A Pilgrims Quest for the Highest and the Best - Notes and References

Notes and References

¹Vide., Ayer, A. (ed.). Logical Positivism, Free Press, 1959, New York.

²Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, SABCL, 1971, Pondicherry, Vol. 18, ' pp. 7, 9 10, 17 8.

³ Vide., Passmore, J., A Hundred Years of Philosophy, Harmondsworth, Penguine, 1968; Blackeham, H.J., Six Existentialist Thinkers, Harper Torch books, 1959, New York, 2^nd Ed.

⁴ Vide., Pitt, J., Theories of Explanation, Oxford University Press, 1989, New York.

⁵ Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, Routledge, rpt 1996, London,p.789.

⁶ Chattopadhyaya, D.P, Induction, Probability and Scepticism, Sri Satguru Publications, 1992, Delhi, p. 31

⁷ Vide., Bell, J., Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics, Cambridge University Press, 1987, Cambridge.

⁸ Vide Penrose, Roger, Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness, p. 214.

⁹ Vide., Bohm, David, Wholeness And The Implicate Order, Routledge, 1980, London, pp. 174 5.

¹⁰ Vide., Bowker, John, (ed.). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions, Introduction of, Oxford University Press, 2000; Galloway, George, CharlesScribner's Sons, New York, 1920, Chs. 2-5; Cottingham, John, The Spiritual Dimension, Cambridge University press, 2005; Bagger, Mathew C., Religious Experience: Justification and History, Cambridge University Press, New York, 1999.

¹¹ Vide., Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, SABCL, 1971, Pondicherry, Vol. 19, pp.874 7.

¹² Vide., Woodworm, Robert S., Contemporary Schools of Psychology, Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1952, London, Ch. VI.

¹³ Vide., Erdmann, History of Philosophy, Library of Philosophy, George Alien & Unwin Ltd., London; Blanchard, Brand, The Nature of Thought,

(2 Vols.), George Alien & Unwin Ltd., 1939, London; Joad, C. E. M., Guide to Philosophy, Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1953, London.

¹⁴ Vide., Wolf, R.P. (Ed)s Kant: A Collection of Critical Essays, Garden City: Double day Anchor, 1967.

¹⁵ Vide, Manser, A., Stock, G. (Eds.), The Philosophy ofF. H. Bradley, Clarendon Press, 1984.

¹⁶ Vide., Moser, P., Knowledge and Evidence, Cambridge University Press, 1989, Cambridge.

¹⁷ Vide., Radhakrishnan, S, Indian Philosophy (Vols. I-II), Oxford University Press, 1999; Mohanty, J.N, Reason and Tradition in Indian Thought: An essay on the nature of Indian philosophical thinking, Clarendon Press, 1992, Oxford; Raju, P.T., Structural Depths of Indian Thought, Albany, State University of New York, 1985, New York; Butterworth, C.E. and Cassel, B.A., The Introduction of Arabic Philosophy into Europe, Brill: Leiden, 1994; Tatia, N, Studies in Jaina Philosophy, P.V. Research Institute, 1951, Varanasi; Pye, M., The Buddha, Duckworth, 1979, London; Lealman, 0., Averroes and His Philosophy, Clarendon Press, 1988, Oxford; Hall, D.L, Ames, R.T., Thinking Through Confucius, Albany, State University of New York Press, 1987, New York; McGrath, A.E., Christian Theology: An Introduction, Blackwell, 1994, Oxford.

¹⁸ Vide., Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, SABCL, 1971, Pondicherry, Vol. 20, p. 2.

¹⁹ Vide., Ibid., The Life Divine, Vol. 19, p. 857.

²⁰ Vide., William, James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, (1902);
Bames and Nobel Classics, 2004, New York, Chs., 16 & 17, pp. 328-71.

²¹ Vide., Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, SABCL, 1971, Pondicherry, Vol. 22, pp. 137-54.

²² Vide., Ibid., pp. 157-229.

