The Mother

Mirra Alfassa (known as the Mother) was born in Paris on February 21st 1878 and from a very young age, she had profound spontaneous spiritual experiences and inner visions, including a luminous figure that she called "Krishna", who inwardly guided her spiritual development. As a young woman, she pursued an education in the arts, becoming an accomplished painter and pianist, and exhibited her artwork in Parisian salons. 

The Mother found some context for her experiences after encountering Swami Vivekananda's book Raja Yoga and a French translation of the Bhagavad Gita. Seeking deeper occult knowledge, Mirra Alfassa traveled to Algeria in 1906 and 1907 to study and experiment with the powerful kabbalist and occultist Max Théon and his wife Alma. In 1914, following her husband's diplomatic work in Pondicherry, she went to India to meet and work with the Indian philosopher and yogi Sri Aurobindo. 

After a 4 year break in Japan, the Mother returned to Pondicherry for good and became Sri Aurobindo's spiritual companion. As more seekers gathered around them, she took on the task of organizing the growing community into the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, which was established in 1926. Under her guidance, the ashram grew into a large, multifaceted spiritual community where all work was considered a form of spiritual practice. In 1943, she founded a school within the ashram offering a new system of holistic learning, which was later on taken as a model to modernize the Indian educational system.

After Sri Aurobindo's passing in 1950, The Mother continued their shared mission, particularly focusing on the transformation of the physical, cellular consciousness. Her later years were dedicated to this intensive inner work, and her conversations in this period with a close disciple, Satprem, were recorded and published in the Mother's Agenda. A major external project of her later life was the establishment of Auroville, an experimental universal township dedicated to human unity and the future evolution of consciousness. The Mother left her body on November 17th 1973.