There is one divine Force which acts in the universe and in the individual and is also beyond the individual and the universe. The Mother stands for all three, but she is working here in the body to bring down something not yet expressed in this material world so as to transform life here—it is so that you should regard her as the Divine Shakti working here for that purpose. She is that in the body, but in her whole consciousness she is also identified with all the other aspects of the Divine Force.
Sri Aurobindo – The Mother with Letters on The Mother : CWSA, Vol. 32, p. 49
A sketch of the Mother’s life
The Mother was born in Paris on 21 February 1878. Mirra, as the child was named, was the daughter of the banker Maurice Alfassa (born in Adrianople, Turkey, in 1843), and Mathilde Ismaloun (born in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1857). Maurice, his wife, and their son Matteo (born in Alexandria in 1876) emigrated from Egypt to France a 
year before Mirra’s birth. Her early education was given at home. In 1893 she joined an art studio in Paris where she studied for several years. Besides being an accomplished painter (some of her works were exhibited at the Paris Salon), the Mother was a talented musician and writer.
Concerning her early spiritual life, the Mother has said: “Between 11 and 13 a series of psychic and spiritual experiences revealed to me not only the existence of God but man’s possibility of uniting with Him, of realising Him integrally in consciousness and action, of manifesting Him upon earth in a life divine.” Around 1905 the Mother journeyed to Tlemçen, Algeria, where she studied occultism for two years with a Polish or Russian adept, Max Theon, and his wife. Returning to Paris in 1906, she started her first group of spiritual seekers. Between 1911 and 1913 she gave many talks to various groups in Paris.
At the age of thirty-six the Mother came to Pondicherry. Here, on 29 March 1914, she met Sri Aurobindo. At once she recognised him as the master who for many years had inwardly been guiding her spiritual development. After staying in India for eleven months, she was obliged to return to France because of the First World War. She left France after about a year, and lived for almost four years in Japan. On 24 April 1920 the Mother returned to Pondicherry and resumed her collaboration with Sri Aurobindo. She remained in India for the rest of her life. At the time the Mother rejoined Sri Aurobindo, a small group of disciples had gathered around him. After her coming the number of disciples increased. Eventually this informal grouping took shape as an ashram or spiritual community.
From its very beginning in November 1926, Sri Aurobindo entrusted the full material and spiritual charge of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram to the Mother. Under her guidance, which extended over nearly fifty years, the Ashram has grown into a many-faceted community which at present consists of about 1500 persons. The Mother also founded the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education in 1951 and the international township Auroville in 1968. On 17 November 1973, at the age of ninety-five the Mother left her body.
The Mother’s Symbol
The central circle represents the Supreme Mother, the Mahashakti.
The four cental circle represents the four powers of the Mother – and the twelve petals, Her twelve attributes.
The Mother – Words of the Mother – I : CWM, Vol. 13, p. 64
Last time I told you I was looking for the twelve attributes (Mother takes out a sheet of paper). Here they are, someone found this.
1) Sincerity
2) Humility
3) Gratitude
4) Perseverance
5) Aspiration
6) Receptivity
7) Progress
8) Courage
9) Goodness
10) Generosity
11) Equanimity
12) Peace
The first eight concern the attitude towards the Divine, and the last four towards humanity.
And we also found a text from Sri Aurobindo (with a colored chart of the twelve petals):
Centre and four powers, white.
The twelve all of different colour in three groups:
top group red, passing to orange towards yellow.
Next group, yellow passing through green towards blue.
And third group, blue passing through violet towards red.
If white is not convenient, the center may be gold (powder).
The center is gold.
The Mother – Agenda, Vol. 13, p. 41
How I Became Conscious of My Mission
When and how did I become conscious of a mission which I was to fulfil on earth? And when and how I met Sri Aurobindo?
These two questions you have asked me and I promised a short reply.
