Pavitra
Photo Collection
Information
(16.01.1894, Paris – 16.05.1969, Pondicherry), the first French disciple of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Pavitra (“Clearness”) was a name given by by Sri Aurobindo.
At 1914 was graduated Polytechnic School in Paris. Then he was called up for a war as artillery officer. After the war he worked as a junior engineer in Paris, at the Ministry of transport and communication.
Interested in occultism, in 1920 he departed for Japan to study Zen Buddhism. In 1924 he left Japan and spend time with Tibetan lamas in monasteries in North China and Mongolia.
In December 1925 he came to the Ashram and was accepted as a sadhak. In 1951 The Mother appointed him director of the newly founded Sri Aurobindo International University Centre. He served in this position for 18 years, as well as being general secretary of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, until his death in 1969.
According to Satprem, Pavitra left memoirs of his conversations with Sri Aurobindo and Mother in 1925 and 1926, large parts of which were destroyed (almost a third of Pavitra’s notebooks) by his closest collaborator, with the pretext that it would be “better left unsaid”. What was left was published as Conversations avec Pavitra.
Photos
Bibliography
In French
Pavitra (Philip Barbier de Saint-Hilaire); Monod-Herzon, Gabriel
Le message de Sri Aurobindo et son ashram
• Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1947
In English
Pavitra (Philip Barbier de Saint-Hilaire)
Education and the Aim of Human Life
• .— Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram.— 184 pp.— ISBN: 81-7058-245-8.— Rs 70
On the educational ideal of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and the educational method developed at the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education
Pavitra (Philip Barbier de Saint-Hilaire)
On Meditation and Discipline
• .— Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram.— 14 pp.— ISBN: 81-7058-696-8.— Rs 6
Pavitra (Philip Barbier de Saint-Hilaire)
Talks with Sri Aurobindo
Pavitra (Philip Barbier de Saint-Hilaire); Monod-Herzon, Gabriel
The message of Sri Aurobindo Ashram
• .— Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1947.— 36 p., 16 p. of plates: ill.; 25 cm.
In French
Pavitra (Philip Barbier de Saint-Hilaire); Paul Saint Hilaire
Itinéraire d'un enfant du siècle : correspondance de Pavitra avec son père, 1918-1954 : de l'Ecole polytechnique à l'Ashram de Sri Aurobindo, de Paris à Pondichéry via le Japon et la Mongolie-Intérieure
• Paris: Buchet Chastel, 2001
In Russian
Павитра
Беседы со Шри Ауробиндо
In Slovenian
Pavitra (Philip Barbier de Saint-Hilaire); Valentin Jež
Šolanje in cilj človeškega življenja
• Radovljica : Didakta, 2002
In Spanish
Pavitra (Philip Barbier de Saint-Hilaire)
Acerca del Amor = On Love
• Barcelona: Fundación Centro Sri Aurobindo, 2001.- ISBN: 84-931463-2-3