Introduction
It is written that one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is ‘speaking in tongues,’ that is, finding for each being the language that will be able to open their heart and enliven their soul.
A true spiritual master has worked for a very long time to receive this gift of pure, selfless love—a love that resurrects, enlightens, and helps both individuals and multitudes to flourish.
Arouna L.
My First Meeting with the Master
January 27, 1980, in the afternoon.
[…] At exactly 3:15 p.m., the time of my appointment, I ring the bell with a light touch.
[…] The Master invites me in.
He is radiant with vitality, impeccably elegant in a navy-blue silk caftan worn over a white shirt. He leads me into a small sitting room and, with a courteous gesture, invites me to sit down. The class of a man of the world!
“Let us meditate.”
[…] He has already withdrawn behind his closed eyelids. All right, let us meditate. I close my eyes. Taking flight is the phrase that most closely describes the sensation of lightness I immediately experience.
I remain conscious, though transported into an immensity of light where I converse with him. This silent conversation is very strange, I tell myself, while noting that it really is taking place. […] We open our eyes again at the same moment, returning to a normality that suddenly seems no more normal to me than the silent phase of our conversation. All the questions I had prepared in the preceding weeks have vanished.
He smiles kindly at me:
“You are a true Hindu.”
What does he mean by that?
“Well, I have an Indian master, Swami V.”
It is banal, but it is all I can think of to say.
Silence.
The wrong answer? To what question? I begin to feel stupid. He continues smiling at me. So what if I am a true Hindu? The answer seems so obvious to him that I cannot bring myself to ask my question aloud.
He then begins to explain the essence of his teaching. I listen politely but hear nothing, too absorbed by the sensation taking hold of me. I feel enveloped in a flow of pure kindness. Loved, without knowing either how or why.
Is it normal for people like them to love everyone automatically? The Swami gives the same impression to everyone who approaches him. Yet the feeling is not the same. The Swami radiates a love that seems plugged into an electrical outlet, and when he chooses to be distant, it is as though he switches off the power. This Master gives off a love like the fragrance emanating from a luxuriant garden of roses. One cannot help but breathe it in. How can one describe the feeling of being loved by a fragrance? Warm, gentle, good, magnetic. SIMPLE. As these thoughts pass through my mind, I suddenly realize that, beyond the words he is speaking, I can hear the meaning of what he is telling me.
The telepathic experience strangely continues within the spoken exchange.
The words say something like: “In the past, all spiritual disciplines aimed at nirvana, at transcendent enlightenment.”
The words continue: “The symbol of the evolutionary process intended to attain mental enlightenment and detachment is the triangle pointing upward. You know that, don’t you?”
Yes. Perhaps… I suppose… […] For a very brief moment, I am tempted to analyze the question in my head. But something in the telepathic dimension urges me to let it go.
“Everyone wants to be enlightened,” the Master continues aloud. “That is good. But God did not create this earth to see His children floating in a state of nirvana and, in that spiritual bliss, detaching themselves from the rest of the world and from their fellow human beings.”
“My teaching is that of the downward-pointing triangle. You must understand that today a spiritual evolution of involution is needed—a descent. It is matter, beginning with our bodies, that must be enlightened today. The mind is luminous enough in itself, don’t you think?”
At the stage I have reached, the only thing I am thinking is that I need to completely rethink my idea of what thinking is.
“To become enlightened in the initiatory approach to spirituality, one must succeed in bringing the spirit down into matter. That is the true realization of the spirit, of the Self spoken of by the Hindus: bringing light into our thoughts, our feelings, our actions, and into every cell of our bodies. We must live heaven on earth, light in matter and in our lives. That is how we will be able to contribute to the creation of a new earth—a world in which people will live in peace and in the spirit of universal brotherhood. To achieve this, you must understand what marriage is.”
Marriage? I am all ears.
“We must understand how to unite our masculine principle, symbolically represented by the downward-pointing triangle, with our feminine principle, the upward-pointing triangle. When these two triangles are united, love and light merge.”
Love and light! The warmth of kindness and intellectual clarity. The magnetism of the heart and the electricity of the brain. So that was the explanation for the very particular electromagnetic field in which I had been immersed since my arrival.
