SriMa is the inspiring fountainhead of all that is taught at the school.
“From the point of view of a spiritual life, it is not what you do that matters most, but the way in which it is done and the consciousness you put into it. Remember always the Divine and all you do will be an expression of the Divine Presence. When all your actions are consecrated to the Divine, there will be no longer activities that are superior and activities that are inferior; all will have an equal importance – the value given them by the consecration.”
… The Mother
Madame Mirra Alfassa, the Mother or SriMa, as she was known, was born and educated in France. She began to have psychic and spiritual experiences at a very early age. She grew up to become an accomplished painter and musician. In 1906 and 1907 the Mother voyaged to Tlemcen, Algeria, where she studied occultism with Max Theon.
In 1914, she met Sri Aurobindo, the great Indian mystic and revolutionary, in Pondicherry, and her life was transformed. The next day, in her spiritual diary (published as Prayers and Meditations) she wrote: “It matters not if there are hundreds of beings plunged in densest ignorance. He whom we saw yesterday is on earth; his presence is enough to prove that a day will come when dark- ness shall be transformed into light, when Thy reign shall be indeed established upon earth.”
In April,1920,after spending nearly four years in Japan, the Mother returned to Pondicherry, where she lived for the rest of her life. On November 24, 1926, when Sri Aurobindo withdrew from outer activities in order to focus all his energies on his Sadhana, he entrusted to the Mother, or SriMa, as he called her, the guidance of the disciples who had gathered around him, marking the start of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. In 1968, SriMa founded Auroville, or the City of Dawn 10 kilometers outside of Pondicherry. SriMa left her body on the 17th November,1973.