On The Mother

A Chronology of the Mother's Life

Her embodiment is a chance for the earth-consciousness to receive the Supramental into it and to undergo first the transformation necessary for that to be possible.

Sri Aurobindo

1830 Dec 18 Birth of Mira Ismalun (nee Pinto), the Mother's maternal grand-mother, in Egypt. Died in 1909.

1843 Jul 5 Birth of Moise Maurice Alfassa, the Mother's father, in Adrianople (Edirne), Turkey. Died in 1918.

1857 Aug 26 Birth of Mathilde Ismalun, the Mother's mother, in Alexandria, Egypt. She often told little Mirra, 'You are born to realise the highest Ideal' and taught her 'the discipline and the necessity of self-forgetfulness through concentration on what one is doing'. Died in 1944.

1870 Apr 6 Birth of Henri Francois Morisset, the Mother's first husband, in Paris. A renowned artist - his best creations were made during the years they were together. Died in 1954.

1872 Aug 15 Birth of Aurobindo Akroyd Ghose (Sri Aurobindo) at about 5:10 a.m. in Calcutta.

The Mother: 'What Sri Aurobindo represents in the world's history is not a teaching, not even a revelation: it is a decisive action direct from the Supreme.'

1874 Jun 18 Marriage of Mathilde with Maurice in Alexandria. They were positivists and materialists.

1876 Jul 13 Birth of Matteo, the Mother's brother. He became a distinguished diplomat of France. Died in 1942.

1877 The Alfassas emigrate to France. Maurice prospers as a banker in the Banque Ottoman.

1878 Feb 21 Birth of Blanche Rachel Mirra Alfassa (the Mother) at 10:15 a.m. at 41, boulevard Haussmann, Paris.

Sri Aurobindo: 'The Mother's consciousness and mine are the same, the one Divine Consciousness in two, because that is necessary for the play.'

The Mother: 'Without him, I exist not; without me, he is unmanifest.'

1879 Sri Aurobindo is brought to England for his education.

c. 1881-85 'When I was five, even three years old, I was conscious. The beginning was made in the womb.' Around the age of five, feels a Light and Force above her head penetrate her brain and gradually shape her life. Begins to seek for a way to unify the contradictory wills and divergent parts of the being around the psychic which 'was already well developed'.

At about seven, teaches a lesson to a bully of thirteen: 'I could wield that force to correct an injustice.'

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1886-98 Lives at 3, rue Square du Roule, Paris.

Learns tennis and piano; takes private lessons in drawing and painting Visits the Black Forest, near Baden-Baden, Germany, where she loved watching gnomes at play.

Meditates in Fontainebleau under ancient trees in the company of little birds and animals.

A Red Indian in Buffalo Bill's troupe (in Paris for an exhibition) shows her how to estimate the distance of footsteps heard from afar with the ear to the ground.

Learns how to transform physical pain into Ananda.

At the Louvre feels an occult familiarity with the ancient Egyptian Queen Hatshepsut.

By the age of 10 makes portraits in oil and other mediums. At 14 teaches painting to children.

c. 1888-95 Attends a reputed 'cours', an exclusive school for the rich run by eminent professors; always at the top of her class in all subjects. On finishing school receives the prix d'honneur.

Reads through her father's 800-volume library.

Writes The Path of Later On' as a school essay.

Studies, in addition to what the tutor taught her, the special Mathematics he taught Matteo for his admission to Paris' École Polytechnique.

1889 Banque Ottoman ruined by the Panama affair; Maurice bears the brunt; his family in financial straits.

1889-91 '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 manifesting Him upon earth.... This, along with a practical discipline for its fulfilment, was given to me during my body's sleep by several teachers'. One of them she was 'led to call Krishna' and she became 'aware that it was with him that the divine work was to be done'.

c. 1891-92 Every night 'I went out of my body and rose straight up... clad in a magnificent golden robe, much longer than myself.... Then I would see men, women, children, old men, the sick, the unfortunate coming out from every side... as soon as they had touched [the robe] they were comforted or healed.... Often while I was rising up... an old man, silent and still... looked at me with kindly affection and encouraged me by his presence.'

Later finds the old man was a personification of the 'Man of Sorrows' or the Lord of Suffering - one of 'the four original Divine emanations that went wrong' and were responsible for the Asuric deformations in the present creation. He gave her all his knowledge before dissolving himself into the Divine.

1892 Attends a wedding in a Jewish temple in Paris. Feeling uplifted by the music of Saint-Saëns being played on the organ, she stood gazing at a window from the balcony, 'when suddenly through the window came a flash like a bolt of lightning' and entered her chest forcefully: 'I had the feeling of becoming vast and all-powerful. And it lasted for days.'

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Her charcoal drawing Le Font de la Divonne (Ain) (probably done when she visited Mira Ismalun in Lausanne) is displayed at the International "Blanc et Noir" Exhibition in Paris.

1893 Jan 12 Sri Aurobindo leaves England for India: 'If there was an attachment to a European land as a second country, it was intellectually and emotionally to one not seen or lived in in this life... France.'

1893-97 Joins one of the studios of the Academic Julian (founded by Rodolphe Julian in 1868) in Paris. Though youngest, sought by students as arbiter in their disputes; replies to their thoughts rather than their words. Protects the monitress from being unjustly dismissed by the authorities.

1896-98 'I attained a conscious and constant union with the divine Presence... all alone, with absolutely nobody to help me... not even books.' Later comes across Swami Vivekananda's Raja Yoga. 'It made me gain in a few months what would have perhaps taken me years to do.'

c. 1898-1902 Receives a translation of the Bhagavad Gita from Jnanendranath Chakravarti with the advice, 'Take Krishna as the symbol of the immanent Divine, the Divine within you.' And, 'in a month the whole work was done.'

1896-1907 Period of cultivation of the vital being and aesthetic consciousness. Comes in contact with leading artists of the period including Rodin and Matisse. Meets Emile Zola.

Six of her paintings are exhibited at the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Paris, between 1903-06.

Writes a novelette (since lost) depicting a human love that, universalised by devotion to Beauty, conquers pain and sorrow.

On a visit to the castle Blois, Beaugency, gets a sudden glimpse into one of her past lives.

1897 Oct 13 Marries Henri Morisset, a student of artist Gustave Moreau. She was introduced to him by Mira Ismalun, who had known his father, artist Henri Edouard Morisset. They live at 15, rue Lemerçier, Paris.

1898 Assists Morisset in painting murals (extant) on either side of the-main altar in the Church of St. James of Compostela at Pau in France. A Spanish legend portrayed St. James appearing 'in a golden light on a white horse, almost like Kalki' and vanquishing the Moors.

- Aug 23 Birth of her only child, Andre Morisset. Cures the child's illnesses 'without ever calling a doctor'.

1901-1907 Introduced, by Mattéo's friend Louis Thémanlys, to Le Groupe Cosmique founded by the Polish occultist Max Théon and his wife Alma. Later helps edit its organ La Revue Cosmique and plays a central role in its Paris chapter.

1905-06 Founds (with Thémanlys) 1'Idee, a group of seekers who meet at her house. Teaches young Andre, who is interested in their sessions, how he can attend them by coming out of his body.

