 Switch off the phone, sir. We'll have a moment of silence. We'll move to the Divine Presence. Bhagavate, Bhagavate, Bhagavate. Thank you very much. The invocation team to invite me here so that I can share my experience prior to being in Auroville and after being in Auroville. Without going in too much detail into my life and trying to concentrate more on how Shubhindo and mother touched me, I will start from a small childhood at a boy of five-year-old, a child who had this wild imagination, out of the world imagination, who decided to go into different worlds, to talk to different things that we don't see in this normal world. But at the same time, had a very high level of concentration on things that are actually real. So these two paradigms of concentrating on the real and imagining a world out there, that child was not able to synthesize these two realities. He would see fairies, he would think of gods, he would think of animals flying, he would think of birds walking, all kinds of things. The things of fables that we hear once long ago, probably because his parents used to tell him a lot of stories. But then he would concentrate on people as well, on how they groom themselves, on how they talk to each other, on how they behave, how they keep things, use things, he would do that as well. So these two worlds, he lived in both of them. But there was no connect between both, this practical and what others would say, an impractical world. And as he grew, the divide was even bigger. Probably his parents, this boy called Gajanand, who was named by his father later when he was giving his birth certificate, they decided to name him Drupad. This child later, we could say that he got influenced by his multilingual background of his parents and the people that he lived in a state of Goa. His father and mother spoke in Konkani to each other. But they decided to speak to him in English and to his sister as well. But to the relatives, they would speak in Kannada, they would speak in Marathi, and they would speak in Hindi. So imagine his second grade teacher to her bewilderment when he comes to her and says, teacher, this place is not enough to fill my mother tongue. So she said, which language do you speak at home? So he really imagined that his mother tongue was English, Konkani, Hindi, Marathi, Kannada, all of those. This was very fantastic because he would relate to all these people. But at the same time, the people would not relate to him. So this brought positive things, but at the same time brought negative things in his life. So he could not relate because he would think in all their thoughts. But at the same time, he didn't have the experiences they did. They would talk about one culture and he would talk about multi-cultures. So there would be misunderstandings. All would laugh, but he would be confused. But one thing that always saved him was his father and mother's laughter. I was that child. And so was my sister because she also went through the same journey. I remember while I was growing up, I would relate to a few friends in the school who were multi-cultural because they were studying in various schools like Kindre Vidyalaya and all that and they would come for short time. And I would relate to them, but they were not there for too long. They would go back. So I would relate to all, but all would not relate to me. So in this divide, I would always try to search a humanity in books to name a few Chandramama and Amar Chitrakata. And I would plunge myself in these books that my father would bring as a growing child. And I would try to find out this so-called multi-cultural life. The word multi-cultural, I learnt now. But for that child, imagine, he wanted to see all kinds of things packed into one. Like our Bharatmatyam dance performance where we have the music, we have the dance, we have the theater, we have all the things in one. He wanted to see that in one. So he could find that in the books. And then he scanned and scanned more and more books thanks to his father. But then at the same time when he was scanning those books, he would find once again that divide in the books and him. Because those were characters that he could not see in real life. Perhaps they were mythological, perhaps they were fictional, perhaps they were something else. But he did continue seeing them in his imaginary world, sometimes creating them, sometimes making them part of his stories. So then he started growing up with the children around his place and he would play with people, he would play a game called House House. And he wanted to see this imaginary world in the real world. It took a lot of time and he got a lot of setbacks as a child. But these setbacks could not be seen outside, it was just within himself. His friends did feel these setbacks or he did not show it. Thanks once again to his laughter. When I heard back, I remember a discussion I had with one of my friends. So it sounded very fascinating. A galaxy that would finally meet our galaxy, the Milky Way. From far away they would meet each other. Imagine this, two galaxies meeting each other. That sounded fascinating and it reminded him, oh there is a reality that is really vast, that is humongous. And he saw, yes, I want to see that reality because I can't see here. So he went on searching. So in order to search that, he started writing at the age of 13. I think it was modern Mahabharata. Those days they used to show Ramayana and Mahabharata. So he decided to write modern Mahabharata. Thanks once