Freeindia > Biographies > Great Gurus > Mother Mira
The Mother, Mirra Alfassa, was born in Paris on the 21st of February 1878. Her mother was Egyptian and her father was Turkish. Both of them were perfect materialists. However, Mirra had divine visions from her childhood.
Outwardly, she was brought up as an atheist until she entered adulthood. In her early years, she had a good education in music (specially piano), painting, and higher mathematics. During this period she used to have spontaneous experiences including those of coming out of her body to discover inner realities, without understanding what they really meant. As she was growing up, she began to have such experiences more often. One day in the year 1912 the Mother had a first vision of the future: "the advent of universal harmony, the realization of human unity and the
establishment of ideal society". Sri Aurobindo had already visualized these ideas in his writings. What a coincidence?
She met Sri Aurobindo on 20th March, 1914. He exactly resembled the man she used to see in her vision since 1904. She went back to Paris, Japan and other places and finally returned to Pondicherry in India where Sri Auribindo had established an Ashram, a celebrated spiritual centre. Now the question was as to the ways and means by which this great vision of whole-being, whole-knowledge and whole power could be attained for the whole society. Sri Aurobindo found, and this was Mother's discovery, that this could be done through the processes of Yoga, many of which
were known, and many of which had to be rediscovered, created, built and perfected, so that they could meet the needs of modern man's upward evolution. This was the task Sri Aurobindo was engaged in since he came to Pondicherry.
The Mother also participated in this endeavor. The result was what is known as 'Integral Yoga' - developed jointly by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. In integral yoga, the Divine Power in us uses all life as the means of our upward evolution and then every experience becomes a step on the
path to perfection. In this whole process the Mother was Shakti in action. She accelerated this process with great vigor even after Sri Aurobindo left his mortal body on December 5, 1950. She continued to expand that vision through education and counseling of the seekers of inner peace. Under her direction, Pondicherry developed into a residential Ashram.
Her imprint can be seen in almost all aspects of Ashram routine. She worked relentlessly till she passed away on November 17, 1973.
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