For the knowledge of the mission, it is difficult to say when it came to me. It is as though I were born with it, and following the growth of the mind and brain, the precision and completeness of this consciousness grew also.
Between 11 and 13 a series of psychic and spiritual experiences revealed to me not only the existence of God but man’s possibility of uniting with Him, of realising Him integrally in consciousness and action, of manifesting Him upon earth in a life divine. This, along with a practical discipline for its fulfilment, was given to me during my body’s sleep by several teachers, some of whom I met afterwards on the physical plane.
Later on, as the interior and exterior development proceeded, the spiritual and psychic relation with one of these beings became more and more clear and frequent; and although I knew little of the Indian philosophies and religions at that time I was led to call him Krishna, and henceforth I was aware that it was with him (whom I knew I should meet on earth one day) that the divine work was to be done.
In the year 1910 my husband came alone to Pondicherry where, under very interesting and peculiar circumstances, he made the acquaintance of Sri Aurobindo. Since then we both strongly wished to return to India—the country which I had always cherished as my true mother-country. And in 1914 this joy was granted to us.
As soon as I saw Sri Aurobindo I recognised in him the well-known being whom I used to call Krishna…. And this is enough to explain why I am fully convinced that my place and my work are near him, in India.
The Mother – Words of the Mother – I : CWM, Vol. 13, p. 39
I am with you because I AM you or you are me.
‘I am with you’ means a world of things, for I am with you at every level, on every plane, from the supreme consciousness to my most physical consciousness. Here, in Pondicherry, you cannot breathe without breathing my consciousness. It permeates the atmosphere in the subtle physical almost materially and extends right to the lake, seven miles away from here. Beyond, my consciousness can be felt in the material vital, and then on the mental and the other higher planes everywhere. When I came here for the first time, I felt Sri Aurobindo’s atmosphere, felt it materially, ten miles from the shore—ten nautical miles, not kilometers! It was very sudden, very concrete, a pure and luminous atmosphere, light, so light that it lifts you up.
A long time ago, Sri Aurobindo had this reminder, with which you are all quite familiar, put up everywhere in the Ashram: ‘Always behave as if the Mother was looking at you; because she is, indeed, always present.’
This is not some mere sentence, these are not just words, it is a fact. I am very concretely with you, and those with a subtle vision can see me.
Generally speaking, my Force is constantly here at work, constantly changing the psychological elements of your being to put them into new relationships and to make clear to you the diverse facets of your nature so that you may see what must be changed, developed or eliminated.
But besides all this, there is a special personal bond of affection between you and me, between all who have turned towards Sri Aurobindo’s teaching and me—and of course, distance does not count; you may be in France, at the other end of the world, or in Pondicherry, but this bond remains just as real and as living. Each time there is a call, each time I need to know something to send out a force, an inspiration, a protection or whatever else, a sort of message suddenly comes to me, and I do what is needed. Obviously, these communications come to me at any moment whatsoever, and you may have seen me more than once suddenly stop in the middle of a sentence or some work: it means something, some communication is coming, so I concentrate.
There is more than a bond with those whom I have accepted as disciples, those to whom I have said ‘yes’—there is an emanation of myself. Whenever necessary, this emanation notifies me as to what is happening. In fact, I know constantly, but all these things are not registered in my active memory, otherwise I would be flooded—the physical consciousness acts as a filter: things are recorded on a subtle plane and remain there in the latent state, rather like music that is silently recorded, and when I need to know something with my physical consciousness, I plug into this subtle plane and the tape starts playing. Then I can see things, their evolution and the present result.
And if, for some reason or other, you write asking for my help, and I answer, ‘I am with you,’ this means that the communication with you becomes active, that you are even in my active consciousness for some time—the time needed.
And this bond between you and me is never cut. There are people who left the Ashram a long time ago, in a state of revolt, and yet I continue to know them and to take care of them. You are never abandoned.
In truth, I feel responsible for everyone, even for people I have met for only one second in my life.
