In the privacy of a Véronique Desjardins road

From 1973, the author was the student and, from 1996, the companion and collaborator of Arnaud Desjardins (1925-2011). He was first a director of films broadcast in prime time on the national channel which introduced the spiritualities of the Orient to a wide audience, such as The Message from the Tibetans or the two documentaries devoted to Japanese Zen with master Deshimaru.

During his stays in India, he became the disciple of a philosopher, Swami Prajnanpad who, years later, asked him to teach in turn by founding an ashram in France which would also be a meeting place between the different currents spiritual. The last, Hauteville in Ardèche, exists and still receives. Close to the Dalai Lama, the Karmapa, Mathieu Ricard, but also to Sufi or Christian masters or to Alexandra David-Neel, whom he filmed as a centenarian in Digne, Arnaud Desjardins is considered today as a great lay spiritual instructor who knew how to create a synthesis adapted to the West. The testimony of Véronique Desjardins is in this respect triply valuable: it is aptly titled, because it takes us into the intimacy of her personal quest since childhood through difficult relationships with parents, the emotions of adolescence , the crises of youth and middle age, disappointed love… In short, what makes up the daily life of a living being. Then there is this need to understand, to evaluate, to go towards an absolute, to follow teachings that make something else grow in oneself. And finally, there is this whole relationship to the spiritual master, perfectly described and analyzed, which in his specific case is transformed into a love story. A powerful book, admirably well written, which reveals the multiple facets of an existence in search of emancipation