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the physical level, with the inscribed, in-bred understanding that it will end, that it
must end, with the death of the body… It is all a system of debts and pay-offs, and
there is only a thin margin left for pure creativity… But, there too, to be creative
and to remain honest in one’s self-giving to the Lord… is not an easy thing to
achieve…
So far the field of human activity I can best attune to is that of the crafts, with the
artisans, wherein the balance between practical usefulness and creative care is
acquired and integrated, without too much of a compromise…
I do believe I belong to Matrimandir; yet I also feel I could function in other ways:
setting up an industry, organising an administration, taking care of a guest-house
or creating a whole environment… The real question: how does the Lord want me to
give myself – whatever that may be? That answer alone would free me from the
unclarity, from the guilt and the compulsion to be somehow “productive”, not to be
a weight or a parasite…
*20-2-1980, Auroville:
Today we were determined to go back to work. G.M picks me up early; we reach
Matrimandir, climb up the structure, P soon joins us and time, like a rubber, erases
all the days we have been away… Our condition is a little different, though: G.M is
happier because Marcia has returned to stay with him in “Dana” and I’m happier
because he is… We are just recovering our rhythms of work when the Inspector
Thomas rides in, calls us down and brandishes an official paper from the Tasilhdar:
another 10 days of section 144! John H, Phil and Bill S join us; we tell the Inspector
that we’ve had enough, we shall work… He says that he will then have to arrest us.
We reply that it is not our concern to know what he has to do, we are only
concerned with what we have to do… and our work is here!
Jacq soon joins us as well… I work out in my mind all the arrangements for
“Sincerity”, for C’s arrival, the wages, all the practical things, in case we are taken
to jail…
Then P.G and Gupi ride in, straight from the Coop meeting, with a tense
expression… They have come to stop us! Gupi gives us a long speech on the need
to step back and learn the lesson from all these obstacles… We leave it at that…
What do we know? I am reacting; I am annoyed at these speeches that seem to be
made up with entire sentences lifted from Satprem’s books… But, alright, we do
have to agree on how to respond…
… I get an official letter of refusal from the local authorities: my application for
cement has been found “unacceptable”; no explanation is given. Thus, after several
weeks of delays, this now smells like interference from the SAS people… Now, I
would rather go to the black market than slip a bank-note under the magistrate’s
table!
*21-2-1980, Auroville:
Noh, Phil and I prepare a special dinner today, for Your birthday, with lots of good
things in it, and a sweet dish of my own invention too; others come to help,
hundreds of flowers are arranged on the tables; double the amount of people
expected show up in a rush and it goes on till after 8 pm, but we manage to feed
everyone and all are happy, in this disorderly, noisy, raucous and careless way that
seems to be the rule in collective life… It is a kind of satisfied disharmony, or jarring