The ashram grew out of a small community of disciples who had gathered around Sri Aurobindo after he withdrew from politics and settled in Pondicherry in 1910.

The Mother and French writer Paul Richard met Sri Aurobindo in 1914 and proposed that they bring out a monthly review; but after the outbreak of World War I, they were obliged to leave India, and Sri Aurobindo had to do almost all of the work on the review himself, helped a little by the young men who were living with him.

Sadhaks would have woken very early and completed a good portion of the day's work including meditation and then assembled under the balcony to receive her blessings.

[4] As the ashram grew, many departments came up and were looked after by the sadhaks as part of their sadhana: the offices, library, dining room, book/photograph printing, workshops, sports/playground, art gallery, dispensary/nursing home, farms, dairies, flower gardens, guest houses, laundry, bakery, etc.

The central focus of the community is one group of houses, including those in which Sri Aurobindo and the Mother dwelt for most of their lives in Pondicherry.

This white marble shrine holds, in two separate chambers, the physical remains of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

The Ashram, according to Sri Aurobindo, "has been created with another object than that ordinarily common to such institutions, not for the renunciation of the world but as a centre and a field of practice for the evolution of another kind and form of life which would in the final end be moved by a higher spiritual consciousness and embody a greater life of the spirit.

"[5] The practice of Integral Yoga, Sri Aurobindo explained, "does not proceed through any set mental teaching or prescribed forms of meditation, mantras or others, but by aspiration, by a self-concentration inwards or upwards, by self-opening to an Influence, to the Divine Power above us and its workings, to the Divine Presence in the heart, and by the rejection of all that is foreign to these things.

"[6] There are many things belonging to older systems that are necessary on the way—an opening of the mind to a greater wideness and to the sense of the Self and the Infinite, an emergence into what has been called the cosmic consciousness, mastery over the desires and passions; an outward asceticism is not essential, but the conquest of desire and attachment and a control over the body and its needs, greeds and instincts are indispensable.

In Sri Aurobindo's yoga, the highest aim is the state of being one with the Divine, without the renunciation of life in the world.

"[8] This would lead eventually to the emergence of a new type of being, the gnostic being, which "would be the hope of a more harmonious evolutionary order in terrestrial Nature".

The Ashram publishes a number of journals relating to the philosophy and yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

These include: During the early years of the community, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother imposed very few rules on the sadhaks, because they wished them to learn to direct their lives by looking for the divine guidance within.

[11] In compliance with the Central Government's Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust constituted an Internal Complaints Committee in April 2014.