²³ Vide., Ibid., The Life Divine, Vol. 19, pp. 773-4.

²⁴ All developed religions have been accompanied by systems of methods by which spiritual experiences can be realized by an aspirant, and thus the history of yoga, in order to be comprehensive, must take into account the yogic systems that religions have developed; however, systems of yoga have also developed independent of religions, and there are a number of varieties of expositions of the systems of yoga; in

India, there is a wide and profuse literature, and some books like the Gita have come to be regarded as the books of Yogashastra, science of yoga. There is a need to develop a comprehensive exposition which would include not only the yogic systems which have developed in India but also in various parts of the world.

²⁵ Vide, Sri Aurobindo, Synthesis of Yoga, SABCL, Pondicherry, 1971, Vol. 20, p.3.

²⁶ Vide, Radhakrishnan, S., Indian Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 1923, Oxford, 7th Impression 2001, Chapter 5, pp. 336-73.

²⁷The Yogasutra of Patanjali is the oldest text book of what has come to be known as Rajayoga. The third part of this book is called Vibhutipada; it presents the theme of the development of extraordinary powers of consciousness. Vyasa's commentary on the Yogasutra (4th Century A.D) gives the standard exposition of the yoga principles. Every system of Indian philosophy has its own system of yoga. It would therefore be an error to think that Rajayoga is the only system of yoga. Yoga is often erroneously associated also exclusively with Hathayoga. This misconception has led to the belief that yoga consists exclusively of the methods of breath control (pranaydma), and physical postures {asana). The books of Swami Vivekananda on Rajayoga, Jnanayoga, Karmayoga and Bhaktiyoga (Ref. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Advaita Ashram, Almora, 1958) have explained that the word Yoga has a very wide connotation, and it cannot be identified with Hathayoga alone or with Rajayoga alone. Sri Aurobindo's two volumes on the Synthesis of Yoga (SABLC, 1971, Vol. 20-21) have provided detailed exposition of various systems of yoga and shown how his synthesis of yoga follows a central principle by means of which different systems of yoga can be synthesized, even while it can afford to neglect the forms and outsides of various yogic disciplines. The synthesis that Sri Aurobindo has proposed cannot be arrived at either by combination en masse or by successive practices of various systems of yoga. This synthesis seizes on a central principle common to all which includes and utilizes, in the right place, their particular principles, and on some central dynamic force which is the common secret of their divergent methods and capable therefore of organizing a natural selection and combination of their varied energies and different utilities.

²⁸ Vide., Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Advaita Ashram, 1958, Almora, Raja Yoga, Vol. 1,9* Edition.

²⁹ Vide., Yogi Swatarama, The Hathayoga Pradipika, translated into English by Panchan Singh, Munshi Ram Manohar Lal Publishers Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi. '

³⁰ Vide, Kak, Subhash, Architecture of Knowledge, Centre for Studies in Civilizations, 2004, New Delhi, Monograph series. Vol. 13, pp. 197 202.

³¹ The yogic science has been able to establish several states of realizations or Siddhis. In Hathayoga and Rajayoga, in Tantra as also in other systems of yoga, various Siddhis have been described. In all, siddhis are eight in number; two of them are siddhis of knowledge, three of power and three of being. The three siddhis of being are: Mahima, including Garima, Laghima and Anima. Mahima is unhampered force in the mental power or in the physical power. In the physical it shows itself by abnormal strength which is not muscular and may be even developed into the power of increasing the size (Mahinia) and weight of the body (Garima), etc. Laghima is a similar power of lightness that results in the freedom from all pressure or weighing down in the mental, pranic or physical being. Laghima is the basis ofutthapana or levitation. That demonstrates the power of overcoming gravitation. Anima is the power of freeing the atoms of subtle or gross matter from their ordinary limitations. It is by this power that yogis were supposed to make themselves invisible and invulnerable or to free the body from decay and death.

