Preparing for the Miraculous

254 eleven talksHis large identity and all-harbouring loveShall bring the cosmic anguish into his depths ... 494. The Mother AvatarOutspoken or not, the avatarhood of the Mother hasbeen much more controversial than that of Sri Aurobindo.From the beginning there were comments on the fact that SriAurobindo had taken her (and Dorothy Hodgson) into hishouse, and the presence as well as the person of that Frenchlady were often put into question. After all, she had beenmarried twice, wore perfume and make-up, and moved inmysterious ways. Besides, who had ever heard of a femaleAvatar, and a foreign, French female to boot?In the letters of which his booklet The Mother is composed,Sri Aurobindo describes the Mother’s three essentialaspects: the transcendent Mother, the universal cosmicMother, and the human Mother in the yoga. A discipleasked him: “Do you not refer to the Mother (our Mother)in your book The Mother?” Sri Aurobindo answered withone word: “Yes.” Then the disciple asked: “Is she not the‘individual’ Divine Mother who has embodied ‘the powerof these two vast ways of her existence’?” Sri Aurobindoanswered again with one word: “Yes.” And he explained:“The Divine puts on an appearance of humanity, assumesthe outward human nature in order to tread the path andshow it to human beings, but does not cease to be the Divine.It is a manifestation that takes place, a manifestationof a growing divine consciousness, not human turning intodivine. The Mother was inwardly above the human even inchildhood” 50 – when she was living in Paris.49 Sri Aurobindo: Savitri, p. 446, passim.50 Sri Aurobindo: The Mother, pp. 47 and 48.