329 / 1424
329
*16-7-1980, Auroville:
Diane and I were to meet today for the Visas work. When I reach her house in
“Jaïma”, she announces that she has decided to withdraw from it, as it is all too
much for her; so we’ll have to bring it to everyone’s notice at the general meeting
tomorrow. In a way I feel I can go on even alone; it is not that much work and I
can ask help for typing, from Marcia for instance; and I rather like to be of some
use, of some service in the collective life… But I would need the confidence of the
“community” so that no negative formations crop up…
… Annappa arrives, his sweet, simple and beaming face; he says he has come back
to stay, that his family will follow once he is settled…
… Nath is sick, lying with fever and a sore throat in the house…
… The atmosphere at Matrimandir is affected again; like a brown thick wave has
intruded, and it is chaotic. There are about 20 constables loafing around, joking,
waiting, and vans riding in and out… The SAS had tried to take over the office this
morning, but it seems that the police Inspectors pushed them away themselves.
Section 144 is clamped again for 15 more days and more strictly so than the
previous times… Perhaps it all has to do with the “information” that the SAS has got
the support of some RSS fanatics, out to drive all “foreigners” away…
… I somehow manage to do the paper work, even to receive some visitors and
prepare new letters…
Yus, who has to attend the trial in Court every day, is depressed because we are
not even trying to defend ourselves while the SAS is piling “evidence” against us…
… It is O.P’s last day; he will leave in the night. And I realise how dear he is to me,
something that has been so kneaded into me over the years that it has become
part of me…!
… When it is time, after midnight, for O.P to get into the taxi and actually leave, I
find that I am quite sick: I can hardly move, from intense nausea, vertigo and
acute unease; but I force myself to walk him to the waiting car and we part, with a
quiet inner wonder: how much time will elapse before we “meet” again, we cannot
know…
I return slowly to bed, but it doesn’t work: I have to rush out at once and vomit;
then I am relieved and the energy flows again…
*18-7-1980, Auroville:
Annappa has slept downstairs.
… I cannot relate to what seems to be happening; either I get suffocated or else I
feel foreign to it all.
… Around 9 am, about 10 of us, mostly from the Centre area, are standing half-way
between the Kitchen and the Banyan tree and there is a whole regiment of
helmeted police… Narad reads out the text of a telegram to Indira that he has
prepared; I like it very much, it feels like it is within Your Consciousness… But then
Rod also wants to read out to us the text of a petition to the Government of India,
which he wants us all to sign, asking, imploring it to help us find a solution; and
this I don’t like at all…! But nobody seems to care!
Yet to me it is not merely a matter of wording, it goes farther and deeper, it is a
matter of orientation: to seek help, external help in order to “solve our problems”,
or to stand sincerely, relying on the Lord’s Will and Presence… Since months it is
like that… Any incident triggers in us that response: we turn to the Collector, to the
Police, we send letters – often pretentious -, but we never concentrate, act and
call… How do we grow? I don’t know!