Mirra Alfassa (later Morisset and Richard), known as The Mother (February 21, 1878 - November 17, 1973), was the spiritual partner of the sage and seer Sri Aurobindo. She was born in Paris to Turkish and Egyptian parents and came to his ashram on March 29, 1914 visiting Pondicherry several times and finally settling there in 1920. After November 24, 1926, when Sri Aurobindo retired into seclusion, she supervised the organization of his ashram and institutes. She became the leader of the community after Sri Aurobindo's death in 1950. She died in 1973.
The experiences of the last thirty years of her life were captured in the 13-volume work The Agenda. In those years she attempted the physical transformation of her body in order to become what she felt was the first of a new type of human individual by opening to the Supramental Truth Consciousness, a new power of spirit that Sri Aurobindo had allegedly discovered. Her followers and those of Sri Aurobindo consider(ed) her an incarnation of the Divine Mother, hence her name "the Mother." The Divine Mother is, according to her followers, the feminine aspect of the Divine consciousness and spirit.
Difficulties facing the biographer
There are a number of different narratives interwoven in Mirra's life, most dramatically the transformation of a girl from a non-religious family in France into a woman worshipped by thousands in India as an incarnation of the Divine Mother (The Hindu 2001).
Mirra/The Mother herself did not care for biographies of her life, and never wrote a comprehensive or systematic account of her life. However a lot of biographical information is found scattered through her works, in her correspondence and talks with disciples, and in several Sri Aurobindo Ashram publications (K.D. Sethna, Forward, in Nolima Das 1978 p.v). These have been gathered in compilations by devotees, and the compilations and also the origional mateterial also serve as reference for several on-line biographies. In some cases there are inconsistencies in dates in the material; Sri Aurobindo has also said that The Mother was not interested in dates [ref xxxx]
A second problem is that many of the experiences related by the Mother and Sri Aurobindo to their disciples do not sit well with the secular "postmodern" Western mind, and hence cannot be easily presented without seeming incredible or fantastic.
Early Life
The Mother was born Mirra (or Mira) Alfassa in Paris in 1878, of a Turkish father (Maurice, a banker), and an Egyptian mother (Mathilde Ismaloun). She had an older brother Matteo. The family had emigrated to France the year before she was born (Mother's Chronicles Bk I; Mother on Herself - Chronology p.83). For the first eight years of her life she lived at 62 boulevard Haussmann.
Mirra describes extraordinary inner and outer experiences she had as a child in Paris. She says that at age five she realised she did not belong in this world, and her sadhana (spiritual discipline) began then (Mother India Feb, 1975, p.95, in Das 1978 p.14 and Mother on Herself pp.1, 3-4) She recollects that she would lapse into bliss and go into a trance sometimes when she was placed in an easy chair or during of a meal, much to the annoyance of her iron-willed mother, who regarded this behaviour as a social embarrassment.
Between eleven and thirteen, she says, a series of psychic and spiritual experiences revealed to her the existence of God and man's possibility of uniting with Him (Bulletin of the Sri Aurobindo Center of Education, 1976 p.14, Mother on Herself pp.17-18). At age 12 she was practicing occultism and claimed to be travelling out of her body (Bulletin 1974 p.63). At this time she also first took up painting.
At age 14 she was sent to a studio to learn art and a year later wrote, as a school essay a mystical treatise called The Path of Later On (Alfassa 1893). In 1893 she travelled to Italy with her mother. While at the Palazzo Ducale in Venice she recalled a scene from a past life where she was strangled and thrown out into the canal (The Mother - Some dates). (Later (e.g. in the Agenda) she would also describe other incarnations). At 16 she joined the Ecole des Beaux Arts where she acquired the nickname "the Sphinx", and later exhibited at the Paris Salon. (Das 1978 pp.27, 30, 253)
In 1897 she married Henri Morisset, a student of Moreau. They lived at Atelier, 15 rue Lemercier, Paris, and Mirra moved among Paris's artistic circles, befriending the likes of Rodin and Monet (Nahar 1986).
Mirra asserted that between nineteen and twenty she had acheived a conscious and constant union with the Divine Presence, without the help of books or teachers. Soon after, she discovered Vivekanada's Raja Yoga, which enabled her to make further rapid progress. She says about a year or two later she met an Indian in Paris who advised her to read the Bhagavad-Gita, taking Krishna as a symbol of the inner or immanent Divine. She obtained a French translation which, she relates was quite poor but still enabled her to understand the substance of it. (Collected Works - Questions and Answers 1954)
On 1898 she had a son Andre, with Morisset.
