Person · Sri Aurobindo Ashram head · India
Mira Alfassa (The Mother)
Also known as Mira Alfassa, The Mother, Mirra Alfassa, Mother of Pondicherry
Paris-born spiritual seeker who first met Sri Aurobindo at Pondicherry in 1914, returned permanently in 1920 and ran the Sri Aurobindo Ashram from his withdrawal in 1926 to her own death in 1973. She institutionalised Integral Yoga as a daily practice, built the ashram's Pondicherry campus, founded the International Centre of Education in 1952, and in 1968 established Auroville as a universal city independent of nationality. Her Agenda — a thirteen-volume record of her daily spiritual experiences, dictated to Satprem over the 1960s — is the single most sustained document of experiential yoga in the twentieth century.
- Date
- 1878–1973
- Function
- Religious institution & practice
- Tradition
- Standard reference and biographical literature; contemporary chronicles and institutional records as applicable.
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
Worth knowing
She trained as a painter at the Académie Julian in Paris, read René Guénon and the Occultist milieu around Max Théon in Algeria in 1905, and arrived in Pondicherry in her thirties already fluent in Hindu and Sufi metaphysics. Auroville's 1968 inauguration brought earth from 124 countries into a central urn; Indira Gandhi attended. The ashram and Auroville together make Pondicherry the subcontinent's largest planned spiritual community.
About the place
Placed at Pondicherry where she lived from 1920 to 1973.
Connections (2)
- Disciple ofSri Aurobindo
Mira Alfassa first met Sri Aurobindo at Pondicherry on 29 March 1914, returned permanently in 1920 and became the central institutional partner of his Integral Yoga. After Aurobindo withdrew from public contact in 1926 she ran the Sri Aurobindo Ashram as its sole administrator for the next forty-seven years, until her death in 1973. Their relationship is the subcontinent's clearest twentieth-century case of a male spiritual teacher explicitly nominating a woman as his equal-rank institutional and spiritual successor.
- RanSri Aurobindo Ashram, Puducherry
Mira Alfassa ran the Sri Aurobindo Ashram at Pondicherry from 1926 to 1973 — the forty-seven years during which it grew from a small circle of disciples to the subcontinent's largest spiritual community, with publications, workshops, schools, international education and in 1968 the Auroville township. Her daily work ran from 6 a.m. meditation to late-evening meetings with disciples; her Agenda — the dictated spiritual diary of her last thirteen years — fills thirteen volumes and remains unpublished in parts.