Interview with Veronique Desjardins on the Spiritual Path

The interview was conducted by Marie Clainchard for the website: http://bit.ly/1MdUsut

Original title: Pour Véronique Desjardins, aimer vraiment requiert beaucoup de force et de courage

Question: Dame Wisdom has invited you to her table and wants to know you better. How do you introduce yourself?

Veronique Desjardins: Since adolescence, my life has been dominated by the spiritual search. I was looking for a path of transformation, which led me to Arnaud Desjardins, whose student I became at the age of 21. What I had not foreseen was that this search would affect my emotional and professional life just as much. From the age of 33, I became Arnaud Desjardins's collaborator, then his partner and wife in 1996. In parallel, for 27 years I directed the collection “The Path of Wisdom” at La Table Ronde publishing house, which published works by representatives of many spiritual paths, among them Sogyal Rinpoche's bestseller, “The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.”

Question: You went through a decisive experience that changed the course of your life. Did this experience lead you to make decisions that still guide your life?

Veronique Desjardins: Very early on I felt the desire for transformation, knowing that if I did not change, I would lose essential things. Gurdjieff's words, “your being attracts your life,” marked me deeply. Meeting Arnaud Desjardins, working with him, and then sharing life with him brought my whole existence to its knees. His death in 2011 was a decisive stage in my own path, a stage that was both painful and salutary. In many traditions it is said that the last gift a master gives his students is to die, because then the student is forced to stand on his own feet and to make fruitful, as never before, what he learned from his master. So both the meeting with Arnaud in 1973, which helped me become structured little by little and glimpse existence from a completely different perspective, and his death almost 40 years later, led me to make most of the decisions that oriented my life, among them leaving Paris in 1987 and joining the center that Arnaud had founded in Grand.

When we approach our existence, most of the time we do not know who we truly are, nor what we are called to become. Most often, we are isolated from ourselves. If we do not want to pass ourselves by, and if we want our life to be fulfilled in its full dimension, little by little we must begin to learn to know ourselves, to come out of our shell, to become structured. What we truly are and what we are called to be, our vocation, if we can put it that way, becomes clearer over time. There are undiscovered aspects. This cannot happen without passing through certain crises, which are nothing other than the inevitable trials each of us meets sooner or later. But we can develop a new inner attitude that allows us to face the events of existence. Life is a succession of experiences, but it depends on us whether or not we do something with them. Arnaud's master, Swami Prajnanpad, had an expression about this: “Everything that comes to you comes as a test or an opportunity.”

Question: What is your vision of the world today?

Veronique Desjardins: It is very hard to answer this question, because a real assessment of the state of today's world requires being sufficiently free of prejudices, of all the ideas circulating on this subject and, above all, of our own fears and projections, which inevitably distort our vision. Many factors have to be taken into account, and a certain distance must be kept, allowing an evaluation of both the reasons for concern and the reasons for hope.

Personally, I deplore the loss of spiritual values, the lack of integrity that is gradually seeping in everywhere, not to mention the disintegration of the family and the lack of reference points from which so many young people suffer. We live in a climate of deep uncertainty that generates much insecurity and fear. At the same time, positive initiatives are gradually appearing throughout the world, and an awakening of consciousness can counterbalance the general decline. If we must go through a major crisis, as many experts from various fields maintain, this will oblige us to develop a new way of being together, based on mutual help and solidarity, in order to face possible difficult times. We will be obliged to function differently, to redefine our values and priorities and, without doubt, to return to a much simpler and more authentic way of life.

But beyond these general considerations, what seems important to me at the individual level is to know whether we amplify the suffering already present in the world through our behavior or whether, on the contrary, we contribute to gaining a little more peace and harmony. Do we act with a certain wisdom, or do we give in to destructive impulses – anger and violence, for example? If we do not choose our state of soul, we can at least make sure we do not further pollute the environment.

Question: What values are you attached to? How do you put them into practice?

Veronique Desjardins: Determination. We do nothing without it. It is a guiding thread in the background of our existence, an attitude that allows us to move forward, whatever trials we encounter. It is the orientation of our life, a force that pushes us from within.

Authenticity, or Truth, which begins with sincerity toward oneself. To stop lying to oneself and to dare to face one's contradictions and ambivalences.

The sense of Responsibility, allied with integrity, which allows us to assume our existence in every area, among them professional and family life. We must have the strength not to yield to a certain modern mentality, often cynical and detached, when it opposes the values we cherish.

Respect and love for others: I am sure that this capacity to have been able to love will be the balance sheet of our existence. I am speaking of a true love, one that goes beyond appearances and does not depend on circumstances. To love requires great strength and courage.

I try to put these values into practice in daily life by questioning the position I take when I face a difficulty. Is the best part of me involved here, or my reactive side? We possess a certain power that allows us to leave behind our old world of wounds and our childishness, but it is work that must be begun again every day, without cease.

Question: What do you wish to transmit today?

Veronique Desjardins: I wish to transmit what I have received through a spiritual practice, and which over time allows us to face the challenges of existence better and better and to live more consciously. Transmission can only be made by meeting each person at the precise point where they are.

After the death of my husband and spiritual master, I felt the need for a period of retreat, not only to live through the process of mourning, but also to digest and integrate everything that had been transmitted to me over almost 40 years. But it became clear that I would present things in my own style.

I lead groups of women with the aim of helping those who participate to become more fully themselves, to assume who they are and to offer the genuine potential they possess. It is not only about personal development, but also about another way of being in their environment, with all the people close to them. Most women have particular wounds that must be cared for so that they can overcome certain inhibitions and regain their full structure. My work as a writer is also part of this transmission.

Question: In the light of your experience, what does the following statement inspire in you: ”We are all fellow travelers”?

Veronique Desjardins: Who could claim the opposite? But how can we make these words more than a beautiful phrase, and allow them truly to take flesh in our lives?

I remember a very simple experience I lived through 12 years ago, which made me aware that we all share the same humanity. In the year 2000, following an acute pulmonary crisis, Arnaud was rushed to the hospital. During the transport, I followed the ambulance in my own car, in a state of shock. At one point the ambulance driver turned at an intersection, and when our eyes met, he smiled at me gently. In the vulnerable state I was in then, that contact from human being to human being had a great impact on me. Arnaud survived that pulmonary episode by 11 years, but I never forgot that experience, which was a foretaste of what sustained me on the day Arnaud disappeared. Since he died, I can say that, as one who has lost, I found humanity and discovered many times what it means to be a fellow traveler. This is a living reality that we can experience in daily life. We are all very different and, at the same time, made of the same human substance; we know the whole range of emotions a human heart can experience: hope, fear, expectation, desire. We discover the points where we are alike, most often thanks to experiences that draw us out of a certain arrogance and elitism. Experiences bring us together, make us understand that we share the same humanity and that we are all fellow travelers.

This interview was translated from French, from the page: http://lavenirestennousblog.free.fr/index.php?post/2014/07/30/V%C3%A9ronique-Desjardins-t%C3%A9moigne

Veronique Desjardins will be present for the first time in Romania, July 24 - 26, 2015, as a guest at the conference and weekend seminar "Work, Sex and Money - Important Aspects of Spiritual Life," organized by Good Company at Hermitage Urban Spiritual Hub (127 Mihai Eminescu St., Bucharest). For details and registration, visit the event page: http://bit.ly/1ffZcTe