Mirra recalled that in her meditations she saw several spiritual figures, all of whom offered her help of one type or another.
In 1904 at age 26 she met in her dreams a dark Asiatic figure whom she called to herself ‘Krishna’. She said that Krishna guided her in her inner journey. She came to have total implicit faith in Krishna, and was hoping to meet him one day in real life.
Sometime before or during 1906 in Paris she met an enigmatic occultist named Max Theon, who for the first time was able to explain her psychic experiences to her. She paid two extended visits to Theon's estate at Tlemcen (Algeria) to live with and learn occultism first hand from Theon and his wife (Das 1978 ch.5; Nahar 1989). The experiences she had there obviously made a deep impression on her, for she would often relate them in her later talks, and some of the concepts in Theon's teachings were later incorporated into Sri Aurobindo and her own teachings.
Two years later, in 1908 Mirra divorced Morisset, and moved to 49 rue de Lévis, Paris.
In 1910 Mirra had an experience of a reversal of consciousness in which she realised the Divine Will at the very center of her being, and from that moment onwards was no longer motivated by personal desire, but only wanted to do the Divine Will (Agenda vol I pp.163-4).
Around this time Mirra had regular meetings with students and seekers who were attracted to psychical phenonemnon or to mysticism. I906 she had founded in Paris a group of spiritual seekers which was named l'Idée Nouvelle , and which met at her home on Wednesday evenings, first at rue Lemercier and then at rue des Lévis, and after her marriage to Paul Richard at Rue du Val de Grace. Her book "Words of Long Ago" (vol.2 of the Collected Works) is the account of one of these meetings, along with talks she gave to the L'Union de Pensée Féminine and other groups. In 1912 she organised a small group (of around 20 people) of seekers named Cosmique, who would meet regularly with the aim of gaining self-knowledge and self-mastery. Although she had not yet met Sri Aurobindo, some of her idaes at the time paralleled his (Das, 1978, pp.82, 110-112). These were later included at the start ogf her small book Conversations
In 1910 she had what she later described as an experience of a reversal of consciousness in which she realised the Divine Will at the very center of her being, and from that moment onwards was no longer motivated by personal desire, but only wanted to do the Divine Will (Agenda vol I pp.163-4).
Around this time she married Paul Richard. Richard had travelled to India on a political mission and met Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry) in mid-April 1910. This seems to have been when Sri Aurobindo first heard about Mirra and her Idea group. Similarily, Richard informed Mirra of Sri Aurobindo. (Das 1978, p.121)
Mirra studied philosophy with Richard, as well as correcting his dictation (The Mother - Some dates). They lived at Rue du Val de Grace, in a small house at the back of a garden or courtyard. Andre, then around twelve, was a regular visitor. This was the house where Mirra would receive Alexandra David-Neel almost every evening (Agenda vol.1, p.441)). During this period, she also met Abdul Baha (Das 1978, pp.104-109), Inayat Khan and other spiritual teachers (Van Vrekhem, 2001).
In 1912 she wrote her first Prayers and Meditations (the original entry probably dating to the previous year). These would be published as part of the Collected Works (Mother's Birth Centenary Edition vol. 1)
Meeting Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo remained in "material and spiritual correspondence" with the Ricahrds for the next four years (Das 1978, p.121)
On 7 March 1914, Mirra and Paul Richard embarked for India aboard the steamer Kaga Maru, reaching Pondicherry on the 29th. However, She related later that when saw Sri Aurobindo for the first time, she recognized him as the person she saw in her visions of the dark Asiatic figure, who she had refered to as "Krishna". The next day she noted in her journal, “It does not matter that thousands of beings are plunged in darkness. He whom we saw yesterday is on earth. His presence is enough to assure us that one day Truth will rule here.”
Years before Sri Aurobindo first met Mirra and Richard, he had given up his revolutionary quest to help India throw out the British and retreated to Pondicherry (where he was safe from arrest by the British) to work on the spiritual transformation of humanity and life on earth.
After a short period of intense sadhana, Sri Aurobindo would sometimes give evening talks. In 1913 he moved to no.41 Rue Francis Martin, called the Guest House, where he would receive visitors in the morning (this would have been when Mirra and Paul Richard met him), and after the group meditation (usually about 4. p.m.) he would host very informal evening gatherings of his early disciples. (Purani 1982 pp.9-12)
Mirra said that when she first met Sri Aurobindo, she found that her thoughts ceased to run, her mind became quiet, and silence began to gather momentum, until two or three days later there was only the silence and the yogic consciousness. In 1958 in the Agenda (vol I pp.163-4) she told Satprem that the two experiences, the consciousness in the psychic depths of the being realised in 1910, and the stillness connection with the Divine above the head realised when first meeting Sri Aurobindo, have remained with her ever since.
