Biographical The Lives of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

Sri Aurobindo: A Life Extraordinary






In all aspects of his personality Sri Aurobindo was entirely unconventional. As a poet and politician, as a philosopher and yogi, he always hewed new paths. As a thinker he was ahead of most others among the contemporaries.
As a politician he always remained in the background until the rulers arrested and kept him as an under trial prisoner in Alipore Bomb case. He was the first to repeatedly demand total freedom as the political goal of the country in the pages of Bande Mataram.
While in England he was well acquainted with the European history and thought, revolutionary ideas and deeds; Shelley’s Revolt of Islam moved him to some extent. By the time he was in politics his ideal was Indian freedom based on its spirituality. It seemed as if he was born with it. He was a pioneer in spreading Spiritual Nationalism as a practical path breaker on the way to freedom, taking inspiration mainly from Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s novel Anandamath. Swami Vivekananda too was an example before him. His spiritualism at that time was based mainly on Hindu scriptures, Hindu ideals and the age old practices, confirmed by his own experiences. Naturally he could not or would not bring in other religions in the scheme of spiritual nationalism which grew spontaneously according to the ethos of the time.
What this religion is he described in full details in his Uttarpara speech. According to this, this religion is older than the Hindu religion which is a combination of many faiths. This originated in the Vedas, the oldest source of religion, known as the Sanatan Dharma which he always believed would raise the Indian Nation and along with it the whole world.
Though India was divided in many kingdoms and feudal lords, it was united by this Sanatan Dharma and the age old culture. India was invaded number of times by foreign forces. While most of them left, some remained with their culture and religion. India absorbed all, assimilated all. Even when large number of the countrymen embraced other religions mostly under compulsive situations, India remained one. Sri Aurobindo always stressed on this unity even after it was divided. His Uttarpara Speech was the revelation of his spiritual self, its experiences and the hope that India will rise again at the behest of Sanatan Dharma. It will remain united.
In his time Hindu Muslim conflict was not so serious. But he observed that the rulers made all possible efforts to divide the minds of the two peoples and were successful in dividing Bengal. He never accepted the situation. The settled fact of division was unsettled, Bengal was united again. He never accepted the constitutional reform proposed by Lord Morley. Throughout the length of different issues of Karmayogin, he stressed on the subject of unity from time to time.
“In any case it cannot outweigh, however full it may be, the disastrous character of the principle of separate electorates introduced by Lord Morley, intentionally or unintentionally, as the thin end of a wedge which, when driven well home, will break our growing nationality into a hundred jarring pieces.” (Karmayogin. Vol.1. No.13. Dated-18.9.09)
“We will be no party to a distinction which recognises Hindu and Mahomedan as permanently separate political units and thus precludes the growth of a single and indivisible Indian nation.” (ibid. No. 18. Dated- 6.11.09)
Before his eyes this division between the two communities began with the ploy and patronage of the imperial lords. He never thought of any division or partition for Mother India was always one before his eyes. He wished a way to undo this division of minds:
“We must strive to remove the causes of misunderstanding by a better mutual knowledge and sympathy; we must extend the unfaltering love of the patriot to our Musulman brother, remembering always that in him too Narayana dwells and to him too our Mother has given a permanent place in her bosom; but we must cease to approach him falsely or flatter out of a selfish weakness and cowardice.” (Under the title; Swaraj and the Musulmans. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library. Vol.2. p.24)
Long after the partition is over, reading the mind of Pakistanis, we understand that most of them are highly dissatisfied and are very sorry that none have been able to give a true shape to a Muslim nation as its founding leader hoped. In fact history is unveiling itself gradually that the founding father of Pakistan was not in favour of dividing the united India at the beginning, however much communal he later became. There were some others who thought it expedient to get it done to see their own position secured. However much suppressed it is, the truth is on the brink, likes to overflow. We in India are suffering still from various deformities due mainly to partition. We remember again and again, what great it would be to accept the offer of the Cabinet Mission through Sir Stafford Cripps in 1942. The country would not be divided. We can’t share the great wisdom of the then great leaders who refused to accept Sri Aurobindo’s suggestion to them to accept the Cripps Mission to avoid the partition. Neither the Quit India movement was non-violent nor was it the singular action to bring the truncated freedom of the country; read the history properly. Today Indians should more realise what the consequences of partition are, a curse in our life, and what a true wisdom is like which is represented by Sri Aurobindo.
