The Mother herself mentions why she came and lived with Sri Aurobindo for the common work they came to do.
‘Between 11 and 13 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 realising Him integrally in consciousness and action, of manifesting Him upon earth in a life divine. This, along with a practical discipline for its fulfilment, was given to me during my body’s sleep by several teachers, some of whom I met afterwards on the physical plane.
Later on, as the interior and exterior development proceeded, the spiritual and psychic relation with one of these beings became more and more clear and frequent; and although I knew little of the Indian philosophies and religions at that time I was led to call him Krishna, and henceforth I was aware that it was with him (whom I knew I should meet on earth one day) that the divine work was to be done.
In the year 1910 my husband came alone to Pondicherry where, under very interesting and peculiar circumstances, he made the acquaintance of Sri Aurobindo. Since then we both strongly wished to return to India—the country which I had always cherished as my true mother-country. And in 1914 this joy was granted to us.
As soon as I saw Sri Aurobindo I recognised in him the well-known being whom I used to call Krishna…. And this is enough to explain why I am fully convinced that my place and my work are near him, in India.’
Sri Aurobindo confirms this in his own way.
‘The Mother is not a disciple of Sri Aurobindo.1 She has had the same realisation and experience as myself.
The Mother’s sadhana started when she was very young. When she was twelve or thirteen, every evening many teachers came to her and taught her various spiritual disciplines. Among them was a dark Asiatic figure. When we first met, she immediately recognised me as the dark Asiatic figure whom she used to see a long time ago. That she should come here and work with me for a common goal was, as it were, a divine dispensation.
The Mother was an adept in the Buddhist yoga and the yoga of the Gita even before she came to India. Her yoga was moving towards a grand synthesis. After this, it was natural that she should come here. She has helped and is helping to give a concrete form to my yoga. This would not have been possible without her co-operation.
One of the two great steps in this yoga is to take refuge in the Mother. ‘
So we can at best say that the relation between Sri Aurobindo and the Mother is of a spiritual collaborator in the Divine Work for which both had come. If we want to define it in mental terms, we could say that they are complimentary beings engaged in the evolutionary march of mankind in different Ages and climes. Sri Aurobindo works through the intuitive and higher intellectual mind, the Mother through the psychic and deeper emotional heart. Sri Aurobindo lights up the way, the Mother as his power creates. Sri Aurobindo is the ideative power, the knowledge that shows the way, the Mother is the manifesting power that executes and realises. That is why the Mother said.
‘Without him, I exist not; without me, he is unmanifest.’
In fact Sri Aurobindo addressed her initially as Mirra or Mira devi but soon enough started using the word Mother whereas the Mother would address Sri Aurobindo as the Lord. In 1926 after the formation of the Ashram, Sri Aurobindo issued the following statement.
‘I am the Shakti of Sri Aurobindo alone, and the Mother of all my children.
My children are all equally part of my consciousness and of my being. When transformed and realised, all will have an equal right to manifest each one an aspect of myself and Sri Aurobindo.
It is the unity of all in the solidarity of a common manifestation that will allow the creation of the new and divine world upon the Earth. Each will bring his part, but no part will be complete except as a power in the solidarity of the whole.’
Words, conventions, customary understanding fails when we discover the Mother and Sri Aurobindo and their mutual relationship. None of the terms describing all the shades of human relationships based on the separative ego of one person relating to and adjusting to the other come near or close to what Sri Aurobindo and the Mother stood for in their togetherness. They belong to the lines of divine descent that we see revealed in the life of Rama and Sita, Krishna and Radha, Agastya and Lopamudra. In the final analysis the Mother summed it up thus.
‘When in your heart and thought you will make no difference between Sri Aurobindo and me, when to think of Sri Aurobindo will be to think of me and to think of me will mean to think of Sri Aurobindo inevitably, when to see one will mean inevitably to see the other, like one and the same Person,—then you will know that you begin to be open to the supramental force and consciousness.’
Affectionately,
Alok Da
