307 / 1424
307
*14-4-1980, Auroville:
We are up on the structure. The Inspector Thomas rides in, calls us down holding
his perpetual bouquet of summons. We refuse to come down. He pastes them all on
the outer wall of the office…
… Yaap calls us over to Kottakarai: the SAS men have come to forcibly collect the
Palmyra leaves… We all cycle over in the noon heat, chase the men away, gather all
the leaves, load them onto Yaap’s cart and send them over to dry safely…
… I don’t know…: are things ready for… Auroville?
Can one open to the Future while fighting the past?
Isn’t some genuine self-offering necessary before the Future can be welcome into
the present?
… Afternoon, Yus and I finalise our letter of reply to the invitation to those “Peace
talks”, M.T and Prem have already prepared a draft, which we fine-tune; I type it
up; then… someone has to sign it, and none of the usual Coop members is around;
Yus wants me to sign it…
… Fred tells us of a strange rumour that Kireet would be meeting both SSJ and
Navajata in Madras on the 17
th
…!
*15-4-1980, Auroville:
The thing with Gauri is maddening; she will not let me sleep. I have now taken, I
desperation, to throwing her out in the pond whenever it gets too much and that
calms her for a while; but sometimes my nerves are so frayed and wound up that I
am almost ready to kill her…!
I am really not fit to live with anyone, animal or human…!
*16-4-1980, Auroville:
That’s it, I did it. And it was awful.
Last night, I prepared the bedding on the terrace for Pnina and I; I wanted
everything to be fine and at peace. I brought Gauri and her kittens up; I prayed for
tenderness; and at first it was quiet. Then Gauri started again, behaving insanely,
carrying her kittens back and forth and meowing, meowing… like a demented
person…! Pnina got worried. Then there was a lull and we fell asleep. But a while
later, Pnina had to get up; Gauri awoke and it started all over again… I tried to ask
You “is it okay to kill her?”… I don’t know whether I was truly able to ask You; all I
got in response was a kind of surprise that I could have let this situation last for so
long… But this is not a situation I have understood! So I took Gauri down to the
pond and brought her under water… I was not prepared for what followed: she filled
up with an incredible energy and managed to bite me so hard that she nearly got to
the veins of my wrist… The wound was bad and Pnina got worried of blood-
poisoning; she helped me to dress it… I concentrated, went deep within, reaching
again for that moment when a first act of “killing” was committed, the law broken
and the natural barriers of protection were breached and mankind began to grow
by the dark side of things and to progress through suffering and disorder and
violence rather than through psychological adjustment and trust and the
development of perception…
I had only killed once before: two tiny puppies we could not keep; and that had
been like sending them back, softly and gently, where they had come from… But
now is a different matter…!
… This freedom of choice that has been given to men, to experience and grow from
their “mistakes” and even from the edge of sheer self-destruction…