1905 Meets Eliezer Mordehai (Max Théon), then between 50 and 60 years old.

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Later describes him as a powerful 'Vibhuti' of the Lord of Death, one of the four original Divine emanations turned

Asuras. Initiated in India, he studied Sanskrit and the Vedas.

- Jul-Aug Experiences, in a friend* garden in Courseulles, Normandy, 'all the life of that region between the subtle physical and the most material vital' - two planes of her inner consciousness which had seemed unbridgeable. She had worked on this problem for more than six months.

1906 Jul 14-Oct 15 First visit to Tlemcen, Algeria, to study occultism with the Théons. The very first day tells Théon, 'My psychic being governs me, I am afraid of nothing.' Alma sees the occult crown of 12 pearls over her head signifying that she belongs to the region more luminous than the Overmind and helps her become totally conscious of the Light which had always been with her - 'absolutely pure, so dazzlingly white that eyes cannot look at it'.

1906 Nov-1907 Jun Publishes in La Revue Cosmique, a series of visions describing her occult experiences.

1906-07 When in Algeria with the Théons, exteriorises herself once and goes to Paris where, making herself felt to her friends, she picks up a pen and writes with it. Also moves up and down a train in her vital body. But 'having satisfied herself that it was possible' does not develop this occult faculty any further.

Meets Paul Antoine Richard (1874-1967), a theologian and socialist, then a member of Théon's group. Later describes him as a 'Vibhuti' of the Lord of Falsehood, one of the four original Asuras.

1907 Jan Meets a revolutionary leader (possibly Maxim Gorky's son) from Kiev, Russia, who came seeking her advice on his spiritual and political problems.

-Jul-Oct Second visit to Tlemcen, Algeria. Soon afterwards leaves Le Groupe Cosmique.

1908-14 Period of 'intensive mental development' leading to the realisation of something luminous and true beyond the synthesis of all mental knowledge.

1908 Mar Separation from Henri Morisset. Later moves to 49, rue de Levis, Paris.

1908-1909 Sri Aurobindo realises 'in full two of the four great realisations on which his yoga and his spiritual philosophy are founded': of the silent spaceless and timeless Brahman, and of the cosmic consciousness - the Divine as all beings and all that is. To the other two, 'that of the supreme Reality with the static and dynamic Brahman as its two aspects and that of the higher planes of consciousness leading to the Supermind', he is 'already on his way'.

1910 At a talk by Alexandra David-Neel on Buddhism, sees the Buddha in a bluish light, standing beside Alexandra. They become friends and fellow seekers, go often to the Bois de Boulogne gardens, watch the 'grasshopper-like early aeroplanes' take off.

-Apr 4 Sri Aurobindo arrives in Pondicherry, his 'cave of Tapasya', and begins an intense sadhana with Sri Krishna as his Master of Yoga.

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- Apr-May Paul Richard meets Sri Aurobindo. He returns to France with a photograph of Sri Aurobindo and a feeling that he has the Knowledge, but fails to recognise Sri Aurobindo as the Avatar.

1911-14 Contributes to much of the substance and language of Richard's books Ether Vivant and Les Dieux; collaborates with him on Les Paroles Éternelles.

1911-13 Associates with several related groups of seekers, one of which is the Union de Pensée Feminine.

Meets Abdul Baha (son and successor of Baha Ullah, the founder of the Bahai religion) 'who by his presence alone transmits spirituality'. Gives talks to his followers but declines to take responsibility for them 'as I did not myself accept the beliefs of his sect'.

1911-12 Begins a spiritual journal. Selections from it are later published as Prières et Meditations de la Mere. Sri Aurobindo's diary. Record of Yoga, also begins around this time. Both the diaries continue with some regularity from late 1912 to around 1920, with maximum entries in 1914.

1911 May 5 Goes through the formalities of marriage with Paul Richard, as it was the best way to accomplish the occult work she had to do on him. Shifts to his residence at 9, rue du Val de Grace, where 1'Idee, her group of seekers, continues to meet.

1912-14 Translates (from English) parts of Buddhist texts, the Amritabindu, Kaivalya and Isha Vasya Upanishads, the Narada Sutras, the Bhagavad Gita and some of the sayings of Sri Ramakrishna.

1912 May 7 Speaks of the work to be done: To become conscious of and unite with the Divine Presence; to realise the higher planes of consciousness and 'put the earth in connection with one or more of the fountains of universal force that are still sealed to it'; 'to speak again to the world the eternal word'; and 'collectively, to establish an ideal society... for the flowering of the new race'.

- Aug 15 Sri Aurobindo experiences 'a prolonged realisation and dwelling in Parabrahaman for many hours'.

Later that year he writes about the work to be done: 'To re-explain the Sanatana Dharma... from a new standpoint' that Sri Krishna has shown him; 'to establish a yogic sadhana which will not only liberate the soul, but prepare a perfect humanity'; 'as part of the above work' to restore India to her 'proper place in the world' by 'means of Yoga'; to remodel society - to make it 'fit to contain' a perfect humanity.

- Nov 2 First entry in the published Prayers and Meditations'. '...I have now a constant and precise perception of the universal unity determining an absolute interdependence of all actions.'

- Nov 7 Meets Sufi mystic and musician Hazrat Inayat Khan. He tells her that for the sufis there is 'a state higher than that of adoration and surrender to

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the Divine', namely, the stage 'when there is no longer any distinction... between the Divine and oneself.

- Nov 19 'Thy Presence is for me an absolute, immutable, invariable fact... Thou art all, everywhere, and in all, and this body which acts is Thy own body....'

- Dec 27 Attends a talk on Mantras. For the first time, hears OM chanted. Sees everything suddenly filled with light, 'a golden, vibrating light' that sets her body vibrating 'in an extraordinary way'.

Later says, 'That sound contains the vibrations of thousands and thousands of years of spiritual aspiration.... And the power is automatically there.'

1913 May 11 When 'solely and entirely occupied with Thee... I unite my will to Thine.... Thou fillest my being... and I no longer know whether the universe is I or I the universe, whether Thou art in me or I in Thee'.

- May 18 Abdul Baha speaks to her about mysticism and the Sufi tenets and practices.

1914 Jan-Feb 'I had decided that within a certain number of months I would achieve union with the psychic Presence, the inner Divine, and I no longer had any other thought, any other concern.' In that state, once while trying to cross boulevard St. Michel, she is passed by a tram-car at a little more than an arm's length. It touches her 'protective aura' and almost throws her back 'as if I had received a physical blow'. She jumps back just in time.

- Feb 22 'I feel myself living at the centre of each thing upon the entire earth, and at the same time I seem to stretch out immense, infinite arms and envelop with a boundless tenderness all beings, clasped, gathered, nestled on my breast that is vaster than the universe.'

- Mar 8 Departs for Pondicherry from Marseilles aboard the Kaga Maru.

En route, at Cairo, visits a museum where articles of an ancient Egyptian Queen evoke memories of a past life as that Queen. Tells a clergyman going to China: 'Even before your religion was born... the Chinese... knew a path leading them to the Divine.'