Now, you know that Sri Aurobindo and I are always one and the same
consciousness, one and the same person. Only, when this unique force or presence is felt in your individual consciousness, it assumes different forms or appearances depending upon your temperament, your aspirations, your needs, the particular cast of your nature. Your individual consciousness is like a filter, a pointer, as it were; it makes a choice and settles upon one possibility in the infinity of divine possibilities. In truth, the Divine gives to each one exactly what he expects from Him. If you believe the Divine to be distant and cruel, He will be distant and cruel, because it may be necessary for your supreme wellbeing to feel the wrath of God. He will be Kali for the worshippers of Kali, and bliss for the bhakta He will be the All-Knowledge of seekers after Knowledge, the Transcendent Impersonal of the illusionist. He will be an atheist for the atheist, and the love of the lover. He will be fraternal and near, an ever faithful friend, ever helpful, to those who feel him as the inner guide of each movement, at each minute. And if you believe that He can erase everything, He will erase all your faults, all your errors, tirelessly, and at each moment you will feel his infinite Grace. In truth, the Divine is what you expect of Him in your deep aspiration.
And once you enter into this consciousness where all things are seen with a single look, the infinite multitude of the Divine’s relationships with men, you realize how wonderful everything is, in every detail. You can also look at the history of mankind and see how much the Divine has evolved depending upon what men have understood, desired, hoped for or dreamed; how he was materialistic with the materialist, and how each day he grows, draws nearer, becomes more luminous, as the human consciousness widens. Everyone is free to choose. The perfection of this endless variety of relationships between man and God throughout the history of the world is an unutterable wonder. Yet all this together is but a second in the total manifestation of the Divine.
The Divine is with you according to your aspirations. This does not mean, naturally, that He bends to the whims of your outer nature—I am speaking here of the truth of your being. Yet sometimes He does fashion himself according to your outer aspirations; and if, like the devout, you live alternately in estrangement and embrace, ecstasy and despair, the Divine too will be estranged from you or draw near, according to your belief. Therefore, one’s attitude is extremely important, even one’s outer attitude. People do not know just how important faith is, how faith is miracle—the creator of miracles. For if at each moment, you expect to be uplifted and drawn towards the Divine, He will come and uplift you, and He will be there, very near, nearer and nearer.
The Mother – Agenda, Vol.1 , pp. 116-119
SRI AUROBINDO ON THE MOTHER
One shall descend and break the iron Law,
Change Nature’s doom by the lone spirit’s power.
A limitless Mind that can contain the world,
A sweet and violent heart of ardent calms
Moved by the passions of the gods shall come.
All mights and greatnesses shall join in her;
Beauty shall walk celestial on the earth,
Delight shall sleep in the cloud-net of her hair,
And in her body as on his homing tree
Immortal Love shall beat his glorious wings.
A music of griefless things shall weave her charm;
The harps of the Perfect shall attune her voice,
The streams of Heaven shall murmur in her laugh,
Her lips shall be the honeycombs of God,
Her limbs his golden jars of ecstasy,
Her breasts the rapture-flowers of Paradise.
She shall bear Wisdom in her voiceless bosom,
Strength shall be with her like a conqueror’s sword
And from her eyes the Eternal’s bliss shall gaze.
A seed shall be sown in Death’s tremendous hour,
A branch of heaven transplant to human soil;
Nature shall overleap her mortal step;
Fate shall be changed by an unchanging will.
Sri Aurobindo – Savitri: CWSA, Vol. 33, p. 346
The four Powers of the Mother are four of her outstanding Personalities, portions and embodiments of her divinity through whom she acts on her creatures, orders and harmonises her creations in the worlds and directs the working out of her thousand forces. For the Mother is one but she comes before us with differing aspects; many are her powers and personalities, many her emanations and Vibhutis that do her work in the universe.
