journal d'une transition

290

the physical level, with the inscribed, in-bred understanding that it will end, that it must end, with the death of the body… It is all a system of debts and pay-offs, and there is only a thin margin left for pure creativity… But, there too, to be creative and to remain honest in one’s self-giving to the Lord… is not an easy thing to achieve… So far the field of human activity I can best attune to is that of the crafts, with the artisans, wherein the balance between practical usefulness and creative care is acquired and integrated, without too much of a compromise… I do believe I belong to Matrimandir; yet I also feel I could function in other ways: setting up an industry, organising an administration, taking care of a guest-house or creating a whole environment… The real question: how does the Lord want me to give myself – whatever that may be? That answer alone would free me from the unclarity, from the guilt and the compulsion to be somehow “productive”, not to be a weight or a parasite… *20-2-1980, Auroville: Today we were determined to go back to work. G.M picks me up early; we reach Matrimandir, climb up the structure, P soon joins us and time, like a rubber, erases all the days we have been away… Our condition is a little different, though: G.M is happier because Marcia has returned to stay with him in “Dana” and I’m happier because he is… We are just recovering our rhythms of work when the Inspector Thomas rides in, calls us down and brandishes an official paper from the Tasilhdar: another 10 days of section 144! John H, Phil and Bill S join us; we tell the Inspector that we’ve had enough, we shall work… He says that he will then have to arrest us. We reply that it is not our concern to know what he has to do, we are only concerned with what we have to do… and our work is here! Jacq soon joins us as well… I work out in my mind all the arrangements for “Sincerity”, for C’s arrival, the wages, all the practical things, in case we are taken to jail… Then P.G and Gupi ride in, straight from the Coop meeting, with a tense expression… They have come to stop us! Gupi gives us a long speech on the need to step back and learn the lesson from all these obstacles… We leave it at that… What do we know? I am reacting; I am annoyed at these speeches that seem to be made up with entire sentences lifted from Satprem’s books… But, alright, we do have to agree on how to respond… … I get an official letter of refusal from the local authorities: my application for cement has been found “unacceptable”; no explanation is given. Thus, after several weeks of delays, this now smells like interference from the SAS people… Now, I would rather go to the black market than slip a bank-note under the magistrate’s table! *21-2-1980, Auroville: Noh, Phil and I prepare a special dinner today, for Your birthday, with lots of good things in it, and a sweet dish of my own invention too; others come to help, hundreds of flowers are arranged on the tables; double the amount of people expected show up in a rush and it goes on till after 8 pm, but we manage to feed everyone and all are happy, in this disorderly, noisy, raucous and careless way that seems to be the rule in collective life… It is a kind of satisfied disharmony, or jarring