Satprem respected the hundreds of sincere Ashramites, who made up the true Ashram for him

from Maria Teresa mariateresa.lanza@alice.it to tusarnmohapatra@gmail.com date 31 Jan 2008 03:36 subject Satprem.
Dear Mr. Tusar N. Mohapatra, URGENT!
In the name of my immense gratitude for Satprem (who left his body on April 9, 2007) and his sweet companion Sujata (who left his body on maj 4, 2007) I invite You to read these pages:
http://www.lesyeuxouverts.net/
de Monsieur Luc Venet

http://www.arianuova.org/arianuova.it/arianuova.it/Surveys_Rubriche/E1-surveys.html
under SATPREM, these articles:
- "The Battle of the Earth"
- "En pleine Bataille".

Cordial greetings,
Maria Teresa Lanza

The Battleof the Earth
— A TRIBUTE TO SATPREM —
by Tommaso Iorco

Mr. Luc Venet, in his recent writing titled The End of Illusion, accuses Satprem — obviously AFTER HIS DEATH, as it well suits the cowardly — of a series of alleged infamies, like the one of appointing himself as an intermediary of Mother. We know, however, that in reality Satprem never claimed anything, well aware of not at all being an Avatar, or a Vibhuti, in fact not even a Guru, but a simple human being among human beings. His burning sincerity caused him to embark on a path replete with obstacles and difficulties that no longer carried any human traits, relying exclusively on the help and Grace of Mother. This is, in fact, Satprem’s only strength: a keen, conscious and more and more whole surrender to the hands of Mother and Sri Aurobindo. Or, if one prefers, of the Divine.

Nor did Satprem ever seek to conceal his own human limits and faults [click here to read Satprem’s statement]; at most, he described himself as “Mother’s scribe” (something that one will find hard to deny him), whereas he who inveighs against him does so with the malice of a poor hack.But, as they say, there is a limit of propriety in everything. As a matter of fact, to call Patrice Marot’s suicide into play and link it to Satprem, somehow or other holding him responsible (contrary to what Patrice himself clearly stated in his last existing letter to his wife [click here to read Rose Marot’s pronouncement]), leads one to believe that Mr. Luc Venet may have once and for all lost that same light of reason that he far too often avows having saved in the course of his lifetime.Not yet satisfied, Mr. Luc Venet goes even further, saddling Satprem with a certain responsibility for the deaths of Micheline Étevenon, of Keya and of who knows how many others. Regarding the latter, who fell sick during her stay in the United States, Mr. Venet admits that he was completely unaware of Keya’s problems, and that until the end he didn’t pay her the slightest attention, completely ignoring her terrible psychophysical state — «overwhelmed by the rush of our daily activity, we were unable to see the signs of depression in her, and when we became aware of her real condition, it was already too late» (The End of Illusion).

But, still in the opinion of Mr. Venet, Satprem (who was living in India) is the only one responsible for Keya’s death! It is he, this Mephistophelean strategist, who manipulated all these ingenuous and kind spirits, he who led astray these pure souls, these unaware, lost sheep, devoid of any free will and common sense, and drove them to their utter ruin. Like defenceless babes in arms, they were bewitched by a paranoid’s charisma, to whose powerful will they blindly succumbed with wretched naiveté. Mr. Venet’s account (accompanied by the chorus of plaudits of a certain Boni Menato), more than a believable accusation against Satprem, thus appears to be an act in very bad taste, a gruesome and coarse minuet of falsehoods and slanders, a sordid and surreal melodrama contrived in the desperate attempt to besmirch Satprem’s memory.

