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There is the sense that, long, long ago on this earth – long ago but somehow in an
eternal present – there has been a natural state in which inner guidelines and
safeguards were conscious and living laws and people were able to develop without
ever endangering the balance of things or to face the contradictions we have come
to know, and material harmony was effortlessly maintained…
When I made it into sleep, for an hour before dawn, it was to shift into a bad
dream: there had been some betrayal and groups of very unpleasant people were
entering all our houses…
… Pnina prepares milk for the kittens before she leaves to go to Pondy…
… P.G has just returned from Delhi; he tells us about Indira’s solitude before the
magnitude of the task…; regarding Auroville, Indira has asked Kireet to prepare
with M.D a full report so that she may reach her own decision…
… Noh comes in a rush to ask us to help her get rid of “Auroculture” who has
arrived once more with her “flower compost from the Samadhi”… When we reach
there we have to deal with L.N who advocates her position with the same old
“spiritual” arguments and it soon becomes so bizarre that we all end up in stitches,
a general outburst of hilarity…
… I went again cycling to Pondy and back. Then P comes to me wanting to know
what had happened last night, as he’d had a peculiar experience: just a moment
before I shouted, from the pain of Gauri’s bite, he’d woken up; he heard the shout
and was plunged into a deep state; this was a cry of death in complete silence, and
he felt the reality of death, as if in a second state…
*17-4-1980, Auroville:
Last night Pnina and I slept separately, so we each could rest… In the middle of the
night, I dreamt of Gauri: I have gone out to look at the pond; it has been
overflowing for long and it is now wet all around in the garden and the water of the
pond has itself become very clear; Gauri’s body has risen and is gently floating; I
approach, looking for something, a stick or a branch, to reach and hold it; slowly,
with a kind of inevitability, it becomes animated and Gauri, like a somnambulist,
moves out of the pond by herself and starts to walk away; I call her; I am amazed,
but also grateful; I want to tell her something sweet and ask her about herself; she
halts, comes back towards me; she tells me all the wrongs I have done in our
relationship, the things I have done to her, betraying our connection, and how she
has suffered and eventually become mad. But her tone is not at all dramatic; there
is no heaviness in the scene, nor in her way of saying those things; it is also clear
that she is aware of her own responsibility and that there is no rancour; there is
rather a kind of clear sweetness about it…
… I “think” of Gauri a lot, and review the life we have had: her confidence, her
abandon, her presence; whatever anger I expressed, she always returned
trustingly…
… It rains, long, this morning…
… Tonight I bury Gauri’s body in a small pot where I plant a hibiscus; I stay there
alone, meditating and sending caring thought, welcoming thought, to her...
*18-4-1980, Auroville:
This was my first night of good sleep after so long!
Pnina is full of questions, though. At first, I react; then, it becomes light and we
laugh… Krishna comes to have breakfast with us…
… It takes us some time to shake off the heaviness and get into the work; G.M and
Marcia, Gl, Bill S, John H, Yamini, C.E., AnneM, Nina, Andy and Piero are there…
Around 11 am we see a police van drive in, filled with police and people from the