In a recent book presenting the life of Sri Aurobindo we have a chapter entitled The Ascent to Supermind: Pondicherry 1915-1926. This chapter gives an impression that during this period Sri Aurobindo was making progress in the discovery of supermind, climbing step by step towards it. But he already had the knowledge of it with him, at least for a couple of years now, even much prior to the meeting with the Mother on 29 March 1914. Perhaps the first indication was when he was an undertrial prisoner for one year in Alipore jail, 1908-09. It was here during the early period of his incarceration that, almost for two weeks, the spirit of Vivekadanda would visit him and point it out to him, a bright golden star far above in the sky. His Vasudeva-experiencine in the jail, of the Presence of the Divine everywhere, in its dynamic aspect, in trees and plants and men and jailors and court witnesses and the judge and the counsels, everywhere, point out towards such a compelling universality. The discovery of the supermind was not a late discovery that began in 1915 and grew in the decade to follow. We have other accounts about it from him.

On 12 July 1912 Sri Aurobindo writes in a letter addressed to Paul Richard and the Mother as follows: “What I perceive most clearly, is that the principal object of my Yoga is to remove absolutely and entirely every possible source of error and ineffectiveness, of error in order that the Truth I shall eventually show to men may be perfect, and of ineffectiveness in order that the work of changing the world, so far as I have to assist it, may be entirely victorious and irresistible.” This absoluteness and entirety comes only with the divine power operating here.

In another letter dated 23 June 1916 to the Mother he is specific: “To possess securely the Light and the Force of the supramental being, this is the main object to which the Power is now turning. But the remnant of the old habits of intellectual thought and mental will come so obstinate in their determination to remain that the progress is hampered, uncertain and always falls back from the little achievement already effected. They are no longer within me, they are blind, stupid, mechanical, incorrigible even when they perceive their incompetence, but they crowd round the mind and pour in their suggestions whenever it tries to remain open only to the supramental Light and the higher Command, so that the knowledge and the will reach the mind in a confused, distorted and often misleading form. It is, however, only a question of time: the siege will diminish in force and be finally dispelled.”

The Mother herself spoke of it as early as on 15 December 1911, in Paris, much before she met Sri Aurobindo. Hers was a prayer soliciting the Sun of Truth, the Supreme Light to “pervade us entirely and illumine with its great brilliance our minds and hearts, all our thoughts and actions.” According to the later parlance this Sun of Truth or the Light of the Supreme, parasya jyotih, can be identified with the supermind.

About the ascent to supermind, we may also see the following.

That work of integral manifestation begins with the Mother meeting Sri Aurobindo on the epoch-making 29 March 1914. She writes in her diary that his presence is enough to prove that a day will come when darkness shall be transformed into light. And when asked about this meeting, reciprocally, Sri Aurobindo writes that in her he saw surrender to the Divine to the last bit of the physical possible. In it the work begins.

Later, the Mother told something significant. When she met Sri Aurobindo she was in deep prayerful concentration. In it she saw things in the supermind; she was seeing things that were to be but somehow were not manifesting. She told it to Sri Aurobindo and asked him if they would manifest. He just said, “Yes.” And immediately she saw that the supramental had touched the earth and was beginning to be realized!

The supermind had touched the earth on 29 March 1914. The yogic effort was now directed to fix it permanently in the earth’s physical. The Mother’s total surrender to the Lord is the only means to achieve the miracle. The change has already occurred. The Mother writes:

29 March 1914: O Thou whom we must know, understand, realise, absolute Consciousness, eternal Law, Thou who guidest and illuminest us, who movest and inspirest us, grant that these weak souls may be strengthened and those who fear be reassured. To Thee I entrust them, even as I entrust to Thee our entire destiny.

30 March 1914: He whom we saw yesterday is on earth; his presence is enough to prove that a day will come when darkness shall be transformed into light, and Thy reign shall indeed be established upon earth.

1 April 1914: I feel we have entered the very heart of Thy sanctuary and grown aware of Thy very will. A great joy, a deep peace reign in me… now all is changed: a new stage has begun.

2 April 1914: … the new period opening now before us… a period of expansion rather than of concentration. It is in the activity of each moment that we must serve Thee and identify ourselves with Thee rather than in deep and silent contemplation or in meditation…

3 April 1914: It seems to me that I am being born to a new life… I know that I must now definitively give myself up and be like an absolutely blank page on which Thy thought, Thy will, O Lord, can be inscribed freely… Oh, to belong to Thee without any darkness, without any restriction!

In the Prayers and Meditations there are a few themes which constantly recur. Her one concern is the Soul of the Earth. She invokes peace and in it entrusts herself to the Will of the Lord. She says: “May Thy peace reign over all.” Whatever has to be got done can be done only in that benign peace. Peace is the foundation for all enduring work.