On 29 March Paul Richard had suggested that Sri Aurobindo publish a journal, dealing with a synthesis of the latter's philosophical ideas. The journal that they worked on was named Arya, and it became the vehicle for most of Sri Aurobindo writings, which would later appear in book-form as The Life Divine, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Essays On The Gita, The Secret Of The Veda, Hymns To The Mystic Fire, The Upanishads, The Foundations Of Indian Culture, War And Self-determination, The Human Cycle, The Ideal Of Human Unity, and The Future Poetry (The Mother - Some dates). The first issue of the monthly journal came out on 15 August 1914, Sri Aurodindo's birthday. (Das 1978 p.254)
Mirra and Richard stayed at Pondicherry until February 1915, but had to return to Paris because of the First World War. They spent a year in France before travelling to Japan where they stayed for four years, first in Tokyo (1916 to 1917) and then Kyoto (1917-1920). They were also accompanied by Dorothy Hodgson, an Englishwoman who had known Mirra in France (ibid p.209) and would later become a devottee (with the Datta). During her stay Mirra adopted Japanese way of life, mannerisms and dress, and visited many Buddhist places of pilgrimage (Das 1978 p.173) Remembers one Japanese friend much later: "She came here to learn Japanese and to be one of us. But we had so much to learn from her and her charming and unpredictable ways" (Madame Kobayashi, in Das 1978 p.193). In 1919 she an Rabindranath Tagore, who happened to be staying at the same hotel. There is in the Rabindra Museum collection at Santiniketon a group photograph which includes the two. Tagore presented Mirra with the typewriter he was using at the timne; this is still in the Sri Aurobindo ashram (ibid p.206). She also many years later (in 1956) recounted meeting Tolstoy's son while in Japan (Coll. Works vol 8, pp.106-7)
On 24 April 1920 Mirra returned with Paul Richard to Pondicherry from Japan, accompanied by Dorothy Hodgson. On 24 November, she moved to live near Sri Aurobindo in the Guest House at Rue Francois Martin. Richard did not stay long, he spent a year travelling around North India (Das 1978 p.209; The Mother - Some dates) as a sanyasi. Some time later he initiated divorce proceedings, having already remarried in the meantime (Agenda vol.2 pp.371-372).
In 1921, when Sri Aurobindo said that they had brought the Supermind down to the Vital Plane), Mirra appeared (according to witnesses and her own accounts) to have a body like that of an eighteen- or twenty-year-old, while Sri Aurobindo was also glowing with health (Agenda vol.xx, p.xxx; Purani, Evening Talks p.21, Das 1978, pp.211-212). But these cahnges were lost when they took the Supermind down to teh work of transformation in the Subconscient.
On January 1922 Mirra began regular evening talks and group meditations. In September or October of that year, Sri Aurobindo and Mother moved to no.9 Rue de la Marine, where the same informal routine of Sri Aurobindo's evening gatherings of his early disciples (Purani, 1982 pp.9-12) (and Mirra's talks and meditations?) continued. As the number of disciples arriving increased, Mirra organised what would later become the ashram, more from the wish of the sadhaks then her or Sri Aurobindo's own plans. (Sri Aurobindo Coll. Works vol.26 p.429)
The Mother of the Ashram
On the 24 November 1926 (Siddhi Day) Sri Aurobindo reported himself to have had an important experience in which he realised the Overmental plane and brought down to Earth, in his words, the Overmental Krishna (Das 1978 p.233).
This was also the official founding of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. At the time there no more than 24 disciples in the Ashram (ibid pp.233-4).
In December of that year, Sri Aurobindo decided to withdraw from public view. It was at this point that he identified Mirra with the Divine Mother, and instructed his followers to do the same. He informed his disciples that henceforth The Mother would take full charge of the ashram and he would live in retirement. Mirra heard for the first time that this new responsibility was conferred on her and she had been installed officially as The Mother. She related later that Sri Aurobindo had not consulted her prior to the declaration nor did he inform her of his intention, but that she had heard the news for the first time along with the disciples. (ref. xxx?)
In 1927, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother moved to Rue Francoi Martin, where they stayed for the remainder of their lives (The Mother - Some dates).
In the 1920s the daughter of Woodrow Wilson, the US President, came to the Ashram and chose to remain there for the rest of her life.
