Chapter 2June 11, 1969

The body clearly mustn’t be preoccupied with anything; it mustn’t be preoccupied with anything, neither this way nor that, neither with progress nor with dissolution – not preoccupied with anything. The state (not the state it aspires to, it’s not that, because it doesn’t have any “aspiration”), the state that seems to be... willed for it (I don’t know how to explain) is – peace, a receptive peace, that’s all.

(long silence)

Can’t speak, words are idiotic.

(Following a telegram from PL. announcing that he has been “excluded from the retinue”

accompanying the Pope to the Geneva assembly.)

It seems to me to be a conflict between the Pope and the cardinals.... Have you got his letter?

Not yet. He simply says he has been ‘excluded.

(After a silence) A. has told me that the two preceding popes had made considerable changes. I know that one of the changes was to recognize that life on earth was “purgatory”.... And apparently that was so much ground down and twisted that it all disappeared! Nothing remained.

* * *

(Later, regarding a letter from the Raymonds, friends of Pavitra’s and the architects who built

“Golconde,” the Ashram’s guest house.)

Have you seen the Raymonds’ letter?... They’ve written a very sweet letter. In their letter, they write something I didn’t know, which Pavitra had never told me; they say that when Pavitra put them in contact with here, it completely changed their lives, the aim of their lives and everything.

Raymond is a great architect. When they came here88 and built “Golconde,” I asked Raymond to prepare the plan for the first Auroville I had conceived (that was when Sri Aurobindo was still alive), and it was magnificent! He didn’t leave it here.

But it was an Auroville with, at the center, Sri Aurobindo’s house (gesture on a hilltop). Sri Aurobindo was alive, so we had put him at the center.