Out of deference to the fact that Mother Meera is still alive and sensitive to the way that she is publicly portrayed, the biography presented below is quoted verbatim from the web site devoted to her:

"Mother Meera was born on December 26, 1960 in the village of Chandepalle in southern India. She soon showed herself to be an unusual child: by the age of three She would report "going to various lights." Her parents treated Her as an exceptional child and loved Her very much. Her family was not especially religious and She was not brought up in any tradition. Her real parents were the spiritual guides that She met in vision; it was from these that She received the love and help She needed. The state of samadhi was constant for Her. Under the auspices of Her uncle, Mr.Reddy, She lived for some time in Pondicherry where Her extraordinary presence attracted considerable attention. She married a German in 1982 and he stays with the Mother. She presently lives in Thalheim [since moved to Balduinstein], a quiet village in Germany. Although She has not sought publicity, thousands of people from all over the world come to receive Her darshan, her silent bestowal of grace and light through Her gaze and touch. Mother Meera is worshipped as the Divine Mother in India."

The other main source of information about her is found in Andrew Harvey's Hidden Journey. Harvey was a something of a prodigy in the field of poetry and held a professorship at Oxford at a young age. His experience of Mother Meera caused him to give up the life of academic and devote his energies to the spiritual life. After a disagreement over his desire to marry his male partner, he seems to have become disillusioned with her. There is no doubt however that the glowing terms with which he originally wrote about her was partly responsible for her coming to world attention, with the British television screening a documentary on him and his transformation through her teachings.

Harvey tells how he met Mother Meera in Pondicherry in 1978, where she blessed him in the fashion that she retains to this day, that is by first holding his head in her hands, and then looking into his eyes. Mother Meera was only eighteen at the time, and it seems that her parents had sent her to the Aurobindo Ashram some time before, in the company of her uncle Mr. Reddy. The actual connection with the Ashram seems unclear, at any rate Sri Aurobindo died in 1950 and the Mother (Aurobindo's spiritual partner) in 1973. In 1979 Mother Meera was in Montreal giving darshan to up to 300 people, so it is clear that her reputation was already established at this stage. Nevertheless Harvey joined her in Germany in 1987 and made repeated visits after that, leading to the publication of Hidden Journey in 1991, which brought her to wider public still.

The pattern of Mother Meera's life has hardly changed in that she gives darshan today in the same way as she gave it to Harvey in 1978. A gathering of perhaps 200 people from all over the world are seated in silence. She enters the room without looking at anything, sits down, and waits for the first visitor, who kneels in front of her. She takes the person's head in her hands for about ten seconds, and on releasing the head the visitor looks up into her eyes for another ten seconds. This is repeated until the last person, after which she pauses briefly. It may be that the pause simply tells her that darshan is at an end, for she still does not look up. As she rises the gathering stand in salutation and she leaves the room, all in complete silence. Harvey describes his experience of the Mother's darshan in flowery terms, and can be contrasted to the more measured description given by the scholar Georg Feuerstein (published in What is Enlightenment, and also on the web, see links). Most visitors find that it brings them an inner peace and sense of love.

Her entourage has recently moved a short distance to larger premises in another village in Germany, where it is said that perhaps more locals attend than they did in Thalheim. It was the illness of her uncle Mr.Reddy that brought Mother Meera to Germany, and his death in 1985 affected her deeply and led to a series of paintings, published in a book called ' Bringing Down the Light'. As the example above shows, her work is reminiscent of Blake or Rudolf Steiner and his pupils.

Teachings

Mother Meera's teachings are summed up in a book of questions and answers called Answers. She speaks of herself as an avatar (a term with a range of interpretations) and as bringing down the divine light, known as Paramatman. 'Avatar' can mean saviour, or incarnation of a deity, or sometimes the incarnation of a divine principle with no previous lives. Mother Meera discusses at length what she means by avatar, making clear for example that an avatar cannot be realised because that is something a human being has to attain. She points out that avatars come from the Divine whereas self-realized persons go the to Divine. Mother Meera claims to have known her work before incarnating, and to have known even as a child who she was.

Answers is a book worth studying, but it would be fair to say that Mother Meera's teaching is really done in the silence of darshan.

Commentary

Mother Meera happens to be the only female Master in this selection, and one of only two living Masters in this selection. Because she teaches in silence, much the best way to gain a flavour of her teachings is to arrange to take darshan with her. Nevertheless we can point out some features of her work in connection with our concepts. On balance her teaching has a bhakti orientation though when asked on this topic she says that both jnani and bhakti seekers can be helped on their path through her. The way that darshan is arranged makes it somewhat devotional, though without the traditional Hindu elements of singing, music, and dance.

We do find a number of occult elements in her teaching, and there is a strong emphasis on change in the world, which we would locate within the social dimension of the spiritual. Can we be sure then that the transcendent is central to her teaching? When asked about the feminine energy that the Mother in general represents, and her path in particular, and whether it represented more a transformation than a transcendence, she replied no, transcendence is the primary aim of the human being. When pressed what transformations she brought about she replied: "when humans on Earth are afflicted with difficulties, it is the Divine Mother who relieves suffering and lifts them up". Many of her visitors do come for help of some kind, and seem to receive it through darshan. Of the other Masters examined in this section, it is perhaps only Gurdjieff who was so concerned about the transformation of Man. The compassion of the Buddha in contrast seems more remote.