Introduction

My story can be told briefly: I reached the Ashram of Sri Aurobindo on December 2nd, 1969; a week later, on the 9nth, I saw the Mother for the first time.
On April 9th, 1970, my twentieth birthday, the Mother gave me my name, “Divakar”, in the presence of my physical mother. This name is one of the several Sanskrit names for the sun: it is here the sun when it rises, and its spiritual significance can be expressed as “the one who turns obscurity into light”.
During that first period I lived both in Auroville, at “Forecomers” and in Pondicherry, near the Ashram.
But it is only on November 13th, 1973, that I joined the work of building the Matrimandir, at the center of Auroville.
The rest is told, in various ways, in the texts accessible herein.