again to his father's humor. But to see the other world, that was his inner intention. Things went, things went forward. His parents also were known by the folks all around Goa by the intelligency of Goa. His father was a director of a department. His mother was a homemaker. But at the same time they were theater people as well. Passionate theater people. So there would be a lot of people coming to his house. Why I say he is because, it is because of Auroville. Because this place snapped me from that he. It brought me to the place where I can resonate with that imaginary world, that impractical world and the practical world joining together. That is why I have to make this separation between he and the current me. So things went on in his house. And the only thing where he would relate to is his imaginary world. And the second is his love to talk to beings that we will not see in day to day life. One of those beings is Ganapati. He would talk to him once in a year. Ganapati would come home on his birthday. He would talk. My mother told me that I was the one who asked my father to call Ganapati home. They used to not celebrate Ganapati. They would do Lakshmi Pooja. So I said no I want Ganapati Pooja at home. So that is the time this child would talk to this godhead. And he would talk, he would play, he would have fun with this godhead. And he would ask about different gods. Probably he would imagine the answers that Ganapati would give. It could be Ganapati who gave those answers. Right now I don't know. So this discourse went on between Ganapati and he. And at the same time reflecting with his books, with his friends, with his schoolmates, with everything around him. Trying to make sense of these two separate worlds. What humans would call the practical and the impractical. That of fantasy and that of real life. The turning point came after he completed his tenth grade examinations. And he went through almost seven, eight years of turmoil. Because the education that he was getting through all these external sources, he wasn't happy. So he tried multitudes of things. He tried engineering, he tried fine arts. He got admissions everywhere. But he left within three months, four months. Various courses catering, he tried everything. But he was not interested in the way they were teaching him. He was attracted to his father's way of teaching. Which is learning how to learn so that I can learn myself. I remember we used to have these things called summer vacations where it was almost two months of window where I would be home. And my father would make, he had interest in almost everything. History, geography, in physics. He was a physics graduate. He did law. So he had interest in almost every field. So he would make big charts. And when he made those big charts of history, what happens in India. And at the same time what's happening in France and what's happening in the western world, what's happening in the eastern world. And I would see those charts. It was very interesting charts. And I would ask him, could you make these charts for geography? He would say, I have done this for history. Why don't you do for geography? But I could not do the way he would do. So it would sort of irritate me. And I would try to relate different subjects together and try to see how to make that. I was already a skilled artist at that time. And I was fascinated by almost every subject which I couldn't see my friends. I was not good at them, but I was fascinated by them. There were people who were not fascinated and would get higher marks than me. It didn't matter to me. As long as I have fascination, they were gods for me. Mathematics, algebra, physics, geometry, home science, these were all gods. Some gods I didn't know. Some gods I knew a little better. Some gods I knew very well. So they were gods. But I could not do the way my father did. So I had to put my mind during that summer vacation. But after that summer vacation, it went to just mugging up things. And I would be disinterested. And out of this disinterestedness, what happened was, because when you are in a school environment, you are supposed to be participating in that environment. And I was not able to do that. And because I was not able to participate in that environment, I started lying. I started saying, I'm doing this thing when I was not. Sometimes I was interested in geography for three, four days on an end. Other days I was not. So I didn't understand why I had to do geography homework on the day I'm not interested to do it. So I started lying at home and lying in the school. So this brought additional problems to that whole divide which I mentioned earlier. Things went on. My theater world went on. My lies went on. My experiments with my fantasy, not fantasy, but my mythical readings went on. And I tried to make some sense of it all. That the divine existed was not a doubt for me. But whether this world existed was a huge doubt for me. I did not believe that this existed. I thought it was a figment of my imagination. Because my imagination had run so wild I could think anything on any day. I could think like anybody on any given day. I could think like my friend. I could defend my friend even if I didn't believe in him. Even if I didn't agree to anything he said. I could behave like anyone else. So I thought if I am able to do so many things, if I am able to be so many people it is not possible because they are not doing that. This must be my dream. So whatever happens in this dream is either unreal or