Mirra Alfassa

Mirra Alfassa (21 February 1878 – 17 November 1973), known to her followers as The Mother, was a spiritual guru, an occultist and a collaborator of Sri Aurobindo, who considered her to be of equal yogic stature to him and called her by the name "The Mother". She founded the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and established Auroville as a universal town; she was an influence and inspiration to many writers and spiritual personalities on the subject of Integral Yoga. Mirra Alfassa was born in Paris on 1878 to a bourgeois family. In her youth, she travelled to Algeria to practise occultism under Max Théon. After returning, she travelled around the world and finally settled in Pondicherry, India with Sri Aurobindo and his followers. With growing numbers of followers, the settlement was turned into an ashram over the years, where she worked with Sri Aurobindo in establishing Integral Yoga and guiding its pupils. In 1943, she started a school in the ashram and in 1968 established Auroville, an experimental township free from discrimination of nationality, language, creed and politics. She died on 17 November 1973 in Pondicherry.