of which Carlo was a subscriber and with Sri Aurobindo Society which was a rising star then. In fact, Navajata had assigned me the task of getting Carlo involved in the Society and to have a centre of the Society opened at Carlo's place.

Carlo lived then in a big and beautiful house opening on the Zurich Lake. He received me with his reputed hospitality for people coming from Pondicherry in which his mother joined him although she had not visited the Ashram. Ambalal Purani was among the earliest Ashramites to stay with Carlo who took him in his car around for talks and promotion of the Ashram publication sales. Carlo was in fact himself running a book sales centre for the Ashram publications under the name Sri Aurobindo Verlag from his residence, which was practically a one man show, and he worked hard on it in the spirit of dedicated service.

Carlo himself was a man of letters with mastery over English, French and German, and translated some works into German.

Due to Carlo's contact with the Mother the atmosphere of his house was quite congenial, and shortly after settling down in the cosy room arranged for me I went out with Carlo for a walk in the midst of the Swiss scenery. By the time we returned from the evening stroll, Carlo had agreed to associate himself with the Society after his initial misgivings which, years later, proved to be true.

The next time I went to Europe, twentyone years after, Carlo had shifted to another house, comparatively a much smaller one, and though his mother had died, he had married and had children and there was also the stock of books. Yet I was always welcome to stay there and I did stay with him for some weeks. The new place was quite away from the Lake but there was a

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ravine close by with a flowing rivulet and trees on both sides and it made a beautiful spot for walks. Carlo was unable to accompany me because of his failing sight, but with his brilliant memory of the treks and journeys in his youth, he could always guide me not only for Zurich but for all places in Switzerland and several other countries.

He had problems with his eyesight from early years and was advised surgery. But Mother advised him not to go in for it and thereafter he refused to listen to anyone else nor did he bother Mother a second time about it, but just stuck to what she had said, and during his last years when he became virtually blind, he bore it with the cheerfulness of a sadhak, without a word or feeling of complaint or regret to the Divine about it.

In the Himalayas he had met an ascetic who did not eat and whom he saw going down the valley at Badrinath and reappearing several kilometers away walking in the air, so to say, for no human feet could tread that way. It was an impressive feat, but Carlo didn't find any spiritual height in the man.

When Carlo came to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram for the first time he was not impressed by Mother immediately. He saw her playing tennis, the other players not sending her hard returns, and then he, among others, received a piece of chocolate from her, he did not realise the significance of it.

In course of time he would become her devotee and practitioner of the Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Mother.

He breathed his last in a Zurich hospital on Dec. 2, 1994, when he was 67. His last words were "Thank you, Lord, for everything."

When I got the news in the afternoon on phone from Zurich, the Ashramites were getting ready to go for the 2nd Dec. Annual Physical Demonstration. I went to the Samadhi to lit an incense stick for him.

The same morning, at about 6 a.m., Manju, with whom Carlo had very affectionate relation, saw from her bedroom window a row of reindeers passing in the sky, and a bright star, and thought, "There is Carlo." And the phone rang to tell her that Carlo had passed away at 5.20.

It had been only two months earlier, on Sep. 24, that I had phoned him on his birthday. It was a very short call, though he said that he was not so unwell as the doctors feared. I ended the

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conversation with the words, "Now let us have our last laugh." We usually used to have a laugh on the phone, but that day the word last came out unintended, and I immediately tried to correct myself, but I don't think he heard it since he was already laughing.

No attachment for money, no attachment for food items, no wish for name or fame, and devotion and obedience to the Mother to an extent remarkable for a man from the West and not very common in India either.

In the Auroville imbroglio he always stood for Mother's directions and fought till the end for the recognition of Mother's directions regarding me. This earned him the displeasure of all those, and there is a very large number of them, who found it convenient to disregard it. They called him names for it, but he was unperturbed. He took it as a nishkama karma. None wanted to recognise that he was fighting for this not because of his brotherly relationship with me or because he was to get some benefit out of it, but because he felt hurt that it was her last written direction stating clearly that it was she who gave me the responsibility of Auroville and yet people disregarded it with the utmost impunity.

And then, when he discovered Mother's message about Huta's guardianship of the Matrimandir, he stood for her whom he never met in his lifetime and whose behaviour with him was not very graceful. He came on his last visit to Pondicherry and Auroville in February 1993 only to plead for respecting Mother's message about the guardianship of the Matrimandir. he came in spite of his financial difficulties, bringing with him Horst as his companion due to the loss of his sight, again as a nishkama karma at the service of Mother's directions. He didn't succeed, but he left with no regret, he having done his duty.

When I went last year to Europe I had no urge to go to Switzerland.

In Germany I missed his voice on phone.

I remember brother Carlo.

I sometimes feel him accompanying me in the morning walks at Auroville near the Matrimandir avenue.

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