Francis
(Francis:) “So then in 1975 when the revolution began, Savitra and I got quit notices. Just the fact that they wanted to throw me out, made me want to stay all that much more. I probably would have wandered off myself if they didn't do that to me. The divine play of things. So we were thrown out.”[1]
(Francis:) “I came back into Auroville and got into what I call the Joan of Arc syndrome, where you are fighting for the truth, and then... somewhere around 1978 I ran out of money. I just had no money at all. I came in after an all-night concreting into a little hut I was living in and kicked over a kerosene lamp, and the glass broke all over my bed, and the kerosene... I said okay, that's it! I am not eating this food, I am not in the sun all day, I have to get electricity, that's it. I had to borrow money for a plane ticket to get me back into America.
I thought it would take me a maximum of one year to get refinanced. But I discovered when I was in America that the Mother gave me something that I could least afford to have. And that was a conscience. Up to that point I never had a conscience. If it was good for me, it was good; if it was bad for me, it was bad. Very simple. Life was easy. All of a sudden I found myself saying, “Oh I can't do that, that's not right, I don't want to get involved with that,” and stuff like that, so it made the refinancing thing much more difficult. Also I was out of America for about thirteen years, and the whole price structure changed, what cost 50 was now 500. The one who saved me actually was Lila. Lila and I were living together at the time. Lila insisted that everything I did was legal. So this restricted me. And the conscience. The two things really were terrible, definitely a burden. So it took eight years before I had sufficient funds.
We were moving all over America. I couldn't fit in anywhere. I was an outsider all the time, and one day Lila came to me and said, “I want to go somewhere. I have been following you all over the country for the last eight years (we lived in ten, twelve different places), I want you to come with me now.” (I used to walk in the door and tell her: pack up, we are going to Virginia, we are going to California, we are going to New Mexico). But this time she said, “My turn.”
“Okay,” I said, “where do you want to go?”
“I want to go to Auroville.”
“No, no, any place but Auroville!”
We had fights over this, then she said: “Listen, one year. We will go to Auroville just for one year.”
I said okay.
But we had to sell the house, we couldn't carry the mortgage on this house for one year. The market was down, as it is today. My brother-in-law came to me and said, “Hey, what are you doing? You are moving to India?” Ten days later a guy knocks on the door: “I want to buy your house.” I put everything out there to block him. I insisted on this and on that, but he just sat there nodding his head. I did everything to discourage him, but he hung on, really hung on, and so finally I sold him the house. Lila and I got on an airplane and we had this stopover in Hawaii, and I said (tempter's voice) “Lila, look at this place! Come on!”
“Auroville. You promised.”
“Okay, okay.”
So we got into Auroville at about 3 o'clock in the morning, after a terrible ride down in an Ambassador car, exhausted. I got out of the taxi and I instantly knew that I wasn't going anywhere. I wasn't going anywhere, I was here. And from that time to this time, the one emotion that keeps coming forth is gratitude, that I have been allowed to be here. I really feel that... yes, grateful.
- (Interviewer:) Even now?
Mostly now. Yes, absolutely, every day. It radiates of that, of gratitude, to have this experience. You have to understand. Basically, you see, I am a New York street kid, with minimal education, absolutely zero family; family was a dysfunctional family, and everybody in my neighborhood was either a policeman, a fireman or a gangster. That was it, so somehow I was able to get out of that and have a different experience, that I really feel grateful for.
That is how I came to meet Mother.”[2]