- Mar 27 Disembarks at Colombo; meets the Buddhist monk Dharmapal.

-Mar 29 Arrives in Pondicherry. Meets Sri Aurobindo at 3:30 p.m.: 'As soon as I saw Sri Aurobindo, I recognised in him the well-known being whom I used to call Krishna.'

'I was seated close to him, simply, like that, on the floor... suddenly I felt within me as if a great Force - Peace! Silence! massive.' On her way out, notices 'I didn't have a thought in my mind... I was absolutely in a complete blank.'

Sri Aurobindo: T had never seen anywhere a self-surrender so absolute and unreserved.'

- Mar 30 'It matters little that there are thousands of beings plunged in the densest ignorance. He whom we saw yesterday is on earth; his presence is

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enough to prove that a day will come when... Thy reign shall be indeed established upon earth.'

1914 Apr-1915 Feb Finds even the poor, lowly and unlettered Indians spiritually receptive....

Experiences a descent of Power on touching the feet of Sri Aurobindo; considers it the true significance of pranam.

Sees a vision 'in which four beings appeared at the four comers of an immense plateau' and spoke to her. Sri Aurobindo identifies them as the Vedic Gods Mitra, Varuna, Bhaga and Aryaman.

Visited by an artist friend, Johannes Hohlenberg, who takes a photograph of Sri Aurobindo in standing profile and also paints his portrait in oil.

1914 May 16 'All the circumstances of my life seem always to tell me on Thy behalf: "It is not through supreme concentration that thou wilt realise oneness, it is by spreading out in all." '

- May 20 'From the height of that summit which is the identification with Thy divine infinite Love, Thou didst turn my eyes to this complex body which has to serve Thee as Thy instrument. And Thou didst tell me: "It is myself...." And indeed I saw Thy divine Love, clothed in intelligence, then in strength, constituting this body in its smallest cells....'

- May 25 'All the hearts of men beat within my heart, all their thoughts vibrate in my thought, the slightest aspiration of a docile animal or a modest plant unites with my formidable aspiration, and all this rises towards Thee... to attain Thee... and make Thee penetrate the darkness of suffering to transform it into divine Joy, into sovereign Peace.'

- Jun Occupies 7, rue Dupleix. During a meditation there, sees the Himalayas, experiences their atmosphere.

With Sri Aurobindo and Paul Richard decides to publish a monthly journal to present 'a systematic study of the highest problems of existence' based on a synthesis of the knowledge of the East and the West.

They also form a society, 1'Idee Nouvelle, with some young men of Pondicherry.

- Jun 14 'It is a veritable work of creation we have to do: to create activities, new modes of being so that this Force, unknown to the earth till today, may manifest in its plenitude.'

- Jul 21 Has the Kundalini experience: 'There was no longer any body, no longer any sensation; only a column of light... rising from where the base of the body normally is to where usually is the head, to form there a disk of light like that of the moon; then... the column continued to rise very far above the head, opening out into an immense sun, dazzling and multicoloured, whence a rain of golden light fell covering all the earth. ...'

- Jul-Aug 4 The First World War breaks out in Europe: 'The dark forces from the vital world came down on earth and sought to possess the consciousness of man. They left their traces even after the war was over.'

- Aug 15 First issue of the monthly philosophical review Arya. Helps edit its French edition till February 19115, when the French edition terminates.

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- Sep-Oct Uses her occult force to subdue the savage Kali gloating over the impending destruction of Paris by the German armies then advancing upon it. The Germans, not finding any French resistance, suspect an ambush and withdraw.

1915 Jan 17 '...from the passive and contemplative servitor I was, I become an active and realising one... [in] a partial and limited battle, but one that is representative of the great terrestrial struggle'. Later says this refers to the expulsion of Sri Aurobindo demanded by the British, and accepted by Paris, which she prevented through her brother Matteo's (then a senior diplomat in Paris) and the Governor of Pondicherry.

- Feb 22 Departs for France - forced by French Government regulations during the War. Leaves her psychic being with Sri Aurobindo: 'I knew how to do it.'

On her way, in Colombo, the British police confiscate the Sanskrit grammar that Sri Aurobindo had prepared for her.

- Feb 26 Departs from Colombo on board the Kamo Maru.

-Mar 3 'Never at any moment of my life... have I felt myself living in surroundings so entirely opposite to all that I am conscious of as true, so contrary to all that is the essence of my life.'

- Mar 18 Arrives in Paris. Leaves it on the 29th.

- Mar 30 Arrives at Lunel. Suffers from a serious illness: 'the doctor gave up all hope. Then with an intense effort, I wrote out a letter to Sri Aurobindo.... The next morning... the pain was gone....'

- Apr- Though her body had not regained its equilibrium and health, continues doing her occult work on things, persons and circumstances, gradually extending the field ,as far as America. 'My consciousness was completely free of the body.'

- May 24 Her being has become 'the conscious mediator between the absolute Truth and the manifested universe and (can) intervene in the slow, uncertain march of the yoga of Nature in order to give it the swiftness, intensity and sureness of the divine Yoga.'

-Jul-Aug At Marsillargues. Ill again. Andre spends his vacation with her and first hears of Sri Aurobindo.

- Nov 2 Experiences complete identification of her physical consciousness with the Divine. 'It is Thou who wert the motive and the goal; Thou art the worker and the work.' Later says, 'It was a total holocaust - the offering not of this or that movement of life but of Life itself.'

- Nov 26 Experiences a total identification with the Earth consciousness, then the universal and finally with the Ineffable. Sri Aurobindo, in his reply to her letter describing the experience, calls it 'the union of the "Earth" of the Veda and Purana with the divine Principle, an earth which is said to be above

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our earth, i.e., the physical being and consciousness of which the world and the body are only images.'

1916 Feb-Mar 'Thou hast told me... to burn all my bridges and cast myself headlong into the Unknown....'

- Feb 28 Richard is commissioned by some business houses in France to represent them in Japan.

- Mar 4-11 Crosses the channel from Boulogne to London.

Departs for Japan aboard the Kamo Maru that will go round the Cape as the Suez is closed due to war.

- Apr 6 Kamo Maru at Table Bay. Visits Capetown.

- May 9-10 Kamo Maru at Shanghai. Visits a Buddhist temple. Meets a man who learned to walk about under the hottest sun without suffering any ill-effects.

- May 18 Kamo Maru arrives in Yokohama, Japan. 'For four years, from an artistic point of view, I lived from wonder to wonder.' 'Beauty rules over Japan as an uncontestable master'; Japanese art teaches 'the unity of art with life'.

1916-1917 Stays for a year in Tokyo with Dr. Okhawa Shumei, a Zen practitioner and an active sympathiser with the Indian freedom movement. Shumei: 'We sat together in meditation every night for an hour.' Gives the talk 'To the Women of Japan'.

Meets one of Tolstoy's sons, then on a tour to promote world unity through uniformity of dress, language, life style etc. Tells him, 'It would be a poor world, not worth living in.'