is my fault. There was only one way and I knew books were my only way and solace. So I said let me try to find some other types of books that may give answers. Now it may all seem quite grim but it was not. It was there were quite hilarious situations in all this grim. So I started reading self-help books at the age of 16, 17. So Dale, Carnegie and many of the names I don't even remember. Self-help books, Robert Kiyosaki and all these people I started reading at that time. And I did not know again how to read because I did not know how to relate to them because they were talking about marketing. They were talking about how to win friends and I didn't want to win friends. So but anyway I said books have given me answers. Let me go and find some answers in these books. So I went through everything, self-help books, guides, life coaches of that time. I went through all of them and I imbibed a lot being an actor at that young age and being already started directing, choreographing dance. I started imbibing. There are many parallel stories but they are not so important because this imaginary and non-imaginary world I feel are more important than all the skills that I have acquired before that. They play no role. They are just skills. Some of them stayed, some of them stopped. I developed new skills. But these books, I could advocate these books to all my friends and my friends would come and they would ask things and I would ask them and we would try to make sense of those books and I would implement those books. But at the same time, they would not lead me to that Andromeda galaxy, that huge galaxy coming and meeting the Milky Way. It's unfathomable even now. It's like quantum physics and astrophysics talking to each other on the same table and that is part of our real world. That is not part of the world that people may say, Oh, no, I do not believe it. It's not part of that world. The number of stars, the number of... It is just mind boggling when we just talk about this simple fact. I wanted that fact which means if this fact can happen, this collision can happen, then there must be another collision. So all the books got over and at that time I was exploring all the skills I had developed by studying various things, by starting working in supermarkets because I started fending for myself. So I started going to work at places and start exploring how can I do things by doing. Because still now I was reading. I was seeing, but I was not doing anything. So I decided I should start doing things. Maybe by doing things I may start learning something. So at first this was somewhere around 93, 94. I met a few, I can call them acquaintances but people who were evangelicals who wanted to share the word of God with me. So I went with them. I remember my father, I told him I have to go to this evangelical meetings. I said, oh, that's nice. He had all the religious books and everything in the house so he would read all kinds of interpretations and all that. He said, very good. So he dropped me every day for those classes. And within seven days I decided I will become a Christian. So the first thing we have to do as Christians is to repent our sins, our wrongdoings, the things that we have done wrong to others. I said this is fabulous. So I wrote all the wrong things I have done. I couldn't write everything. So the most of it I wrote and I went to my father and I gave him that and I said I want to tell something. I have accepted Christ in my life and since I have accepted Christ in my life I have decided to tell you my past and I gave this document to him. He looked at that and he asked me what is this. So I said I have been lying to you, I have been cheating you and I actually started narrating each and I could remember every single lie. To me right now that is surprising that every single lie I could remember, every single bad thing I could remember. That was shocking, that is shocking right now. I can't remember all the good things I have done. Every single bad thing and I told my father and he told me go upstairs and sit in that room. So you can imagine me at that time when my father already in his mind he is putting me in curfew now. So I went up, there was a Bible, I sat with it, I just put my hand on it and I concentrated. I didn't know what I was getting into. So my father told that let him sit in that room, I will talk to him later. Later in the evening he called me down and he was furious. But my father doesn't show fury in violence that he would do but not in these cases. Then he was very furious that he was not furious that I was becoming Christian actually. He was furious that I had to listen to someone else and tell the truth to him and that why couldn't I tell the truth myself. But I understood this about 8 to 9 years later. But at that time I thought he does not want me to be Christian. As he did mention if you are Christian you are no more my son and I did answer to him that I was never your son. I have always been God's child, not yours, not my mother's. So the evangelical in me decided to be strong and decided to follow it. In the curfew I would rigorously read the Bible day in and day out and I would see downstairs he would be playing bhajans more than ever. Bhajans and the Vedic chants, it was like 10 times than he used to do. He would do pujas, he would do all kinds of things. He would do it himself and I would wonder why is he doing this. So one day he called the church group and told them that this is what's happening and please don't call