Three   Explorations of the Occult   Occult knowledge without spiritual discipline is a dangerous instrument, for one who uses it as for others, if it falls into impure hands. Spiritual knowledge without occult science lacks precision and certainty in its objective results; it is all-powerful only in the subjective world. The two, when combined in inner or outer action, are irresistible and are fit instruments for the manifestation of the supramental power.1 — The Mother         It was a friend of Matteo's, Louis Thémanlys, who brought Mirra into contact with the Parisian chapter of the Mouvement cosmique and its monthly publication, th

Darkest night         Often it seemed to her the ages' pain       Had pressed their quintessence into her single woe,       Concentrating in her a tortured world.27                                                                  — Sri Aurobindo   The alternating movement went on, higher, deeper. Although these alternations are quite clearly discernible in what the Mother has told us about her Yoga, it should be kept in mind that they give, after all, only a schematic picture of the very complex reality the Mother was experiencing every moment. 'There isn't a fraction of a second that things don't move! It's a continuous, total transformation, a development witho

The four Asuras         There is an important part of the Cosmic Tradition that has not yet been touched upon: the explanation of how a world like ours is the result of God's workings — and can only be such a result, as there is nothing else but God, or That, or the Divine, or the Supreme. The Mother talked about this chapter of the 'very old Tradition' several times, always emphasizing that the story, as narrated by her, sounded like a children's tale, but that its symbolism was profound and referred to the actual facts.         Once it so happened that 'God' decided to exteriorize himself 'in order to know himself in detail.' To that end he first manifested his Consciousness,

Leader of Nationalism         Despite the inroads the Gaekwad made into his academic career, Aurobindo Babu became the Vice-Principal of the Baroda College in 1904, and its acting Principal in 1905. He had earned a reputation as a professor, filling the students with deep respect for 'the Aurobindonian legend.' The reason for this reputation was on the one hand his ample erudition and on the other hand his disapproval of the British methods of teaching and habits of studying. He often inveighed against the students for their industriously penning down, without a smarter of reflection, everything the professor dictated, and encouraged them instead to think for themselves.  

She who is speaking to you ...       Let me be Thy herald among men ... 27 — The Mother Most of the documents about the life of Mirra during those years are collected in a volume entitled Paroles d'Autrefois (Words of Long Ago). Compared to the volumes of the Mother's talks and conversations of a much later date, Words of Long Ago may give the impression of a haphazard collection of texts, but to see them like that and to pay them but scant attention would be a serious error. There is hardly a topic touched upon in the eight volumes of her Conversations Questions & Answers (CWM#3-9) that is not already present in fully mature form ki Words of Long Ago. Under

Four   A Synthesis in the Making     Accustomed only to read outward signs None saw aught new in her, none divined her state . .       — Sri Aurobindo           Mirra's divorce from Henri Morisset took place in March 1908. She went to live alone on the fifth floor of 49 Rue du Lévis, a street parallel to the Rue de Tocqueville and not far from her former house. Maybe the following statement of the Mother was applicable to Morisset also: 'When you saw the artist at work, he lived in a magnificent beauty, but when you saw the gentleman at home, he had only a very limited contact with the artist in himself, and he became generally speaking a ver

Five   Aurobindo Ghose   In my view, a man's value does not depend on what he learns or his position or fame or what he does, but on what he is and inwardly becomes.1       — Sri Aurobindo         Aravinda Akroyd Ghose was born on 15 August 1872 in Calcutta, at 4 Theatre Road.* 'Aravinda,' at the time an uncommon name given by his suddenly inspired father, means 'lotus' and 'delicate, fragrant, pleasing to the gods.* The newborn baby also received the name 'Akroyd' in honour of Annette Akroyd, an English acquaintance of his father who ran a Brahmo school in Bengal, and, perhaps,

Part Three   The Road Alone Thirteen   The Yoga of the Body Cells         Sometimes one life is charged with earth's destiny.1                                                                    — Sri Aurobindo         Sri Aurobindo's passing was a terrible jolt to the Mother, later compared by her to a sledgehammer blow and an annihilation. During thirty years she had leaned on him for support with an absolute confidence in his presence, his knowledge and his powers. United with him in her consciousness, which was the same in both of them, she had felt that her body too was upheld by his physical presence, a relationship so intimately interwoven and str

'The Lord of the Nations'* We feel that not only is this a battle waged in just self-defence and in defence of the nations threatened with the world-domination of Germany and the Nazi system of life, but that it is a defence of civilization and its highest attained social, cultural and spiritual values and of the whole future of humanity,20        — Sri Aurobindo (19 September 1940) In the already partly quoted letter of October 1938 to her son Andre, the Mother continued: 'Hitler is a choice instrument for these antidivine forces which want violence, upheavals and war, for they know that these things delay and hinder the

Seven   In Japan   In the world of forms a flaw in Beauty is as great a deficiency as a flaw in Truth in the world of ideas.1 — The Mother         After a few moments spent in arranging familiar objects, Mirra wrote in her diary on 2 November 1915: 'As a strong breeze passes over the sea and crowns with foam its countless waves, so a great breath passed over the memory and awoke the multitude of its remembrances. Intense, complex, crowded, the past lived again in a flash, having lost nothing of its savour, its richness. Then was the whole being lifted up in a great surge of adoration, and gathering all its memories