The One whom we adore as the Mother is the divine Conscious Force that dominates all existence, one and yet so many-sided that to follow her movement is impossible even for the quickest mind and for the freest and most vast intelligence. The Mother is the consciousness and force of the Supreme and far above all she creates. But something of her ways can be seen and felt through her embodiments and the more seizable because more defined and limited temperament and action of the goddess forms in whom she consents to be manifest to her creatures.
Sri Aurobindo – The Mother with Letters on The Mother : CWSA, Vol. 32, p. 14
Four great Aspects of the Mother, four of her leading Powers and Personalities have stood in front in her guidance of this universe and in her dealings with the terrestrial play. One is her personality of calm wideness and comprehending wisdom and tranquil benignity and inexhaustible compassion and sovereign and surpassing majesty and all-ruling greatness. Another embodies her power of splendid strength and irresistible passion, her warrior mood, her overwhelming will, her impetuous swiftness and world-shaking force. A third is vivid and sweet and wonderful with her deep secret of beauty and harmony and fine rhythm, her intricate and subtle opulence, her compelling attraction and captivating grace. The fourth is equipped with her close and profound capacity of intimate knowledge and careful flawless work and quiet and exact perfection in all things. Wisdom, Strength, Harmony, Perfection are their several attributes and it is these powers that they bring with them into the world, manifest in a human disguise in their Vibhutis and shall found in the divine degree of their ascension in those who can open their earthly nature to the direct and living influence of the Mother. To the four we give the four great names, Maheshwari, Mahakali, Mahalakshmi, Mahasaraswati.
Sri Aurobindo – The Mother with Letters on The Mother : CWSA, Vol. 32, pp. 17-18
The Mother not only governs all from above but she descends into this lesser triple universe. Impersonally, all things here, even the movements of the Ignorance, are herself in veiled power and her creations in diminished substance, her Nature-body and Nature-force, and they exist because, moved by the mysterious fiat of the Supreme to work out something that was there in the possibilities of the Infinite, she has consented to the great sacrifice and has put on like a mask the soul and forms of the Ignorance. But personally too she has stooped to descend here into the Darkness that she may lead it to the Light, into the Falsehood and Error that she may convert it to the Truth, into this Death that she may turn it to godlike Life, into this world-pain and its obstinate sorrow and suffering that she may end it in the transforming ecstasy of her sublime Ananda. In her deep and great love for her children she has consented to put on herself the cloak of this obscurity, condescended to bear the attacks and torturing influences of the powers of the Darkness and the Falsehood, borne to pass through the portals of the birth that is a death, taken upon herself the pangs and sorrows and sufferings of the creation, since it seemed that thus alone could it be lifted to the Light and Joy and Truth and eternal Life. This is the great sacrifice called sometimes the sacrifice of the Purusha, but much more deeply the holocaust of Prakriti, the sacrifice of the Divine Mother.
Sri Aurobindo – The Mother with Letters on The Mother : CWSA, Vol. 32, p. 17
The supramental change is a thing decreed and inevitable in the evolution of the earth-consciousness; for its upward ascent is not ended and mind is not its last summit. But that the change may arrive, take form and endure, there is needed the call from below with a will to recognise and not deny the Light when it comes, and there is needed the sanction of the Supreme from above. The power that mediates between the sanction and the call is the presence and power of the Divine Mother. The Mother’s power and not any human endeavour and tapasya can alone rend the lid and tear the covering and shape the vessel and bring down into this world of obscurity and falsehood and death and suffering Truth and Light and Life divine and the immortal’s Ananda.
Sri Aurobindo – The Mother with Letters on The Mother : CWSA, Vol. 32, p. 26
The Golden Day – The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth
29 February 1956
During the common meditation on Wednesday
This evening the Divine Presence, concrete and material, was there present amongst you. I had a form of living gold, bigger than the universe, and I was facing a huge and massive golden door which separated the world from the Divine. As I looked at the door, I knew and willed, in a single movement of consciousness, that “the time has come”, and lifting with both hands a mighty golden hammer I struck one blow, one single blow on the door and the door was shattered to pieces.
