The Matrimandir is an edifice of spiritual significance for practitioners of integral yoga, in the centre of Auroville established by the Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. It is called Soul of the City and is situated in a large open space called Peace.
The term involution has various meanings. In some instances it refers to a process prior to evolution which gives rise to the cosmos, in others it is an aspect of evolution, and in still others it is a process that follows the completion of evolution in the human form.
Integral yoga, sometimes also called supramental yoga, is the yoga-based philosophy and practice of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. Central to Integral yoga is the idea that Spirit manifests itself in a process of involution, meanwhile forgetting its origins. The reverse process of evolution is driven toward a complete manifestation of spirit.
Kaikhosru Dhunjibhoy Sethna was an Indian poet, scholar, writer, philosopher, and cultural critic. He published more than 50 books. He was known by the diminutive Kekoo, but wrote his poetry under nom de plume of Amal Kiran.
M. P. Pandit was a spiritual author, teacher and Sanskrit scholar. For several decades, he was a secretary of the Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. He wrote numerous books and articles on the yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, on social and political thought, science, philosophy, religion, mysticism, and the classical texts and spiritual traditions of India.
The Sri Aurobindo Ashram is a spiritual community (ashram) located in Pondicherry, in the Indian territory of Puducherry. The ashram grew out of a small community of disciples who had gathered around Sri Aurobindo after he retired from politics and settled in Pondicherry in 1910. On 24 November 1926, after a major spiritual realization, Sri Aurobindo withdrew from public view in order to continue his spiritual work. At this time he handed over the full responsibility for the inner and outer lives of the sadhaks and the ashram to his spiritual collaborator, "The Mother or La Mère", earlier known as Mirra Alfassa. This date is therefore generally known as the founding-day of the ashram, though, as Sri Aurobindo himself wrote, it had "less been created than grown around him as its centre."
In Sri Aurobindo's philosophy, the Intermediate zone refers to a dangerous and misleading transitional spiritual state between the ordinary consciousness and true spiritual realisation.
Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol is the poetic main work of Sri Aurobindo, composed in nearly 24000 lines in blank verse. It is based on the legend of Savitri and Satyavan in the Mahabharata, which was given a symbolic significance by Sri Aurobindo. In his epic poem he deals with numerous subjects and describes especially the spiritual paths of Savitri and her father Aswapati, striving to reach a higher stage of evolution.
Indra Sen was a devotee of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, psychologist, author, and educator, and the founder of Integral psychology as an academic discipline.
Arya: A Philosophical Review was a 64-page monthly periodical written by Sri Aurobindo and published in India between 1914 and 1921. The majority of the material which initially appeared in the Arya was later edited and published in book-form as The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, The Secret of the Veda, The Foundations of Indian Culture and The Ideal of Human Unity as well as a number of translations of Vedic literature.
Ambulal Balkrishna Purani was an Indian writer. He was a prominent disciple and biographer of Sri Aurobindo.
Sri Anirvan, born Narendra Chandra Dhar, was an Indian Hindu monk, writer and philosopher. Widely known as a scholar, his principal works were a Bengali translation of Sri Aurobindo's The Life Divine and the three-volume treatise Veda Mimamsa.
Mirra Alfassa, known to her followers as The Mother or La Mère, was a spiritual guru, occultist and yoga teacher, and a collaborator of Sri Aurobindo, who considered her to be of equal yogic stature to him and called her by the name "The Mother". She founded the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and established the town of Auroville; she was influential on the subject of Integral Yoga.
Sri Aurobindo was an Indian philosopher, yogi, maharishi, poet, and Indian nationalist. He was also a journalist, editing newspapers such as Vande Mataram. He joined the Indian movement for independence from British colonial rule, until 1910 was one of its influential leaders, and then became a spiritual reformer, introducing his visions on human progress and spiritual evolution.
Supermind, in Sri Aurobindo's philosophy of integral yoga, is the dynamic manifestation of the Absolute, and the intermediary between Spirit and the manifest world, which enables the transformation of common being into Divine being.
Jatindra Nath Banerjee was one of two great Indian nationalists and freedom fighters – along with Aurobindo Ghosh – who dramatically rose to prominence between 1871 and 1910.
Tribhuvandas Purushottamdas Luhar, better known by his pen name Sundaram,, was a Gujarati poet and author from India.
Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) was an Indian Hindu monk and a key figure in the introduction of Indian philosophies of Vedanta and Yoga to the western world. He was one of the most influential philosophers and social reformers in his contemporary India and the most successful and influential missionaries of Vedanta to the Western world. Indian Nobel laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore's suggested to study the works of Vivekananda to understand India. He also told, in Vivekananda there was nothing negative, but everything positive.
Marguerite (Maggi) Lidchi-Grassi is a writer and spiritual teacher.
Debashish Banerji is a Bengali scholar. He writes in English and specializes in Integral Yoga, Indian Philosophy and Psychology, Art History and Cultural Theory. He is the Haridas Chaudhuri Professor of Indian Philosophies and Cultures and the Doshi Professor of Asian Art at the California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, where he also chairs the department of East-West Psychology.
