734 / 1424
734
itself. Yet I m not aware of the new, of the future; it is as if it is all coming to
blankness, to a point of neutrality…
*8-7-1987, Auroville:
Ed came to “Ravena” this morning, to talk: he has finally managed to purchase a
piece of disputed land, adjacent to “Ravena”, thus connecting the Auroville land in
that area; this is achievement he is rather proud of; he has worked hard on it and
he considers that this settles his debt to Janaka. He wanted to let me know this… I
could appreciate the urge that had led him to speak to me, but I took the chance to
give him a review of what I have had to go through for “Ravena” because of the
lack of funds… However he merely kept asking me “what, if… what if I cannot
complete it? And who will maintain the place? What will it be used for…?” And I
have no answers!
*9-7-1987, Auroville:
I have been wondering about the difference, sometimes subtle, between self-
discipline and self-jailing or self-limiting…
I was cycling home from work with the intention to do my evening asanas, when I
met G.G on the road, who wanted to return to me the papers I had given him to
write up a project on “Ravena” (the possibility he had thought of didn’t work, in the
end), and we got unexpectedly involved in a long conversation and there came an
encouraging sharing of views on the present condition of Auroville; G.G has
recently been led to take certain positions in which he believed, and that has
exposed him to various reactions – and he’s been called names, and this has taught
him a bit, it seems; it was, for once, like communicating to a brother, someone
likely committed…
*11-7-1987, Auroville:
I went to visit J.P at Dr Sen’s; I hadn’t seen him for about 10 days: he has aged,
and thinned out considerably and, sitting up on his bed, Hélène near him reading
him a story, the look of the blind on his face and his voice still catching, he could
have come out of a Camp… But his sweetness and his formidable need for
friendliness is dominating everything. He still cannot see more than vague shapes,
and with one eye only, but he makes out the colours when presented at close
range…
… There was a rather sad scene at “Ravena” today: someone has offered to
Jagannathan the job of chief carpenter, with higher wages than those I can afford
paying him (in Auroville terms I pay him good enough wages, but he has become
obsessed with money, even though by village standards he is not a poor man, as he
owns fields and assets…); he pretended to ask my advice, but he was actually
pressuring me to increase his wages, or else…! So I let him decide for himself, and
he did: he has quit. And that was sad, for many reasons: he isn’t going to really
earn that much more, while on the other hand he is leaving unfinished a work
which we have been doing together for about two years now, and I was hoping we
could complete together, thus sharing in a concrete offering…
This should free me from a sense of being duty-bound to these men – this had
been my main worry all along, to see that these people can finish the work they
had started, as a complete experience: I guess this is a remnant from past times,