Meets Rabindranath Tagore in Tokyo. Sketches him. Meditates with him. He tells her he found what was written in the Arya to be impracticable. Photographed with Tagore and others at Kamakura in Kyoto, in front of the colossal Daibutsu Buddha. Declines invitation to assist him at Shantiniketan.

1916 Jul 7 Her talk 'Woman and the War' is published in the newspaper Fujo-shimbun: '...the problem of feminism, as all the problems of the world, comes back to a spiritual problem.... And it is in the recognition of the fundamental spiritual equality that can be found the only serious and lasting solution for this problem of the relation of the sexes.'

- Dec 9 'Once again... I entered that state in which the consciousness is scattered in a multitude of different elements, centres of consciousness both individual and collective, to carry out a certain action there or rather as many actions as these elements comprise....'

- Dec 10 The British ambassador to Japan refuses her a visa to cross British India on her way to Pondicherry, because she was going to Sri Aurobindo, still considered a threat to the British in India.

- Dec 20 The Buddha appears, tells her: 'I see in thy heart a diamond surrounded by a golden light.... Learn to radiate and do not fear the storm....

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Turn to earth and men... thy heart... carries a blessed message for those who are athirst for compassion. Henceforth nothing can attack the diamond.' Later says the Buddha came often to her.

1917-18 Stays in Kyoto with Dr. Kobayashi who cured his patients through a 'still-sitting' meditation. Meditates with the Kobayashis. Paints Mme. Okhawa and Mme. Nobuko Kobayashi. The latter comes to Pondicherry in 1959.

1917 Jan 5 I am becoming more and more this Love...- Active, everywhere, between all things, everywhere it is veiled by the very things it unites, which, though feeling its effect, are sometimes not even aware of its presence.'

- Apr 10 Sees herself as 'the Will that moves, the Thought that acts, the Force that realises, the Matter that is put into motion'.

- Jul Visits Akakura, a health resort 2500 feet above sea level. Writes 'Impressions of Japan': 'Exterior calm, rest and silence are there, but not that blissful sense of the infinite which comes from a living nearness to the Unique.'

1918 Sep 12-15 Visits Daiunji temple, at Sarashina, Nagano prefecture. Makes pencil drawings and two oil paintings of the temple as well as a scroll recording the visit.

1919 Jan-Feb Influenza epidemic in Tokyo. Uses her occult power to destroy the Asuric being behind the countless deaths. Japanese newspapers publish her experience.

- Jul-Oct At Oiwake, a hill station on the volcano Asamayama.

- Sep 3 'Since the man refused the meal I had prepared with so much love and care, I invoked the God to take it.... Nothing remains of the past but a potent love which gives me the pure heart of a child and the lightness and freedom of thought of a god.'

1920 Feb Writes 'Myself and my Creed': 'I belong to no nation, no civilisation, no society, no race, but to the Divine.'

- Mar Departs for Pondicherry. The British instruct their embassies along her route to intern her on the slightest 'suspicion' of carrying messages for Sri Aurobindo sent by exiled nationalists.

- Apr 24 Arrives in Pondicherry. Experiences Sri Aurobindo's aura through 'a physical change in the air' while her ship is still several nautical miles away.

Later Sri Aurobindo: '...the Sadhana and the work were waiting for the Mother's coming....'

- Jun 22 'Thou has sent me... the struggle and the ordeal.... And... it is Thou whom I see unravelling the entanglement of events and jarring tendencies and winning in the end the victory over all that strives to veil Thy light and Thy power: for out of the struggle it is a more perfect realisation of Thyself that must arise.'

- Nov Paul Richard leaves Pondicherry.

- Nov 24 Moves, on Sri Aurobindo's advice, to his residence at 41, rue Francois Martin,

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during a cyclone that threatened the safety of Bayoud House where she had been staying.

1920? Once, while meditating with Sri Aurobindo, reaches a state of consciousness from which she sees the British grant independence to India under the pressure of circumstances, without any bloodshed or partition.

Later declares: '...the division [in 1947] was... beyond question a human deformation.'

1921 Uses her occult knowledge and force to subdue the vital 'entities' employed by a Muslim magician to throw stones inside Sri Aurobindo's house.

1922 Jan Begins to organise Sri Aurobindo's household but keeps herself well in the background.

- Sep-Oct Moves, with Sri Aurobindo, to 9, rue de la Marine, Library House (now the southwest section of the Ashram main building).

1925 Jan Attack of rheumatism in her knee-joints.

1926 Begins meditating with sadhikas; gradually more and more disciples join.

- Aug 15-Nov 24 Begins to take charge of the Ashram as gradually Sri Aurobindo withdraws.

- Nov 24 Siddhi Day: Descent of Sri Krishna, the Overmind Godhead, into Sri Aurobindo's physical being.

The 'birth' of the Ashram with about twenty-four sadhaks. The sadhana here, declared Sri Aurobindo, is to grow 'into a divine life in the Mother's consciousness'.

Sri Aurobindo 'soon retired into seclusion and the whole material and spiritual charge of the Ashram devolved on her'. Later he explains: 'I am seeking to bring down the Supermind... into the earth-consciousness... I feel it ever gleaming down on my consciousness from above and am seeking to make it possible for it to take up the whole being into its own native power....'

1926-27 Works out 'a very brilliant creation... in extraordinary detail, with marvellous experiences, contacts with divine beings and all kinds of manifestations which are considered miraculous'. At Sri Aurobindo's bidding dissolves it for it was an Overmind creation, not the supramental.

Introduces a Soup 'ceremony'. Sri Aurobindo: It was instituted in order to establish a means by which the sadhak might receive something from the Mother by an interchange in the material consciousness.'

Receives a six-cylinder 1925 Lorraine from the Potels, her French disciples. There are only two other cars then in Pondicherry. Begins to go on late-afternoon drives with a few disciples, during which there are meditations, talks, and short walks.

1927 Feb 8 Moves, with Sri Aurobindo, to Meditation House (now the northeast section of the Ashram main building).

- Feb 21 First Darshan on the occasion of her birthday. Until 1938, the other Darshan days were August 15 and November 24.

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Sri Aurobindo gives a message: 'There are two powers that alone can effect in their conjunction the great and difficult thing which is the aim of our endeavour, a fixed and unfailing aspiration that calls from below and a supreme Grace from above that answers. ...'

Later it becomes the first chapter of his The Mother.

- Jul For months 'I have not slept.... But I do give my body... 2-3 hours of lying down [during] which the whole being... enters into a complete state of rest made of perfect peace, absolute silence and total immobility, while the consciousness remains perfectly awake; or else I enter into an internal activity of one or more states of being, an activity which constitutes the occult work.. .'

1928 Publication of Sri Aurobindo's The Mother.

- Aug 14-30 Meets and meditates with Sri Ramana Maharshi's disciple Vasistha Ganapati Muni, Nayana, who recognises in her an exalted manifestation of the Supreme Shakti and composes Sanskrit verses on her.

1929 Plays with a few disciples a Flower Game involving the significances that she had given to the flowers. To her 'a flower is the first manifestation of the psychic presence', it symbolises an aspect, an emanation, an aspiration and a progress in the evolution of the earth. 'When I give flowers, I give you states of consciousness; the flowers are the mediums....'

