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BY Thilaka Vivekanandhan Wijeyaratnam
The Globe - the hall of meditation
WHAT brought Aurobindo of the Orient and Mira of the Occident together? Was it a twist of fate
or spiritual gravitation or the need of the people for spiritual guidance? It may be one or all three.
Sri Aurobindo was born in Calculta in the year 1872 on the 15th of August. His father Krishnathan
Gosh was an Anglophile. So much so that when Aurobindo was 7 years, he sent him to UK with his
elder brothers. He wanted to make him a Brown Sahib perhaps.
But fate had it otherwise. Aurobindo was thirsting for knowledge of India and her culture and when
he returned in 1893 at the age of 21, Aurobindo's thoughts, words and deeds were to find ways
and means of freeing Mother India from the British. On a count of instigating the people against
the British he was sent to prison - in a separate jail at Alipur.
This period in jail gave him the opportunity to read all available Indian literature including
Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads. When he came out of jail, he renounced his political
involvements and went to Pondicherry where he completely devoted himself to developing a new
path of spirituality - the Integral Yoga.
Mother - Mira
Beautiful scenic settings in Auroville
In the meantime in Paris in the year 1878 on February 21st, Maurice Alfassa, a Turkish banker
from Adrianopole and his wife Mathilde Ismaloum from Cairo rejoiced at the birth of their pretty
little daughter whom they named Mira.
But even as they rejoiced at her birth they hardly thought that this little rose-bud of a baby born
on the threshold between the Orient and the Occident would bring these two worlds together one
day.
Mira grew up in Paris. She was one of the chosen few of the supreme mystical entities of the
Orient. Even at the age of four, on her own, she started contemplating or doing Yoga. She said
that she would sit in a small chair, meant for her and meditate.
And then, she says, "A very brilliant light would descend on me causing a turmoil in my brain." At
that tender age she had experience of the Occult. From the age of five she felt she did not belong
to this world, and she began her spiritual discipline, and her Sadhana.
Her mother was quite perplexed at her daughter sitting down with a "set face" and when she
questioned her daughter about it, the latter said, "I do feel the weight of the world's miseries
pressing upon me" making her mother's confusion worse confounded.
But Mira had to fulfil the demands of society. She went to school. She thought, even dressing up
to pose for a photo was childish. At the age of twelve, she resorted to solitary walks through
jungles and was in communion with nature. She would sit under a tree and meditate and she felt
an intimacy with the trees.
"Between the ages of eleven and thirteen, a series of psychic and spiritual experiences revealed
to me not only the existence of God but also man's possibility of uniting with Him", she asserted.
With all her spiritual leanings she allowed herself to be married to one Henri Morisset an artist and
had a son Andre, by that marriage.
After a few years she dissolved her marriage to Henri and married one Paul Richard - a well read
and well known philosopher. God had decreed that she would reach the Orient through Paul and
become Aurobindo's spiritual collaborator.
Pondicherry It was Paul Richard who went to Pondicherry first and met with Sri Aurobindo. On his
return to Paris, he told Mira about this unique sanyasi and the couple regularly corresponded with
Sri Aurobindo. In Paris Mira also had visions of Krishna and continued with her experiments of the
Occult.
In 1914 her longing was at last fulfilled and she and Richard set out to Pondicherry. As they
approached the town, Mira had a vision of a huge column of light in the heart of Pondicherry and
its intensity increased as theny got down at the railway station.
At the first physical meeting with Sri Aurobindo itself Mira recognized in him the divine person
Krishna, whom she saw in her visions. She knew then that the force that she felt pressing on her
and pulling her was this and she felt that was her final abode.
However, with the advent of the world war Richard was called home to join the French reserve
Army and much against her will Mira went back to France.
Paul was freed from military service after an year. Mira's son Andre joined the army and he always
felt the protection of his exceptional mother. The Richards left for Japan in June 1916. Mira was
full of admiration for the aesthetic sense of the people of Japan.
From Japan she along with a friend Miss Hodgeson left for Pondicherry and stayed at a guest
house and later at Bayourd Home and as the roof of the home was not safe, Sri Aurobindo asked
them to move into his own house. Ever since then Mira or Mother to Sri Aurobindo and their
disciples stayed with him.
The disciplined life and practice of Yoga made both Mother and Sri Aurobindo young for their age.
By then Richard felt he couldn't draw her away from Sri Aurobindo and so left alone to America.
Sri Aurobindo left the care of his disciples and the plants and the cats in Mother's hands and was
immersed in his own Sadhana.
Auroville Auro - dawn - city of dawn. This is a village with a difference. The purpose is to realise
human unity. It was Mother's dream to create a place where seekers from all over the world could
live a progressive life in the service of Truth on a city level.
In the vicinity of Pondicherry on an area of 15 square miles, for a population of 50,000, containing
four zones, residential, industrial, cultural and international it was founded around the Matrimandir
meaning 'Temple of Mother'.
Today it is referred to as the 'Globe'. The Sri Aurobindo Society which is an International Society,
during its world conference, decided to launch it on February 28, 1968 at 10.30 a.m. "Those who
thirst for progress and aspire to a higher and truer life" were invited.
Children from almost all countries of the world placed a handful of earth from their native lands
into a specially prepared urn which was then sealed.
It is a beautiful, serene, picturesque area, set in the heart of a jungle among lush vegetation, 'the
Globe' itself speaks of a divine hand. The 'Globe' is the hall for meditation.
Here no offerings are made, no sermons preached, no chanting is done, no incense lit, no bell
rings. It is silence - silence - silence - Beautiful Golden silence.
It was a wonderful experience standing there watching the handiwork of that beautiful frail Mother
who wanted to bring the Orient and the Occident to a common arena - and she did it through the
Charter of Auroville which says "Auroville belongs to nobody in particular.
Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole. But to live in Auroville one must be the Willing Servitor
of the Divine Consciousness. Auroville will be the place of an unending education, of constant
progress and a youth that never ages.
Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past and the future. Taking advantage of all
discoveries from without and from within Auroville will boldly spring towards future realisations.
Auroville will be a site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of a Actual
Human Unity.
This is a place no nation can claim as its own.
