Mirra Alfassa

Mirra Alfassa
Mirra Alfassa
Personal
Born	Blanche Rachel Mirra Alfassa 21 February 1878 Paris, France
Died	17 November 1973(1973-11-17) (aged 95) Pondicherry, India
Resting place	Pondicherry, India
Religion	Hinduism
Nationality	French (1878–1954) Indian (1954–1973)
Spouse	Henri Morriset (1870–1956)
Notable work(s)	Prayers And Meditations, Words of Long Ago, On Thoughts and Aphorisms, Words of the Mother
Pen name	The Mother
Signature
Organization
Institute	Sri Aurobindo Ashram Auroville
Religious career
Students Satprem, Nolini Kanta Gupta, Nirodbaran, Amal Kiran, Pavitra

Mirra Alfassa (21 February 1878 – 17 November 1973), known to her followers as The Mother or La Mère, was a French-Indian spiritual guru, occultist and yoga teacher, and a collaborator of Sri Aurobindo, who considered her to be of equal yogic stature to him and called her by the name "The Mother". She founded the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and established the town of Auroville; she was influential on the subject of Integral Yoga.

Mirra Alfassa (Mother) was born in Paris in 1878 to a Sephardi Jewish bourgeois family from Turkey. In her youth, she traveled to Algeria to practice occultism along with Max Théon. After returning, while living in Paris, she guided a group of spiritual seekers. In 1914, she traveled to Pondicherry, India and met Sri Aurobindo and found in him "the dark Asiatic figure" of whom she had visions and called him Krishna. During this first visit, she helped publish a French version of the periodical Arya, which serialized most of Sri Aurobindo's post-political prose writings.

During the First World war she was obliged to leave Pondicherry. After a 4-year stay in Japan, in 1920 she returned to Pondicherry. Gradually, as more and more people joined her and Sri Aurobindo, she organised and developed Sri Aurobindo Ashram. In 1943, she started a school in the ashram and in 1968 established Auroville, an experimental township dedicated to human unity and evolution. She died on 17 November 1973 in Pondicherry.

Satprem, who was one of her followers, captured the last thirty years of Alfassa's life in the 13-volume work, Mother's Agenda.