Three siddhis of power are: Aishwarya, Ishita and Vashita. Aishwarya is the power to control and make things happen or make people act according to the use of the will, even without any special concentration. Ishita is a power to make things come to you or happen merely by having a want or need or a sense that something ought to be. Vashita is the power to control a person or an object by concentration of one's will.

The two siddhis of consciousness are Vyapti and Prakamya. Vyapti is the siddhi by means of which thoughts, feelings, etc. or others or any kind of knowledge of things outside oneself are felt coming to the mind from those things or persons. This is the power of receptive Vyapti. There is also a power of communicative Vyapti, when one can send or put one's own thought, feeling, etc. into someone else. Prakamya is the siddhi when one looks mentally or physically at somebody or some-thing and perceives what is in that person or thing. There is also another kind of Prakamya which is concerned with senses. There is a power of perceiving smells, sounds, contents, tastes, lights, colours and other objects of sense which are either not at all perceptible to

ordinary men or beyond the range of one's ordinary senses.

An interesting and instructive address delivered by SwamiVivekananda at Los Angles, California, on January 8,1900, is entitled "The powers of the mind". During the course of this address, Swami Vivekananda has narrated an extremely interesting personal experience, which is worth citing: "I once heard of a man who, if anyone went to him with questions in his mind, would answer them immediately; and I was also informed that he foretold events. I was curious and went to see him with few friends. We each had something in our minds to ask, and, to avoid mistakes, we wrote down our questions and put them in our pock ets. As soon as the man saw one of us, he repeated our questions and gave the answers to them. Then he wrote something on paper, which he folded up, and asked me to sign on the back, and said, "Don't look at it;

put it in your pocket and keep it there till I ask for it again," And so on to each one of us. He next told us about some events that would happen to us in the future. Then he said, "Now, think of a word or a sentence from any language you like." I thought of a long sentence from Sanskrit, a language of which he was entirely ignorant. "Now, take out the paper from your pocket," he said. The Sanskrit sentence was written there! He had written it an hour before with the remark. "In confirmation of what I have written, this man will think of this sentence." It was correct. Another of us who had been given a similar paper which he had signed and placed in his pocket, was also asked to think of a sentence. He thought of a sentence in Arabic, which it was still less possible for the man to know; it was some passage from the Koran and my friend found this written down on the paper. Another of us was a physician. He thought of a sentence from a German medical book. It was written on his paper." . Swami Vivekananda had narrated several other incidents during the course of his address. The reader may refer to The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Advaita Ashram, 1958, Calcutta, Vol. II.

³² Vide., Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, SABCL, 1971, Pondicherry, Vol. 20, pp. 506 20.

³³ Vide., Dayakrishna, Mukund Lath, Francine E. (Eds.), Krishna Bhakti: A contemporary discussion, Indian Council of Philosophical Research, 2000, New Delhi.

³⁴ Vide., Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Advaita Ashram, 1958, Calcutta, Jnana Yoga, Vol. I.

³⁵ Vide., Bhagavad Gita; vide also, Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, SABCL, 1971, Pondicherry, Vol. 13; vide also. Ibid, The Yoga of Divine Works, Vol. 20, pp. 47-270.

³⁶ Vide., Cottingham, John, The Spiritual Dimension, Cambridge University Press, 2005, particularly Ch. 8 (Religion and Pluralism: Which Spirituality'?).

³⁷ Vide., Hick, An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent, Macmillan Press, 1989, Basingstoke; vide also. Hick, J., Hellethwaite, B. (Eds), Christianity and Other Religions, Fortress Press, 1981, Philadelphia; vide also Hick, J., The Fifth Dimension, Oneworld Publications, 2004, Oxford.

³⁸ Cottingham, J., The Spiritual Dimension, Cambridge University Press, 2005, Cambridge, p. 159.

³⁹ Vide., Sri Aurobindo, The Foundations of Indian Culture, SABCL, 1971, Pondicherry, Vol. 14, pp. 121-95; vide also, Ibid., The Life Divine, Vol. 19, pp. 863-74.