In his subtle, vibrational way, he had just revealed to me that, in the most secret chambers of my soul, I burned with the desire to penetrate the mystery of this marriage between the feminine and the masculine.
“Would you like to be in my heart?”
I was startled.
What exactly is he asking me? If I want to be in his heart: what does that mean? And for the first time in my life, I do not care at all about understanding. If being in his heart has anything to do with the possibility of remaining in contact with this fire that warms without burning, that illuminates without blinding, then of course I want to be in his heart.
“Yes, of course.”
That is all I manage to stammer. He smiles, visibly happy—indeed joyful, like a child can be. All because I said yes.
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes, I want to be in his heart!
The Master rises to see me out. We had taken a few steps when he suddenly stopped and said to me: “The only thing you have to overcome is fear.” Fear! What fear? I had no desire to think about it, more interested in the tone in which he had spoken those words. There was not the slightest hint of threat, criticism, or warning. On the contrary, his warm tone expressed the certainty that he trusted me and that he would be there, if I wished, to help and support me toward a victory that seemed beyond any doubt to him.
Excerpt from Arouna Lipschitz’s book, “Tell Me If I’m Getting Close” — p. 177 — paperback edition, J’ai Lu
Bertrand L.
“… This time my soul had overcome my shyness—I took the plunge!
The first meeting with the Master remains one of the most precious moments of our lives. On my first day at lzgrev (the center of his school near Paris), I went to the lecture the Master was giving that Sunday. Then I was received by the Master in his small room. So many things happen then in the invisible worlds! The first meeting lies beyond words, time, and space. It takes place far beyond the plane of consciousness and the physical plane; it is sacred and magical. In India, it is said that it is not the disciple who chooses the master: it is the master who calls the disciple when the time has come.
[…] …The first year unfolded in an incredible way. Discovering a new way of thinking, behaving, and loving—everything made me live beyond time. Gifts kept pouring down without end, and my consciousness traveled into regions still unexplored for me. Later, I understood that these were also like lights given to me, to let me see what awaited us all along the path. I felt like a newborn in this world and saw only beauty everywhere—the beauty that drew me in. I believe that this is what protected me at first, because I lacked the knowledge and experience to see human nature in its different aspects. One must be strong to see things as they really are; that is why clairvoyance can be such a burden!
How can one describe those intense moments spent at the summer congresses, constantly immersed in the Master’s aura? Words are not enough to describe the atmosphere that carried us through both day and night. I felt as though I were on a great white sailing ship, with the captain steering it toward ever-new, ever-more-beautiful horizons. I had the impression of being immersed in a river of life of such lightness; the water penetrated me to the depths of every cell, every atom, breathing into them life, enthusiasm, and Christ-like white light.
Whether in the sometimes difficult work—maintaining the buildings, construction, farming, preparing meals—or in the meditations, the songs, the silences in the great hall, the meals eaten in silence, and the lectures the Master gave us several times a day, everything came together in perfect harmony in his presence: it was life manifesting itself, full and whole. He spoke to us of the new life that must come for all humanity, and we had the happiness of tasting it in advance, so that we might know its flavor and thus be able to bear witness to it.”
Excerpt from Testimonies: Paths of Awakening” — p. 99 — Ariane Editions, 2016
Annie
« It was in July 1965 that I met the Master for the first time, at Bonfin. I had just turned 20. The being I discovered bore no resemblance at all to what I had imagined: someone sparing in gesture and speech, with eyes turned inward, barely tasting the food placed before him. He, on the other hand, was sparing neither in gesture nor in speech; his gaze was direct and, though very moderate in his eating, whenever he ate, he did so with appetite and conviction.
In photographs, many Hindu sages have an almost feminine countenance. His expression, by contrast, had something forceful, masculine about it—something which, on the first day, I almost experienced as a kind of violence. On the second day I thought: this is not violence; it is life. On the third day, I met his gaze… a gaze of such gentleness! I then told myself that I would have to change my whole conception of a spiritual Master.
