Atheist—Will
for Perfection
…
Because I was an outright atheist: till the age of twenty,
the very idea of God made me furious. Therefore I had the
most solid base—no imaginings, no mystic atavism; my
mother was very much an unbeliever and so was my father.
So from the point of view of atavism it was very good: positivism,
materialism. Only one thing: since I was very small, a will
for perfection in any field whatever; a will for perfection
and the sense of a limitless consciousness—no limits
to one's progress or to one's power or to one's scope. And
that, since I was very small. But mentally, an absolute
refusal to believe in a "God": I believed only
in what I could touch and see. And the whole faculty for
experiences was already there (they didn't manifest because
the time hadn't come). Only, the sense of a Light here (gesture
above the head), which began when I was very small,
I was five, along with a will for perfection. A will for
perfection: oh, whatever I did always had to be the best
I could do. And then, a limitless consciousness. These two
things. And my return to the Divine came about through Théon's
teaching, when I was told for the first time, "The
Divine is within, there"(Mother strikes her breast).
Then I felt at once, "Yes, this is it." Then I
did all the work that's taught to find Him again; and through
here (gesture to the heart centre) I went there
(gesture of junction above with the Supreme). But
outwardly, mentally, no religion - a horror of religions.
...
26
March 1966
....
At
the age of eighteen, I remember having such an intense need
in me to KNOW…. Because I was having experiences—I
had all kinds of experiences—but surroundings offered
me no chance to receive an intellectual knowledge, which
would have given me the meaning of it all: I couldn't even
speak of them. I was having experience after experience….
For years, I had experiences during the night (but I was
very careful never to speak about them!)—memories about
past lives, all sorts of things, but without any base of
intellectual knowledge. (Of course, the advantage of this
was that my experiences were not mentally contrived; they
were entirely spontaneous.) But I had such a NEED in me
to know! … I remember living in a house (one of those
houses with a lot of apartments), and in the apartment next
door were some Catholics whose faith was very… they
were very convinced. And seeing all that, I remember saying
to myself one day while brushing my hair, 'these people
are lucky to be born into a religion and believe unquestioningly!
It's so easy! You have nothing to do but believe—how
simple that makes it.' I was feeling like this, and then
when I realized what I was thinking (laughing), well, I
gave myself a good scolding: ' Lazybones!'
To
know, know, KNOW! … You see, I knew nothing, really,
nothing but the things of ordinary life: external knowledge.
I had learned everything I had been given to learn. I not
only learned what I was taught but also what my brother
was taught—higher mathematics and all that! I learned
and I learned and I learned—and it was NOTHING. None
of it explained anything to me—nothing. I couldn't
understand a thing!
To
know! ….
It was to happen to me two years later when I met someone
who told me of Théon's teaching.
When I was told that the Divine was within—the teaching
of the Gita, but in words understandable to a Westerner—that
there was an inner Presence, that one carried the Divine
within oneself, oh! … What a revelation! In a few minutes,
I suddenly understood all, all, all. Understood everything.
It brought the contact instantly.
....
29
April 1961
- The mother
