Mirra Alfassa, known as “The Mother,” was a French-born spiritual figure who became the primary collaborator of Sri Aurobindo in the development and practical application of Integral Yoga. Born in Paris in 1878, she was involved from an early period in spiritual and occult pursuits and later encountered Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry in 1914, returning to settle there permanently in 1920. Sri Aurobindo recognized her as his spiritual equal and as the embodiment of the Divine Mother or Divine Shakti in his own understanding, and their partnership came to be regarded as indispensable to the unfolding of his vision of a transformed human consciousness. Her presence thus did not merely supplement his work; it gave it a concrete, organizing center in the life of a community.

Within the emerging spiritual community that became the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, her role was at once inwardly spiritual and outwardly organizational. She assumed responsibility for the practical management of the ashram, shaping its disciplines, daily life, and collective atmosphere so that it functioned as a kind of laboratory for Integral Yoga. As a guide and teacher, she offered personal direction to seekers through interviews, correspondence, and public occasions, emphasizing sincerity, consecration of daily activities, and the gradual transformation of the mind, life-energy, and body in alignment with the soul. For many, she became both a guru and a universal Mother-figure, a focal point for devotion and inner contact.

Her responsibilities expanded further after Sri Aurobindo’s withdrawal from outer activity and especially after his passing, when she took on full spiritual and organizational charge of the ashram. Under her guidance, the community grew in scope and complexity, with particular attention given to education, artistic expression, and physical culture as integral elements of spiritual growth. She established the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, where an “integral education” sought to develop all parts of the being—physical, vital, mental, psychic, and spiritual—rather than focusing solely on intellectual training.

In the later phase of her work, she founded Auroville, an international township conceived as a collective experiment in human unity and spiritual evolution. This project extended the ashram’s inner quest into a broader social and cultural field, inviting people from different nations to live together in a setting consciously oriented toward spiritual progress. Across these various endeavors, she remained the central figure of the community, seen as working to manifest a higher, supramental consciousness in earthly life and continuing the joint spiritual endeavor initiated with Sri Aurobindo.