{"id":749,"date":"2020-05-02T11:24:20","date_gmt":"2020-05-02T11:24:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vserver3.auroville.com\/?p=749"},"modified":"2021-04-15T10:04:32","modified_gmt":"2021-04-15T05:34:32","slug":"stories-of-the-early-days-frederick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adventure.auroville.com\/index.php\/2020\/05\/02\/stories-of-the-early-days-frederick\/","title":{"rendered":"Being Looked at Fully: Frederick"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I thought: \u2018I can go straight to Sri Aurobindo, I don\u2019t have to go via the Mother.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

You also have to understand my life. I always have had an overdose of femininity \u2013 like many children after the war in Germany. The men were all dead, or lost in the war, or prisoners of war. I wanted Sri Aurobindo, the man. I wanted a father really; I can say it now, but I didn\u2019t know it when I came to Pondicherry that first time, in 1960.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I arrived, I heard that Sri Aurobindo was not there physically, there was only this old lady running the Ashram. I stayed for some days and I saw her regularly at the morning darshan and the Playground. It was okay. Then before leaving, I thought, \u2018Well Frederick \u2013 you have a sense of courtesy and formality, you don\u2019t just go like this. You have to say good bye properly, and thank her.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I came well-prepared, washed and cleaned, with my bags packed.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I come into this room, an empty room. I walk further in and I hear a high voice asking, \u2018Yes?\u2019 There she is, sitting; her legs don\u2019t even reach the ground, so she has a little stool, her thin arms on the hard carved armrest. Everything looks so fragile. And obviously I have forgotten that I was supposed to kneel down, I had always though: \u2018I am not kneeling down.\u2019 But before I know it, my knees give in and I am kneeling. She looks at me and asks, \u2018Do you want to be quiet or do you want to talk?\u2019 I cannot say anything. Then her eyes become a very physical, almost tangible force, like a beam. I feel like being turned around, through her eyes I am looking into myself. It is like a torch, lighting up all the niches and the corners and the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Suddenly I realize that I have never been looked at fully<\/em>, without reservation. I have never felt that there is somebody who has seen me totally \u2013 not accepted, not approved \u2013 but looked at, and it is such a joy to be known. Then she creates a vision in front of me, she creates a long tube, a glass tube like they use in chemistry. At the bottom it shows a little bit of liquid, and then the outline from this empty glass tube is lit up quite clearly and very precisely. The message is: \u2018Look, this is what you are now, and this whole empty column is what you could become, if you were to fulfil your role.\u2019 Then the same tangible look takes me back again. Reality reappears, I am in front of her, she is looking at me and her face starts smiling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a very external level, she made me unable to just leave without fulfilling my sense of decorum, which is very strong in me actually. She used that. On a deeper level, she also made me get out of this \u2018allergy\u2019 against too much femininity. I fell in love with this woman. There was no femininity in this sense, it was just a loving person. She was maybe just Sri Aurobindo coming in through that very strong, very powerful woman. So much strength, the way she turned me around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were living in such an enchanted naivety when she was there, I was like a baby dreaming in a sand-box. That is how we all lived: our doubts, our mental movements, they were all gone. \u2018We will build Auroville!\u2019 It was like a chant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is an excerpt from the book \u2018Turning Points\u2019 by Auroville Press.
To read more about Frederick\u2019s journey, have a look at the book here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I never felt that there was somebody who had seen me fully \u2013 not accepted, not approved \u2013 but looked at. It is such a joy to be known.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":754,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[68,67,71,132],"class_list":["post-749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","tag-early-days","tag-pioneers","tag-the-mother","tag-turning-points"],"yoast_head":"\nBeing Looked at Fully: Frederick » The Auroville Adventure<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Read about Frederick's story of meeting the Mother and more about the early days of Auroville. 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