Arnaud Desjardins (born June 18, 1925; deceased August 10, 2011), producer at the ORTF from 1952 to 1974, was one of the first practitioners of Eastern religion to be discovered in France, working on televised documentaries with many great spiritual traditions unknown to Europeans: Hinduism, Tibetan Buddhism, zen, and soufism (Islamic mysticism) from Afghanistan.
Arnaud Desjardins was part of Gurdjieff groups, his first contact with mysticism. Educated in a Protestant Christian environment, he was equally taught of the spiritualist life on a trip to a trappist Catholic monastery. He then became interested in yoga, and when asked to direct a film for French television, he chose to make a series of films on India, for which he gained notoriety for his first film, Ashrams. It was because of his numerous voyages and his passion for spirituality that he made many more films and wrote a number of books.
His thoughts were written in a spiritual traditional book by his master, Swami Prajnanpad, whom he got to know after filming a number of mystics from varied backgrounds. He became a follower of Adhyatma yoga, a branch of Advaita Vedanta. This strand of Hinduism is based on the Vedas, more particularly, the Upanishads. This open dialogue about the grand spiritual traditions, both Eastern and Western, became his major field of study under the encouragement of his master.
Arnaud Desjardins spoke of his spiritual approach like this: "It's a way of eroding egocentricity which is compatible with different creeds and religious convictions"
