It is "I" that gets angry and it is the "I" that has to be dropped. She never complained about these illnesses and said she welcomed them just as she welcomed all her visitors - as manifestations of the One. The precision and tensile strength of Sanskrit were well suited to Anandamayi's purposes; unlike Sanskrit scholars, she would pick up words and play with them like toys or trinkets - yet remain mindful of their philosophical implications and semantic resonance. She shone gloriously, but did not cause any pain to our vision. Yet unless we address this issue we miss a quality that is absolutely central to the whole nature of Anandamayi's unique and special lila. Nor was this to be the only time she did so, for from that moment she became his spiritual preceptor, indeed his Guru. For 30 years Atmananda acted as interpreter in hundreds of private interviews for foreigners and for Indians who could not follow Mataji's Bengali or Hindi. I intend going to Tiruvannamalai shortly. Nirmala and Bholanath stood there for a little while, watching as the water trickled away. The link between the ant-hill, the cosmogony and the Siddheshwari hierophany turns out to be not so obscure after all. Anandamayi Ma was very sensitive to religious ritual Only then, the activity of nature, which continues at every moment in sleep and in waking from birth to death, this and the thinking mind become caught in that Stream and eternally remain floating in it. Mataji said, "I find everything old!". god intoxication - a divine madness It is the name of God. . "Oh well, because you didn't know you mustn't sniff an offering, it won't matter!". The following account of Anandamayi in bhava, by a great devotee, Girija Shankar Bhattacharya, perfectly exemplifies just the kind of attitude she was proposing among her followers. Question: Why then should anger be avoided? Finally, someone bought me and took me home. ", She forbade the building of a permanent structure as yet, saying "I shall stay only in a room made of mud." way of being. One must not allow oneself to be caught by the lure of supernormal faculties. People came from all over India, by air, train, bus and car, some walking most of the day and night. Similarly, when transcending nature's delights, which are fleeting man tastes the delicious flavour of his true being, (Svabhava rasa),and of Supreme Delight, (param rasa); then the excruciating anguish of the poison of mere worldly enjoyment is destroyed. At this latter end of the process, her teaching became like the delta of a great river system, an infinity of tributaries, each one flowing towards the unanimity of the human spirit. Answer: No. During the seven years from 1918 to 1924 when the couple remained in the township of Bajitpur, Nirmala Sundari went through the experiences, processes and techniques of intensive sadhana, or spiritual practice, that were performed for the purpose of preparing oneself for Self-Realisation. She also encouraged her devotees to serve others. Nirmala's mother, Mokshada Sundari Devi, familiarly known as Didima, was a gentle, pious woman who lived to an advanced age; she took sannyas became an ochre-robed renunciate with the name of Swami Muktananda Giri, and accompanied her daughter on her incessant peregrinations. Further questions on this matter would be fruitless. Do you know what is the essential thing? With the help of your intelligence and individual capacity, try to unite the mind with the breath. The obedience of an unmarried girl in this case would be tantamount to starting life as a wife. Traditionalists point out that people like Sri Aurobindo, Krishnamurti, Swami Ramdas and Swami Shivananda, Mother Meera, Sai Baba and Meher Baba are not Gurus at all but a hybrid phenomenon catering to foreigners. To be held up at any stage is obstructive; it simply means one has stopped advancing. Not liking the look of this object neither ever revealed to anyone what it was and not knowing what might happen next, Bholanath took it from her hand and hastily threw it into a nearby pond. Anandamayi Ma Enlightenment Experience: After Nirmala Sundari Devi got married to moved with Ramani Mohan Cakravarti (later renamed as Bholenath) she used to attend kirtans and bhajans at the local temple. He does not call anyone, neither does he send anyone away. The freedom for swift spontaneous movement between herself and others was now hampered by the press of the crowd. By this time villagers began to collect, curious to know what brought so unusual a vehicle as a motorcar to their rustic dwellings. Such a long period of supraconsciousness - no sign of life, so to speak - and above all, the wonderful states that accompanied the regressive process of climbing down to normalcy. When still a child she was taken to a fair by a relative, who put her down before a Shiva temple and told her to sit there quietly while she went away with her companions. Answer: Because He is infinite, there is an infinite variety of conceptions of Him and an endless variety of paths to Him. "My will would be irresistible if I expressed it. When you feel power within yourself, when new light dawns on you from within, the more you can keep it concealed in utter calm and stillness, the more it will grow in intensity. We sannyasis depend on the Guru, on the Dharma, moral code. Question: How can our minds be free for prayer and meditation. Behind the veil lies Reality, but before you is the veil. At other times, compliance was tacit and the work proceeded without mishap. Ignorance, surely, is not what you seek. Was I, by freezing action with fast shutter speeds, committing sacrilege in a holy place, or was I pushing the limits of the optical to evoke that which lies beyond time? In this condition, inert like a statue, her eyes unblinking, gazing upwards her appearance was delightfully sweet and serene. From the state of ignorance? If I had to find one word with which to describe