Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
1. The Mother: Individual, Universal, Transcendent
Fragment ID: 18936
The Mother is not a disciple of Sri Aurobindo1. 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 Mother2.
17 August 1941
1 This letter was dictated by Sri Aurobindo, who referred to himself in the third person. – Ed.
2 When Sri Aurobindo was asked, on a later occasion, what the second great step is, he replied, “Aspiration of the sadhak for the divine life.” – Ed.