him to your church group, he will devastate your church. He's a nuisance, please whatever Christ you all have he will take it out of you all. So I didn't understand from where it was coming. Please you don't know him, he will spoil Christ's name. That's what my father told them. They said no, no he's not, he's a good boy and all this general conversation happened. No, no, no you all are very nice people, this is a messy boy. He tells lies, do you know that? So poor people they went back, they said don't worry you can do it. Your father understands you, he loves you. They realized that I must have even had a tiff with my father. They said don't shout at him, he is loving and so they went. But in me was this, was this still this anger that this again separation now it became Christ and the other world. Although for me at that time it was only Christ but inside these two worlds I always wanted to collide. So I could not negate anything, nothing I could say no to. Everything that came to me I could not say no, whatever it be. No matter it looks bad at that time and I wanted to join. That anger at my father say okay I'm going to read his literature to prove him wrong. Of course this was not a one day thing. So I started reading his literature, what was his literature? He would read many things, he would read Dhammapada, he would read Zandavesta of Zoroastrian things. He would read all kinds of, so I started reading that stuff. Let me read interpretations and this and that. So what happened from 94 to 98 was every six months I started following a new religion. So one day the heaven is true, the second day the hell is true, the third day heaven and hell don't exist, the fourth day I am heaven and hell. So literally changing of opinions every six months. So I told my father I want membership in central library, I don't understand what's happening. So I joined the central library to find out my guru, this was in 1997, I was working as a night auditor, so I had whole day free night auditor in a five star resort. So in the morning I used to go to the library and I would sit and every day I would chant our Kuladevi, our hometown god, her name, her name is Parmeshwari. So I would say Om Namo Parmeshwari, Om Namo, the whole day I would chant, I want guru, give me the way. And at the same time I would go to the central library, death, death, Christian version, the evangelical version, the born again Christian, the orthodox Christian, all this just scanning and scanning. So again that brought a lot of confusion once again. But I didn't stop because once I set off there is no stopping. But now the practical world and the impractical world had to meet. There is no looking back, Swami Sivananda, all the books, every books of Swami Sivananda, all the books of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, all the books of Swami Vivekananda, all versions of everything. I would get lots of answers but nothing to join these two worlds. I would get answers of what is Europe, what is this thing, what it represents, all these answers, but not something that joins everything. So I would create all kinds of equations, all kinds of equations like how we have the astrophysics equation and the quantum physics. I would create all kinds of equations but unified string theory, I would create all kinds of theories within me but they would still not meet. So central library, those days people used to steal the central library books and not return for months sometimes on end. So they made special fine on certain sections and the spiritual section was notorious for stealing. That's a nice thing actually, that people read spiritual books and then there are other sections that were notorious for people stealing and not returning back. So they would almost two times of the price if you give after certain months they would levy on you. So I went and one day after reading all the volumes of Sivananda and not eating vegetarian for almost five years in a fish eating house, I took out one book, blue book, it had a freedom fighters face on it. This particular freedom fighter had asked for total independence, the first person actually. And the Britishers they had given him a tagline, the most dangerous man alive. In fact what is interesting about this blue covered hero is that we got independence on the very on his birthday. So I read Sri Aurobindo or the adventure of consciousness. I said what a silly title. What has this book got to do with this? Just to be in the history section, what is it doing here? So I thought consciousness, maybe some author is very creative. You know sometimes authors do a lot of creative works and he might have. So I go inside some mind cells and something. I said okay let me just take it. Something intrigued me inside and I took it home. I didn't return it for six months. I read, reread, it became my Bible. And I frantically searched the entire central library to see that if somewhere. And they had these sections where you could find which books and this thing. And Sri Aurobindo was nothing. There was no Sri Aurobindo. That's not possible. Such a freedom fighter has to be there. So I went entire history section, entire this section, nothing. In one section I found Nolini Kant Gupta Sri Aurobindo. Oh Sri Aurobindo here. But it was in Nolini Kant. I went, took that book, read all Nolini Kant Gupta's books. So then my father saw and he looked and said, he looked at the adventure of consciousness. He said oh you are reading Sri Aurobindo. It is about the central