Then the supramental Light and Force and Consciousness rushed down upon earth in an uninterrupted flow.
The Mother – Words of the Mother – III : CWM, Vol. 15, p. 94
29 February – 29 March
Lord, Thou hast willed, and I execute:
A new light breaks upon the earth,
A new world is born.
The things that were promised are fulfilled.
The Mother – Words of the Mother – III : CWM, Vol. 15, p. 95
24th April 1956
The manifestation of the Supramental upon earth is no more a promise but a living fact, a reality.
It is at work here, and one day will come when the most blind, the most unconscious, even the most unwilling shall be obliged to recognise it.
To all those who aspire
Open yourself to the new Force. Let it do in you its work of Transformation.
***
Open yourself to the new Light that has dawned upon earth and a luminous path will spread in front of you.
The Mother – Words of the Mother – III : CWM, Vol. 15, p. 96
There are some prayers of the Mother written before she came here in 1914 in which there are ideas of transformation and manifestation. Did she have these ideas long before she came here?
The Mother had been spiritually conscious from her youth, even from her childhood, upward and she had done sadhana and developed this knowledge very long before she came to India.
Sri Aurobindo – The Mother with Letters on The Mother : CWSA, Vol. 32, p. 601
The Mother’s presence is always there; but if you decide to act on your own—your own idea, your own notion of things, your own will and demand upon things, then it is quite likely that her presence will get veiled; it is not she who withdraws from you, but you who draw back from her.
Sri Aurobindo – The Mother with Letters on The Mother : CWSA, Vol. 32, p. 186
You have only to aspire, to keep yourself open to the Mother, to reject all that is contrary to her will and to let her work in you—doing also all your work for her and in the faith that it is through her force that you can do it. If you remain open in this way the knowledge and realisation will come to you in due course.
Sri Aurobindo – The Mother with Letters on The Mother : CWSA, Vol. 32, p. 154
The Mother’s Force is not only above on the summit of the being. It is there with you and near you, ready to act whenever your nature will allow it. It is so with everybody here.
Sri Aurobindo – The Mother with Letters on The Mother : CWSA, Vol. 32, p. 197
The Mother does not think that it is good to give up all work and only read and meditate. Work is part of the Yoga and it gives the best opportunity for calling down the Presence, the Light and the Power into the vital and its activities; it increases also the field and the opportunity of surrender.
It is not enough to remember that the work is the Mother’s—and the results also. You must learn to feel the Mother’s force behind you and to open to the inspiration and the guidance. Always to remember by an effort of the mind is too difficult; but if you get into the consciousness in which you feel always the Mother’s force in you or supporting you, that is the true thing.
Sri Aurobindo – The Mother with Letters on The Mother : CWSA, Vol. 32, p. 247
The Mother deals with each one in a different way, according to their need and their nature, not according to any fixed mental rule. It would be absurd for her to do the same thing with everybody as if all were machines which had to be touched and handled in the same way….
Sri Aurobindo – The Mother with Letters on The Mother : CWSA, Vol. 32, p. 533
It is true that the Mother is one in many forms, but the distinction between the outer and the inner Mother must not be made too trenchant; for she is not only one, but the physical Mother contains all the others in herself and in her is established the communication between the inner and the outer existence. But to know the outer Mother truly one must know what is within her and not look at the outer appearances only. That is only possible if one meets her with the inner being and grows into her consciousness—those who seek an outer relation only cannot do that.
Sri Aurobindo – The Mother with Letters on The Mother : CWSA, Vol. 32, p. 483
“Whoever gets my touch, whoever has a second of true aspiration, true love for me, he is finished for this life, for all lives – he is bound to me. I have put a golden chain round his neck, his heart is bound eternally to me.”