At this time (date? reference?) there was a regular routine. At 6:15 every morning The Mother appeared on the ashram balcony to initiate the day with her blessings. Sadhaks (spiritual aspirants), who got up at 3AM, finished their own meditations and a good portion of the day’s work, and then assembled under the balcony to receive her blessings.
As the ashram grew, many departments sprang up: the office, library, dining room, press, workshops, playground, art gallery, dispensary, farms, dairies, flower gardens, guest houses, legal department, audit department, and many others, too. The heads of the departments met The Mother in the morning and took her blessings and orders. Again at 10 a.m. she used to meet all the sadhaks individually. Once again, in the evening at 5:30 PM, she conducted meditation and met each sadhak once more.
In addition, four times a year she used to give public Darshans (a spiritual gathering where the guru bestows blessings) at which a few thousand devotees gathered and received her Grace.
Henry Ford heard of The Mother and wanted to meet her. On the eve of his departure, World War II broke out and prevented his coming to India.
During the war, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother declared their support of Allies. They said that victory of the Nazis would have been a diastsre for the spiritual work, and professed to have participated in world history, changing the course of World War II (e.g. Purani (1982) p.746, Agenda vol.xx pp.xxx).
In 1945 The Mother's son Andre Morisset's visted her at Pondicherry.
The first issue of the Bulletin of Physical Education was published in 1949. In the late 1940s The Mother envisaged an Ideal City in Hyderabad where she would live together with Sri Aurobindo, but gave up this idea after Sri Aurobindo's passing. In 1951 she founded the Sri Aurobindo International University to modernize and expand the scope of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry. (Mirapuri - Biography)
The Physical Transformation
Sri Aurobindo said that in Mother he found surrender to the Divine down to physical body itself, the cells of the body (not merely the mind and emotions), the likes of which could not be found in any human being.
The Mother related that just before Sri Aurobindo left his body he poured all of the Force from his body into her body. Also before he died she agreed to make the effort of physical transformation that Sri Aurobindo had tried but was not able to complete. In fact in one sense it was because he was unable to carry out the physical transformation that he felt it was time to leave his physical body, so he could work at the non-physical level, where he believed he could become more effective.
After Sri Aurobindo's passing in 1950 The Mother fully took up in earnest her promise to Sri Aurobindo to attempt the physical transformation. On 29 February 1956 ("Golden Day") she announced an experience in which she had a vast cosmic golden form and broke open the golden door that separated the Universe from the Divine, allowing the Supramental force to stream down to Earth in an uninterrupted flow (Agenda vol.1 p.69). She later (24 April) annpounced "The manifestation of the Supremanetal u[pon earth is no more a promise but a living fact" (Agenda vol.1 p.75)
From 1960 till her passing in 1973 The Mother had a number of near weekly meetings with one of her closest disciples, Satprem. There she discussed her progress in her physical transformation, world events and her effect on world events, the new workings of the supramental consciousness in the world, her earlier life's experiences including her spiritual experiences, the changes and spiritualisation in the functioning of her physical body, her visions of the new race, and many other topics. These conversations were kept and were published in French and English in the 13-volume set known as The Agenda).
In the 1960s a friend of John F. Kennedy took interest in The Mother and examined in depth the philosophy and yoga of Sri Aurobindo. He met The Mother and asked her what were the external signs by which one could discern the attainment of the Supramental consciousness in a person. The Mother explained to him the two conditions that would reveal the attainment of the Supramental consciousness and told him that of the three, equality, was the most significant (Mother's Agenda vol.2 pp.96-98). The visitor arranged for Kennedy to visit The Mother, but it could not take place.
At various points in the 1960s and 1970s she mentioned that the cells of her body were becoming more conscious. This cellular transformation, that is a "mind of the cells" was perhaps the key to the physical transformation. She would say that the cells of her body were learning to organize themselves, to a have a kind of mind of their own.
She often referred to death as a mere state of mind, a state of mind of the cells that the cells accepted. If they could change their perspective, if they did not accept death as an inevitability, this could help the cells maintain their form without their deteriorating.
She professed that one of the keys to physical transformation was overcoming the effect of the "physical mind" and the subconscious (subconscient). She said that this part of the nature is defeatist, grumbling, filled with inertia, where illness gets reinforced, and perhaps the great physical barrier to the physical transformation. Claiming that this was one of the great impediments to the emergence of the new species, she tried to bring in the higher consciousness into this part of her being.
In later years she met with other renowned individuals, including the king of Nepal. She had a significant meeting with the Dalai Lama who had recently escaped from Chinese occupation of Tibet. She found him to be a man of great compassion. He asked Mother if Tibet would one day be freed of Chinese rule. She affirmed it would one day happen.