library, the center. I looked at him and I told him why you didn't tell me. He said why you didn't ask me. So I went on top to Sri Aurobindo center. It was the last center where actually mother signed. After that she didn't sign any center. And my father was one of the founding members. So I was so annoyed and so happy and all at the same time. And I'm going there and there was a book exhibition. So I tell my father there's a book exhibition. And my father purchases for me synthesis of yoga. Which first page, English is my mother tongue. So the first page took me whole day. So I'm filled with joy right now. So I had to go to Shubhinder Ashram. So I told my father I have to go. But I had no money. So I would earn about, I think it was 2500 rupees per month. It was not enough to go. So I started saving, saving. As many connections I can make with Sri Aurobindo. I got to know the person who started the center was SS Kulkarni. He has done doctorate in Sri Aurobindo's place. So even my father suggested his name. So I started studying under him. And so I started making a plan to go. Next year I collected some money. My father decided to give me some money also. So I calculated, I thought 3000 is enough. My father decided to give me more. But I said no, I will go with 3000 and come. And so he booked all the tickets. I made the necessary letters. He was the one who actually wrote the letters. He said I want to write the letters. So he wrote like an advocate actually. To one Sri Ramakant Bhai from the Ashram who is from Goa. And so I remember the time when I came to the Ashram. So I asked, I requested to meet Amal Kiran and Neerot Baran. Both of them I wanted to meet. So I asked Ramakant Bhai that can I meet them. He said yes I have fixed an appointment with both of them. And then he called me and said what is this letter you have written? So I said no sir it's my father actually wrote. And we were speaking in Konkani which is my another mother tongue. So I said okay okay. And he got he understood. So then we went and met them both. And before leaving he said you have to go to Matramandir before you leave. So the April, me and my father it was April 3rd one day before the final arrival of Sherbindo. I went to, I went and entered Matramandir. I remember that time I had, they had this punching, punching system. They had this card where you have to go and you have to fill this card. And then you go inside there's a whole line and then you take that card and give back. And then they give you a kind of card where you can punch for five, six times. So I did the whole process and went back. I got this multi-card paper and I went to that guy and he looked at me and he said you will have to come on this date. And he said four days later. I looked at him not understanding what it meant four days later. So do I have to wait for four days or do I have to stay here? I didn't understand. Then I just told him without knowing what it meant. No, I was supposed to go today. I didn't say I want to go today. I said no, we are supposed to go today. He looked at me and he looked at the card. I said okay, then you can go. And we entered the bathroom there. And then my father came out and we talked to someone. And they told my father that here you can build a house and it does not belong to you. My father told me isn't that fascinating? Actually nothing belongs to us. We should have a house here which does not belong to us. We should pay for it. And we should stay in that. I said yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not knowing because for me mother and Shraabindo came on earth. So the entire, on the universe. So the entire universe has become pure. So for me ashram, Auroville, Goa, it doesn't matter, it didn't matter to me. It mattered to me that they were close to Andromeda galaxy and in the Milky Way. They were close to these two beautiful galaxies. They were there in the universe. They did not come for just two physical locations. They came for the universe. This was what fascinated. So it didn't, I was staying in Auroville, okay, okay. Auroville, yes, okay. I told my father and went back. And after a few years, I got a job as a theater teacher in a school. And my father told my sister, now what I have to do? I have nothing and passed away. Yesterday was his 20th anniversary. My first guru, my mother also passed away in August. My another guru, Ambashankar, also passed away in August. A few days after my mother passed away. My eternal guru, Shri Urbindo, is born in that month. So I said, you are leaving me to him. And I folded my hands to them. And I folded when my father said, you are leaving me to my guru right now. What a great sacrifice they have done leaving me alone with my guru. So I decided, as a teacher, I decided my time right now. It's a time for practical life. So SS Kulkarni tells me that if you have any plans, please let me know. I'm going to Auroville and Ashram. And I will try to see if that plans are successful. And I told him, I have a plan of starting Liberatua de Iblission. He said, what is the purpose of this? And I told him, I want this land. And it has to be like this, something like Auroville, something like this in Goa. He said, okay, there is a project like this called Ushakal Shri Urbindo University. And there's a trust in Goa which does this work. I jumped on them because they were close to where I used to teach. So I went there and I told them, I am so and so. I teach in this school. It's Manavika school and I would like to be