The New Idea

Parallel to the activities around the founding of the Arya, Mirra started a new society called The New Idea/L'Idée nouvelle. This again makes it clear that she began working out her programme, of which the fourth point was, "Collectively, to establish an ideal society in a propitious spot for the flowering of the new race, the race of the Sons of God." Although the lifetime of the new society would be short, something Mirra did not know when she started it, it was significant as a trial run of what later would become the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and Auroville.

The reader will recall Mirra's questions to Sri Aurobindo when she met him for the first time, especially the question about going the way at first alone or immediately taking others with them. The Mother would later say that making a choice had not been necessary, that the problem had been solved all by itself: some individuals had gathered around them, guided by their psychic instinct.

The first of these individuals were of course Sri Aurobindo's companions, of whom the closest were Nolini Kanta Gupta, Bijoy Nag, Saurin Bose and Suresh Chakravarti, the first two still living under their aliases "Roy" and "Basak." They had been joined by a young Tamil Brahmin from Pondicherry, K. Amrita. Mother meets Sri Aurobindo An excerpt from Georges Van Vrekhem's new biography of the Mother