⁴⁰ Vide., Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Advaita Ashram, 1958, Almora, Vol. I, IX^th Edition.

⁴¹ Vide., Bhagwan Das, Essential unity of religions, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Atui Bordia Bhavana Printer, 1932, Bombay, 1st Edition.

⁴² Vide., Swami Vivekananda, Address at the World Parliament of Religions, Chicago, 11 ""September 1893, Advaita Ashram, 1958 ' Almora, Vol. I.

⁴³ Sri Aurobindo, Thoughts and Glimpses, SABCL, 1971, Pondicherry, Vol. 16, P. 394.

⁴⁴ Vide., Rashdall, Hastings, Theory of Good and Evil, Oxford University Press, 1924, London, Vol. I-II; vide also, Joad, C.E.M., Guide to the Philosophy of Morals and Politics, Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1938, London; Berlin, I., Four Essays on Liberty, Oxford University Press, 1969, Oxford; Ross, W.D., The Right and the Good, Clarendon Press, 1930, Oxford; Brink, D., Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics, Cambridge University Press, 1981, Cambridge.

⁴⁵ Vide., Russell, Bertrand, Unwin Paperbacks, 1984, London, (particularly chapter seventeen, "The Happy Man". Towards the end of the chapter, Russell writes: "I have written in this book as a hedonist, that is to say, as one who regards happiness as the good, but the acts to be recommended from the point of view of the hedonist are on the whole

the same as those to be recommended by the sane moralist." P. 190).

⁴⁶ Vide., Rashdall, Hastings, Theory of Good and Evil, Oxford University Press, 1969, London, Vol. I, Chs. VI-VII.

⁴⁷ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, SABCL, 1971, Pondicherry, Vol. 19, pp. 1046-65; vide also, ibid. Synthesis of Yoga, Vol. 20, Ch. VH.

⁴⁸ Vide., Ibid., Synthesis of Yoga, Vols. 20-21; Sri Aurobindo: His Life and Work (A Brief Outline) Sri Aurobindo was born on the 15th August 1872 at Calcutta. At an early age of seven, he was taken along with his elder brothers to England for education, since his father wanted him to have no Indian influence in the shaping of his outlook and personality. And yet, even though Sri Aurobindo assimilated in himself richly the best of the European culture, he returned to India in 1893 with a burning aspiration to work for the liberation of India from foreign rule. While in England, Sri Aurobindo passed the I.C.S. Examination, and yet he felt no call for it; so he got himself disqualified by remaining absent from the riding test. The Gaekwar of Baroda happened to be there at that time, and Sri Aurobindo accepted the proposal to be his Personal Secretary, and returned to India.

Soon thereafter, however, Sri Aurobindo switched over to the Baroda College as Professor of French and then of English, and when in 1906, he left for Bengal, he was the acting Principal of the College. It was during the Baroda period that Sri Aurobindo assimilated in himself the spirit and culture of India and prepared himself for his future political and spiritual work. Indeed, his political work had already begun in Baroda, but it was behind the scenes, largely of the nature of a preparation for an armed revolution for the liberation of India.

Sri Aurobindo was the first among the Indian leaders to declare and work for the aim of complete Independence of India. In 1905, Bengal was divided, and Sri Aurobindo left Baroda and, invited by the nationalistic leaders, he joined at Calcutta the newly started National College as its first Principal. It was here that Sri Aurobindo, while working secretly for the revolution, chalked out also a plan of outer action. This plan consisted of the programme of passive Resistance, Boycott and Swadeshi, which was later adopted as the policy of the struggle for freedom. It was here again that Sri Aurobindo wrote powerfully and boldly for Bande Mataram, and later for Karma Yogin', through his writings, he electrified the nation and surcharged the people with a new energy which ultimately led the nation to her freedom. It was, therefore, significant that when India at-

tained her liberation in 1947, it was on the 15th August, the birthday of Sri Aurobindo.

