16 The Mantra of Life "From that highest height I would redescend," said Mother, "reentering my bodies one after the other—you really feel the friction, you feel you are retaking a body and reentering." She let fall that "when one is on that highest height, the body is in a cataleptic state." Which is neither sleep nor death, but a state in between. Satprem the seeker, sought to know, "Is there a difference between sleep and death? Or are they the same?" "Death and sleep? Oh, no!" "But isn't sleep like death?" he insisted. "When asleep one is no longer in one's body; everything else goes out just as it does at the time of death. No?"

30 The Inner Divine She hugged her pain. "I was thinking of nothing but that: concentrating -concentrating, as though I were sitting in front of a closed door, and it hurts!" Mother touched her breast in a poignant gesture. "For months on end, sometimes years, you may be sitting before a closed door, push-push-pushing, and feeling, feeling the pressure —it hurts! —and there's nothing, no results." Mother said. "When I met Theon and came to understand the mechanism, I also understood why I wasn't conscious at that level. I think I told you how I spent ten months of a year working between two layers — two layers of consciousness — because the conta

-11_Madame Théon.htm 9 Madame Theon "I shall tell you about Madame Theon." Mother addressed her class of very young children. As there was no bar to their elders listening to her, many of us attended these 'classes.' "Madame Théon was born in the Isle of Wight," began Mother. "She lived in Tlemcen with her husband who was a great occultist. Madame Theon herself was an occultist with great powers, she was a remarkable clairvoyant and had mediumnistic faculties. Her powers were of an exceptional order. She had received an extremely thorough and rigorous training, and could exteriorize, that is to say, from her material body she could go out in a subtle body, in full consciousness, an

MOTHER'S CHRONICLES Mother's Chronicles book three MIRRA T HE OCCULTIST by Sujata Nahar INSTITUT DE RECHERCHES EVOLUTIVES 32, avenue de l'Observatoire, 75014 Paris Already published in the series: Book One: MIRRA Book Two : MIRRA THE ARTIST To be published: Book Four: MIRRA AND SRI AUROBINDO Book Five: MIRRA IN JAPAN Book Six: MIRRA THE MOTHER Mother's Chronicles - Book Three: MIRRA THE OCCULTIST © 1989 by Sujata Nahar. All rights reserved. No part of this b

24 Mister Mind Mirra's destiny was in a hurry; it never allowed her to stay put with any one experience. That boundless Heart was in a constant forward motion. Madame Theon gone, no backward pull tied Mirra to the occult world. She had thoroughly explored it and tested its boundaries, and the barriers had ceded beneath her touch. It was time to go on to the next exploration: the Mind. "I have noticed," said Mother, "that the different stages of my development occurred in twelve-year periods. In practice, these periods overlap; but approximately every twelve years a particular type of development predominated. In this order: consciousness first; the vital nex

-05_Théon.htm 3 Théon They met. It was in 1905. In autumn, it would seem, when the Théons were on a visit to France during October and November. Surely Mirra waited that moment with an intense eagerness. She must have felt that she already knew him —through hearsay of course, but mainly through what she had read of his writings. Was he not the one who opened wide to her the gates of knowledge? Would he be, by chance, the 'Krishna' she saw in her dream-visions about a year ago? "When I met him," Mother said, "I saw that he was a being of great power. He bore a certain likeness to Sri Aurobindo. Théon was rather tall, about the same height as Sri Aurobindo —not a tall man

28 Alexandra David-Neel "That's where" —the drawing-room on N°9 Rue du Val de Grace —"I used to receive Madame David-Neel," said Mother. "We saw each other almost every evening." In the first place, how did they get acquainted? Mother was telling us in what a fierce fight she was engaged against those who hold on to the idea that 'spiritual life' means abandoning the earth and going off to some faraway Nirvana. "But I," she said, "I always reply with the story of Buddha. Just as he was about to enter into Nirvana, all of a sudden he saw that the earth must be changed —and he stayed back." Then she described her first meeting with Alexandra

Bibliography To weave Mother's story, I had necessarily to pick up a line here, a sentence there. But Readers interested in finding out more about Mother's and Sri Aurobindo's experience may like to consult the following books by Satprem: MOTHER'S AGENDA, 1951-1973 (13 volumes) Recorded by Satprem in the course of countless personal conversations with Mother, the log of her fabulous exploration in the cellular consciousness of the body. Twenty-three years of experiences which parallel some of the most recent theories of modern physics. The key to man's passage towards the next species. (Volumes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 12 & 13 already published in English) Sri A

2 The Cosmic Tradition They met 'ere long.' By that time Mirra had read every available scrap of the Cosmic Philosophy. "Theon called it 'The Tradition'." She drank and she drank at this fount of knowledge. It seemed to her that she had long thirsted for something which was now being given to her in abundance. And she just could not get enough of it. "You know," said Mother to Satprem, "the 'Cosmic' had quite an interesting action in my life. I was completely against 'God.' The European notion of God was utterly repulsive to me." She added picturesquely, "You see, the idea of God sitting placidly in his heaven, then creating the world, and next lo

13 Two Angry Cocks What with this, that and the other, time imperceptibly slipped by. It was already a full month that Mirra had been in Zarif when Henri Morisset came to join her. That was on August 17. He went sightseeing with Mirra and Théon. There were, and still are, many picturesque spots around Tlemcen. For example, the Cascades d' El Ourit are seven kilometres from the town and the road to them skirted Théon's park; a metal bridge that still clings to a mountain-side is said to have been constructed by none other than Eiffel! Another notable place they went to was the Cork Forest —the 'Forest of Ahrif' to give it its local name. It was some 30