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This extraordinary situation we are in upon earth at present, all those different
developments, civilisations, behaviours and beliefs, all those ways to touch Matter
and – the fact: being alive in a body with a soul. And what?
When one has finished with one society or another, has done with human
experience in so many lives, with idea ls and religions, with greeds and ambitions,
the mind’s passions and interests and the life’s thirsts; when one is naked and
there remains only the question: how to BE?
How does one pass from this to That?
*15-1-1979, Auroville:
At dinner I understood from the discussion between P.G, G land Piero that, at
today’ Coop meeting, Shradhavan had been made to leave; P.G is vehement in his
protest, and I agree with what he says, all the more when I see both Piero’s and
Gl’s hardened faces… Later, as John H is there cleaning up, I ask him to tell us how
it went; he says it was M.D, Gl and Yus who forced her out; that it had been
exhausting…
I feel that they have lost a great opportunity, and “they” includes Shradhavan as
well, because she could have helped, she only had to stop taking money from SSJ
and she could have held on her inner position and represented it… And now it is
spoilt.
For once I had felt represented by this assembly of 12 people – not by anyone of
them, but by the fact of these 12 approaches and viewpoints working together; we
were touching something more real which cannot yet be found anywhere else on
this earth. And we’ve missed it, we’re back to the level of parties, of for and
against, it is again the same old misery…
But the chance is bound to return because this IS the way and we’ve got to
understand it, to realise it in our very substance; and that will the basis for future
growth.
*17-1-1979, Auroville:
I read in the papers today that the Shah of Iran has relinquished his power and left
with Farah to the States. This is the end of the last dynasty. It evoked a strange
state, melancholy and homage for all this relative grandeur in this aspect of
humanity, this greatness our earth has borne on her breast for ages, that is now
only loosing its hold and its function as the future enters our present and breaks
down the human values.
I cannot simply, blindly attune to an easy sense of triumph – triumph of what? – to
see this power yielding at last, defeated… Rather, it is like something that has been
real enough merging into a greater or wider real. It is surely not today’ ignorance
replacing that ignorance from the past that can or will bring comfort to anyone…!
But never shall we again witness such a transition, just as the disappearance of
“prehistoric” creatures was witnessed only once. I wish we would live through all
this with love rather than with this vengeful and fearful fanaticism…
At night-watch, Al.B tells us that Shradhavan has returned to today’ Coop meeting
saying that she now wants to remain as “so many people have told her she
shouldn’t have left”… This doesn’t feel very genuine: peer pressure, political
pressure, group pressure, there is somehow something a bit disgusting about all
these movements…
…. Later, as I feel talkative, I tell C.E about the book, like a long poetic prose,
which I had written when I was about 17, telling the story of two friends, whom I