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That has infuriated the SAS people who very much want the 144 sanction to be
maintained as they hope it technically deprives us de facto of our “possession”…
Both Navajata and Kishorilal have rushed to Madras… It appears that Prem and
Piero are now of the opinion that we should accept the resumed presence of the
carpenters rather than courting further application of 144…
… We meet Udar near the Ashram, and he gives me the references for this soil-less
cultivation method that seems to be so promising…
… As we climb up the stairs inside “La Maison” for a late lunch, my eyes fall upon a
young woman’s eyes: tranquil, beautiful and lovely… Throughout the meals, across
the tables, our eyes keep returning to each other, with the hint of a smile… When
she leaves, I get up and move to the balcony to watch her; she turns, raises her
face up toward me and gives a simple wave of her hand and walks away… This
encounter has touched me…
… Lindy is there, with Schubert; she wants to talk to me, to try and convey what
she was not able to express in the large meeting… She has, she says, a gift of
clairvoyance, and she feels very concerned with the situation in and around
Auroville, as she is able to “see” what many people are “doing” and being also often
under attack for that very reason… I try and tell her how to get the proper distance
so as to remain protected… I don’t know how I can say that, but she seems to be
the happier for it…!
…We finish our work quietly and ride back in the evening light and find everyone
just dispersing, no decisions reached and another meeting scheduled for tomorrow
morning…
*11-3-1980, Auroville:
At 9 am we all gather at Matrimandir. A police van is stationed near the Banyan
tree. We all move into the room behind the office; Narad chairs. This is a difficult
one… P.G and I are soon labelled as “extremists”; we are backed by many of the
“Aspiration” people and quite a few here, but the “majority”, represented by Toine
and, more subtly, by Andy, Bill S and Ruud, is opposed to our stand, and so is
Piero… I feel this is a sickness that keeps us forming factions, opposing one another
and, at the other end of the range, a kind of fog, a pretence at unity, a disregard
for obvious distortions and half-lies… But there is no point in fighting, no point in
trying to convince anyone… One can only observe, appreciate the balance of the
moment, learn from it and keep quiet…
… Back home with C, I put on Keith Jarrett’s music… and C weeps! From the
intensity of all she has heard, felt and sensed these last days, and yet the harmony
and beauty of the place… And later, in the evening, we walk together to
Matrimandir, very close to each other…: such a gift for “mother and son”…!
… The unease grows in me, the sense that this cannot be right.
I try to formulate it as a question which I feel to put to Ruud and Bill S and John H;
I write it on a piece of paper: “Do you really, sincerely believe that Mother Herself
would put to us, as a condition to serve Her and Her Work, the acceptance of the
physical presence of falsehood…?”
But as I approach the Camp and enter that atmosphere, the answer already comes
to me… that the carpenters are only human beings after all, just as we are… and
that, yes indeed, You have put such conditions by allowing the contradictions to
enter, for them to undergo the real Change… and so the only way open to us is to
become so completely what we are meant to be, to do so sincerely what we are
meant to do, that they will either be bound to change or they will want to leave…
I felt, then, silly with my question…