Prologue Matter. What is the reality of Matter ? "I was only a child,'' Mother narrated to us one day, "when I was told that everything is 'atoms' (that was the term used in those days). They said, 'You see this table? You think it's a table, that it's solid and it's wood-well, it is only atoms moving about.' I remember, the first time I was told that, it made a kind of revolution in my head, bringing such a feeling of the complete unreality of all appearances. All at once I said, 'But, if it's like that then nothing is true! Mother was no more than fourteen or fifteen years old when she had that decisive experience. This "revolution in my head" le

Mother's Chronicles Book One - Mirra Chronology 1830, December - MIRA PINTO, daughter of Said Pinto, is born in Cairo, Egypt. Mother's grandmother. She died in Nice and was cremated in Paris in 1909. 1843 -MIRA PINTO and MATTEO ISMALUN are married in Alexandria. 1843, July -MAURICE ALFASSA is born in Adrianople, Turkey. Mother's father. Died on September 13, 1918. 1857, December 18— MATHILDE ISMALUN is born in Alexandria. Mother's mother. Died in Paris, on December 9,1944. 1874,June 18-MATHILDE ISMALUN and MAURICE ALFASSA are married in Alexandria, Egypt. 1876, July 13- MATTEO ALFASSA is born in Alexandria. Mother's brother. Died in Blo

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, 12 & 13 already published in English) Sri Aurobindo

Acknowledgement The material in this book is drawn mostly from Satprem's works. Satprem was Mother's confidant for over 17 years. From their taped conversations was born MOTHER'S AGENDA, in volumes. Finally, it is due to his encouragement that this book was written. A Word With You, Please! I have been asked to say something about myself: who I am, what prompted me to share with you Mother's story, how I met Mother in the first place, and so on and so forth. Well, I am not inclined to spill all the beans at this stage. You will soon find out for yourself some of the answers as you go on with the Real Story. For now,

Acknowledgements To depict Sri Aurobindo's childhood and his life in England, I have drawn liberally from his own letters, in particular those published under the title Sri Aurobindo on Himself. I also found much information in his talks with disciples, recorded by Purani in Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo and by Nirodbaran in Talks with Sri Aurobindo. My thanks to them for these precious records. Ambalal Balkrishna Purani (1895-1965) was a revolutionary from Gujarat, who became a disciple of Sri Aurobindo's and stayed with him in his Ashram from 1923. He was also one of Sri Aurobindo's personal attendants from November 1938 to December 1950. Our Purani, eager to pr

To pull her out of that tomb was somehow our ambition. Sujata — Satprem April 30, 1984 A Word With You, Please! Salutations! We meet once again to walk a little more with Mother on her journey on this Earth. It has indeed been long since we last met. If I was compelled to leave you so long without any news you must acknowledge that I am making up for lost time, and that I have brought you a right royal fare! At least that was my original intention. But not wishing to give you an indigestion, dear Reader, we shall serve first just the entree, the real feast is to follow soon. This is what happe

22 Darwinian Evolution Dr. Krishna Dhan Ghose's letter set me thinking. Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species was published in 1859. It was the most important book to come out in the second half of the nineteenth century; for it not merely opened a new era in biology but, causing a sensation as it did, it helped transform attitudes to God and to the human race. To men of intelligence Darwin's theory of evolution — 'natural selection' or 'the survival of the fittest' —carried conviction. They shuddered to visualize what could happen in future under certain circumstances. Dr. Ghose speaks of the very real danger of multiplying to infinity beasts and idi

28 The Brilliant Student Who could believe that the shy young man, poet, brilliant scholar, with such a fine sense of quiet humour and so frail could ever be a revolutionary? Most of his school and college mates had a very high regard for A. A. Ghose both as a person and as a scholar. "The present writer was at school with him," wrote an ex-Pauline, Phillip W. Seargent, "and can bear witness to his brilliant attainments as a boy. It would have been difficult in those days to regard him as a firebrand!" "Fancy Ghose a ragged revolutionary!" exclaimed an Englishman in utter disbelief to his colleague C. C. Dutt, another I.C.S. who knew Sri Aurob

11 Midnapore The Seed of Revolution The fire that burned in Rajnarain's heart from a young age had reduced to ashes all moral fear that he may have had. When widow remarriage became a law in 1856, he at once got his cousin and his younger brother married to widows —the third and fourth such marriages. It was specially this act of his that his uncle Harihar resented most. On 12 May 1849, Rajnarain was appointed to the post of Second Master in the English department of the Sanskrit College at Calcutta with a monthly salary of Rs.70. There he taught English not only to students but to men like Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. After two ye

14 Darjeeling "Up to the age of five I was in Rangpur," Sri Aurobindo remarked, contradicting a statement by a biographer, "as my father was in Rangpur, not in Khulna. I went to Khulna long after returning from England." Sri Aurobindo reminisced. "Before the Swadeshi movement started, Debabrata Bose1 and myself went on a tour of Bengal to study the conditions of the people. We lived simply on bananas. D. Bose was very persuasive and could win anybody round. We found the people steeped in pessimism, a black weight of darkness weighing over the whole country. Only four or five of us stood for independence. We had great difficulty in convincing people. At Khulna,