Guru Jacques

An inner quest, from the very beginning

I was born in Brussels in 1990, to a Spanish mother and a Belgian father, in a loving family. As far back as I can remember, there has been in me a certain dispassion and an inner quest. Without meaning to, I have always been somewhat set apart, and rather solitary, at ease in silence. My parents gave me a schooling in a foreign language, Dutch, and I grew up in effort: judo, swimming, underwater hockey, all the way to the national teams and the World Championships. Very early on in service too, coaching the younger ones in these disciplines and as a dive guide.

There were also the travels, and a great deal of reading: philosophy, spirituality, texts from every tradition. There were the languages, learned one after another, and with them an openness to the world that never closed again. All of this led naturally to studies in translation and interpreting.

Then I made conference interpreting my profession, between the European institutions in Brussels and the United Nations system in Geneva. The tatami and the pool do not lead to Moksha, but they teach discipline and the present moment. And the interpreter's profession consists in keeping silent so that another may speak, in disappearing so that the message gets through. Whoever practises it for years learns, without knowing it, what a channel is. Our Adiguru Swami Gangadhar Tirtha called this the Aanavopaya: the path of one's own effort, which silently prepares the ground of the heart.

The first door

In the summer of 2019, my mother made her transition without warning. The following year, shortly after my birthday, my father left in his turn, taken by cancer in two months. His last words commanded me to be happy. Prarabdha is to be lived through; it cannot be bypassed.

In 2022, on an interpreting assignment for the Archbishop of Canterbury, I met the woman who would become my wife. She laid her hands on my head while a nameless pain was afflicting me, and the pain vanished. That was the first door. My life tipped over towards Greater Geneva, and I set out on a quest, at first “in order to be able to heal”: in less than a year I became a “Reiki Master” with several schools. But I wondered what lay beyond, what ancestral practices had existed long before.

The Deeksha

Rather than Japan, it was India. I found, not without difficulty, Shaktipat. My first encounter was a Guru followed by millions of people on Facebook: I had felt things there, but he was trying to sell me something, and it did not resonate. I kept searching, until the day the website of Sadguru Hagi appeared at the top of the list. At the sight of it, the obvious imposed itself: the Guru had appeared. He invited me to read The Power Unknown to God, which I had just finished, and then to read it again.

On 8 November 2023, at half past five in the morning, I received Shaktipat Deeksha. After a few minutes of sitting and the reception of my Mantra, strong Kriyas broke out and tears poured forth. The day after the formal completion of the initiation, Guruji hinted that the mission of this incarnation might be to transmit in turn. It was a shock, a worry, and a remark I played down.

Rishikesh, the call, the ashram

Sadhan became a ritual, and beyond the cushion, the Guru was always present. A client called me for a conference in New Delhi: I was able to reach Rishikesh and our lineage's Yog Shri Peeth ashram, to sit where Vishnu Tirtha, Shivom Tirtha, Sahajananda Tirtha, Paramguruji and Sadguru Hagi had sat, and to share breakfast with the brothers after the morning ceremony. There is no such thing as chance.

Back in Europe, an early-morning call with Guruji spoke of the Deekshadhikara. It was an electric shock, a responsibility, a trust that compelled humility. On 25 January 2025, the authority to transmit Shaktipat Deeksha was conferred on me. In July 2026, Sadguru Hagi travelled from Melbourne to Greater Geneva to celebrate Guru Purnima with the Sadhaks of Europe, bringing together four generations of seekers. Two days later, he blessed a bare plot of land in the French countryside, at Arthaz-Pont-Notre-Dame: horses, stones, fields, no temple. It is now our ashram, and may it remain so, without pomp: the straw hut of Chandan Talab contained only a mat, a blanket, a water pot and a staff, and that bareness never prevented the flame from being passed on.

Today

I live in the mountains near Geneva and I transmit the Deeksha free of charge, with devotion, to those who are ready, in accordance with the will of Shakti and without proselytising. Many aspirants write to me; few, in the end, receive the Deeksha, not out of discrimination, but because the five preconditions are not so easily met. Everything is perfectly right.

We meet above all online for regular Satsangs, and in person, in Greater Geneva, when the Sadhaks truly ask for it. Using the word Guru in the French-speaking world may seem strange; it is only a crutch to make surrender easier. Whoever can speak to their Guru as a friend, or better still do without them, will make their Guru very happy.