The pioneering work that Sri Aurobindo did for the liberation of India was evidently a part of his larger work for the entire humanity and for the whole earth. For him, the liberation of India was an indispensable part of the new world-order. Moreover, the practice of Yoga, which he had started in 1902, led him, even while in the thick of intense political and literary activity, to major realizations of the Brahmic Silence, Nirvana, and also of the universal dynamic Presence of the Divine. And, in 1908, when he was in Alipore jail during his trial under the charge of sedition, he received through numerous experiences and realizations the assurance of the liberation of the country and also the knowledge of the initial lines on which his own future work was to proceed. For he saw that even in the field of Yoga something was still lacking, something radical that alone would help resolve the problems of the world and would lead mankind to its next evolutionary stage. And so, in 1910, soon after his acquittal from the jail, he withdrew to Pondicherry to concentrate upon this new research work, to hew a new path. It has been a most dynamic work with the entire earth as its central field. It was in the course of this work that Sri Aurobindo declared that the Supramental is the Truth and that its advent on the earth is inevitable. To bring down the supramental consciousness and power on the earth has been the central work of Sri Aurobindo.

Sri Aurobindo has explained the nature of this work, the nature of the Supermind, the necessity of its descent, the process of this descent and the dynamic consequences of this descent for the solutions of the problems of mankind, in his voluminous writings most of which were written serially in the philosophical monthly, Arya, which was started in 1914, immediately after the first arrival of the Mother from France to Pondicherry. Some of the most important of these and other writings are: The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, The Ideal of Human Unity, The Human Cycle, The Foundations of Indian Culture, Essays on the Gita, On the Veda, The Upanishads, The Future Poetry, The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth, and the epic Savitri.

When Sri Aurobindo withdrew in 1926 into his room for concentrating in the required way on the 'Supramental Yoga', the Mother organized and developed his Ashram. In 1943, a school for the education of children was founded, and after the passing of Sri Aurobindo in 1950, the Mother developed that school into an International University Centre, where numerous original and bold experiments of education were carried out

under her guidance. This educational work was a part of Supramental Yoga, and we have rare insights into education and yoga in the volumes entitled Questions and Answers, which contain conversations of the Mother that took place in her classes. In 1958, the Mother withdrew to her room in order to come to terms with the research in the problems related to the supramental transformation of the physical consciousness at the cellular level. In 1968, the Mother founded Auroville, and International city as a collective field for the material and spiritual researches required for realizing human unity as a part of the supramental action on the earth.

The Mother's exploration into the body-consciousness and her discovery of a 'cellular mind' capable of restructuring the nature of the body is contained in a document of more than six thousand pages, published in Thirteen Volumes. This is L'Agenda de Mere (Mother's Agenda), an account of her extraordinary exploration narrated by the Mother to Satprem covering a period of more than twenty years, during which the Mother slowly uncovered the 'Great Passage' to the next species by the supra mental transformation of the physical consciousness and fulfilled the work that Sri Aurobindo had given to her.

⁴⁹ Vide., Mother's Agenda (Vols. 1-13), Institut de Recherches Evolutives,
Paris & Mira Aditi, Mysore ; The Mother: Her Life and Work (A Brief Outline) The Mother (Mirra Alfassa) was bom in Paris on the 21st February, 1878. Her mother was Egyptian and her father was Turkish-both of them were perfect materialists. As a result, although she had inner experiences, including that of the divine presence, right from her childhood, she was in her external life an atheist until she entered into adulthood. In her early years, she had a good grounding in music (piano), painting and higher mathematics. By the age of eighteen, she had begun to feel an intense need to KNOW, but all that she learnt and studied would explain nothing. Her need to know led her into two directions. The first was the world of painting. She mingled with the artists and widened her horizons. She married a pupil of Gustave Moreau, Henri Morisset, and she came to know Rodin and the great impressionists of that era. The second direction in which she turned was opened up when she heard of Max Theon and his teachings. At this stage, she had a series of visions, and in several of these visions she saw Sri Aurobindo just as he looked physically, but glorified. She was to meet Sri Aurobindo ten years later in 1914 when she came to

India from France, and it was then that she came to identify SriAurobindo of the vision with Sri Aurobindo as she saw him then.

