Mirra Alfassa, known as The Mother, is remembered not only as the spiritual collaborator of Sri Aurobindo but also as a remarkable builder of institutions and ways of life shaped by Integral Yoga. She played a central role in transforming a small circle of seekers around Sri Aurobindo into the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, and then guiding it as an international spiritual center. Under her leadership, the Ashram developed a wide range of activities—agriculture, education, publications, arts, and physical culture—so that every aspect of life could become a field of spiritual practice. Disciples regarded her as the embodiment of the Divine Mother, and she exercised a sustained spiritual and organizational leadership over thousands of seekers.

One of her most distinctive achievements lay in the field of education. She founded and developed the Ashram school, later known as the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, as an experimental environment for what she called integral education. This approach emphasized the integral development of body, life, mind, and soul, and encouraged free progress and individual growth rather than conventional examination-driven methods. In this way, she sought to bring together Eastern and Western streams of knowledge within a living spiritual context, making education itself a path of inner growth.

Her vision also took concrete form in the creation of Auroville, an experimental international township dedicated to human unity and conscious evolution. She conceived its ideals, authored its charter, and set forth its spiritual and social aims as a place where people from different countries could live together beyond the usual divisions of nationality, politics, and religion. The township and its central spiritual focus were shaped by her guidance, and her charter and ideals for Auroville received endorsement from UNESCO, indicating a wider recognition of the experiment she initiated. In both the Ashram and Auroville, she worked to build sustainable social and economic structures that could embody the principles of Integral Yoga in collective life.

Alongside these institutional and social accomplishments, The Mother also made a lasting contribution through her spiritual teachings and writings. She helped to develop and articulate the practical side of Integral Yoga, offering detailed guidance on inner discipline, consciousness, and spiritual transformation. Her talks, conversations, and writings, including her early spiritual diary, are regarded as a substantial body of spiritual literature that complements Sri Aurobindo’s more philosophical works. Through this combination of lived example, organizational creativity, and sustained teaching, she gave a concrete, enduring form to the ideals of Integral Yoga in both individual and collective life.