The Advent - how the author wrote the book

The Author, Grégoire de Kalbermatten, writes about how he came to write this book

by Alan Wherry on Thursday, April 7, 2011 (on Facebook)


As I sat on the slope of the hill near the Observatory of Berkley, California, on a mild and breezy night in the month of August, 1975, I had no clue that this moment was going to change the entire course of my life.

A new friend from Mumbai, a student at the university, was sitting next to me. He was bright, open-minded, and we chatted about many things. When he told me about a woman he’d met, a spiritual Grand Master, a lady from India now settled in London, England, I was intrigued. When he told me that She was the Avatar of the present time, I was astonished. How could such an intelligent guy say such a thing? Yet his conviction was impressive. The lights of the San Francisco Bay were glittering down below. I decided to check by myself.

Her name was Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi and She was living in Oxted, Surrey. I flew to the UK and called Her from a flat near Holland Park in London. The voice on the phone had a distant echo but was welcoming, calm and soft; I had the impression it came from far away, as if piercing through the whirling lavender clouds that I was visualizing in my mind.

What follows this telephone conversation is narrated in a book called The Advent.

In her home in Oxted, Shri Mataji showed me the first chapters of a book on the Creation, which left me spellbound. “This is fantastic”, I thought, “but it will fly above the heads of most people.” I wondered aloud whether someone should write an introduction to it. She gently invited me to go ahead. This became eventually a book that I wrote in Kathmandu, sending Her the chapters one by one. She would comment, explain and give Her advice. The postman bringing Her letters was always received with the brightest of smiles in my little house in Nagpokhari, behind the King’s palace.

Eventually, two years later, I returned to London and settled in Finchley for a time . I felt it would be much better if She would personally check the final manuscript. I was part of a small group of friends, keen to meet Shri Mataji whenever we could, and I had a good excuse for those visits as I was struggling with the writing of what had become a seemingly never ending introduction.

Living in William Blake’s Albion, England’s green and pleasant land, listening to Her revelations was the way it all started for me.

Grégoire de Kalbermatten

more about the book