Memories of First Darshan

Moments That Do Not Fade

I left Belgium on the 17th of January 1970 — now 38 years ago. I flew via Frankfurt. 17th of January: the airport was white, under the snow. We flew through the night on a Boeing 707 of which the name was Lhotse, one of the high mountain tops in the Himalayas, I'll never forget that name. Then we landed in Bombay, 5 o'clock in the morning, 30 degrees centigrade — hot sunshine! Another world. Then Madras. There I had to take a bus. At that time, 38 years ago, there were not so many buses as there are today. Then I arrived in Pondicherry, in a state of shock. I did not even know whether my luggage was on top of the bus or not. But luckily it was there. Then I landed in a small hotel at the seaside that is no longer there, just next to the Ashram Press. And after I had put my luggage in my room, I threw my jacket over my shoulder and went out to see the Ashram.

In my head the Ashram was a white building with a palm tree next to it under a blue sky. Whether the Mother was there or not, I didn't know. So I started walking. There is a church nearby there, and in front of that church was a European lady talking with somebody. A very fashionably dressed lady, in shorts and well made up. So I asked her: "Where is that Ashram here somewhere?" She answered in English with an accent. I said: "Oh, you are French!" "Well, yes," she said. "See, you go on and you come to the Consulate with the French flag, and there you go to the left and you will see the Ashram." So I did. It was a Sunday afternoon, very quiet. You didn't see many people in the street at that time. I entered the School courtyard, the gate was open. And there I saw all those timetables signed by the Mother, with that very specific signature. I thought: "Where on earth am I!" All at once a voice behind me said: "Are you looking for something?" It was the voice of a young Frenchman, Jean Pierre, who afterwards became Guruprasad. He is still in Auroville — Goupi. "I'll take you to the Ashram," he said. But I understood 'La Chambre' instead of 'L'Ashram'. So I thought: "Oh, there must be a holy room here somewhere." And I went with him. He took me across the street, through a gate. There, on the chairs known so well by all of you, sat four old, grey-bearded people. It looked as if that was the entrance to heaven with St. Peter and other saints. Then Goupi asked somebody: "When can he meet him and where?" (I had asked Goupi to meet the only person whose name I knew.) Behind my back, somebody answered, the same woman's voice I had heard in front of the church. I turned around and there was that same lady, no longer in shorts and fashionably dressed, but in a long white robe, holding a plate full of flowers! I thought: "What is going on here?!" I didn't realise that I stood in the Ashram because I thought Goupi was taking me to 'La Chambre'. (That impressive-looking lady in the long robe and with the flowers was, as I found out later on, none other than Pournaprema, then still called Françoise, the Mother's granddaughter.) "You can have an appointment with the person you are looking for at the seaside around five o'clock," she said, and disappeared around the corner of the building.

I had the appointment, and afterwards I found a room in Goyle's New Guest House in the Rue Suffren. There I heard that the Mother was still alive and that one could meet Her. You had to put your letter to Her in the box that is still there at the Ashram entrance. I was told: "You go and put your letter to the Mother in that box." Unbelievable but true, for three days I turned around the central Ashram building, asking everybody: "In God's name, where is that Ashram?" Even though Prithwi Singh (I got to know who he was afterwards), who was sitting there in the balcony street, told me: "It is here," I didn't believe him! In my opinion the entrance gate was too small to be that of the Ashram of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo. So when finally I found the box and was putting my letter in it, a miracle happened: behind me stood again that same Frenchman I had met that Sunday afternoon. I asked, rather vexedly: "Can you tell me at last: where is the Ashram?" He said: "But you are in the Ashram! Come with me and see." In a French magazine I had seen a photo of the Samadhi and behind the Samadhi a kind of tiled roof, the one in front of Nirodbaran's room. Therefore I had thought to myself: "If I see the Samadhi and that roof behind it, I am in the Ashram." And he took me to the Samadhi and I saw that roof and I knew that I was in the Ashram.

I dropped my letter to the Mother and She sent me in Her own handwriting an answer brought to the guest house by Suresh Joshi, who was Her messenger. The Mother's answer was — I still have the letter — : "You can come . . ." — it was in French — "You can come . . . mais ce sera une entrevue silencieuse — it will be a silent meeting." What did that mean? I had already had so much trouble to write my letter! For what should I write — 'Madame'? 'Mother'? I had strong inhibitions against writing Mother! I had had a mother and she was dead! I have kept that letter because the Mother had written Her answer at the bottom of it. She invited me to go and meet Her.

On the day I went to meet the Mother a kind of ceremony took place in Goyle's guest house. But see, a lot of flowers were laid out before me; from those I had to choose some to take them to the Mother. I was not a flower man, for me such things meant nothing but sentimentality. All the guests in the guest house were standing behind my back to see which flowers I would choose. I failed the test miserably. I had chosen some flowers which I had found very beautiful — but I had not chosen Humility, which to me looked more like a herb than a flower. Then Michou (the Canadian girl whom some of you may remember and whom I met 35 years later in Montreal) took me through the park to the Mother's room.

After some time Champaklal called my name and I went in. What was I to do? What do you do when you come in front of . . . I had no more than a vague idea of who the Mother was . . . what do you do when you come in front of such a Being? For in the meantime I had seen people meditating on the wall at the seaside, I had seen people on their belly at the Samadhi, I had seen people in all postures of religiosity and meditation and all that — I felt very much disoriented and insecure. So I went through that door of the Mother's room, known to all of you, and what did I see? I saw that very thin arm of the Mother resting on the armrest of Her chair. And I went in front of Her. . . and the rest I cannot tell, because I don't know. And when I came to myself again, there was the face of the Mother, smiling, giving me one packet of blessings, and then a second one.

Some time after I had left the Mother's room, "it" started working in the body, in the spine, in the subtle body. And since I didn't want to be in the guest house with all those chattering visitors at that time, I walked by the seaside for some time, with tears in my eyes. Then I lay down, still with tears in my eyes. Something decisive had happened. I am such a naive fellow that everything that has happened in my life, spiritually, I have understood only afterwards. And I am happy for this because, if you try to interpret things at the very moment that they are happening, you distort them. You give them a fixed shape in your thought, which is how you will remember them.

You know where I got the explanation of what happened between the Mother and me on that 29th of January, 1970? I got it in a Temple of Freemasons in Ghent, a town in Belgium. I had given a talk in that Temple and after the talk I had conversations with many of those Freemasons. They were very interested. They were judges, professors, lawyers, priests, doctors. . . They were extremely open and interested. And when I told them the experience which I have just told you, one of them said: "Oh! That is the initiation." Later I read what the Mother had said in one of Her conversations: "What I call initiation is when a person meets me and recognises me." I suppose that in those seconds or eternities I have recognised something which I had known for a long time and which is always with me.

- Georges Van Vrekhem

(Remembering the Mother with Gratitude, published by Sri Aurobindo Centre for Advanced Research, 2003, pp. 95–99. Revised by the author)