Around this time, she came into contact with Bhagavad- Gita through an Indian who had come to Europe. He had told her, "Read it with THAT knowledge- with the knowledge that Lord Krishna represents the immanent God, the God within you." She not only studied the Gita, but within a month, she attained to the realization of the immanent Supreme.

Soon thereafter, she went to Tiemcen in Algeria to work with Max Theon and his wife Madame Theon. Theon was well versed in the Rigveda and he was the first to talk to the Mother of the idea that the earth is symbolic where universal action is concentrated allowing divine forces to incarnate and work concretely. Madame Theon was an extraordinary occultist, having incredible faculties. She could leave one body and enter the consciousness of the next plane, fully experiencing the surroundings and all that was there, describe it... twelve times. The Mother learned to do the same thing and, with great dexterity. In one of her experiences, while entering into the last stage before the Formless, she experienced total Unity. And she found herself in the presence of the "Principle" of the human form. It did not resemble man as we are used to seeing him, but it was an upright form, standing just on the border between the world of forms and the Formless, like a kind of standard or archetype. Afterwords, when Mother met Sri Aurobindo and talked to him about it, he said, "It is surely the prototype of the supramental form."

Soon after her return from Tiemcen in Algeria, there was in 1908 divorce from Henri Morisset. Prom 1910 to 1920- these ten years were a period of intensive mental study for the Mother. This mental development in all its comprehensiveness led her to the conclusion that while all ideas are true, a synthesis has to be made, and that there is something luminous and true beyond the synthesis. In her philosophic studies, she was accompanied by Paul Richard who, in his visit to Pondicherry 1910, had met Sri Aurobindo. In 1914, Mother accompanied Paul Richard to Pondicherry and met Sri Aurobindo on 29th March. In her very first meeting, both Sri Aurobindo and Mother, felt, at exactly the same moment, "now the Realisation will be accomplished." In one of his letters Sri Aurobindo wrote on the Mother as follows:

Mother was doing Yoga before she knew or met Sri Aurobindo, but their lines of Sadhana independently followed the same course. When they met, they helped each other in perfecting the sadhana. What is known as Sri Aurobindo's Yoga is the joint creation of Sri Aurobindo and the

Mother. (Sri Aurobindo: On Himself, SABCL, 1971, Vol. 26, p. 459)

After the outbreak of the World War I in August, 1914, the Mother had to return to France along with Paul Richard and then she spent four years in Japan; but she returned for good to Pondicherry in 1920 in order to work with Sri Aurobindo.

On 24th November 1926, Sri Aurobindo attained to a decisive stage and the Overmind was brought down into Matter, and an overmental creation came into view. But the aim was to bring about the supramental creation. As Sri Aurobindo became too occupied with the descent of the supermind, he did not have the time to deal with people, and he put the Mother in charge of all the disciples and external activities of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. This was in 1926.

Sri Aurobindo has spoken of the four personalities of the Mother, namely, those of Wisdom (Maheshwari), Power (Mahakali), Harmony (Mahalakshmi) and Perfection in works (Mahasaraswati). In all her activities, these four personalities of the Mother could be seen at work. The work was microscopic; it was complex; it was both external and internal. It became clearer that the task of fixing the Supermind in the physical had to be done by opening up the physical cells. Just when the descent of the supermind reached a critical point, the Second World War broke out. This war was perceived by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother as a fierce resistance to the task of the Supramental descent. Hence, they put all their yogic force against Nazism and the war ended in 1945, with the victory for the Allies as Sri Aurobindo had willed. In early 1950, Sri Aurobindo told the Mother: "One of us must go. We cannot both remain upon earth." And when the Mother said, "If one of us must go, I want that it should be me." "It cannot be you," he replied, "because you alone can do the material thing." He forbade the Mother to leave her body. "It is absolutely forbid den," he said, "you cannot, you must remain."

