It would have been easier to remain silent. In fact, this is what I had originally decided to do. After all, my story is first and foremost my own. And too, my experiences with Satprem are the result of a destiny which I claim as personal and private, and of a course of action which led me to a goal which was my own and did not concern anybody but me.
But Patrice’s death changed everything.
Patrice died in 2006. To my shock and utter horror, I learned that he had thrown himself from the 6th floor of his apartment building in Paris. I felt this loss to be my own. His death affected my personal world far too deeply and directly for me to remain silent. This was not a news item that I could shelve and summarily dismiss, and allow to vanish into oblivion.
I had first met “Little Patrice” in Auroville some thirty years before, shortly after his arrival from France. His face constantly lit with a half-mocking smile, he, like myself, had followed Satprem. His body now lay amidst the trash-cans at the foot of his building. His sole epitaph was merely a leaden silence from Satprem and a few cold words from Sujata.
A critical threshold had thus been crossed; a point of no return had been reached, compelling me to break my silence. Nor would any “explanation” explain anything: the theories about “Patrice’s Karma” or “Patrice’s fault” would not appease the gnawing pain within me.
To you, Patrice, I dedicate these lines. Even if no one understands the “reasons” for your suicide, I know the torment you endured, and which finally broke you — because the very same torment almost got the better of me, too.