- Apr 7-Aug 4 Speaks to a small group of disciples; these talks are first published in 1931 as Conversations of the Mother.

1931 Oct 18-Nov 24 Serious illness; attributed by Sri Aurobindo to inadequate surrender and receptivity in the sadhaks at the 'Soup'; he is forced to stop the ceremony.

'Faith is spent. Gratitude is not born.'

- Nov 24 'I have sunk down into the unfathomable depths of Matter, I have touched with my finger the horror of the falsehood and the inconscience.... I know we are unworthy, I know the world is not yet ready. But I cry to Thee with an absolute faith in Thy Grace and I know that Thy Grace will save.'

1932 Publication, in the original French, of Prières et Meditations de la Mere, selections from her spiritual journal.

- Jul 17 'I lament my limitations... but it is through them... that men can approach Thee.... These limitations could have been dispensed with. But then it would have been necessary to keep near us only those who have experienced the Divine... even if only once, either within themselves or in the universe. For this identification is the indispensable basis of our Yoga; it is the starting-point.'

1933 Jan 1 Gives her first New Year message: '...Leaving the past far behind us, let us run towards a luminous future.'

- Nov 11 Sri Aurobindo: 'No, the supramental has not descended into the body or into Matter - it is only at the point where such a descent has become not only possible but inevitable; I am speaking... of my experience.'

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1934 Dec 15 Sri Aurobindo: 'The descent of the supramental means only that the Power will be there in the earth-consciousness as a living force just as the thinking mental and higher mental are already there. But an animal cannot take advantage of the presence of the thinking mental Power or an undeveloped man of the presence of the higher mental Power - so too... it will be at first for the few... only there will be a growing influence of it on the earth-life.'

1937 Organises an exhibition of paintings by sadhak artists of the Ashram.

1938 Initiates construction of 'Golconde', a modern fifty-room dormitory for Ashram inmates, designed by an international team of architects, built mainly by sadhaks and funded largely by Sir Akbar Hyderi, the Prime Minister of Hyderabad and a devotee.

- Jan-Feb Begins daily morning darshans from the north-facing balcony on rue St. Gilles: '...after establishing a conscious contact with each [one] present, I identify myself with the Supreme Lord... dissolve myself completely in Him. Then my body, completely passive, is... a channel through which the Lord passes His forces freely and pours upon all His Light, His Consciousness and His Joy, according to each one's receptivity.'

- Oct 22 Writes to Andre, 'Hitler is a choice instrument for these anti-divine forces which want violence, upheaval and war, for they know that these things retard and hamper the action of the divine forces.'

- Nov 24 Accident to Sri Aurobindo's leg.

Sri Aurobindo: 'I was more occupied with guarding the Mother and... I didn't think the hostiles would attack me.'

This Darshan and the next have to be cancelled.

1939 Apr 24 Anniversary of her second and final coming - 'the tangible sign of the sure Victory over the adverse forces' - becomes henceforth the fourth Darshan day.

- Jul 9 'It is not as a Guru that I love and bless, it is as the Mother who asks nothing in return for what she gives.'

1940 Sep 19 With Sri Aurobindo, makes a declaration in support of the Allies and contributes to the War Fund: 'We believe that... this is a battle waged in... defence of civilisation and its highest attained social, cultural and spiritual values and of the whole future of humanity.' They put their spiritual force behind the Allies.

1942 Mar-Apr Sees 'the Divine Grace directly present' behind the Cripps' proposal: 'If it is accepted, the nation will survive and get a new birth in the Divine's consciousness. But if it is rejected the Grace will withdraw... (India) will suffer terribly, calamity will overtake it.' The Congress leaders choose to spurn with ungracious remarks Sri Aurobindo's advice - sent through several channels - to accept Cripps' offer.

1943 Dec 2 Opens a small school with about 20 children of devotees. Takes some classes.

1945 May Opens the School's physical education department (P.E.D.). 'Physical culture is the process of infusing consciousness into the cells of the body.'

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1946 Descent of the Divine Mother's Personality of Ananda, indispensable for the transformation of the body.

Later says, 'The physical atmosphere [of the Ashram] was... saturated with new and marvellous possibilities.' But that Personality could not 'settle and act down here' due to lack off the minimum requisite receptivity in the vital and the physical.

1947 Jun 3 Declares, following Mountbatten's June 2 proposal for the partition of India: 'In spite of all, India has a single soul and while we have to wait till we can speak of an India one and indivisible, our cry must be;: Let the soul of India live forever!'

- Jul-Oct Holds classes based (on Prayers and Meditations.

- Aug 15 Hoists her Spiritual! Flag of United India on the Ashram main building. Anti-Ashram elements attack, murder one inmate just outside the main building.

1949 Feb 21 Publication of the Bulletin of Physical Education (renamed in 1959 Bulletin of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education), in which many of her writings and talks and her (translations of Sri Aurobindo's works are first published.

- Feb 21-1950 Nov 24 Sri Aurobindo's last prose writings The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth serialised in the Bulletin.

- Dec 1 Presentation of her drama Towards the Future. 'Only one love can satisfy... Divine Love, for that .alone never fails.'

1950 Oct 18- Draws an outline off the spiritual map of India on a wall in the Playground, from which is prepared a relief map in plaster. Thereafter takes the salute standing in front of the map during march pasts by P.E.D. groups.

- Dec 5 Sri Aurobindo leaves ,1 his body: 'He had gathered in his body a great amount of supramental force and as soon as he left... [it] passed from his body into mine. And I felt the friction of the passage... it was a material sensation.'

'As soon as Sri Aurobindo withdrew from his body,, what he has called the Mind of Light got realised in me.'

- Dec 7 'Lord, this morning "Thou hast given me the assurance that Thou wouldst stay with us until Thy work is achieved, not only as a consciousness which guides and illumines butt also as a dynamic Presence in action.'

- Dec 8 'The lack of receptivity of the earth and men is mostly responsible for the decision Sri Aurobindo:) has taken regarding his, body.'

- Dec 9 Sri Aurobindo's body is placed in a vault of the Samadhi built in the Ashram courtyard according too her directions.

1951-58 Takes classes in the evening in the Guest House and in the Playground. 'I live what I say and I communicate the experience together with the words - no machine can record that.... Even when what I have written myself is printed in

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a book or an article, the intensity of the experience I had while writing it escapes, and the text seems flat.... This is the real reason for the physical Presence, its incontestable importance.'

1951 Apr 24 Opens the Sri Aurobindo Memorial Convention which resolves to establish an 'international university centre' as 'one of the best means of preparing the future humanity to receive the supramental light'.

- Jun 6 Begins to speak about her Prayers and Meditations to seven youngsters. Gradually it grows into a regular Wednesday evening class for all in the Playground.

1952 Helps re-open official negotiations regarding the merger of French-Indian territories with India.

- Jan 6 Inaugurates Sri Aurobindo International University Centre (renamed in 1959 Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education). 'The conditions in which men live on earth are the result of their state of consciousness. To seek to change these conditions without changing the consciousness is a vain chimera.'

