The Mother

Meeting Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo remained in "material and spiritual correspondence" with the Richards for the next four years (Das 1978, p.121) .

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On 7 March 1914, Mirra and Paul Richard embarked for India aboard the steamer Kaga Maru, reaching Pondicherry on the 29th. However, She related later that when saw Sri Aurobindo for the first time, she recognized him as the person she saw in her visions of a dark Asiatic figure, whom she had referred to as "Krishna". The next day she noted in her journal, “It does not matter that thousands of beings are plunged in darkness. He whom we saw yesterday is on earth. His presence is enough to assure us that one day Truth will rule here.”

Related Topics:
7 March - 1914 - Steamer - The 29th - Next day

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Years before Sri Aurobindo first met Mirra and Richard, he had given up his revolutionary quest to help India throw out the British and retreated to Pondicherry (where he was safe from arrest by the British) to work on the spiritual transformation of humanity and life on earth.

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After a short period of intense sadhana, Sri Aurobindo would sometimes give evening talks. In 1913 he moved to no.41 Rue Francis Martin, called the Guest House, where he would receive visitors in the morning (this would have been when Mirra and Paul Richard met him), and after the group meditation (usually about 4. p.m.) he would host informal evening gatherings of his early disciples (Purani 1982 pp.9-12).

Related Topics:
Sadhana - 1913

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Mirra said that when she first met Sri Aurobindo, she found that her thoughts ceased to run, her mind became quiet, and silence began to gather momentum, until two or three days later there was only the silence and the yogic consciousness. In 1958 in the Agenda (vol I pp.163-4) she told Satprem that the two experiences, the consciousness in the psychic depths of the being realised in 1910, and the stillness connection with the Divine above the head realised when first meeting Sri Aurobindo, have remained with her ever since.

Related Topics:
1958 - Satprem - Psychic depths of the being

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On 29 March Paul Richard had suggested that Sri Aurobindo publish a journal, dealing with a synthesis of the latter's philosophical ideas. The journal that they worked on was named Arya, and it became the vehicle for most of Aurobindo's writings, which would later appear in book form (The Mother - Some dates). The first issue of the monthly journal came out on 15 August 1914, Aurodindo's birthday (Das 1978 p.254).

Related Topics:
29 March - Arya - 15 August

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Mirra and Richard stayed at Pondicherry until February 1915, but had to return to Paris because of the First World War. They spent a year in France before travelling to Japan where they stayed for four years, first in Tokyo (1916 to 1917) and then Kyoto (1917-1920). They were also accompanied by Dorothy Hodgson, an Englishwoman who had known Mirra in France (Das p.209) and who regarded Mirra as her guru (Iyengar 1978 p.182).

Related Topics:
First World War - Japan

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During her stay, Mirra adopted the Japanese way of life, mannerisms and dress, and visited many Buddhist places of pilgrimage (Das 1978 p.173) One Japanese friend recalled much later: "She came here to learn Japanese and to be one of us. But we had so much to learn from her and her charming and unpredictable ways" (Madame Kobayashi, in Das 1978 p.193). In 1919 she met Rabindranath Tagore, who happened to be staying at the same hotel. There is in the Rabindra Museum collection at Santiniketon a group photograph which includes the two. Tagore presented Mirra with the typewriter he was using at the time; this is still in the Sri Aurobindo ashram (ibid p.206). She also many years later (in 1956) recounted meeting Tolstoy's son while in Japan (Coll. Works vol 8, pp.106-7).

Related Topics:
Rabindranath Tagore - Santiniketon - Typewriter - Tolstoy

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On 24 April 1920 Mirra returned with Paul Richard to Pondicherry from Japan, accompanied by Dorothy Hodgson. On 24 November, she moved to live near Sri Aurobindo in the Guest House at Rue Francois Martin. Richard did not stay long, he spent a year travelling around North India (Das 1978 p.209; The Mother - Some dates) as a sanyasi. Some time later he initiated divorce proceedings, having already remarried in the meantime (Agenda vol.2 pp.371-372). Dorothy Hodgson meanwhile would took the name Datta and was one of the earliest western devotees, even before the Ashram was established in 1926.

Related Topics:
24 April - 1920 - 24 November

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In 1921, when Sri Aurobindo said that they had brought the Supermind down to the Vital Plane, Mirra appeared (according to witnesses and her own accounts) to have a body like that of an eighteen- or twenty-year-old, while Sri Aurobindo was also glowing with health (Agenda vol.xx, p.xxx; Purani, Evening Talks p.21, Das 1978, pp.211-212). But these changes were lost when they took the Supermind down to the work of transformation in the Subconscient.

Related Topics:
1921 - Supermind - Vital Plane - Subconscient

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On January 1922 Mirra began regular evening talks and group meditations. In September or October of that year, Sri Aurobindo and Mother moved to no.9 Rue de la Marine, where the same informal routine of Sri Aurobindo's evening gatherings of his early disciples (Purani, 1982 pp.9-12) (and Mirra's talks and meditations) continued. As the number of disciples arriving increased, Mirra organised what would later become the ashram, more from the wish of the sadhaks then her or Sri Aurobindo's own plans (Sri Aurobindo Coll. Works vol.26 p.429).

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