It is a thing nobody can see, you yourselves don’t see; but it is a fact, it is there. The golden chain is there within your heart. Wherever you go, you drag that chain, it is a lengthening chain. How far you may go, it is an elastic chain, it goes on lengthening, but never snaps. In hours of difficulty, in hours of doubt and confusion in your life, you have that within you to support you. If you are conscious of it, so much the better; if you are not conscious, believe that it is there. The Mother’s love, Her Presence is there always.
The Mother – Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta -Volume 6
Aditi – the Divine Consciousness
Pure, immaculate, gloriously powerful.
Nelumbo nucifera ‘Alba’. White
Aditi — The Mother. Aditi is the indivisible consciousness, force and Ananda of the Supreme; the Mother, its living dynamis, the supreme Love, Wisdom, Power.
According to the Truth of things . . . the worlds are brought forth from the divine consciousness, from Aditi, goddess of infinite being, mother of the gods, the indivisible consciousness, the Light that cannot be impaired. . . .
The Divine Mother is the Consciousness and Force of the Divine — which is the Mother of all things.
All is created by the Supreme Goddess, the Supreme and Original Mahashakti, all proceeds from her, all lives by her, all lives in her, even as she lives in all. All wisdom and knowledge are her wisdom and knowledge; all power is her power, all will and force her will and force, all action is her action, all movement her movement. All beings are portions of her power of existence.
At the head she stands of birth and toil and fate,
In their slow round the cycles turn to her call;
Alone her hands can change Time’s dragon base.
Hers is the mystery the Night conceals;
The spirit’s alchemist energy is hers;
She is the golden bridge, the wonderful fire.
The luminous heart of the Unknown is she,
A power of silence in the depths of God;
She is the Force, the inevitable Word,
The magnet of our difficult ascent,
The Sun from which we kindle all our suns,
The Light that leans from the unrealised Vasts,
The joy that beckons from the impossible,
The Might of all that never yet came down.
Sri Aurobindo – The Spiritual Significance Of Flowers – Part – 1
The Mother’s Flag
About the blue flag. I presume you mean the flag with the white lotus. If so, it is the Mother’s flag, for the white lotus is her symbol as the red lotus is mine. The blue of the flag is meant to be the colour of Krishna and so represents the spiritual or Divine Consciousness which it is her work to establish so that it may reign upon earth. This is the meaning of the flag being used as the Ashram flag, that our work is to bring down this consciousness and make it the leader of the world’s life.
Sri Aurobindo – The Mother with Letters on The Mother : CWSA, Vol. 32, p. 598
The Mother’s Signature
“This is a graphic representation of the signature. It means ‘The Bird of Peace Descending upon Earth”. It has its wings tilted towards the earth. It is coming down to the earth. You see the angle of its wings and how it is descending towards the earth? It is to bring Peace. It is the messenger of Peace. The Bird of Peace Descending upon Earth.
Now I will explain to you how this bird corresponds to the signature. Look, first this, this is the tail of the bird. Here are the two tips of the tail, and I extend it as the wing which is seen like a curved line. You have seen the tails of birds, they are like this.
So, with these two tips of the tail and one wing, it is one part of the bird. And this is the other wing. They are large wings. And these are the eyes which are represented here by these two points. And here is the head.
One sees the bird appearing from far, that is why one sees only the eyes that shine and not all the details of the figure. It has very large wings and it is inclined like this to one side, that is why its body is hidden. One does not see its body, it is hidden behind its large wings. And from far one sees only its two eyes and the beak and all that. Because it is only the eyes that shine – the eyes reflect the soul. They are important, the eyes. ….
This is the symbolic representation of the Bird of Peace Descending upon Earth. Instead of drawing the whole bird each time, I have made a symbolic drawing which represents this bird. You can see clearly this is the bird in flight which is descending towards the earth. It is still far, but one day it will alight upon the earth. Then, there will be Peace. This , then, is the significance of my signature.
The Mother – Sweet Mother Luminous Notes by Mona Sarkar p. 4-5
