My experience of Satprem

brought with her entourage a thousand rose plants, which we then distributed from the Banyan tree. And so, we were trying to be “intelligent” and up to the mark, but we had little or no experience in communication…! I sent to Satprem a first draft, or first legible result of our pretentious warbling, to which he answered very kindly, but firmly: “10-2-81. Divakar. Just a few lines in a rush. There is much to do. I have read this lengthy document. It seems to me to be perhaps appropriate for the Government of India or for the administration of Auroville, but not at all for the International Council to which it is addressed. Put yourself two minutes inside the skin of the Bulgarian Minister or of the African Director of the UNESCO or of the American representative freshly arrived from New-York, what does it mean to them, all these technical matters of land or passport, of this or that… It will not interest them at all. All this bureaucratic and technical jargon, if excellent for India and for ‘those in the know’, will land on their heads like a sledge hammer. One must get them interested. One must tell them how, in what ways, this Auroville is of import for their own countries and ask them things that they themselves can do. How does Auroville matter to Bulgaria, Africa, America – and what is it that they practically can do? One can tell them in ten lines how they can protect Auroville and from what. Then in another ten lines tell them how they can participate in this experience and why. I am thinking here for instance of the construction of the ‘Pavilions’ and of teams of students from each country…! Fraternally. Satprem.” Almost at the same time I had to write to Satprem regarding an altogether different matter. Tanmaya, one of the teachers at the Ashram Centre of Education and principal mover of the method of “Free Progress”, had expressed the wish to come and live and work in Auroville. I was very fond of this man. He had a few good friends in Auroville, as well as old students of his who had already joined us. But he was not meeting everywhere the same welcome and often was faced with a certain amount of distrust. I did not know enough to support him effectively and I thought that Satprem would necessarily have known him well in

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