In 1909 the divine acquired the foremost position in his life. Division between man and man, community and community, religion and religion was far from his thought. His love for humanity was overwhelming which ultimately led him to devote his life towards establishing a divine life on earth. His scheme and action is contained in his world famous magnum opus: The Life Divine.
The scheme of divine life is neither a chimera nor a utopia. It can be tried with all sincerity. It will help mankind to the extent it is achieved in solving its problem of existence, specially in the face of failure of all the isms so far.
Sri Aurobindo’s literary productions which include his sociological and spiritual thoughts, extend to thousands of pages in more than 30 big volumes, as in the centenary edition of his works. His one big poem, Savitri a spiritual epic, began to be composed at the end of the nineteenth century and continued for more than half a century till he breathed his last. It is the longest poem in English language, claimed to be the second largest in the whole of European literature. Most of his works extending to various fields of human thought and creation are of immense value for man, present and future.
Almost at the beginning of his yoga, words came to him in a silent mind without any thought. He wrote lines after lines, pages after pages of poem and prose without thinking. Long before he uttered the words, ‘All life is yoga’, he had carried the faith in the core of his heart. Rules and rituals were otiose for him. According to him, yoga was psychological, an entirely inner movement. So he never performed any puja with all rituals. He had no Guru, other than some helpers. The Maharashtrian yogi V. B. Lele was one who had taught him to blank his mind but the result was so astonishing that he himself advised him to depend on God alone. Lele left him finally when he learnt that Sri Aurobindo had not been following any routine as advised by him, as he was then in the thick of a stormy political life.
“I lived with Sri Aurobindo, who never used to sit cross-legged. He told me right away it was all a question of habits- subconscious habit . . . . And how well he explained: ‘If a posture is necessary for you, it will come by itself.’ ” Mother said to her disciple on 11 May, 1963. It is known that he used to meditate while walking speedily in his rooms with flowing hairs dancing on his shoulders for hours, sometimes extending to 12/13 hours at a stretch. But he never closed his eyes. They were kept open even when he had visions extraordinary.
Samadhi is trance, which a saint or yogi attains usually after many years of rigorous sadhana. Mother said, “Sri Aurobindo told . . . me that he never, ever had a Samadhi in his body.” But after his passing away Sri Aurobindo’s body was placed in a Samadhi.
During his life span of approximately 78 years, 3 months and 19 days, he lived mainly in four corners of the globe: Bengal (about 10 years and 5 months), England (about 13 years and 6 months), Baroda (about 13 years and 4 months) and Pondicherry (about 40 years and 8 months), besides his stay in ships, trains and other modes of conveyance.
Wherever he lived, he lived most simply, without any luxury or comfort. He did not seek any such thing. He rejoiced all the houses he lived in and prepared himself inwardly for the great mission for which he had arrived on earth. He was attached to none. None he disliked. He discarded them quite inevitably, as one discards his worn out dresses.
The place where his Ashram is situated now was once the ancient Vedic teaching centre established by Rishi Agastya. It was his ashram, wrote the French architect and scholar, Jouveau Dubreuil.
After his passing away in 1950, he made his abode in the subtle physical, very near to earth atmosphere. Mother visited him there many times.
“I again spent the whole night with Sri Aurobindo”, Mother said on 15 November 1966 and continued, “He has quite beautiful abode there! It’s magnificent.” ‘Learning’ to be what it must be.”
