Mother's Chronicles - Book Three

Prologue

"The direct power of mind-force or life-force upon matter can be extended to an almost illimitable degree," wrote Sri Aurobindo on 24 October 1938 to Prithwi Singh Nahar. "It must be remembered that Energy is fundamentally one in all the planes, only taking more and more dense forms, so there is nothing a priori impossible in mind-energy or life-energy acting directly on material energy and substance; if they do they can make a material object do things or rather can do things with a material object which would be to that object in its ordinary poise or 'law' unhabitual and therefore apparently impossible."

Then in the same letter speaking about the 'origination of matter,' Sri Aurobindo says, "But it is a fact that Agni is the basis of forms as the Sankhya pointed out long ago, i.e. the fiery principle in the three powers radiant, electric and gaseous (the Vedic trinity of Agni) is the agent in producing liquid and solid forms of what is called matter."

1

A Downright Atheist

"I was a downright atheist. Up to the age of twenty, the very idea of God made me furious." Hearing Mirra, God in his heaven must have laughed in his beard.

He had other ideas about this young lady who said, "I believed in nothing but what I could touch and see." Mirra's hands were now to touch immaterial things, and the eyes she had so meticulously trained were now to become doors through which world after world would come bursting into sight.

God was ready with his cataract.

The floodgates were to be unlocked by Theon.

The rush of experiences would have swept anybody else off his feet. But Mirra was a young woman with both her feet on the ground. Mother told Satprem, "I don't think there's anyone more materialistic than

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I was, with my practical common sense and positivism .... The explanations I asked were always down-to-earth, and it seemed obvious to me that there's no need of any mystery, nothing of the sort — you explain things materially."

Indeed, if you want inner experiences without becoming unbalanced, you need to stand on a solid base. Mirra was well equipped. "I had the most solid base —no imaginings, no mystical atavism : my mother was very much an unbeliever and so was my father. Consequently, it was very good from an atavistic viewpoint—positivism, materialism." But she did have a rare thing. "Only this : from my infancy, a will-to-perfection in any field whatever. A will-to-perfection and the sense of a limitless consciousness —no end to one's own progress, or to one's capacity or to one's scope. This from my infancy." She had also another thing from her infancy, remember? "The feeling of a Light above the head, which began when I was very young, at the age of five, along with a will-to-perfection. The will-to-perfection . . . oh, whatever I did had always to be the best I could do."

However, at the same time, the outward person

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"could easily have said, 'God? What's this foolishness! He does not exist.' Mentally, an absolute refusal to believe in a 'God'."

This refusal stemmed from a sort of misunderstanding. "Up to the age of twenty-five or so, I knew of no other God than the God of religions, the God as men have made him, and I would not have him at any price. I denied his existence, but with the certainty that if such a God did exist, I detested him."

But the real God - the Divine —could no longer bear this estrangement from that rebellious Sweetness. "My return to the Divine came about through Theon, when I was first told, 'The Divine is within, there,'" Mother tapped her breast. "Then at once I felt, 'Yes, this is it.'"

Who was Theon, that mysterious person? How did Mirra come to know about him and his teaching?

It was from Louis M. Thémanlys, Matteo's college friend, that Mirra first heard about Theon and the Cosmic Philosophy.

Thémanlys was a writer, with several books to his credit. His wife, Claire, was also at home with a pen. Claire's brother, Jacques Blot, was an artist. Both

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the families lived in Courseulles, in Normandy. Situated about eighteen kilometres from Caen, where fierce fighting took place in 1944 between the Allied armies and the German forces of occupation, Courseulles is a resort town on the shores of the English Channel where the Seulles flows into it. It was on D-Day, 6 June 1944, that the Canadian Army landed in Normandy — Courseulles-sur-mer being the spot.

To the great rejoicing of the two families, the Théons often spent a part of the year at the residence of the Thémanlys.

