The last incident, which would trigger the final explosion, has to do with my relationship with America and more particularly with Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s American disciples. As I said earlier, we lived in America with the feeling that it was proper to remain somewhat aloof, as if we had a distinctive, unique identity, never to be absorbed in humanity at large — what I called “the Satpremian schism.” In fact, Satprem never missed an opportunity to remind us of the difference between us and the others by denouncing, for example, “the American mixture” or even the “Aurovilian mixture,” as will appear later in this story. The exact limits and extent of this “mixture” is something he evidently left to his own appreciation and mood of the moment. But as time went by, the “mixture” covered more and more ground, ultimately to include everything and everyone in its scope.
Yet, toward the beginning of this year 1993, Sujata had taken the exact opposite position to that attitude of division as she wrote to me:
How do you communicate with others ? Through newsletters? Sitting behind your computer? Well, it came to me that the best way to communicate is to have direct, personal contact with people. So why not go out and meet people? Talk with them. Listen to them. Speak to them. Speak, do not lecture…
Now, Luc, may I ask you a question? All these twelve years that you are in the States, how many personal friends have you made? How many personal contacts in all these years? Go out and about?
Sujata’s wishes were going to be fulfilled beyond her wildest imagination! Her piece of advice was all the more welcome since the new environment of our little island had made me more keenly aware of our isolation. Thus I decided to come in closer contact with the American disciples, notably with those living in the Colorado area. There, around Seyril, one of the first Matrimandir workers in Auroville, people from the four corners of the United States used to gather each summer to celebrate Sri Aurobindo’s birthday. Susie and I decided to attend.
To my great surprise, not only were we warmly received, but I could sense that our hosts felt our presence as bringing them also closer to Satprem, as if by this simple gesture toward them, they felt included in the activities of the Agenda in their country — and even in Satprem’s own interior endeavor. Their receptivity and enthusiasm were a breath of fresh air and filled me with hope. Here is something truly concrete and positive, I thought. After the long, arid months of misunderstanding, of distorted or misconstrued efforts, I felt that the simple and spontaneous adherence of a group of “ordinary” Americans represented a good omen, a tangible proof that the United States was open, receptive to the forces of the future. I sensed a truly warm current of sympathy passing among us, without ulterior motives or calculations, merely as the recognition of a common feeling, a common aspiration among people who meet to share what connects them naturally to one another.
We decided to meet again soon. We wanted to try to cement our coming together by a common project or undertaking on American soil. So a few months later this informal little group of people met in Chicago. And this is where I suddenly remembered that, many years ago, while founding the French Institute in Paris, Satprem had mentioned a future possibility of “Laboratories for Evolutionary Research” in which, he then said, a few human beings could voluntarily and consciously lend themselves to putting into practice Mother’s findings. Indeed, what bound us was nothing less than a corporeal experience of Yoga, as Mother had lived and described it in her Agenda — and especially as Satprem himself seemed recently to experience. This “New Being” had to start somewhere, from something. How to ignore the extraordinary hope Satprem had awakened by his own breakthrough? Were we out of our league or out of our mind? Was it fanciful on our part to envision such a “program”, just like that, simply, among “ordinary” people? At the time, it seemed absolutely normal and natural, and there was a lovely light, and even an unusual feeling of power, whenever we gathered our aspiration together in our meditations…
In order to identify what had so spontaneously brought us together, I found a name for this little group — American Laboratory for Evolutionary Research — whose nature had to remain informal and outside any legal structure. I even wrote a few words to define its purpose — “In search of the future of the human species.” Then I sent the whole thing to Satprem with the following note: “Since August 15, a few American disciples have gathered around this aspiration for corporeal transformation. With love.”
I had just signed my own death warrant.