Doug Grimes, A Living Legacy of Gratitude
By Binah Thillairajah
Around a year ago Doug Grimes called me to discuss creating a bequest to support AVI USA’s work. He had been studying and teaching yoga since the 1970s. He had recently discovered the writings of Mother and Sri Aurobindo through the LA center where he participated in Satsang and regularly volunteered. Contemplation of Mother and Sri Aurobindo’s writings filled his days and nights and he expressed a deep sense of peace and gratitude. He was grappling with a cancer diagnosis which in turn inspired him to create a trust and specify his intentions for his estate. In that context, he was curious to learn more about Auroville’s projects and wanted to explore leaving a legacy to support Auroville that would allow his gratitude to integral yoga to resonate far into the future.
During his last year of life Doug asked me many questions about my life growing up in Auroville and meeting the Mother as a child. He knew that he would not go to Auroville during this lifetime but he felt cosmically linked to its future. When I went to Auroville last October I sent him many photos from my trip, especially of the Matrimandir and gardens. He had asked me to bring back a few petals from Mother and Sri Aurobindo’s samadhi in Pondicherry. I quietly took a few flowers from the samadhi that I dried and sent to him with a blessings packet from the ashram. When he called me a week before he passed, he said to me, “These are my first petals from the samadhi” and I got the sense that where he was going there would be fields of blessed flowers. Doug Grimes and his spirit will also continue to live on in his generous bequest to AVI USA.
LA Sri Aurobindo Center Obituary
Doug Grimes passed away peacefully in the early morning hours of January 22, 2024. His last days were marked by an increasing absorption in thoughts of the Divine Mother.
He discovered the Sri Aurobindo Center of Los Angeles a little more than two years ago, and quickly endeared himself to all the devotees there, sharing an affectionate bond with all through his warm, caring, and largely sattwic nature. He became an intimate part of the Center’s Satsang group that meets thrice weekly. He rarely missed a meeting, if any, and his presence was a precious part of the soul nurturing atmosphere that we aspire to create. Drawn powerfully by the atmosphere of the relics, he frequently drove from San Diego to stay at the Center where he offered himself enthusiastically with laborious work in the garden and miscellaneous tasks in the house.
His adoration, love and devotion for the Divine incarnate in the Master and Mother always shone through his keen analytical mind, and was a notable quality of his soul
Official Obituary
Doug Grimes was born in Oxnard, California, on June 16, 1948. His parents, Lee and Mary Grimes, were unusually educated and cultured for Oxnard. The extended Grimes family owned and managed the local newspaper, the Oxnard Press-Courier.
Doug grew up with an older brother and a younger sister. He attended Thacher School in Ojai, which nurtured his interest in horses, camping, nature, and foreign cultures. He proceeded to Yale University, where he became enchanted with Transcendental Meditation (TM). He graduated with a major in economics in 1970.
After Yale he became a TM teacher, and spent several years teaching it, first in California, then in five countries in Latin America. He relocated to Southern California, became a real estate broker, and joined a real estate firm where he sold and managed real estate investments, first in San Diego, then in Tucson, Arizona. He was married for ten years.
In Tucson he earned an MS in Management Information Systems at the University of Arizona, which led to a career in software consulting in Colorado, Iowa, and Connecticut. He eventually returned to San Diego, where he worked as an elder care volunteer before enrolling in a Ph. D program in Computer and Information Sciences at U.C. Irvine. His dissertation, guided by Dr. Mark Warschauer of the UCI Department of Education, investigated the use of Artificial Intelligence as an aid to writing instruction for middle school students.
After receiving his Ph.D in 2008 he served his elderly parents in Connecticut in their final years, then returned to work in real estate in San Diego. After retirement in 2021 he discovered a deep spiritual connection with Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, and the new understandings they brought to ancient spiritual teachings.
Doug is survived by an elder brother, Robert, and a younger sister, Diana.