It seems it was in a Parisian bookstore, Librairie Chacornac, Quai St. Michel, in the Quartier Latin — well-known for its students, and its old bookshops much frequented by those who take a keen interest in the science of the occult —that Louis first came across an issue of The Cosmic Review. Whereupon he sent a letter to Theon enclosing a nominal subscription to the Cosmic publications. Then he met the Théons on one of their visits to France. It was only in 1907 that Louis and Claire visited Tlemcen, in Algeria, where the Théons lived. The young couple stayed there for three months, from April to June. It was then that

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Madame Theon told them one day how, as soon as she first held Louis's letter in her hands, she had informed Theon about the role Louis was to assume.

Her eyes had penetrated the future, because Thémanlys really devoted his pen and speech to the furtherance of the Cosmic Philosophy. Thrice a week, and for a number of years, he spoke extempore on this Philosophy. The gatherings were held at Passy, N°54 Rue Nicolo, where the family lived. Passy of the 16^th arrondissement is a posh locality of Paris. It is studded with parks.

In 1977 Satprem took me with him to France. Very apt, I felt, for it was my first flight overseas and I was going to Mother's country of birth. I was excited at the prospect of seeing some of the things she had looked at, knowing at first hand some of the places she had known and told us about, and walking where she had walked. How very lucky I was! And my cup of happiness brimmed over when a relation of Satprem's and his great admirer, Madame Carmen Baron, welcomed us to her beautiful apartment in Paris. The Luxembourg Gardens —where Mirra had gone so often for her evening walks —are at a stone's throw from

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there. Was I thrilled!

One day, Satprem and I went to Passy to see another intimate friend of ours. We took the subway. It was my first ride in a metro and, had Satprem not pulled me away in time, I would have been squashed right there by the closing doors! Our friend, Y. L., showed us the Roland Garros stadium, where the greats of tennis fight for the French Open crown. The Pare-des-Princes nearby, with its football grounds and cycle-racing tracks, is a crowd-puller. The Hippodrome d'Auteuil must be mentioned, because we believe that that is where Mirra met her Red Indian friend, from Buffalo Bill's team, when she was eight or so. In addition, on the periphery of the locality lies the Bois de Boulogne where little Mirra went for walks with her father, her small hand tucked in the large fist of the Turk.

Well then, not surprisingly, like homing birds, the Agenda tapes had flown straight to the locale so much frequented by Mother. For it was in Y. L.'s flat that the complete set of the rescued magnetic tapes containing Mother's talks with Satprem — Mother's Agenda —was lodged. Our friend showed us how well

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she had kept the tapes after bringing them from India. But that is another story, and as fascinating as any thriller. I hope she will one day, soon, tell it all.

It seems likely that through Matteo, Mirra and Louis already knew each other and that Louis was aware of her thirst for true knowledge. In which case, Louis would not have lost much time in telling his friend's sister about Theon and his teaching. Now, Mother never told us when exactly that was; she always put it between 1902 and 1904. We are inclined to think it was late 1903 or even in the course of 1904. She did say once that her first contact with the inner Divine —through Théon's teaching—was established when she was around twenty-five. That is the only given pointer we have. Which again would indicate 1903 as the year when Mirra first heard about the inner Divine. And "I rushed headlong like a . . . like a cyclone."

Mother was telling Satprem one day about her body. "I was reared by an ascetic, a stoic; my mother was a woman like a bar of iron, you know ..." who had dinned into the ears of her two small children that "one is not on earth to have a good time . . . and the

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only satisfaction to be got out of life is in doing one's duty." Mother added appreciatively, "A splendid education, my child! Splendid. I am infinitely grateful to her.

"My body has never asked for fun or well-being or anything else. 'That's life,' it said, 'and you just have to take it as it is, that's all.' So that's why when I first met someone who told me it could be otherwise — I was already past twenty —I said, 'Oh, really? Is that so?'" Mother laughed. "And then when he told me all about Théon's teachings and the 'Cosmic Life' and about the inner God and a new world that would be a world of beauty and, at least, of peace and light . . . well, I rushed into it headlong."