- Apr Plays tennis with Indian Davis Cup ace Ramanathan Krishnan.

- Oct 3 Notes that for the transformation of her body, 'it is necessary that, for at least one individual if not more, fulfilling the required conditions of harmony, strength, sincerity, endurance, unselfishness and poise in the physical, this body in which the Divine incarnates should be not only the most important thing, but even the thing exclusively important, more important than the divine Work itself, or rather that this body should become the symbol and the concretisation of the divine Work upon earth.'

1953 Feb-Aug Publication of her article The Four Austerities and the Four Liberations. 'Life on earth is not a passage or a means; by transformation it must become a goal and a realisation.'

- May 5 'Sri Aurobindo is still with me, day and night, thinking through my brain, writing through my pen, speaking through my mouth and acting through my organising power,'

- Jun 29 'The Supermind had descended... very long ago - into the mind and even into the vital: it was working in the physical also but indirectly.... The direct action of the Supermind in the physical... could be possible only if the physical mind received the supramental light....'

- Sep 20 'When I am compelled to work in an atmosphere of dissatisfaction, despondency, doubt, misunderstanding and bad will, then each step forward represents an enormous effort and tells on the body more than ten years of normal work.'

- Dec 9 Begins spending her nights in her new apartment on the second-floor of Meditation House.

1954 Jan 14 'For the last few days when I wake up in the morning I have the strange sensation of entering a body that is not mine - my body is strong and

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healthy, full of energy and life, supple and harmonious and this one fulfills none of these qualities; the contact with it becomes painful; there is a great difficulty in adapting myself to it and it takes a long time before I can overcome this uneasiness.'

- Jun 11 'It is their own mental and vital formation of me that they love, not myself.... Unfortunately, they cling to this physical presence...; in fact they have very little contact with what my body truly is or with the tremendous accumulation of conscious energy that it represents. And now... that You are descending into me and penetrating more and more totally all the atoms of my body, the distance between myself and everything around me seems to be increasing more and more....'

- Aug 15 Declares her wish to toe allowed to adopt a double nationality: 'to remain French while I become an Indian.' It was not possible under the existing political conditions; becomes an Indian citizen.

-Sep 8 'The body repeats constantly... "Am I truly capable of being transformed to the point of becoming What I ought to be and of manifesting What wants to manifest upon earth?"... this answer always comes from the depths, from You, Lord, with am indisputable certitude: IF YOU CANNOT DO IT, NO OTHER BODY UPON EARTH CAN DO IT....'

- Dec 1 Presentation of her drama The Great Secret. 'The manifestation of a higher and truer consciousness, is not only possible but certain; it is the very aim of our existence, the purpose of life upon earth.'

1955 Jan 16 Jawaharlal Nehru's first visit to the Ashram.

- Jul 27 At the Balcony, 'I give; each one exactly what he needs... I touch the physical directly through the sight....' In the Playground concentration 'I bring down the Force as much as I cam and put it-.. as strongly as I can... above all for unifying, penetrating the whole and endeavouring to make of it something cohesive which can express collectively the Force from above. In the morning it is an individual work, in the evening... a collective work.'

- Sep 29 Receives, at the Playground, Jawaharlal Nehru accompanied by Kamaraj Nadar, Lal Bahadur Sastri and Indira Gandhi.

- Oct 21 'When I say "myself" people think of my body, and my body is not yet truly myself, it is not yet transformed, and that produces a confusion in their minds....'

- Nov 15 Receives President Rajendra Prasad. Tells him: 'India must rise to the height of her mission and proclaim the Truth to the world.'

-Nov 24 Inspires an exhibition in the Ashram Library on the Spiritual Destiny of India.

- Dec 1 Presentation, under her personal direction, of scenes from The Story of India's Spiritual Destiny - 'The personages chosen here... brought in a new light and power, initiated a new movement of consciousness in the history of India's destiny.'

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1956 Feb 29 At the Playground meditation, '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.... I knew and willed... "the time has come", and lifting with both hands a mighty golden hammer I struck one blow... and the door was shattered to pieces. Then the supramental Light and Force and Consciousness rushed down upon the earth....'

- Apr 2-3 Russian gymnasts visit the Ashram. Their mastery, she notes, was achieved 'solely by material means and an enlightened use of human will.... If they had added to this a spiritual knowledge and power, they could have achieved an almost miraculous result.'

- Dec 1 Presentation of her drama The Ascent to the Truth. At the summit of that climb 'all possibility of personal effort ends' - 'Grace alone can open the way for us... [to] that peak resplendent with brilliant light, those perfect forms, that marvellous harmony, the promised land, the new earth.'

1957 'In Pondicherry, you cannot breathe without breathing my consciousness. It saturates the atmosphere almost materially, in the subtle physical, and extends... 10 kms from here.... In a general way my/ Force is there constantly at work.... But that apart, there is a special personal tie... between all who have turned to the teaching of Sri Aurobindo and myself.... With those whom I have accepted as disciples, to whom I have said Yes, there is more than a tie, there is an emanation of me.'

- Jan 1 'A Power greater than that of Evil can alone win the victory. It is not a crucified but a glorified body that will save the world.'

Later explains: 'It is neither sacrifice nor renunciation nor weakness' but 'a Delight which is strength, endurance, supreme courage... brought by the supramental force' which can conquer Evil 'in its own domain' - the material world.

- Jun 5 'For me, for what I am trying to do, action in silence is always much more important.... The force expresses itself in each consciousness in accordance with its own particular mode, which makes it infinitely more effective.'

- Jul 2 Has a vision of the Ashram as 'an immense hotel in which all earthly possibilities... all activities are there, but... neither coordinated nor centralised nor unified around the single central truth and consciousness and will'.

- Oct 17 'One of the very first results of the supramental manifestation was to give the body a freedom... a direct power... not Something that comes from a higher Will, not a higher consciousness that imposes itself upon the body: it is the body itself awakening in its cells, a freedom of the cells themselves, an absolutely new vibration....'

1958 Feb 3 Her earth-consciousness participates for an hour in her work of creating an intermediate zone between the supramental and the physical worlds out of a supramental substance 'closest to the physical'. This zone is represented in her experience as a huge boat 'where people who are destined for the supramental life are trained' under her supervision.

- Apr 16 Asserts the feasibility of working out a new state of being in which

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one 'will transform his consciousness sufficiently to belong in his realisation and activity to... a race of supermen.' Predicts, that this 'transitional species will discover the means of producing new beings without going through the old animal method, and these beings will constitute the elements of the supramental race'.

- Jim 4 'By the very fact that you live on earth at this time - whether you are conscious of it or not, even whether you want it or not - you are absorbing with the air you breathe this new supramental substance... now spreading in the earth atmosphere. And it is preparing things in you which will manifest very suddenly as soon as you have taken the decisive step.'

- Nov 5 Has an experience described in her New Year message for 1959: 'At the very bottom of the inconscience most hard and rigid and narrow and stifling I struck upon an almighty spring that cast me up forthwith into a formless limitless Vast vibrating with the seeds of a new world.'

- Nov 26 Takes her last Wednesday class at the Playground. Describes the role of the spirit in the present and in the supramental world, and the nature of the soul.