After Sri Aurobindo left his body on 5th December 1950, the Mother continued Sri Aurobindo's work. In 1951, she established the Sri Aurobindo International University Centre, which conducted extraordinary educational experiments to invent a new method of educating children from early childhood upwards so as to prepare them for the supramental work. On 29th February 1956, the Mother declared that the Supramental Light and Force and Consciousness rushed down upon earth in an uninterrupted How. She wrote: "The manifestation of the Supramental upon earth is no more a promise but a living fact, a reality."

In 1958, the Mother entered into a new phase of Yoga, which aimed at fixing the supramental consciousness in the cells of the body so as to establish, in the world, the conditions of the emergence of the next species, the supramental species that would manifest the Supermind in the supramental body.

It was in the course of this "Yoga of the Cells" that the Mother discovered the "Mind of the Cells" which has the necessary capacity to re-constitute the physical body. This great yogic process has been described in thirteen volumes entitled "Mother's Agenda", which consists of the Mother's conversations with Satprem, one of her disciples, who had become her confidant.

In 1968, Mother founded "Auroville", an international township, a few kilometers away from Pondicherry, as a "laboratory of new evolution."

On 14th March, 1970, Mother declared that the work that Sri Aurobindo had given to her was accomplished. She said, "The physical is capable of receiving the Superior Light, the Truth, the True Consciousness and to manifest it."

Thereafter, she continued to accelerate the evolution of the new species, a task which is still continuing, even though she left her physical body on 17th November, 1973.
⁵⁰ Sri Aurobindo, On Himself, SABCL, 1971, Pondicherry, Vol. 26, p.464.
⁵¹ Ibid., The Synthesis of Yoga, Vol. 20, pp. 377 8.
⁵² Ibid., The Life Divine, Vol. 18, pp. 469 70.
⁵³ Ibid., On Himself, Vol. 26, pp.83 4.
⁵⁴ Ibid., p. 101.
⁵⁵ Ibid., The Synthesis of Yoga, Vol. 20, p. 283.
⁵⁶ Vide., Ibid., The Life Divine, Vol. 19, ch. 16.
⁵⁷ Ibid., p. 669.
⁵⁸ Ibid., pp. 681- 2.
⁵⁹ Vide., Ibid., The Secret of the Veda, Vol. 10.
⁶⁰ Vide., Ibid., Hymns to the Mystic Fire, Vol. 11.
⁶¹ Vide., RV, 1.72.9,
⁶² Sri Aurobindo, The Secret of the Veda, SABCL, 1971, Pondicherry, Vol. 10, pp. 439- 40.
⁶³ Ibid., Essays on the Gita, Vol. 13, p. 7.

⁶⁴ RV..V.61.1.
⁶⁵ Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, SABCL, 1971, Pondicherry, Vol.13, p. 7
⁶⁶ Ibid., Letters on Yoga, Vol. 22, p. 102.
⁶⁷ Mother's Agenda, MiraAditi Centre, 2000, Mysore, Vol. 11, p. 102.
⁶⁸ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, SABCL, 1971. Pondicherry,VoL 20, p. 44.
⁶⁹ Ibid., p.p. 40
⁷⁰ Ibid., On Himself, Vol. 26, p. 109.
⁷¹ Mother's Agenda, MiraAditi Centre, 2000, Mysore, Vol. 1, p. 300.
⁷² Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, SABCL, 1971, Pondicherry, Vol. 22p. 98.
⁷³ Ibid., The Life Divine, Vol. 19, p. 891.
⁷⁴ Ibid., The Supramental Manifestation Upon Earth, Vol. 16, pp. 50-9.