of help. I don't know how to do things. You tell me I will do. I have all the resources. I have bike. I'm a performer, so on and so forth. And they started spreading the news. This boy from Auroville. And every time I had to go, I'm not from Auroville. I'm from Panjim. And they would call me the boy from Auroville. So every time I would come here and I would try to study administratively how this place works so that it could be implemented there. Seven years, many years passed. I don't know how many actually. It looks like many. And my mother asked me, what are you doing here? You go there, no? I said, yeah, that makes sense. It didn't work because most of them became old. Some got Parkinson's disease. Some left from there and went and settled with their daughters or daughter-in-laws. And just things went and that trust, Ushakal trust just dissolved. They were all devotees of the mother and Shubhindo. They were DySPs. They were SPs. They were professors of college, principals of college, all such important people. And so I said, yeah, maybe I did something wrong by doing, if I had not gone there, they probably would have done. So I came here in Auroville. Finally I had got the funds to do that. I came in 2007 and started working in Matramandir and Deepanam school. And said, yeah, I will check out how this place works and see if I go there. And everyone who would ask, I would tell the same. You know, I've come to check out this place, how it works. I know the ideology. I know everything, how it works. You know, the inner stuff. I know how it works. That I can read in Synthesis Yoga. I have read. So all this kind of stuff I would tell. But I don't know administration. That is what I want to learn. And I will go and implement this Ushakal project and this thing. All these grand plans. And that time Jill comes and tells me, we require a MIME artist and all this person who does movement to act as Hamlet in a play. And in that process of a MIME artist doing a role, I remember the time I used to write plays and I would not remember my own scripts. And now I had to play Hamlet. And during that process, it was a process which brought me inside Auroville. So nothing mattered anymore. Not the economy. Not the style of operation. Nothing mattered anymore. But Auroville. But it took time. I remember the time. Almost six months I was in haze when I used to enter Matramandir. I don't have memory of those six months. I only have an emotional memory. What I saw, I don't know. What I did, I don't know. Where I went, I don't know. I have no memory of six months in Matramandir. No memory of what happened. Except when I started doing Hamlet. So I realized later when I was doing Hamlet that I had to buy heart everything. And I told Jill, I am bad in memory. I am pathetic. My own scripts I don't remember. What will I remember? Hamlet. So everybody started saying, we know all our things. I said, Jill asked me to do some movement. And I know Marcel Marceau's wife had done the entire play in Hamlet in mine. So I knew it was possible. So I thought I would do some kind of movement. We would put recording of the voice and I would do... But no, I had to buy heart. So I went to Dorothy, who was my guide in Matramandir. And she could see this in me. And she said, what happened? I said, I have this problem. She said, don't worry. You sit in socks level and do whatever you have to do. You know, why you have to leave Matramandir? Do it here. So I took Hamlet and did production on socks level where everybody wears socks. That is during the cleaning time. I remember learning from my father how to learn. But that time I learned that actually if we do not put in action those realms, they will not be true. They will not come down on earth. So that action I learned here in Auroville, how to merge that two worlds. Always, always I was trying for the external to see those, to merge those two worlds in the external. But they were always merged. There is no difference between the impractical and the practical. They are merged together. They have always been. That I understood while reading, while doing that production, while doing that roundings and with Hamlet in my hand. My love for Auroville, I realized a few years later when I went to give a workshop in Sinfropel. I had a problem with my visa. It was one day prior to the flight, it was expiring. So they detained me and they thought that I wanted to become a European citizen or something like that. So they asked me. There was an interrogating officer who came, a lady with impeccable English and she started telling me and she said, so why you are here and all that. I said I am for workshop. I have come to help. My sister is here. I have many sisters everywhere and when she called the main chief officer and he did not know, he was speaking in Ukrainian and she asked many questions on his behalf and he asked me one question. Do you want to be a European citizen? I said no way. I don't want to be any citizen of any country. I live in Auroville. I have Ukrainians here. I have Russians here. I have Japanese people here. I have ballet teacher here. I have theater teacher here. I have people who I worked with Marcel Marceau. I have people who I interviewed Marcel Marceau seven times. One of the people who I founded Auroville Radio. Daniel. I have people who I worked with stalwarts. Why will I go there? And that time I realized, oh my God, I love this place. I didn't know that. That was the practical example of me, how much I loved this place. So