At the same time as the inner transformation she working on the outer. In 1956 she established the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Delhi Branch together with Surendranath Jauhar and The Mother's International School. In 1967 plans for were made and some land acquired to found a universal city of spiritual seekers in Gujarat, which she named Ompuri. This project, like earlier plans of 1957, did not go any further. But in 1968, the Mother, working with architect Roger Anger, began Auroville as a 'more external extension' of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. (Mirapuri - Biography)
From 1970 until 1973 Michel Montecrossa with the Mother's help worked on the foundation of Mirapuri which was later established in Italy and Germany (Mirapuri - Biography)
The Mother left her body on 17 November 1973; three days later her body was placed in the Samadhi, the vault in the courtyard of the Ashram where Sri Aurobindo's body was placed in 1950 (Mother on Herself - Chronology p.83).
Auroville
In the 1960s, it was The Mother’s dream to create a place where humanity could seek the Divine without having to dredge for food and shelter. It was in fulfillment of this dream that she was instrumental in the development of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram for those who dedicated themselves to yoga, of personal and spiritual transformation. With the same underlying principle and the same actuating aspiration The Mother founded Auroville — i.e. town of Sri Aurobindo — for those who have not taken to yoga as their main ideal in life. Auroville is an international city meant for those whose ideal is to live according to truth.
The Mother had conceived several years previously an original grand scheme for Auroville. In the mid 60s she received a letter from a disciple who had a vision which rekindled The Mother's interest in the project. She then embarked on a more modest version of her original plan.
The city has, in the conception of the initial architects, several zones with roads on which automobiles are prohibited. The soul of Auroville is Matrimandir or ‘The Mother’s temple’. Matrimandir is constructed as a sphere that houses in its center a meditation hall. The construction is uniquely arranged so that sunlight enters the building during all hours of the day through a small hole in the roof. At the time of the foundation in 1968 an urn of lotus bud shape was constructed, into which earth from all nations of the world was deposited by youths from each nation.
The Mother’s conception of the city and life there includes several features. Money has no role to play in Auroville. Cars are banned. No administration with authority over the lives of the members is created. No one is appointed as the head or leader whom all should obey. Each member is to be guided by his inner light only. Any structure of authority that is created is to be functional and not to have legal or administrative power vested in it.
One intent The Mother had in mind in founding Auroville was that the city must be a symbol of human unity and thus prevent the next world war by its very presence on earth. She even declared that as long as Auroville existed, no war would break out.
Auroville has now been transformed from acres of barren land to richly forested and planted landscape. There are dozens of mini settlements in the town, and a number of pavilions and centers. There are major experiments and implementations in the latest technologies, such as computers, the Internet, solar technology, the latest agricultural and conservation techniques, and so forth.
References
- Anon., The Mother - Some dates
- Alfassa, Mirra (1893) The Path of Later On
- Aurobindo Ghose (1972), Collected Works of Sri Aurobindo, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, Birth Centenary Edition
- The Hindu (2001) The Mother and the biographer's dilemma
- Collected Works of the Mother (1978), Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry Centenary Edition (17 vol set)
- The Mother on Herself, 1977, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry
- Mother's Agenda (1979- ) (Engl. transl) Institute for Evolutionary Research, New York, NY (13 vol set)
- Das, Nolima ed., (1978) Glimpses of the Mother's Life
- Nahar, Sujata (1986) Mother's chronicles Bk. 2. Mirra the Artist, Paris: Institut de Recherches Evolutives, Paris & Mira Aditi, Mysore.
- -- (1989) Mother's chronicles Bk. 3. Mirra the Occultist. Paris: Institut de Recherches Evolutives, Paris & Mira Aditi, Mysore.
- Titlebaum, Richard (1985-1986) Commentary From The Journals, Boston, MA, 1985-1986
- Purani, A.B., (1982) Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry
- Van Vrekhem, Georges, (2001) The Mother: The Story of Her Life, HarperCollins
Partial bibliography
- Commentaries on the Dhammapada, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, WI 2004, ISBN 0-940985-25-X
- Flowers and Their Messages, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, WI ISBN 0-941524-68-X
- Search for the Soul in Everyday Living, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, WI ISBN 0-941524-57-4
- Soul and Its Powers, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, WI ISBN 0-941524-67-1
External links
- The Mother - Sri Aurobindo Ashram pages
- Sri Aurobindo and the Mother - good site with a lot of links and texts