There are many ways to die besides physical death.
On October 24, 1993, I receive the following fax from my old friend Micheline: “Enclosed is what I have just received from Satprem. Because of the strikes at Air France, the international mail is disrupted. So, first, I prefer to send it by fax, then, later, by regular mail.”
There followed the two-page letter that Satprem had sent her in his own handwriting:
I have just received three lines from Luc announcing the formation of his new grouping of American disciples. On a piece of paper dated from Chicago, Sept. 2, Luc had written, ‘American Laboratory for Evolutionary Research.’ Strangely, this Note of Luc’s was written on the back of an old issue of “The Auroville Gazette”…
We know of the Auroville mixtures and I am not sure what this American mixture will be — the usual mishmash.
“I therefore consider that our American Institute has ceased to exist in view of the new direction taken by Luc. We do not seek to form any group or gather disciples under any name whatsoever — we have only one Name, that of Mother and Sri Aurobindo, and their Work, which we are ready to spread everywhere, in whatever group, be it Aurovilian or American or what-have-you. I do not want the French Institute, or any other Institute, to be associated to those mixtures, even if we have good friends among them…
Accordingly, please tell Luc officially to take all measures for the closing of the American Institute with the American authorities.
I am sorry to put this unpleasant task on you, but everything becomes extremely difficult the moment Falsehood and human Mixtures set in.
I wish the best for Luc’s “laboratory”, but in the final analysis all depends upon the individuals’ simple Sincerity.
One can only become what he holds in his own heart.”
I wished the ground would swallow me up. Here is not the place to describe my state during the months following this summary execution. Essentially, I had become a gigantic question mark — WHY? — which replaced every organ in me, making me incapable of forming the least coherent thought about anything. If that question mark had not taken all the space inside me, I could have seen that despite its appearances of simplicity and even triviality, this letter was a little masterpiece that Machiavelli himself would not have disowned.
First, there was the extraordinary shallowness, not to say nullity, of the arguments proffered. Of course, at any time, he could have made me realized that I was on the wrong track with “my” laboratory, as he called it, that this was not the way to go. In spite of all good stated intentions, perhaps this project was excessive in its nature, bound to run into a wall? Had I ever refused to heed his advice or recommendations?
But the more vague and lacking in precision the arguments, the stronger the force of their suggestion. All it takes is an appropriate amount of big and thundering words (preferably capitalized) such as: Falsehood, Truth, Mixture, Sincerity, Work. And then the reader does the rest by extrapolating and filling the gaps left in the logic of the argument and supplying his own inner “spontaneous” convictions. (This is perhaps why any civilized justice endeavors to remove passion from the human debates and sentences, and to impose the rule of reason instead.)
But, after the failure of the two preceding eviction attempts (the move to Canada and the “pilfering” of the correspondence), what was really at stake here was to purge me smoothly, without waves, yet making sure that the “public opinion” (the group around him) was impressed with the seriousness of the transgression, a sin in “principle,” if not in facts. In that respect, this letter worked wonders — I did not even know myself what fault I had committed!
Yet the letter also contained flagrant instances of contradiction: “We do not seek to form any group…” — except, of course, the Institutes and related organizations that I, Satprem, have formed here and there in the world, on higher grounds and for higher purposes. There were also the ranting and ravings against the “American and Aurovilian mixtures” — as if no group, no human organization (including Auroville, deliberately founded by Mother), could ever find favor with him. He alone was sheltered from the corruption and erosion affecting human endeavors, for he alone held the right degree of “simple Sincerity, on which all depends.” Thus, under its good-nature exterior, this letter was really a monument of vainglory to the promotion of an “I” who certainly did have any qualms concerning excesses.
But its most important singularity was in its public display. At the time, I was appalled that he would send his letter through a third party — Micheline — instead of sending it directly, “man to man.” I saw cowardice in him, but not the calculation or the symbol. First, its public character made the conviction definitive and without appeal — one does not argue about his condemnation before the crowd gathered around the scaffold. Then it was a warning to the others: This is what awaits anyone who goes beyond the bounds of the “simple Sincerity” and forgets that “One can only become what he holds in his own heart.” Lastly, it was a way to tighten the group about him by involving its members and giving them their part of responsibility in the execution of the sentence.
It is poor Micheline who had to pass on the letter (“I am sorry to put this unpleasant task on you…”), and then get involved in every detail of its implementation. Less than a week later, the public dissemination of proofs of my duplicity began. All my friends, all those likely to question the suddenness of this decision — and especially Satprem’s seemingly abrupt reversal concerning me — were duly sent by mail a whole “folder” of some of my personal letters, which were supposed to establish my alleged treachery beyond the shadow of a doubt. As to the anonymous passers-by who might have heard rumors without factual support, they were invited to consult that same little “folder” in the Parisian bookstore which sold Mother’s books… A few months later, the more loyal members of the group (including Patrice) would have to append their signature at the bottom of the legal document officially excluding me from the Institute. Nothing was left to chance to dislodge the spoilsport, while tightening and strengthening the little core of the lucky survivors.
