My Pilgrimage to the Spirit

Introductory

"The Mother", also sung as "Ma Mira", came to India in 1914, met Sri Aurobindo and vividly felt that India was the home of Her soul and that Her work lay here with Sri Aurobindo for the spiritual regeneration of man. Since then She felt a deep identification with the country, her great past, her present basic atmosphere and her unique capability in regard to the future of man. She sought that India should become free, should recover her soul and show to the world the path of future progress.

Her first work here was the organization of "The Arya", a monthly publication for the presentation to the world of Sri Aurobindo's vision of the future. Thus came into being Sri Aurobindo's great writings on the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Gita, Social Progress, Human Unity, Future Poetry, a New Philosophy of life and existence and a new Yogic Path for the realization of the new personality needed for a new world. This literature has recreated Indian culture for the present and the future, as also created for the world its true future possibility.

The deepest perceptions of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have been that man has reached a high level of mental development, high enough acutely to feel the limitations of it and seek to exceed it. From a superficial, piece-meal, seeking for truths in more or less isolated fields of knowledge, which has created so many acute imbalances in life, we should grow into a capacity of thought, feeling and will, which would enable us to comprehend wholes, unities, totalities. We have already developed at our mental level a seeking for integration and integrality and this seeking is pressing for effectivity, but effectivity demands a consciousness of a larger and fuller kind more capable of dealing with the entire fact of existence and of guiding life as a whole, integrally. Such consciousness at its highest has been called by the Mother and Sri Aurobindo Supramental and all the endeavour of their life was devoted to the realization and dissemination of it.

The endeavour entails a profound change in consciousness, a growth in depth, in width and in height. Our ordinary knowing, feeling and willing is extremely limited, fragmented and divided. Anxiety, partiality, conflict, doubt, vacillation and incapacity of will are normal. To change it into a knowing, feeling and willing, which is clear, sure, integral and effective is a high vision of life. The educational work of the Mother arose of this perception and in 1943 a school was started with the intention of taking up children with such possibility and affording to them the right atmosphere, the right care and attention, the right training which would slowly bring about a steady widening and growth of consciousness.

The school thus started grew in, course of time into Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education with proper facilities from the kindergarten to post-graduate research. A new system of education thus came into being, which is called Integral Education.

A stage came when the Mother wanted to attempt a real integration in social and cultural living and the township of Auroville was taken in hand. This evoked a wide response and the project has already yielded some fine results. The partialities of the normal human nature, its limitations and prejudices presented tremendous difficulties. But integration and integrality are high ideals, which must be pursued and therefore the difficulties faced and overcome. The Mother had the vision and the courage and the capacity and She achieved demonstrably in the field of education as also in that of integral life and culture of man.

But her main field of work was the Ashram, where spiritual seekers lived, devoting all their energy in a conscious manner to the realization of the larger consciousness of the soul, the spirit, the supermind. But here the aim was not a personal peace and bliss, but a recreation of contemporary life as such on a spiritual basis. That meant carrying on all the normal activities of life, even industrial and commercial, out of a larger spiritual attitude. This was among all the undertakings of the Mother, the most painstaking, most detailed and stretched over the longest period of time. This work slowly extended much beyond the Ashram, covering spiritual seekers all over the world who sought to grow under her care.

All these undertakings have shown Mother's varied aspects, those of a spiritual master, an educationist, an organizer and an administrator and a creator of great vision. She is, besides, a literary person, a painter, a musician. But her spiritual personality central to all these aspects is the most astounding. She aimed at ever higher and higher goals and discovered and revealed endless realms of the Spirit. This gives us the most thrilling possibilities of life.

The Mother's own writings are now coming out as collected works in 15 volumes and much has been written on her too. All this shows what the Mother was, what She attempted and achieved and above all the inspiration that She continues to be.