Memories of First Darshan

A Visit with Sri Aurobindo

After the interview with Jung in Switzerland, and while studying Indology at the Sorbonne, it became more and more imperative to me to visit Sri Aurobindo. When, during that final summer session at the Academy of International Law at The Hague, in Holland, I discovered that I could obtain passage to India and then across the Pacific for very little more than returning to America via the Atlantic, the decision was made.

Correspondence with the āśram in Pondicherry began. I discovered Sri Aurobindo now appeared in public only four times a year. The next scheduled darśan (literally, "face-seeing", but with the connotation of "blessing") was to be November 24th. I was granted permission to attend.

First by a Dutch ship, the Oranje, I went through the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean to Colombo, Ceylon, then by boat-train to India. In 1950, Pondicherry, on the Southeastern tip of India, was still a French colony.

I discovered other Americans had come: a woman physical education teacher from New York City, studying Hathayoga, and two men from Stanford. There were many more visitors from Europe as well as from India proper. The visitors, including myself, were housed at Golconda, a delightful guest house built by a Japanese disciple of Frank Lloyd Wright. My room had an air of simplicity and peace that is hard to describe. The large louvred windows overlooked a garden; along the length of the windows was a raised platform upon which sat a cool water jug. The bed was complete with mosquito netting; and the floor was of dark stone and cool to the feet during the return monsoon weather. Outside hibiscus bloomed; and in the pool in the courtyard, lotus made bright splashes of colour while goldfish darted around and under their leaves.

A great number of the permanent residents were from Pakistan [East Bengal, as it was then called] and had followed Sri Aurobindo to Pondicherry upon the division of India, a division of which Sri Aurobindo did not approve. (He believed India should form one whole nation.) Some residents lived at Golconda, some in the main building with dining room two blocks away, and other married residents had separate small homes of their own.

In the month or so before darśans, I found there was time to explore the countryside and small Indian villages by bicycle, to investigate the French restaurants in town, and to swim in the ocean two blocks from the guest house. There were events at the āśram each day, but one attended or not, without obligation. Mornings, breakfast was served at the main dining hall: usually a banana, homemade grain bread, and cocoa or milk. At noon, if it was ordered in advance, a girl in a sari brought around the shiny, brass, hitched-together dishes with vegetable curries and other dishes. On the lower floor, on a breezeway, there was a place to eat lunch at Golconda. A young Hindu, Vishnu Patel, whose family all lived in Pondicherry, soon introduced us to Indian sweets and to a kind of vegetable-flour doughnut, dipped in a hot sauce, for which I am still often hungry. In Vishnu's company, those of us from the United States and Europe were led to the bazaar, a dhobi who would wash and iron our clothes, and to the best place to buy sandals to wear in this heat.

Each morning, after breakfast, there was a meeting with Mirra Alfassa, called The Mother. There was a flower ceremony, in which visitors both offered and received flowers from her — each flower with its own esoteric meaning for spiritual development. In a small marble-floored room opening onto the central court, there was also a morning group meditation period with the Mother.

Day by day, more people arrived at the āśram at Pondicherry. There were now exhibitions and sports competitions among the younger members of the colony, a fact which highly displeased some of the older Indian visitors. Others were disturbed because there was no "set routine". One visiting professor of philosophy from Bombay finally explained to me that Sri Aurobindo's āśram was a revolutionary departure from the old style āśram. He suggested that before leaving India, I should also visit Ramdas, called "The Laughing Sage" of India at his āśram on the Mangalore Coast. This I did for a week, later, and it gave me greater insight into just how unusual the establishment in Pondicherry was, by older standards. Although I also found Ramdas a charming man, the entire atmosphere differed. There, women and men were expected to sit in separate sections; all food was Indian; and there were none of the modern conveniences one took for granted at Sri Aurobindo Ashram.

In Pondicherry, I was soon told, of course, that Margaret Wilson, the daughter of President Wilson of the United States had spent her last years here at the āśram and had died there. I also discovered that in 1947, the entire colony had been besieged by communists who had sought a French protectorate where communism was still legal. One āśram-ite had been killed.

At night, Pondicherry became a place out of some romantic novel with ships arriving at a free port, loaded with what one suspected were gold bars to be smuggled into India proper. Huge fires on the beach flamed into the night, as white-turbanned figures moved here and there. All of this, of course, was at the village pier, and few regular āśram-ites ventured out at night except to affairs in the central āśram hall. But those of us from America had to take in all the sights, while we were there.

Afternoons as a rule, I did research in the āśram library, taking notes on books, most of which are now available in America. Evenings, a group of us sometimes took in an outdoor movie in the village. On one such occasion, things became entirely too exciting. The movies were shown in a large tent, with a meagre number of benches for Americans and Europeans; most of the villagers sat crosslegged on the sand. Suddenly, on this particular occasion, there was a scurry. A snake had been seen. From then onward, throughout the movie, my feet were under my body on top of the bench. On another occasion in the bazaar, a Hindu snake charmer, angry because I had refused to pay for his show, held a live cobra by the tail, writhing almost in my face. When he accidentally lost hold of the snake and several Hindu men had it slither near their feet, I discovered that Indian men could be extremely volatile and most amusingly fluid of language.

At last, it was the morning of November 24th. At Golconda, rumours flew. Although thousands had now arrived for this darśan, it was said that Sri Aurobindo was ill and might find it impossible to appear. Then, at the last minute, we were told he was well enough. A long line led from the main building, around the block: people of every colour, every style of dress, government officials and high-ranking professors, young and old, from dozens of countries, wanted to see the philosopher-sage. Each of us finally climbed the stairs to the floor where, at the end of a long narrow room, Sri Aurobindo in white, and the Mother in a gold sari, sat side by side upon a slightly raised platform.

As a Westerner, the idea of merely passing by these two with nothing being said, had struck me as a bit ridiculous. I was still unfamiliar with the Hindu idea that such a silent meeting could afford an intensely spiritual impetus. I watched as I came up in line, and I noted that the procedure was to stand quietly before the two of them for a few silent moments, then to move on at a gesture from Sri Aurobindo. What happened next was completely unexpected.

As I stepped into a radius of about four feet, there was the sensation of moving into some kind of a force field. Intuitively, I knew it was the force of Love, but not what ordinary humans usually mean by the term. These two were "geared straight up"; they were not paying attention to me as ordinary parents might have done; yet, this unattachment seemed just the thing that healed. Suddenly, I loved them both, as spiritual "parents".

Then, all thought ceased, I was perfectly aware of where I was; it was not "hypnotism" as one Stanford friend later suggested. It was simply that during those few minutes, my mind became utterly still. It seemed that I stood there a very long, an uncounted time, for there was no time. Only many years later did I describe this experience as my having experienced the Timeless in Time. When there at the darśan, there was not the least doubt in my mind that I had met two people who had experienced what they claimed. They were Gnostic Beings. They had realised this new consciousness which Sri Aurobindo called the Supramental. Later, this same experience made me understand what Heidegger meant by "standing presence".

- Rhoda P. LeCocq

(The Radical Thinkers – Heidegger and Sri Aurobindo by Rhoda P. LeCocq, published by the Author, 1969, reprinted 1972, pp. 196–99)