Sri Aurobindo was a man who lived extraordinarily. He lived beyond life (he still lives) yet he wrote to his disciple that if he could do such things in his life, any one could do the same by efforts, as he too was a mortal.

Biographical: Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

The Golden Bridge







Mirra Alfassa was a trained artist, a musician, an occultist, a teacher, a writer and a great organizer. She was the Mother of humans, animals and plants. She lived from wonder to wonder, she lived to go beyond life. Embodying a divine personality in a human frame, she became a golden bridge between earth and heaven. She is our Mother, human and divine.
Her ancestral heritage was rooted in different countries. She was the grand-daughter of an Egyptian Prince, Said Pinto, who permitted the digging of Suez Canal, which was opened after his death. Her mother Mathilde was an Egyptian but her father Maurice Alfassa was a Turk. Her parents migrated to France in 1877. They were very practical and did not bother about the existence of God.
Mirra was born on Thursday, 21 February 1878 at about 10-15 am. Immediately after birth she was christened by her father as Mirra Alfassa. The nurse at the maternity clinic wrote at the corner of the cloth, M. A. So her nickname became Ma, which was liked by her father. Ma means mother in many languages, somewhere with some variations. She became mother from her birth.
Mother said later that she had begun her sadhana at her birth, but she did not remember anything before the age of five. At five she would sit in a chair, specially made for her, for hours together and would feel a pressure of light and force over her head. Sometimes, when she would sit very gravely in her chair, leaving aside all her playthings, her mother would wonder if all the miseries of the world had bent her head. When the child would reply that it was really so, she would leave her alone.
“Between 11 and 13 a series of psychic and spiritual experiences revealed to me not only the existence of God but man’s possibility of uniting with him . . .” she said in 1920. She had written in her diary on 22.2.1914- “When I was child of about thirteen, for nearly a year, every night as soon as I had gone to bed it seemed to me that I went out of my body and rose straight up above the house, then above the city, very high above. Then I used to see myself clad in a magnificent golden robe . . . and as I rose higher, the robe would stretch, spreading out in a circle around me to form a kind of immense roof over the city. Then I would see men, women, children, old men, the sick, the unfortunate coming out from every side; . . . . the robe, supple and alive, would extend towards each one of them individually, and as soon they had touched it, they were comforted or healed, and went back to their bodies happier and stronger. . . . Nothing seemed more beautiful to me, nothing could make me happier . . . this . . . was the true life for me.”
As late as on 17 July 1963 she said to one of her disciples that shower of letters had started coming from known and unknown people who described their miseries and implored her blessings. During the only time for her rest, between 2 and 4-30 am, she said that she saw people whom she had never seen before physically on earth. She went to places completely unknown to her. When she was about twelve, she used to go to the woods of Fontainbleu, near home. Though she did not know the right meaning of meditation, she would often sit under big old tree, resting herself on its trunk and silently delve deeper into her inner self, merging herself in union with the surrounding nature. Squirrels would play on her body, a bird would perch on her head and perhaps after an hour’s meditation when she opened her eyes, she would see a gazelle looking intently at her from a distance.
Mirra completed her regular education at the age of 15. She then joined the Academie Julian as an art student. She had the inborn talent and soon she became a good artist. Some of her paintings were exhibited and sold at the famous ‘Salon de la Societe National de Beaux Arts’ in Paris. She married a senior artist, Henri Morisset, on 13 October 1897. They separated in 1908. This was a period of her intense vital and artistic growth. At that time she worked with many great artists to whom she was like a sister. But she did not like their life style. It was only a passing phase in her life, a preparation for a greater one.
By and by she entered another phase of her life. It was a plunge into the occult world. But she did not give up art forever. She remained a lover of beauty. She did many oil paintings in a different situation in her life in Japan. Later she did many pencil drawings in Pondicherry. From time to time she formed groups of elites, who were intrigued by the invisible. They thought of philosophy, ethics and a higher way of life. They planned a greater future. Mirra was their leader.
