873 / 1424
873
*27-8-1989, Auroville:
Selvam is nearly done. I want to help him out, but I have to be more cautious. I
don’t quite know how to go about it; there is my attachment to him, and there is a
deeper movement between us, and there is too the obvious necessity to check him
and hold him and be very firm with him, and there is the need to develop a
balanced and free-growing relationship as well…
I need this to be part of the central movement of concentration, rather than a pull
away from it; at times it feels like it is possible, that it is happening; at other times,
I find that it has gone off and gaps appear that are too enormous to be bridged or
resolved… There is a question of time, too; being tied to him, can I afford going
through relapses and slips in his own progress as well as mine? Yet, somehow, it
feels right…
*28-8-1989, Auroville:
The country seems to be heading toward a confrontation between Centre and
States. I reasoned Su out of trying to go to Madras a day earlier to receive Shera at
the airport on Wednesday. We are trying to arrange for a message to be given
Shera when she lands, and a room to be booked for her at the nearby hotel, so that
Su can go there the day after… I had considered going there on the bike in the
evening of Wednesday, but it may not be such a wise move, given the expectation
of violence in the air…
*29-8-1989, Auroville:
What can I say? Who am I to pull anyone into an area of experience that, if I am to
judge by the consequences it has on me, is no progress and no essential
discovery…? But more than that weighs on me: there is this conditioning that acts
on him, in him, this craving for status, to get to a higher standard than the one he
came from… How can I let him go on indulging in this farce? I keep trying to let him
see that it is what he IS and can BECOME that matters, provided that he cares
enough…
… I have become aware of a challenge that is most sensitive, even if kept away
from most people; a challenge in the deepest and most radical sense, where and
when love is to bridge and melt what nothing else can…
*30-8-1989, Auroville:
It is like wave after wave of unconscious denial, contradiction, or a dense absence
of response… I do not want to fall into the trap of trying to change anyone’s nature,
or even mine, at that! And it isn’t the point. The thing that I trust and believe in is
the sharing that can happen between two people, through that quality of friendship;
but, is it always so difficult?
31-8-1989, Auroville:
Su had left before dawn and she returned with Shera at 2 pm and brought her
straight to me: a robust woman, with a deep-seated heart, very sensitive and very
direct…
… Sometimes it amazes me how steadily, intensely and completely unhappy I can
be! I have never heard of anything like that! It is a pain, or a sorrow, or a need