- Dec 5 Says in her last Friday class at the Playground, 'To put into practice the little you know... is the most powerful means of advancing... the moment you see [your defect or weakness] is the moment when you receive the Grace, and once you have received the Grace, you no longer have the right to forget it.'

- Dec 9 Due to a serious illness stops going out of the Ashram premises, except on special occasions.

1959 May 17 Sees Sri Aurobindo's symbol on the forehead of a sadhika who has just passed away. Hears him saying, 'Henceforth whoever dies here, I will put my seal upon him... unconditional protection will be given.'

1960 Mar 30 'It is not to run away from difficulties that one must come here.... When one wants to give oneself totally in service to the Divine... without asking for anything in exchange... then one is ready to come here and will find the doors wide open.'

1961 Feb 17 'But this body needs exercise... it is accustomed to collaborate in my work and would be sorry if any change was made because of its difficulties. So things will go on as usual and when it will be time for it to come out of difficulties, the difficulties will disappear.'

- Mar 11 'From the historical point of view... according to what I remember, there was certainly a moment in earth's history when there existed a kind of earthly paradise, in the sense that it was a perfectly harmonious and natural life.... It was the first time I could manifest in an earthly form... the first time the Being above and the being below were joined by the mentalisation of this material substance.'

- Sep 'I am not eager to be the Guru of anyone. It is more spontaneously natural for me to be the universal Mother and to act in silence through love.'

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1962 Mar 20 Gives her last Balcony darshan and retires to her second-floor apartment. Illness prevents her from coming down again.

- Mar-Apr Suffers a series of heart attacks: 'The mind was gone, the vital was gone, the body was left to itself; '...the entire body was emptied of its habits and its forces, and then slowly, slowly, slowly the cells woke up to a new receptivity and opened themselves to the Divine Influence directly.'

- Apr 3 Around midnight suffers another heart attack. A 'big Asuric being... taking the appearance of Sri Aurobindo' comes and tells her that she has been 'a traitor to him and to his work'. It was the second deadly attack but 'if the purpose, for which this body is alive is to be fulfilled... it will continue... if it has to be dissolved, then humanity will pass through a critical time' - for with the help of those who 'have taken only the side of power and force' that Asura will create 'a new religion or thought, perhaps cruel and merciless, in the name of the Supramental Realisation'.

- Apr 12 'Suddenly in the night... the Supreme Love was manifesting through big pulsations, and each pulsation was... carrying the universe further in its manifestation. And there was the certitude that what is to be done... is done. The experience lasted for at least four hours.'

1963 Feb 21 Gives first 'Terrace' Darshan from her second-floor terrace at 6.15 p.m. There had been no Darshans in April, August and November 1962.

1964 Oct 7 Finds that 'the most material consciousness' requires 'often repeated experiences... to convince it that behind all its difficulties there is a Grace, behind all its failures there is the Victory, behind all its pains, its sufferings, its contradictions, there is Ananda.'

1965 Jan 12 'There has been... particularly since the 1st... a kind of bombardment of adverse forces - a fury' on her body. But, she adds, 'it is not a higher intervention that will change it, it is... from within', by putting in the physical mind 'a Peace which acts directly in this material vibration.'

- Jan 26 Hindi becomes the official language of India.

Later says: 'Hindi is good only for those who belong to a Hindi-speaking province. Sanskrit is good for all Indians.'

- Feb 11 A planned violent attack on the Ashram by antagonistic elements under pretext of an anti-Hindi agitation. Makes a public statement naming the anti-Ashram elements in Pondicherry and her own position in the matter.

- Feb 21 Starts publication of her 'Notes on the Way' in the Bulletin.

- Sep 8 Writes, of a new international township she intends to found: 'Auroville wants to be a universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony, above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The purpose of Auroville is to realise human unity.'

-Sep 16 Declares, during the Indo-Pakistan war, 'It is for the sake and the triumph of Truth that India is fighting and must fight until India and Pakistan have once more become One because that is the truth of their being.'

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- Nov 24 Sri Aurobindo shows her 'the condition of humanity and of the different strata of humanity in relation to the new or supramental creation... the vision of a great universal Rhythm in which each thing takes its place... a vision of a beauty so majestic, so calm, so smiling... full of the divine Love....'

1966 Jan 22 'I have never had the same experience twice... I am all the while... on the march. The work of transformation of the consciousness is so rapid, must be done so quickly that there is no time to enjoy or dwell upon an experience....'

- Mar 4-9 Experiences 'the consciousness of the dead on earth'. A transitional state but 'a tremendous gain' for 'every attachment to outer things... has fallen away completely': a physical Moksha. And 'there is a kind of certainty in the body that if even for a few seconds [it] were to lose contact... with the Supreme, it would instantly die. Only the Supreme keeps it alive.'

1967 May 4 The supramental consciousness enters 'a phase of realising power'. Gives a special Darshan, and a message quoting Sri Aurobindo: 'Earth-life is the self-chosen habitation of a great Divinity and his aeonic will is to change it from a blind prison into his splendid mansion...'

- Jun 18-20 An Education Commission of the Government of India visits the Ashram to consider recognising it as an institute of research in Yoga.

- Nov 15 Sees 'a total vision of this effort of the earth towards its divinisation'. Sri Aurobindo tells her, 'Yes, the time of proclamations, of revelations is gone - now to action.'

-Nov 22 Her 'physical mind... has been converted, has become silent... received the inspiration of the Consciousness. And it has begun again to pray.... But since it is happening in one body, it can happen in all bodies! I am not made of something different from the others. The difference is in consciousness....'

- Nov 24 'At each Darshan I have the feeling that I am a different person... there are many, many beings, forces, personalities who manifest themselves through [this body], even sometimes several at the same time... this time... when I went to the balcony, it was someone who looks from a sort of plane of eternity with a great benevolence....'

1968-71 Tells a disciple, 'when in 1956 the Supramental... was coming in torrents of Light, wonderful Light and Force... from the earth b-i-g w-a-v-e-s of deep blue Inconscience came up and swallowed It up... and it is again from inside the Inconscient that It had to work Itself through. That is why things take so much time here.'

1968 Feb 28 Inaugurates Auroville, 'The City of Dawn', dedicated to Sri Aurobindo's ideal of human unity.

- Nov 21/22 Experiences the divine Presence filling her room, touching, pervading everything: 'a dazzling Light, a Peace... a Power, and then a Sweetness... one had the feeling that it could melt a rock. And it did not go away. It stayed.'

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- Nov 23 'I have days when I have lived truly all the horrors of creation... not at all psychological things, but rather physical sufferings.... And then all of a sudden, instead of being in this consciousness, you are in that of this exclusive divine Presence. Pain gone!... what we call the physical "fact", that itself disappears, not merely the pain. I feel as though I had touched... the central experience.'

1969 Jan 1 Experiences descent of the Superman Consciousness. 'A golden light, transparent and... benevolent. "Benevolent" in the sense of a certainty - a harmonious certainty.... It gave the impression of a personal divinity who comes to help....'