Mr. Venet’s entire account has the same odd flavour as an ambiguous confession, which betrays a certain self-admission of irresponsibility, of choices made on the wave of emotionality by an immature individual, who is torn by a constant state of indecision and is in need of a strong figure, capable of granting him confidence. This poor, helpless child, who goes by the name of Luc Venet, had sided with Satprem without even endeavouring to ascertain within himself whether this was in fact the right thing to do for himself. In this fashion, he devised a disastrous formula that led him to self-destruction, which turned out to be far more grievous than that to which poor Patrice Marot bore witness. His whole account constantly betrays something troublesome. Mr. Venet himself supplies his best psychological outline when he acknowledges in himself a state of «profound inner ambivalence, of latent schizophrenia, where a part of my being desperately endeavoured to salvage the salvageable by grasping at anything at all» (The End of Illusion).

Who on earth actually asked Mr. Venet, or anyone else, to delegate the responsibility for his own spiritual journey to Satprem? Certainly not Satprem!!! Didn’t this Mr. Venet have his own head, his own heart, his own will? Was he bewitched, under a spell, or was he lacking the ability to discriminate, which is so crucial in order to embark on any journey? And now, who is it that is keeping Messrs. Venet and Menato under a spell? Or do they consider themselves free at last of the “Satprem-Illusion” and, encouraged by the same uncompromising proselytistic spark that made them sadly famous when in charge of the IRE, are they now just as eager to help all those who are still groping in the darkness of error?

In his comments on The End of Illusion, Mr. Boni Menato basically approves of all of Mr. Luc Venet’s remarks, but he also tries to fly even higher, spreading blasts of sententious remarks. I still remember the time, several years ago, when Mr. Menato used to insult and excommunicate those who purchased Sri Aurobindo’s books published by the Ashram: according to him, one ought not to give money to the ‘Enemy’; Mother’s Agenda ought to be the only reading material, like a new Bible compared to which every other book should be sacrificed and thrown into the fire. At present, both he and Mr. Venet, who have at last recovered their wits, are accusing Satprem of having a paranoid attitude toward the Ashram and the whole world, whereas it’s obvious, from his writings and his actions, how deeply Satprem respected the hundreds of sincere Ashramites, who made up the true Ashram for him, and how, thanks to them, the Ashram itself still had a reason to exist; not to mention how carefully he always chose to differentiate these sincere individuals from the tiny group of managers and “proprietors” of the Ashram who tried to take advantage of the enterprise for some shady purposes of their own...

How could Satprem have continued sharing his work — which was carried out in a truly disinterested way, for the entire planet and for all human beings — with collaborators who were ever ready to stab him in the back at the first opportunity?
So, in the end, I close with my thanks to two very dear brothers, namely Sujata and Satprem. On behalf of all sincere seekers, I thank you both with all my heart for having unmasked the impostors before retreating behind the scenes. Left in their hands, without you, all the Work would have turned into the umpteenth intransigent, arrogant, dreadful church, with its popes, bishops and altar boys, all only too eager to catechize the New World by means of stakes and holy inquisitions!
Perhaps a certain someone will soon find himself forced to swallow his own vomit again.
Tommaso Iorco 10 July 2007

P.S.: Hereunder, you will find the hyperlinks to some expressions of solidarity that were received from several brothers and sisters. We hope that many other loving friends of Sujata and Satprem, as well as other people prompted by their true love for Mother and Sri Aurobindo, will decide to join our appeal (kindly mailing us at info@arianuova.org).
Marilde Longeri (Italy): For a friend since always and for ever... Bernard/Satprem
Marcella Mariotti (Italy): To Satprem with love
Simonetta Invernizzi (Italy): The wounded Buddha
Prem Niraja (Italy): Rien que par amour
Pratip Nahar (India): Living in gutters
Marise Goldsmith-Dansaert (France): C’est lui qui a raison
Yagna (Auroville): Escamoter Mère
Marie and Gilles (Auroville): Notre gratitude
Sergej (Kyrgyzstan): Joining with you
Maryse et Kartik (Auroville): À Satprem et Sujata
Xavière Sénéchal (Canada): Une once de respect
We leave the last word, as it is right, to Mother and Sri Aurobindo, who with their illumining answers make perfectly clear all the troubles —
THE END OF THE UNGRATEFULNESS