Vijay

Gemstones dealer of sorts

Originally from Italy, I started traveling when I was fifteen years old, and a few years later I lived and worked for some months with a family in the north of Iran who had a small turquoise mine.

One day, gazing at a rough, shapeless turquoise lump sparkling with golden pyrite, formless still, I could almost see the shape and texture which would emerge under the grinding wheel.. I could already see the deepest blue shining out of the stone veined with golden spots, and I sensed that, likewise, I must grind my own unrefined matter in order to liberate and reveal my true essence..

When the time came for me to proceed with my journey, the patriarch of the family casually observed that in western countries turquoise cost very much more, so why did I not buy some to sell over there? When I told him how little money I had left he just laughed: “You will pay us next time around then!”

Thus I became a gemstones dealer of sorts.

Coming to the Ashram

I arrived at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1967 with the strange idea that a 'real' guru had to be Indian, of course.. So I studied the works of Sri Aurobindo and thought of Mother only as a nice, wise old lady who for so many years had been close to him. Therefore, when I went to see her for the first time, I did not really expect anything, and was so amazed, for.. her body was as if transparent, a window to infinite spaces.. I felt as if so far I had lived all my life in a matchbox - and I was overwhelmed by wave after wave of her immense love. I felt utterly naked in front of her, deeply ashamed of myself and all my past, - yet there was no judgment, only love. I kept staring at her, as if in a trance and unaware of the time or anything else.. In the end they had to physically carry me out of her room.

Fifteen years of reforestation

I joined Auroville in 1969. The land where I started the 'Fertile Windmill' community two years later was terribly eroded, without even a blade of grass, no water, and the only road was partly ravine and partly a track for bullock carts. For the first fifteen years here I did only reforestation and water conservation works.
Then, in order to support the eighty acres of forest I had planted, I began buying rough minerals in the south and started cutting gemstones. Gradually this expanded into silver jewelry, gemstone carvings, healing crystals, and even the fabrication of such things as simple wood and serpentine incense holders.

Presently I'm into healing

These last years I have been more and more into healing along with my beloved wife. Although we're both Reiki grandmasters, we make use of crystal therapy, regressions and many other techniques which we have developed. I also have been writing books about the healing properties of gemstones, crystals and minerals on the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual level.

Contact: vijay@auroville.org.in

Phone: (0413) 622 075