In conclusion, an execution with a symbolic value — a sort of sacrifice — long-prepared and masterly implemented, with the unconscious participation of a manipulated “public opinion,” which at worst rejoiced to see a little blood letting brighten up the ordinary, but mostly whose “primeval purity” found itself reaffirmed by this expiatory sacrifice on the altar of Truth, as defined and maintained by Satprem. And then, to say it plainly, one was not so displeased oneself to have escaped disaster…
As for the expiatory victim himself, he was hardly in a position to react or even to think. Not only was there no question of protesting one’s innocence (for that would have at least required to know the terms of the accusation), but any request for explanation was out of the question. Every one knew that Satprem was too “fragile” to read, not to mention answer, his mail — all the more so when it was “unpleasant.” So where to turn? To whom? My telephone was no longer ringing. The silence of my former friends and comrades was deafening about me. No one dared to take the pains or liberty to ask for my version of what happened — and to be interested in my reply. The oddest part is that I probably would not have found the words to explain anything, as if the question of my innocence or culpability was moot, already long settled outside me. There was NOTHING to say other than to live the process.
Nevertheless, a few hiccups occurred when it came to implement the details of the sentence. Satprem had demanded that we leave everything from one day to the next — the stock of books, the mailing lists, the legal and administrative management of the American Institute — so that Micheline could take over from Paris. (“I continue to think that you will take the true path thanks to this trial…,” he wired me, probably to encourage me…) But what was easy on paper was not so simple in reality. In particular, Susie’s family had generously contributed to the Institute’s development and to the publication of the books in the United States since 1980. Although the greatest part of this contribution had been written as a donation in the account books, another part could not be so assimilated because of legal restrictions on donations, and therefore still remained as a debt in the books. These legal constraints could not be made to disappear by fiat. And perhaps this was for the better, for at least on this point Susie and I refused to submit and to abandon the stock of books into Micheline’s hands. Thus all the Institute’s operations stopped, but Mother’s Agenda continued to be distributed in America.
Because we had not given up on every point, Satprem must have felt we needed further proofs of his earnestness. A few months later, we began to receive impressive-looking letters from a Paris attorney. Mr. Okoshken, of the Paris and New York bars, was kindly sending me the legal statement of my official expulsion from the French Institute, along with a personal letter enumerating all the troubles that my alleged tax-related lapses to the American I.R.S. could lead me into. He was enjoining me to send him by return mail a full, signed acceptance of my expulsion and of its related conclusions, failing which, my “refusal to cooperate” would set off a whole train of unpleasant measures and investigation with the American authorities. Naturally, it was all braggadocio, but still sufficiently unpleasant that we could not ignore it.
A grace must have been there with us, for at the very moment when we had to face this legal assault ordered by Satprem from India and paid for by Micheline, it is India that came to our rescue in the person of H., a former student of the Ashram school, who had just opened an attorney’s office in California after completing brilliant legal studies. He soon sized up the baseless legal harassment to which we were being subjected and offered to defend us free of charge. Thus Mr. Okoshken received all the answers to his questions, plus more questions for him to answer, and on and on. Time went by. Another American attorney, Mr. Stone, from Stamford, Connecticut, was hired to help his Parisian colleague. Micheline’s money was swelling the attorneys’ money bag… The whole ridiculous hot-air bubble, whose only purpose was to scare us, eventually died its own death. Appearances were kept. Satprem could pride himself to have acted like a great general, with skill and determination.
On January 6, 1994, I wrote him a long, personal letter in which I spelled out what I thought of his appalling accusations, from the “pilfering” of his correspondence to the gathering of “my” group of American disciples — a letter that ended in a farewell: “I am leaving you for this life — with no ill feelings and no regrets.” Later, I learned that he had never read my letter — Sujata had censored it because it contained “nasty” things about him.
Then, on March 7, 1995, more than a year later, as his lawyers in Paris and Connecticut were still busy brandishing their legal stick, I received one last letter-carrot from Satprem. He quite simply invited me to reenter the Institute and start over again as if nothing had happened — provided, of course, I yield with good grace. My accepting his proposal would be the sign that I had learned the lesson, and understood who was the boss. That he would sincerely believe that a few pages of the same stale catechism could wipe out all the malaise and frustration which had accumulated between us for years, may be more telling than anything else about his own sense of reality.