The Mother

Early Life

The Mother was born Mirra (or Mira) Alfassa in Paris in 1878, of a Turkish father (Maurice, a banker), and an Egyptian mother (Mathilde Ismaloun). She had an older brother named Matteo. The family had migrated to France the year before she was born (Mother's Chronicles Bk I; Mother on Herself - Chronology p.83). For the first eight years of her life she lived at 62 boulevard Haussmann.

Related Topics:
Paris - 1878 - Turkish - Egyptian - France

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Mirra describes extraordinary inner and outer experiences she had as a child in Paris. She says that at age five she realised she did not belong in this world, and her sadhana (spiritual discipline) began then (Mother India Feb, 1975, p.95, in Das 1978 p.14 and Mother on Herself pp.1, 3-4) She recollects that she would lapse into bliss and go into a trance sometimes when she was placed in an easy chair or during a meal, much to the annoyance of her iron-willed mother, who regarded this behaviour as a social embarrassment.

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Between eleven and thirteen, she says, a series of psychic and spiritual experiences revealed to her the existence of God and man's possibility of uniting with Him (Bulletin of the Sri Aurobindo Center of Education, 1976 p.14, Mother on Herself pp.17-18). At age 12 she was practicing occultism and claimed to be travelling out of her body (Bulletin 1974 p.63).

Related Topics:
God - Man - Occultism - Out of her body

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One of the experiences she had, at the age of 13 for nearly a year every night, was of going out of her body and rising straight above the city.

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:"I used to see myself clad in a magnificent golden robe...and as I rose higher, the robe would stretch...to form a kind of immense roof over the city. Then I would see men, women, children...coming out from every side; they would gather under the outspread robe, begging for help, telling their miseries... In reply, the robe... would extend towards each one of them individually, and as soon as they had touched it they were comforted or healed, and went back to their bodies happier and stronger... Nothing seemed more beautiful to me.... and all the activities of the day seemed dull and colourless... beside this activity of the night..." (On Herself 18-19; Das 1978 pp.24-5).

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At age 14 Mirra was sent to a studio to learn art and a year later she wrote as a school essay a mystical treatise named The Path of Later On (Alfassa 1893). In 1893 she travelled to Italy with her mother. While at the Palazzo Ducale in Venice she recalled a scene from a past life where she was strangled and thrown out into the canal (The Mother - Some dates). (Later (e.g. in the Agenda) she would also describe other incarnations, but she also describes these past lives as emanations). At 16 she joined the Ecole des Beaux Arts where she acquired the nickname "the Sphinx", and later exhibited at the Paris Salon (Das 1978 pp.27, 30, 253).

Related Topics:
1893 - Italy - Palazzo Ducale - Venice - Past life - Emanations - Ecole des Beaux Arts - Paris Salon

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In 1897 she married Henri Morisset, a student of Moreau. They lived at Atelier, 15 rue Lemercier, Paris, and Mirra became a part of the Paris artistic circles, befriending the likes of Rodin and Monet (Nahar 1986).

Related Topics:
1897 - Henri Morisset - Moreau - Rodin - Monet

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Mirra asserted that between nineteen and twenty she had achieved a conscious and constant union with the Divine Presence, without the help of books or teachers. Soon after, she discovered Vivekanada's Raja Yoga, which enabled her to make further rapid progress. She says about a year or two later she met an Indian in Paris who advised her to read the Bhagavad-Gita, taking Krishna as a symbol of the inner or immanent Divine. She obtained a French translation which—she relates—was quite poor but still enabled her to understand the substance of it (Collected Works - Questions and Answers 1954).

Related Topics:
Vivekanada - Bhagavad-Gita - Krishna

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On 1898 she and Morisset had a son, André.

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Mirra recalled that in her meditations she saw several spiritual figures, all of whom offered her help of one type or another.

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Around 1904 she encountered in her dreams a dark Asiatic figure whom called herself ‘Krishna’. She said that Krishna guided her in her inner journey. She came to have total implicit faith in Krishna, and was hoping to meet him one day in real life (Karmayogi no date).

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Sometime around 1905 she met the enigmatic occultist Max Théon, who for the first time was able to explain her psychic experiences to her. She paid two extended visits (on the second one she was accompanied by or later joined by Morisset (Agenda vol.x p.xxx)) to Théon's estate at Tlemcen (Algeria) to live with and learn occultism first hand from Théon and Madame Théon (Das 1978 ch.5; Nahar 1989). Mirra had a very high regard for Madame Théon, who she describes as having exceptional psychokinetic powers. She would often relate some of the extraordinary experiences she had at Tlemcen in her later talks, and some of the concepts in Théon's teachings were incorporated into Sri Aurobindo's and her own teachings.

Related Topics:
1905 - Occultist - Max Théon - Tlemcen - Algeria - Madame Théon - Psychokinetic

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In 1908 Mirra divorced Morisset, and moved to 49 rue de Lévis, Paris.

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Around this time Mirra had regular meetings with students and seekers who were attracted to psychical phenonemnon or to mysticism. In 1906 she founded in Paris a group of spiritual seekers which was named l'Idée Nouvelle , and which met at her home on Wednesday evenings, first at rue Lemercier and then at rue des Lévis, and after her marriage to Paul Richard at Rue du Val de Grace. Her book "Words of Long Ago" (vol.2 of the Collected Works) is the account of one of these meetings, along with talks she gave to the L'Union de Pensée Féminine, which was a new study group she had established. In 1912 she organised a small group (of around 20 people) of seekers named Cosmique, who would meet regularly with the aim of gaining self-knowledge and self-mastery. Although she had not yet met Sri Aurobindo, some of her ideas at the time paralleled his (Das, 1978, pp.82, 110-112). These were later included at the start of her small book, Conversations.

Related Topics:
1906 - Wednesday - 1912

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In 1910 she had what she later described as an experience of a reversal of consciousness in which she realised the Divine Will at the very center of her being, and from that moment onwards was no longer motivated by personal desire, but only wanted to do the Divine Will (Agenda vol I pp.163-4).

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Around this time she married Paul Richard. Richard had travelled to India, seeking election to the French Senate from Pondicherry (Karmayogi no date, Van Vrekhem 2001), and while there had met Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry) in mid-April 1910. This seems to have been when Sri Aurobindo first heard about Mirra and her Idea group. Similarily, Richard informed Mirra of Sri Aurobindo (Das 1978, p.121).

Related Topics:
Paul Richard - Sri Aurobindo - Pondicherry

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Mirra studied philosophy with Richard, as well as correcting his dictation (The Mother - Some dates). They lived at Rue du Val de Grace, in a small house at the back of a garden or courtyard. André, then around twelve, was a regular visitor. This was the house where Mirra would receive Alexandra David-Neel almost every evening (Agenda vol.1, p.441)). During this period, she also met Abdul Baha (Das 1978, pp.104-109), Inayat Khan and other spiritual teachers (Van Vrekhem, 2001).

Related Topics:
Alexandra David-Neel - Abdul Baha - Inayat Khan

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In 1912 she wrote her first Prayers and Meditations (the original entry probably dating to the previous year). These would be published as part of the Collected Works (Mother's Birth Centenary Edition vol. 1).

Related Topics:
1912 - Prayers and Meditations

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