The Mother – Pondicherry

A commemorative postage stamp on the Birth Centenary of the Mother, Mirra Alfassa, Puducherry, a spiritual guru, occultist and collaborator of Rishi Aurobindo, founder of Sri Aurobindo Ashram and Auroville, an international township :

Issued by India

Issued on Feb 21, 1978

Issued for : Indian Posts and Telegraphs Department feels proud to issue a commemorative postage stamp on the birth centenary of The Mother.

Type : Stamp, Postal Used

Colour : Ochre & brown

Denomination : 25 Paise

Overall size : 3.91 X 2.90 cms.

Printing size : 3.55 X 2.54 cms.

Perforation : 13 X 13

Watermark : Printed on unwater–marked adhesive stamp paper

Number printed : 30,00,000

Number per issue sheet : 35

Printing process : Photogravure

Designed and printed at : India Security Press

Name : Blanche Rachel Mirra Alfassa

Born on Feb 21, 1878 at Paris, France

Died on Nov 17, 1973 at Pondicherry, India

About : 

• Born on February 21, 1878 in Paris, The Mother was the second child of Maurice and Mathilde Alfassa. Right from her childhood, The Mother showed remarkable perceptions and, as early as 1890, she had an unusual experience of the truth of Matter, the experience which has been described as that of the “Revolution of Atoms“. This was also a period of intensive studies, music and art, as also of physical culture, particularly tennis. Soon, she came into spiritual contact with several teachers and had an internal first vision of Sri Aurobindo in 1904, ten years before she actually saw him physically at Pondicherry in India.
• The Mother came to India in 1914. She has said, “From the first time I came to India…I felt that India is my true country, the country of my soul and spirit“. She met Sri Aurobindo on March 29, 1914 and at once recognised him as the teacher of whom she had internal visions since 1904 and she became convinced that her place and work were with him.
• The work of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother has been that of research on the ‘transformation of Matter‘ by means of the Supermind. The aim has been to lead mankind towards universal harmony and, even, evolutionary mutation of man into a supramental gnostic being. This work is concerned, most importantly, with the problem of Man in his present evolutionary crisis.
• The Mother had to stay away from her spiritual home in India during the First World War. During the major part of this period, she stayed in Japan and, in 1920, she returned to India for good. With her arrival, the Sri Aurobindo Ashram began to take shape and after 1926, The Mother had been throughout in spiritual and material charge of the Ashram and, later, also of Auroville. She has said, putting her life in a nutshell, “I came to India to meet Sri Aurobindo. I remained in India to live with Sri Aurobindo. When he left his body, I continued to live here in order to do his work which is by serving Truth and enlightening mankind, to hasten the rule of the Divine’s Love upon earth“. She came to be universally acknowledged as a world teacher.
• Sri Aurobindo has described the significance of The Mother in the following words : “Her embodiment is a chance for the earth-consciousness to receive the supramental into it and to undergo first the transformation necessary for that to be possible. Afterwards, there will be a further transformation by the supramental…“
• She left her body on November 17,1973.