The Mother's mastery of occultism

The Mother: The Story of Her Life — Georges Van Vrekhem

SABDA – Distributors of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publications

With less of philosophy and more of childlike wonderment, The Mother is a delight to handle and read and meditate upon. Written in a style that does not distract the mind with vain questionings, the book literally leads us by the hand to make a matri-pradakshina and takes us closer to the presence of our Mother.

One of the important steps in the Mother's sadhana was her mastery of occultism. Without knowing the background of her involvement in this aspect, miracle-mongers have been having a field day while projecting Mother's yoga. Van Vrekhem has devoted considerable space to her "exploration of the Occult" and has explained the various facets of the Cosmic Tradition propounded by Max and Alma Theon. The Theons were not engaged in mere miraculism, though towards the end, Max (who appears to have been the cosmic Asura of Death) fell a victim to self-importance. Their approach to divinise earth failed miserably. The Cosmic Tradition itself has touches of the incarnation theory and speaks of an involution into matter symbolized by the great Creatrix pouring her divine Love into the Inconscient. Anyhow, experiments with occult were given up later by the Mother on the advice of Sri Aurobindo. Van Vrekhem's inputs in this regard will be valuable for students who explore the symbol realms in Savitri's Books of Eternal Night and the Double Twilight...

Van Vrekhem wisely avoids cluttering the narrative with too many details. But there is enough to suggest the Mother's work as a divine housewife, managing a variety of people drawn together with the single aim of achieving the life divine under the aegis of Sri Aurobindo. She was strict, but not stiff. There were the practicalities of mundane living and spiritual games for the soul's ascent. There are occasional references to extraordinary happenings (like the sea remaining under her control when the seaside wall of the Park Guest House was under construction) but Van Vrekhem brings us immediately back to the earth. Antonin Raymond, architect of Golconde has described best the Ashram of those days: "Here indeed was an ideal state of existence in which the purpose of all activity was clearly a spiritual one." All life is yoga!...

The Mother was an incarnation of the Divine Mother as Mahapremi. This much is brought to us by the biographies written by Iyengar, Wilfried, Van Vrekhem and the reminiscences of innumerable disciples like Madhav Pandit, Sahana, Tara. From them we learn that she taught us to be cheerful, fearless, brave and remain tuned to the Infinite. That is all we know and we need to know. — Prema Nandakumar June 2001