for the next half an hour when my sister is sitting up, that guys, that officer was asking me about Auroville. So how do we visit there? What is it? Who is Mother and Shobindo? What do you all do there? How does it work? How does the thing, then I had to tell him there is embassies and embassies have connections. Yeah, yeah, I remember some of the people had come here. And so I realized that day why she made this place. She made this place not because that we Aurovillians are united here. She made this because she made this as an experimental laboratory. An experimental laboratory where sometimes hydrochloric acid and nitric acid mix together and create an explosion. Which I always knew that in an experimental place there are bound to be mistakes. Before coming here I would think, what are they doing? What is this? What is this thing? I would look at the ashram. Why are they so austere, so without humor? But I realized, I realized one thing. These are places of experimentation. These are places and they are, they have done two places of experimentation. I do not know how many more million places Shobindo and the mother have put these bases. Physically and practically we know too. And I have seen them experiment with us here in Auroville. I would like to invite now an experiment or as what we call in mind exercise. I would make an exercise of calling a very close friend of mine. His name is Sanjay Biswas. He is an experiment just like me. Sanjay Biswas I met him here in Pondicherry. I would like him to come and sit along with me. I met him here in Pondicherry. Now this experiment is born on 15th August that I got to know in Pondicherry. He had an experience or an exercise where he in UP, he is from West Bengal. Again from Kolkata from my master's home. In UP he was there and during the lockdown he suffered great loss. And he went into terrible depression. This man who is also born on 15th August. And he went in terrible depression. And he was almost three and a half months alone himself in one room in Uttar Pradesh. Look at this experiment. And he had to go through it. We were all guinea pigs of this experiment. And in this three and a half months he decided that he will take his life. And so he attempted what we call as suicide. So when he attempted he attempted I think twice. And fantastically he failed. Two failure attempts. So he is a failure actually. He failed to suicide. So after failing to suicide he got an inspiration. A fantastic inspiration. Sir can you tell me that inspiration in Hindi? In Hindi can you tell me? I will try to translate it. Tell that inspiration in Hindi. It's a fantastic punchline. I don't know what is this punchline but it has changed a lot of people. Am I right or not? Yeah but he has changed. And I have seen him change here in Auroville with a person who lives in Auroville. What he says is when we go through immense depression and sorrow we decide to take a step of taking our life to solve that depression. So what is our intent to solve that depression? But we are not solving that depression. We are marketing that depression to the people around us. When he came to Auroville I invited him because he travels all over India by cycle to do this. Someone had suggested to him please go by cycle your depression will get less and it did. And he decided to go all over India. Next month he goes all over Bangladesh. 64 districts right? 64. So in next month he will travel all over Bangladesh to help people come out of depression. On the way he just goes find somebody and tries to help them. Here he came and I know a friend who is like my sister. So she never reveals herself to anybody. Now she is in Auroville. She is in Auroville. An experiment. He also is an experiment. So am I. So he comes and sits down and we are having tea in visitor center. And he starts talking to her and she starts telling her problems in a way to contradict him. No you can't do this. It can't be done. You are wrong. Within five minutes he opened her up so much that she gave him her number. She talked to him for the next 15-20 minutes. So it did not become anything about me. They started talking. And then later asked me is he coming back? So I think hopefully we will meet her today or tomorrow. So is he coming back with such enthusiasm and a ray of hope. See how things work. How the experiment works. The experiment is not happening here alone. It is happening through this place, through the whole world. Thank you very much Sanjay Ji for this experiment. And thank you for being part of this grand experiment. He started the trip along with us. We had performed in Shorbindo's house on 5th and 6th. We did calligraphy. So I will try to give you a gift of Shorbindo's. And after that I will end. Shorbindo says he has, yours is a punch line. But his is a mantra. When Shorbindo says it will be a mantra. So I will attempt at writing this mantra in calligraphy. Just as we did it in Kolkata on 5th. We had done calligraphy over there. So similarly I will try to do it. And gift this to you. The mantra is all life is yoga. This I have done in new calligraphy. Inspired by Leonardo da Vinci who used to write mirror image. This I have written in English. All life is yoga. Sri Aurobindo. So I have written from up to down. Thank you. I will end with Shorbindo's mantra. Shorbindo's Gayatri mantra. Parashyadhi Mahi. Yannah Satya Nadeepaye. Savitur Varam Rupam Jyotih. Parashyadhi Mahi. Yannah Satya Nadeepaye. Savitur Varam Rupam Jyotih. Parashyadhi Mahi. Yannah Satya Nadeepaye.