IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT
Welcome to Sri Aurobindo Pathamandir
The road on which Sri Aurobindo Pathamandir stands is memorable as Sri Aurobindo walked along this for quite a few months (May 1909 to February 1910) on his way to the ‘Karmayogin’ office at Shyampukur Street.
A few hours before boarding the ship to Pondicherry he came near the vicinity of this house on his way to the port.
The first public institute of its kind outside Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, entirely devoted to the study, practice and dissemination of Sri Aurobindo’s and The Mother’s Ideals and Teachings, Pathamandir was inaugurated on the 15th August 1941 at this very house. From that day onward for over seventy five years Sri Aurobindo Pathamandir continues its journey forward in the service of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother in this house.
Here the devotees have ample opportunity for individual and collective meditation in its salience and spacious hall along with a very helpful library well-equipped exclusively with the books of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother as well as those written on them by sadhaks and other eminent authors.
Books are available for home issue as well for going through them in its peaceful reading room. There is also The School of Sri Aurobindo Studies holding regular study classes and discussions and a Publication Section of reach heritage for publication of books and journals and a permanent exhibition of books and various centre-products as well as sales counters.
Above all, in this peaceful nook in the midst of the surrounding humdrum din and bustle of the city, devotees have the unique opportunity of paying their homage and doing pronam to the haloed footwear of The Mother, Foot-stool used by Sri Aurobindo and his sacred Relics enshrined in this haven of tranquility.
How to Read Sri Aurobindo
I advise always to read a little at a time, keeping the mind as tranquil as one can, without making an effort to understand, but keeping the head as silent as possible, and letting the force contained in what one reads enter deep within. This force received in the calm and the silence will do its work of light and, if needed, will create in the brain the necessary cells for the understanding. Thus, when one re-reads the same thing some months later, one perceives that the thought expressed has become much more clear and close, and even sometimes altogether familiar.
It is preferable to read regularly, a little every day, and at a fixed hour if possible; this facilitates the brain-receptivity.
The Mother
[ CWM 10: 7; 12:205]
About Sri Ma
In this exploration of the hitherto uncharted destiny of man, Sri Aurobindo’s collaborator was the Mother. Born Mirra Alfassa on 21 February 1878 in Paris, she studied at the Academie Julian and became an accomplished artist. Conscious of her spiritual mission on earth even as a child, the Mother was guided in her visions by one whom she called Krishna. When she met Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry in 1914, she at once recognised him as the Krishna of her visions.
About Sri Aurobindo
Born on 15 August 1872 in Kolkata , Sri Aurobindo , after studying in the Loretto Convent School , Darjeeling , was taken by his parents to England at the age of seven. He spent the next fourteen years in Manchester , London and Cambridge , shining as a scholar , passing high in the 1st Tripos at Cambridge and ICS examination , but got himself disqualified from the Civil Service by deliberately absenting himself from the horse-riding test.
