I surrender, I have no other word to express it
Extract of Tekeste's words from an article in Auroville Today
(Tekeste came to India at the beginning of 1966 as a diplomat attached to the Ethiopian Embassy in New Delhi. He befriended some people who were brought up in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram.)
They told me about The Mother and Sri Aurobindo and about the new project, Auroville. I told them about my Ethiopian guru Father Woldestensai, a Coptic Christian who, with his exceptional powers, healed thousands of people, the blind, the dumb, the deaf and the mentally ill, in the name of God with prayers and sprinklings of holy water.
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I heard again about Auroville sometime in 1967, when the Ethiopian Embassy received an invitation to participate in the foundation ceremony of Auroville. The Ethiopian authorities told us to participate, but it did not happen for some reason. But we did manage to send some Ethiopian soil and our flag, ensuring a symbolic participation. Knowing already about Sri Aurobindo and The Mother I was eager to see Auroville for myself. I asked the blessings of my guru to visit this spiritual place and asked him to be with me in spirit. I came to Auroville on the 27th February, 1968 one day before Auroville's first birthday celebrations. I participated in the celebrations and somehow I got the holy spirit of the place. I was extraordinarily happy and so inspirited that for about four days I wrote down many important ideas about the future of Ethiopia which the spirit revealed to me. Then the holy spirit inside me asked me, 'How do you feel,' and I said, 'I surrender, I have no other word to express it.'
Contact with The Mother
I had an appointment to see the Divine Mother. But the evening before the appointment something strange happened. I saw a young girl passing by, my thoughts wandered off, and suddenly I realized that the inner light had been switched off. All the happiness was
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gone. I questioned myself what had happened, trying to recall the sweet memory of the earlier days. But a force covered my mind, obliterating the memory. It told me to tear up everything I had written, which I did, and then asked me if I was going to betray my guru, or Mother Mary, or my country's religion? Then, leaving me to my choices, the force kept quiet.
I tried to understand what had happened. I told myself that the spirit that had been with me for four days was an Indian God, and that the one who was talking to me now was the Ethiopian God who wished to save me from this situation. Then I decided not to meet Mother. I told the person who would bring me to Her that I, being an Ethiopian, respected spiritual and old people and that I came here to get a blessing from an old spiritual person, but I had not come here to find God. This was reported to Mother who said that it was a good reaction and sent Her blessings through some rose flowers.
I returned to New Delhi and there, once again, asked myself what had happened to me when I was in the Ashram. Then I realized that the first spirit was the holy spirit, the true light, but the second spirit was the vital power which we call the devil. Then I wrote to the Divine Mother that I had now understood, that I was extremely happy, and that I wished my country to be the second country to support this wonderful idea of Auroville. The moment I posted that letter I felt the true light of the holy spirit coming down once again. I also wrote to the Ethiopian Emperor Hailie Selassie and to my guru. The Emperor replied praising The Mother to carry out such a wonderful project at Her age. My guru answered that all that was revealed to me was from the True Light from the Holy Spirit and he asked me to ask the Divine Mother to pray for him. Soon afterwards Mother sent me Her blessings and expressed that She wanted to see me soon. And indeed I was fortunate to meet Her three or four times a year for the next five years.
On the occasion of my birthday in 1969, I presented the Mother with a gift, a wooden artifact with Mother's photo on one side, Sri Aurobindo's on the other and in between a silver cross. It was
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only much later that I came to know that Mother had spoken to Satprem about this gift (see Agenda IX, P.407, eds.). She said that as soon as She saw this, like an answer in the form of a massive descent, the will came to transform Christianity. She added that the vibration was so powerful that She felt that the transformation was being done. In that same talk with Satprem She explains that the cross is the symbol of transformation, Matter (transversal) penetrated by the Spirit; and the junction is the transformation. Of course I knew nothing of this at the time.
Courtesy: Auroville Today
(Tekeste has served as an Ethiopian diplomat from November 1959 up to August 1993. He is living in Auroville since 1999.)
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