The Sun-Eyed Children

Joel Koechlin’s book, The Sun-eyed Children, catches the spirit of those founding years, how those ‘sun-eyed children’ were drawn to this unique divine experiment. It is also a portrayal of the hippy Zeitgeist, those who dropped out and tuned into to wherever their muse led them. Fate and how it calls us, weaves itself throughout this story; “Destiny had been whirling around him all the time, and in that timeless moment, she had caught him in her arms, squeezing him, leaving him breathless.

This is a book of fact and fiction based on the journey of the protagonist ‘Lionel’, written with an authority that only life’s lessons bring, as he lives a life of rebellion, leaving France for his journey East, becoming a seeker. Travelling to Kabul and onto Varanasi, he is finally led to his portor portal, Pondicherry. Koechlin does not disguise the hardships of the spiritual path in its lostness, the missed spiritual opportunities, the sheer struggle to wrestle with destiny, as well as the prosaic impacts of Indian travel on our bowels and our wellbeing.

Mixed in with Lionel’s quest in India are memories of previous incarnations, including those in the eras of Joan of Arc, Merlin and the Round Table, and even a reference to a future incarnation.

After meeting The Mother and Satprem he is told to go to the Himalayas but not what he will find there. Again and again, Lionel learns the lessons of following the path of no instructions, other than to follow the breadcrumbs back to our true self, the mythic journey of the Sannyasi of old.

At one moment in the book, weaving together past lives, souls gather to build the Matrimandir: wizards from ancient pasts and soldiers who had the grace to meet Her, join to build a city of the Dawn; “a reunion of mankind: a gathering of all creeds, colours, ages, and genders; all poised in a unified effort to embody the Divine on Earth.” Describing working on building the Matrimandir, and how all gave themselves with no thought of reward, what more could one want when immersed body and soul in this fabulous adventure? There were no distractions in the desert. The greatest beauty was that the Matrimandir was their life and their life was the Matrimandir.”

As befits a translator of Savitri, quotations from the poem garland the story, as does the title itself. This auto-biographical novel carries memories, atmospheres and telling details, allowing us to experience some of that ‘twilight of an age’.

The Sun-Eyed Children – A Spiritual Journey across Space and Time is available at Amazon. Price in India Rs 245

A Spiritual Journey

across Space and Time

I saw them cross the twilight of an age,

The sun-eyed children of a marvellous dawn,

The great creators with wide brows of calm,

The massive barrier-breakers of the world

And wrestlers with destiny in her lists of will,

The labourers in the quarries of the gods,

The messengers of the Incommunicable,

The architects of immortality.

Savitri, Book III, Canto IV