Sri Aurobindo was born in Calcutta on 15 August 1872. His father was an anglophile and sent him with his two brothers to England for education when he was seven. Sri Aurobindo spent fourteen years in that country .He first stayed with an English family at Manchester, then he joined St. Paul's School in London and later studied at King's College in Cambridge. He passed the open competition for the Indian Civil Service, but got himself disqualified by not presenting himself at the riding examination. In 1893 Sri Aurobindo returned to India, and the next thirteen years he worked in Baroda in the Revenue Department and the Secretariat, then as a Professor at the Baroda College and, finally, as Vice-Principal there. During this period he studied keenly the basics of Indian culture, learnt Sanskrit as well as some modern Indian languages and wrote many poems.
The year he withdrew from the political field , following an inner command, he sailed first to Chandernagore and later to Pondicherry where he completely devoted himself to developing a new path of spirituality, the Integral Yoga. Richard had several meetings with Sri Aurobindo and one of his questions related to the symbolic character of the lotus. Sri Aurobindo explained that the lotus represents the opening of the consciousness to the Divine.
Mother married Paul Richard, a well-known and well-read philosopher who was keenly interested in Eastern and Western spirituality as well as Vedantic Yoga. He had also political plans and so in 1910, in connection with an election campaign, he came to Pondicherry , which was at that time part of French India. He also wanted to consult an advanced Yogi about the symbolic meaning of the star of David and therefore went to see Sri Aurobindo who was in exile outside British India. When Richard had returned to France, he told the Mother about Sri Aurobindo and they started some correspondence. Mother felt now irresistibly drawn towards India, the one country which she had always felt to be her true mother country. In 1914 her longing was at last fulfilled and she could embark on a journey to Pondicherry with Paul Richard. They left Paris on 5 March, 1914 and the next day they boarded the , Kaga Maru ' , a Japanese steamer. The Mother and Paul Richard left the boat at Colombo and arrived in Pondicherry in the early hours of March 29. Even while approaching the town, the Mother had a vision of a huge column of light in the centre of Pondicherry , and the intensity of the light became greater when they got down at the railway station. On the very day of their arrival the Richards met Sri Aurobindo in the afternoon at his place in rue Fransçois Martin. The first physical meeting with Sri Aurobindo was a decisive experience for the Mother and she immediately recognized in him the one whom she had so often met in her dreams and whom she had called 'Krishna '. She was now deeply convinced that her place was at his side, that her work was here in India. After the meeting she noted in her diary. 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 enough to prove that a day will come when darkness shall be transformed into light, and Thy reign shall actually be established upon earth. " The Mother had sat down at Sri Aurobindo's feet and made her mind completely empty, giving up all her ideas and concepts, in order to be completely open only to him. After some time an infinite silence had descended into her and settled in her mind. This experience brought about a deep inner change in her: "It seems to me that I am being born into a new life and that all the methods and habits of the past can no longer be of any use. It seems to me that what was once a result is now only a preparation. It is as if I was stripped of all my past, of my errors as well as my conquests, as if all that had disappeared to give place to one new-born whose whole existence has yet to take shape. An immense gratitude rises from my heart. I seem to have at last arrived at the threshold which I have long sought. " The Richards now met Sri Aurobindo every afternoon, whilst he came to the Richards on Sundays and his companions joined him for dinner with the Richards after their daily football game. The talks often continued until late in the night. The Richards now started publishing a philosophical journal, the Arya, in collaboration with Sri Aurobindo
While the first copies of the Arya were going out into the world, Paul Richard was called home to join the French Reserve Army and had to leave Pondicherry . Mother went with him, certainly against her will. But obviously Sri Aurobindo felt that the time for their direct collaboration had not yet come. So they started the return journey on 22 February 1915, one day after the Mother's birthday. She later stated in one of her talks, with obvious pain: "He (Sri Aurobindo) did not keep me, what could I do? I had to go. But I left my psychic being with him, and in France I was once on the point of death: the doctors had given me Up." The separation from Sri Aurobindo, from India was a powerful shock for the Mother. She was drawn, as it were, into the whirlpool of the World War to become its silent witness. In Paris she saw trains with wounded soldiers arriving and was deeply moved on seeing the noble manner in which they bore their sufferings. She tried to help them in her own way, by inwardly enveloping them in love, and she discovered that the soldiers had a great receptivity for her invisible gift.
Sri Aurobindo continued his correspondence with the Mother and helped her in her serious crisis. After the departure of the Richards he shouldered all alone the responsibility of publishing the Arya.
(to be continued )