I am often asked: ‘You, who knew him for so long, what was the Master like?’ I answer that one had to go beyond appearances in order to discover the many aspects of the life that emanated from him: it was purity, humility, beauty, intelligence, energy, simplicity, love, poetry. It was nourished by an entire world unknown to us—a world of light, infinite space, archangels, solar spirits… One could feel his inspiration rising and descending nimbly through the levels of the universe, drinking from a mysterious source. Like a waterfall, he splashed those around him with glimmers, droplets of love, flashes of rainbow. It was all the freshness of a radiant dawn, a sparkling sun of new life. The Master was alive. And he is still alive. »
In Béatrice Lejbowicz, “Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov, or the Spirit of Brotherhood,” Chapter 2 (Prosveta Editions, 2019)
Carmen F.
« One day, after sunrise, as every morning, the Master was coming down from the Rock of Prayer, where we would go to meditate early in the morning. He would take the time to stop and speak with a few brothers and sisters, or to receive the drawings made by the children.
On that particular day, he stood in front of me without saying a word, and his gaze penetrated to the very depths of my being. It was as though he could see my entire life from A to Z. Inwardly, I heard: ‘What have you been doing all this time? Come on, get to work!’ And I replied, ‘OK, OK, I’ll get started.’ It was so clear that I even wondered whether I had answered out loud or not. The questions and answers seemed to overlap within me.
Over the following days, I made a greater effort to focus on the sunrises and to practise the exercises recommended in the book on the subject, The Splendors of Tiphareth, whose explanations help one do inner work during this morning meditation. I remained well centered and watched my thoughts closely. Every morning, I tried to catch the Master’s eye to see whether he was pleased with my progress, but there was no sign. Certainly no encouragement for the ego!
After a good week, he passed in front of me while coming down from the Rock and slightly nodded his head without even looking me in the eyes. It was a very impersonal sign, as if he were saying, ‘Very good, continue,’ with no consideration whatsoever for the ego. »
Excerpt from Testimonies: Paths of Awakening” — p. 75, Éditions Ariane, 2016
Une mère
« In July 1981, several dozen Norwegians traveled to Bonfin for the first time. I had discovered the Master’s teaching in June and decided to accompany them, hoping that he would be that exceptional being who appeared to me through his books. But knowing how rare it is to meet a true Initiate, I remained somewhat reserved.
One afternoon, the Master invited our entire group into his garden. By chance, I was standing beside a sister who, at one point, showed him a photograph of two children, four or five years old, playing together. She pointed out which one was her son so that he could bless him.
‘What is his name?’ the Master asked.
She told him.
‘And the name of the other child?’
‘That is not important,’ she replied. ‘He is only one of his friends,’ and she repeated her son’s name.
‘But tell me the name of the other child as well.’
She seemed surprised that he was interested in the other child, but then she answered.
He then put the photograph into the left pocket of his jacket—close to his heart. Since there were gestures he avoided making in public, he most likely blessed both children when he returned home. »
In Béatrice Lejbowicz, Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov or the Spirit of Fraternity, chapter 13 (Prosveta Editions, 2019)
Un rêve
« I was 26 when the Master asked me to take the place of the elderly sister [who was responsible for our fraternal group], for whom this duty had become too burdensome. And I soon became aware of the difficulties.
There was no denying it: all the members of our group cared deeply about contributing to its proper functioning; but each had their own temperament and preferences, which did not always harmonize with those of the others, and every detail of communal life could become the subject of endless discussions. Taken individually, each person was perfect—or almost! But how could all these ‘perfections’ be brought into harmony? Sometimes, on the verge of discouragement, I was ready to speak to the Master so that he could tell me what I should do. But I immediately thought: ‘No. If he has given you this responsibility, it is because he considers you capable of handling it. You must not burden him further; he already has enough concerns of this kind. It is up to you to find solutions.’
Then one night I had this dream. The Master appeared to me, immense, and within his open chest an infinite number of human beings were gathered: he carried them all within himself, enveloping them in a very gentle light. Among this crowd, I suddenly recognized all the brothers and sisters who belonged to the centre for which I was responsible. Even those who gave me the most trouble were there. The Master welcomed them too into his heart.
Then everything became clear. When I awoke from this dream, I understood that from then on I must focus on this image; it showed me that, like him, I should strive to welcome each person into my heart and place them in the infinite love of the Universal Soul.
Was it the Master who, without my speaking to him about it, had sensed my difficulties and communicated to me through this dream a protection, a strength that I did not possess?… »