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Early this morning I felt like drafting a few lines in answer to that grotesque letter
of dismissal sent by the SAS to Piero, as I have found the reply prepared by the
Coop too complicated and too focussed on Piero.
… It is Sunday; I am pruning young trees in the garden here when Mangini comes
to call me and P.G: Piero is meeting with the sub-Collector at Matrimandir and
needs us. Several others are already there when we reach. There are a few
Inspectors too. We are told that the man who had been arrested in Pondy has
already escaped (or bribed his way out, most likely). Then the Collector himself
arrives, a fat middle-aged babu, unctuous and well-spoken and clearly
unsympathetic! The message that is then conveyed to us is that we are to slow
down on our work of dismantling the towers, so as to give them time to find “a
harmonious solution”… Under the niceties, there is a distinct threat; Valya, the sub-
Collector, is obviously ill at ease… We ask politely whether a similar message is
handed to the SAS…!
*1-10-1979, Auroville:
At work today, I don’t know how, I fell between two planks; I caught myself in time
and there are only a few scratches on my leg and cheek, but the nervous shock
remains… I feel contrary pressures almost constantly… And I realise that I am
clinging, clinging to Matrimandir, clinging to things: a smallness of being, a lack of
self-giving and of joy, a lack of trust in life itself, a lack of simplicity… That I must
learn to let go, to open, to give…
*2-10-1979, Auroville:
C.E has been brooding and resentful and darkly separate. I have given up on any
attempt to reach him; yet I also think I may be unjust – I can’t blame him for
projecting his own difficulties on me; I do the same, I suppose…! The problem is
that he requires seeing me as the antagonist, the barrier; that implies that he
cannot trust me and, therefore, we cannot take it all in our stride, as our common
work. The only way that seems to remain open is for me to understand, to accept
the conditions without rejecting him: this has to be my contribution, rather than
seeking a living reciprocity…
… Some good things are happening, though: yesterday we received a donation of
Rs 56,OOO/- for Matrimandir!
… This evening, E.B comes to sit with me here for a while; she reveals to me a
dream-experience she had years ago: she had seen herself as a young man,
fighting me in a duel, some time in the 15
th
century in England, near the cathedral
of Canterbury; and I killed her (him) and she saw herself abruptly leaving her (his)
body and rising fast above the cathedral… I found this interesting; it corroborates
an experience I also had, fleeting but vivid, of this very scene – of the duel -, while
meeting once in her eyes an kind of rivalry, an antagonism, that had nothing to do
with our present lives and the pattern of our relationship; but I had not seen that I
had killed her (him)!
… Th has returned from Germany and it seems that he has chosen his “side”; I am
apprehensive and sad about it; I have always liked him; this hurts!
… Satprem has sent us all a one-page quote of a text of Sri Aurobindo on the need
to unite equality with the will to fight those who oppose the Work; it refers to Sri
Krishna’s injunction to Arjuna…
Yes, it is true, it is true…! But, Mother; has it ever worked?
It was not able to transform.