She met Max Theon, the great occultist, in Paris in 1905 and travelled to Algeria in 1906 and 1907. There she learnt occultism from Max and Alma Theon, his wife, very systematically and soon became an adept. Many extraordinary things happened there. Going out of the body or taming the turbulent sea were a few of them.
Paul Richard, a French politician and intellectual, had interest in occult matters. He had travelled to Algeria. For sometime Mirra and Paul Richard worked closely together and Mirra found it expedient to marry him in 1911. Richard came to Pondicherry with some political assignment and met Sri Aurobindo in 1910. He was highly impressed by the sage. After he went back to France, Mirra started communication with Sri Aurobindo. While her life with Henri Morisset was intensely vital, physical and emotional; she made many experiments with senses, it became mental, intellectual and occult from 1908, until she met Sri Aurobindo in 1914.
During her sleep and meditation, Mirra used to see a few luminous beings who often guided her in the subtle world. When she came to Pondicherry and met Sri Aurobindo in 1914, on the auspicious 29 March, she immediately recognized him to be the Krishna of her dream and trance, the Guru who often came to her, in another world. She fancied him to be Krishna, an Indian deity, as she knew then.
After they had met for the first time, both of them plunged in deep meditation. Later Mirra said that she got such a perfect silence in the presence of Sri Aurobindo that she ever longed for but never had before. Sri Aurobindo too admitted that he had never seen such a perfect surrender as Mirra did in his presence, which was so essential for his yoga. Mirra and Paul Richard had to leave for France on 22 February 1915, under political compulsions. During their stay, a great quaterly magazine, the Arya and its French counterpart, Le Revieu Cosmique, were launched on Sri Aurobindo’s birthday on 15 August 1914. The Arya continued up to January 1921. The magazine carried the major portion of Sri Aurobindo’s important works.
From France they went to Japan where they spent four years and then returned to Pondicherry 0n 20 April 1920. While Richard left, Mirra stayed on, to work with Sri Aurobindo, to fulfil her spiritual dream. In the course of time Sri Aurobindo rcognised the divine presence in her and declared that she was the Divine Mother incarnate. She, in fact, took charge of the household comprising of the disciples and the master on 22 January 1922. When the master completely interned himself for his Supramental Yoga, after the Siddhi on 24 Novmber1926, Mirra became the Mother of all the ashramites, as desired by Sri Aurobindo. It is considered to be the birthday of the ashram.
Thereafter it grew up under the divine leadership of the Mother. The foundation of Auroville, the international township, was laid on 28 February 1968 under Mother’s guidance.
Mother was more than a genius. She could be at the top of many human activities, but she cared little to be the champion. She was a tennis player who always played with her superiors and seniors so that she might learn better.
A great plant lover, Mother could enter into the heart of a flower in a subtle, mystic way and identify herself with it, with its inner truth. Through the flowers she conveyed to others her messages- thoughts and feelings. Through them she bestowed her blessings, which were full of light, love and power. Flower is a manifestation of the psychic presence. “Look at a rose opening in the morning at the first touch of the Sun, it’s a magnificent self-giving in aspiration.” She said.
To a disciple on 25 October 1967 she said, “They have a sensitiveness unknown to us- sometimes in the morning, I have a closed rose bud, then I take it out of the water like this (gesture of stroking the flower all around), without touching it . . . and it opens!
“And people say it’s not conscious!”
An animal lover from the core of her heart, she perhaps loved the cats most. Kanai Lal Ganguly, an early inmate of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, recalled from memory- “The first time I saw the Mother, she looked at me for a second. She was very beautiful and looked much younger than her age. There were two cats on her shoulder; I looked around and saw a few more. One of the cats from her shoulder jumped on Sri Aurobindo’s throne chair.”
“People speak of maternal love with such admiration, as though it were purely a human privilege, but I have seen this love manifested by a mother-cat which would never touch her food until her babies had taken all they needed”, She said in one of her talks.
