A Quest for Community
Thursday, October 02, 2003
So who is this Founder of Auroville called the "Mother" I referred to in the previous post? There's lots of information on the Auroville website. Here's my edited short version, quoted from there:
Early years
Mirra Alfassa was born in Paris on Feb. 22, 1878 and died in
Pondicherry, India of Nov. 17, 1973. She was an extraordinarily gifted
child, who became an accomplished painter and musician and had many
inner experiences from early childhood on. In her twenties she studied
occultism in Algeria with Max Theon and his English wife Alma, who was
a highly developed medium. After her return to Paris, the Mother worked
with several different groups of spiritual seekers. ...
Meeting Sri Aurobindo
... She first heard of Sri Aurobindo in 1912 and in 1914 traveled to
Pondicherry to meet him in person. There, she immediately recognised
him as a mentor she had encountered in earlier visions, and knew that
her future work was at his side. In April 1920 she returned to join Sri
Aurobindo in Pondicherry and never left again. Sri Aurobindo recognised
in her an embodiment of the dynamic expressive aspect of evolutionary,
creative Force, in India traditionally known and approached as the
'Supreme Mother'.
Auroville
In 1968 she founded the international township project of Auroville as
a field for practical attempts to implement Sri Aurobindo's vision of
new forms of individual and collective life, preparing the way towards
a brighter future for the whole earth. In 1966 she said:
Humanity is not the last rung
of the terrestrial creation. Evolution continues and man will be
surpassed. It is for each individual to know whether he wants to
participate in the advent of this new species.
Transformation
... After Sri Aurobindo's passing in 1950, the Mother continued his work of
psychological and physical transformation with the help of the a new
force that had entered her consciouness. An account of her experiences
in the course of this work is given in The Mother's Agenda, an intimate record of the last 18 years of her life.
Their work continues.
The more I read about the Mother, the more I realized that she was a primanry source of Auroville's beautiful feminine energy.