After a moment she went on, "But even at the time I was told: 'It depends upon YOU alone, not upon circumstances —above all, don't blame circumstances. You must find it in yourself, the transformative element is within you. And you can do that wherever you are, even in a cell at the bottom of a hole.' The groundwork was already done, you see, since the body never asked for anything."

Soon Mirra discovered the Fount of Life. She

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"obtained a conscious and constant contact with the Divine Presence."

So that was done.

Mirra now sought a rational explanation to the mass of experiences she had had from her childhood. She found many in Théon's teaching, and could at last say, "Ah, I am not mad!"

As she became more interested in the Cosmic Movement she began to involve herself in it. How? Lectures or speeches? No. Not Mirra. Abstract theorizing held no appeal to her. She always liked to come to grips with matter. Her involvement, therefore, was practical: she took in her charge the publication of the Cosmic Philosophy's mouthpiece, the French periodical, La Revue Cosmique.

The Cosmic Review was a monthly. In it Theon expounded his philosophy, but the greater part was contributed by Madame Theon. "It was dictated in English by Théon's wife while she was in trance," said Mother to Pavitra and Satprem one day in 1960. In those days she met Satprem in Pavitra's office on the first floor. "And there was a woman there, she too English, who claimed to know French like a French-

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man. She would say, '/ never use a dictionary, there's no need of a dictionary.' And then she would turn out such translations! She made all the classical mistakes in translating the English words that should not be translated that way." Mother was referring to Miss Teresa, secretary and companion to the Théons. "Then that was sent to me in Paris for correcting. It was literally impossible."

Even a gap of almost sixty years had not dimmed Mother's memory the least bit. "There was this Thé-manlys, my brother's collegemate, who wrote books; but he was lazy-spirited and opposed to work! So then he passed this job on to me; for my part, it was impossible, you couldn't do a thing with it. But I attended to everything —I found the printer, corrected the proofs — the entire work, for a long time."

Sometime later Mirra did the translations as well. And she asked for clarifications from Theon. who promptly replied. Just for fun, here is an example. Posted from Tlemcen, the card was addressed to Madame Mirra Alfassa, c/o M. Thémanlys, Les Verveines, Courseulles sur Mer, Calvados, La France. It read,

csimile of a cover

'The Cosmic Review'

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20.7.05

Do not trouble to write about the name of the plant which will go by its latin & botanical known name.

Affely

Aïa A.

Mirra received this postcard on 24

Mother gave a rough outline of the magazine's contents. "They were stories, narratives — an initiation given under the guise of stories. It contained a lot of things, a lot. Madame Theon knew a lot of things. But it was presented in such a way that it was unreadable."

Mother smiled whimsically. "I also wrote a thing or two — experiences I had noted down. That's why I would like to get those issues back, because they were rather interesting. I related some of my visions to Madame Theon and she explained them to me. So I would put the vision's narrative and its explanation. Because the symbolism was there, it was readable and

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interesting." These visions appeared in The Cosmic Review from 1906 to 1908, under the title, 'A vision.' There were other articles also by her, but unsigned. Pavitra asked Mother, "What was this Chronicle

of Ki ?''

"Not Ki, but CHI, because he was the founder of China!" Mother revealed. "Those things were fantastic! The story was almost childish, you know, but it contained a world of knowledge. Madame Théon was an extraordinary occultist. That woman had incredible faculties, incredible."

Mirra's French rendering of the Chronicles of Chi was applauded by Theon himself. From Or an, in Algeria, he posted a card, addressed to Madame Mirra Alfassa, 46 Grande Rue, Bernières-sur-Mer, Calvados, La France.

Tlemcen, Algérie

August 25^th 1905

Your transcription of the "Chron of Chi" is full of life and of liveliness. Merci. The termination of the brochure is worthy of our mutual friend, and cannot fail to be of great use to the Cause we ALL love and serve

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TOGETHER. All blessing be (through your intermediary, child of mine) on those who love you. We shall meet ere long to sing the old English refrain —"Oh I that will be joyful"! Affectionately,

Aia Aziz (Theon)

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