- Feb 10-15 The new Consciousness demonstrates to her 'what it was to have the divine consciousness in the body... nothing similar to that happiness has this body ever felt during the 91 years it has been upon earth: freedom, absolute power and no limits... all other bodies were itself. There was... only a play of consciousness going about.'

- May 29 Spends more than three hours with Sri Aurobindo: 'I was showing him all that was about to come down for Auroville... and he was laying down the broad laws of the organisation.'

- Oct 6 Receives Indira Gandhi. Tells her, 'The time has come to govern through union, mutual understanding and collaboration.... The greatness of a country does not depend on the victory of a party, but on the union of all parties.'

1970 Mar 14 Recognition by the body that the physical 'is capable of receiving the higher Light, the Truth, the true Consciousness and of manifesting it.... It took a little more than a year for this Consciousness to win this victory.'

- Jun 27 'There are moments when the body would scream in pain and... just a little change, which is almost inexpressible, and the thing becomes bliss - it becomes... this extraordinary thing, the Divine everywhere.'

- Jul 1 Sees the psychic being of a disciple who has come to see her. Realises that 'it is the psychic being... which will materialise itself and become the supramental being'.

1970 Dec- 1971 Jan Suffers from a kind of paralysis for a month and half, during which her physical sight and hearing are 'thrown into the background to make room for identification by consciousness'.

1971 Jan 16 During the illness, although her body felt it was 'being torn asunder' her universal consciousness became stronger and clearer and constant: '1 continued to work, not only for India but for the world....'

- Feb 21 Directs the laying of the foundation stone for Matrimandir, 'the soul of Auroville'.

- Mar 3 'It is particularly the receptivity of people which I see, the state in which they are.... I am constantly struggling against people who have come here so that they may be comfortable, "free to do whatever they like,"... there is no soul, no aspiration, nothing.'

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- Apr 19 'Sanskrit ought to be the national language of India.'

Later confirms Sri Aurobindo's and her own wish to have the regional language as the medium of instruction, Sanskrit as the national language and English only as an international link language.

- May 22 Sees 'the possibility of a tre-men-dous success'. There is 'the Will that is coming down and then there are all these formations that get in and delay its executions - I would like my atmosphere to be... an altogether limpid transmitter... letting things pass without deformation, without obstruction.'

- Jul On the Bangladesh imbroglio: 'As long as they are not determined to follow the Truth I can do nothing for them outwardly.' Predicts things will 'go wrong and badly for us... because of the prevailing falsehood'. Hopes those 'who can become conscious of this must decide very firmly to stand only on the Truth and to act only in the Truth. There should be no compromise. This is very essential. It is the only way.'

- Aug 15 Inaugurates the celebrations of Sri Aurobindo's birth centenary year. Her message is broadcast by All India Radio, Pondicherry. Sri Aurobindo 'is still with us, alive and active. Sri Aurobindo belongs to the future'.

- Dec 18 Her physical mind or body-mind is being developed in a very rapid manner. 'I could say truly that I have become another person. There is only this (the outer form of her body) which remains as it was....'

1972 Feb 21 'The whole day... I had a strong feeling that it was the birthday of everyone... that something new has manifested in the world and that all who were ready and receptive could embody it.'

At Darshan; a visitor, here for the first time, sees her as 'a lady no more than 40 years old'.

- Feb 24-26 The natural state of her mind, to be turned always upward 'contemplating the Divine', has begun to be translated in her body as 'the sensation of being wholly enveloped, just as if a baby were swathed... carried in the arms of the Divine.'

- Mar 24 'For the first time, early in the morning, I saw myself, my body - I do not know whether it is the supramental body or... a body in transition.... Truly a harmonious form... I had become like that.' Next day adds, 'It must have been in the subtle physical.'

- Mar 30 Says, in one of her conversations, 'For 58 years I have been working... for the body to be as transparent and as immaterial as possible, in other words, not to be an obstruction to the Force that is coming down.'

- Jul 16 'To each and every one of my children:- Whenever they think, speak or act under the impulse of falsehood, it acts on my body like a blow.

- Oct 25 'It is as though the battle of the world was being fought within my consciousness.' The subconscient of the earth keeps rising up interminably: 'It is the Divine who must do the battling.... And so the body does all it can in order not to be an obstruction to the Divine Force which passes through....

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- Nov 8 Her physical consciousness experiences 'just for a few seconds - the supramental consciousness.... It is like the harmonisation of contraries. An activity, yes, total, tremendous, and a perfect peace.... The action is a material action.'

- Dec 30 'Things have taken an extreme form... an uplift of the atmosphere towards a splendour almost inconceivable, and at the same time the feeling that at any moment... the body may be dissolved.... I feel in myself a growing force... but it is of a new quality... in silence and in contemplation. Nothing is impossible.'

- Dec 31 'There is only one solution for falsehood. It is to cure in ourselves all that contradicts in our consciousness the Presence of the Divine.'

1973 Jan 1 Her last New Year message: 'When you are conscious of the whole world at the same time, then you can become conscious of the Divine.'

- Feb-May 20 Illness forces her to gradually stop all outer contacts except with her personal attendants.

- Feb 7 Says, referring to her message of 31 Dec. 1972: 'This is what I have been doing all the while' - curing in herself all that 'veils and deforms and prevents the manifestation of the Divine in us' - 'every day and the whole day long, even while I see people. It is the only thing worth living for.'

- Mar 10 'I am repeating always: "What Thou wiliest, what Thou wiliest.... Without Thee it is death; with Thee it is life." ... I do not mean physical death - it may be that now if I lost the contact, that would be the end, but it is impossible! I have the feeling that... I am That-with all the obstructions that the present consciousness may still have.'

- Mar 14 Finds 'a spirit of confusion' in the atmosphere, a vibration of disharmony. 'The mental consciousness is panic-stricken in presence of the supramental. I have the feeling... that at every moment one could die, the vibration is so different.' And so her consciousness goes on repeating its mantra like a background... a point of contact: 'OM NAMO BHAGAVATE - I implore the Supreme Lord... Obeisance to Him... Make me divine.'

- May 20 Her body is confined to the bed. Her food is reduced to a semi-liquid diet of about 20 to 25 ounces daily.

- Aug 15 Gives her last Darshan from the Terrace. A shower begins before she appears on the Terrace.

- Nov 2-14 Her body develops a kind of hiccup that begins to last longer and longer. The blood-pressure falls and the heart begins to miss beats. Attendants lift her up as often as possible to give some relief from bedsores. She insists on trying to walk, feeling it would prevent the legs from getting paralysed, but attendants find she cannot.

- Nov 15-16 At night again asks attendants to help her to walk. They say:

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'Mother, you should not walk.' Accepts their decision and thereafter does whatever they ask of her.

—Nov 17 Takes her breakfast and lunch and medicines,

In the evening, on her asking, they lift her up several times.

Around 7 o'clock her pulse and respiration gradually decline.

Leaves her body at 7.25 p.m.

- Nov 20 The Mother's body is placed in the Samadhi in the Ashram courtyard, in a vault above Sri Aurobindo's, at 8.20 a.m.

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 most vast intelligence.

Sri Aurobindo

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