We have her photos with Goro and Puchi, her pet dogs. Many types of animals, from lion to warty frogs received her affection. About a few bullocks working for the Ashram, she wrote on 14.9.1932, “The bullocks are not mischievous. On the contrary, they are very good and peaceful creatures, but very sensitive- unusually sensitive perhaps”-
Mother was a musician who welcomed each New Year with her organ music till 1964. She was a writer and wrote three dramas, a few short stories, number of articles and essays. Her diary notes, published as Prayers and Meditations, and her answers to questions made by her disciples on varied subjects, almost covering the entire human life, the life of plants and animals, are golden treasures to be preserved by the human race.
She was a teacher and a teacher’s teacher. She was an administrator who did everything for the running of her establishment, from procuring funds to execution of each of her plans through her disciples. When Kulapati K. M. Munshi revisited the Ashram in 1952, there were some 750 ashramites. In an article in the Hindusthan Times he wrote on 15.8.1952, “I saw a unique experiment . . . which enabled people to live a self-contained community life. But who created this wondrous atmosphere and how? And why did Mother do it? Was it with the great intention of creating on earth a little island of peace, an island where existence acquired a sacramental quality?” he asked.
Mother had withdrawn from most of her activities by the end of 1958, when she
was 80 years old, mainly for physical disabilities. But she continued her real work, the work of transformation, which was specially assigned to her by Sri Aurobindo, as only her body suited the purpose. “Your body is at present the only one on earth that can do the work”, he said to Mother. Mother confided it to her disciple on 22 November 1967.
“We are determined- he and I- to complete what he lived for,” she said to Munshi.
She paid value only for the consciousness she embodied. “Do not ask questions about the details of the material existence of this body: they are in themselves of no interest and must not attract attention,” she said on 22.6.1958.
But her consciousness was not restricted in her mind and vital, it permeated into her body. On 22 November 1967 she said to a disciple who recorded her talks, “You understand, people were asking to be divine in their mind and vital- that is, the whole ancient history of spirituality, the same old theme for centuries- but now, it’s the Body. It’s certainly a progress . . . . ‘It’s a denial of all the spiritual assertions of the past: “If you want to live fully conscious of the divine life, leave your body- the body cannot follow.” Well, Sri Aurobindo came and said, “Not only can the body follow, but it can be the base that will manifest the Divine.”
“Well, that’s what I have been trying to explain for months. It’s first of all, awakening the consciousness in the cells . . . . Once it’s done it’s done: the consciousness keeps awakening more and more, the cells live consciously, aspire consciously . . . .
“Since it’s taking place in one body, it can take place in all bodies! I am not made of anything different from others. The difference is of consciousness, that’s all.” Mother said.
It is like Sri Aurobindo, who also asserted to his disciple that what he had accomplished as a man could be accomplished by any other mortal.
Mother transformed the cells of her body with Supramental light and force, to the extent her mortal frame permitted, up to her last day on earth, 17 November 1973. She conceived, quite independently, that the cells were talking to each other in her body, the truth the Scientists discovered on their own. That was the process required for the divinisation of life, to bring god down to earth as per the yogic vision and divine plan of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. But the work was not ccmpleted here on earth, as it was not ready for it. Mother prepared a new body in the subtle physical plane. Nolinikanta Gupta, in his Sweet Mother, wrote about it-
“The New Body of hers, prepared behind the material curtain, she sought to infuse into the material form, even press into it or force into it this new element; Earth still considered it as an intrusion, as something foreign. The material casing broke in consequence- perhaps not broke down, rather broke through, but that must be another story. But it is there, living and glorious in its beauty and power and is still at work within us and around us in the world, incessantly, towards the final consummation of its material embodiment.”
Mother is not here but her consciousness is ever vibrant with us, with those who may come in contact with it. Mother is not here, but we still hear as she whispered once to one of her disciples, “You know, we belong to eternity!”