the most outstanding characteristic of Anandamayi's teaching it would have to be "inclusiveness". He might even fall a victim to the influence of some 'spirit' or power. ", I said, "No, go on with the mantra. When I was present on such occasions, she invariably spoke with great warmth and enchantment. No Ma, no Ma Anandamayi or Anandamayi Ma, no politically correct Sri, no Sri Sri and, above all, no quaint retro-anglo-phonetic spelling, as in Shree Shree Anandamayee. What you usually do is laugh with your mouth, while your emotions are held in check. By the time I met her, Anandamayi's "genius" went into her public and private discourses as well as her on-going tutelage of innumerable sadhakas. The individual, identifying with the primal source of life, can enter into the plenary condition of the cosmogony and regain the perfection of the Beginning. "Duniya" (world) means "di-niya" (based on duality). Since there is no realisation of the Supreme, it must therefore be a partial realisation. But how badly mistaken I was! Well-attested examples from the past describing exalted trance in any detail are hard to find, but the two usually cited for the spectacular quality of their spiritual rapture are both Bengalis: Chaitanya and Ramakrishna. I considered it so deeply personal a theme that I could scarcely bring myself to expose it more than occasionally to anyone else, either publishers or friends. In a sense there is no mystery about this, because the link between white ants and the Primordial Mound, and between both and the cosmogony is clearly indicated in the oldest Indian religious texts, the Vedas, dating from around 2500 BC. Question: Thus if the receptacle is not ready, does the Guru withhold the power. However, labourers called in to dig the foundations were stricken with fear at the idea of breaking into this most distinctively shaped mound. In her explanation of its meaning to Gurupriya Devi, she distilled from its words a meaning accessible to everyone: He Himself is Supreme Being and the Knower within each creature; At that time only very few in the West were interested in its subject. Anandamayi's ministry was so firmly established in the truth which subsists under all conditions and in all eras that her position at the apogee of spiritual culture confounds all fashionable pessimism. With her whole body cold as stone, saliva started pouring from her mouth and my clothes were drenched. When, finally; she had pulled off the last petal she held the dahlia by its stalk, fingered the golden centre, and then for a long time gazed at this with the most rapt and delicate attention. She would let all her illnesses run their course with complete equanimity, and possessed the ability to know beforehand on exactly which day they would come to an end. Question: If this is so, is it of any use to ask you further questions? It is curious that modern science also tells us that termites are indeed extremely archaic creatures and have been active since the Permian level on the geological time-scale - that is, for no less than 200 million years. Stone-mindedness is foolishness - the fact of God's immanence has not yet been grasped. We can see how all this developed in the first decade of her travels. There is love between the sun, the moon, the planets and the stars and in love they are all fixed into the sky above. take on the qualities of death and she would grow faint. In addition, she had emerged as an exponent of contemplative esoteric, or mystical, religion through direct experience and personal awareness, where the inward sense of the self is one with the feeling of the external world. For the destruction of destruction has not yet come about. I am deeply grateful to Gitanjali Dhingra for rescuing the whole project from oblivion and whose faith has been unwayering. In the form of the Path, He attracts each person along the particular line that will guide him in harmony with his inner dispositions and tendencies. While she knows exactly who and where she is - "I am always the same "- we don't know that we also are where she is! it sometimes stretched out to extraordinary length; at other times it shrank to a very small size; sometimes her body rolled about like a ball; on other occasions it seemed boneless, or bounced like a rubber ball as she danced. To know your Self would imply the revelation at that very same instant of what your father and mother - and the entire universe - in reality are. All Mataji's work is unusual. Anandamayi is a beautiful titular name in its own right and it says everything that can possibly be said about her in a single word, including honour and reverence. As she put it in her characteristically succinct style: "For your life's work you have brought down this body.". To put it crudely - she's the last sort of person one would expect in our deplorable times. This mind carries an absence of independent activity of its own, but generates a clear mirror for the reflection of Truth. For if she possessed so deep a feeling of identity with all living creatures, so that all were like the many parts of her own body, then an act as private and separate as putting food in her mouth might well be inconceivable. In this century there has been an enormous change in the way the great Indian spiritual teachers work. A Love Affair with Rajneesh (OSHO) – Oct 2, 2019; Lusso (All Things Luxury) Dinner hosted by Disha Batra for Ma Anand Sheela; Ma Anand Sheela in … In 1961 I was invited by the French publishing house, Editions du Seuil, to meet the great world authority on comparative religion, Mircea Eliade. His sensitivity for the subject and his determination to overcome formidable technical hazards are greatly appreciated. What you call electric light or electricity in general is nothing but the union of two opposites: thus does Supreme Being flash forth at the moment of conjunction. Mataji sat absorbed in bhava and replied in this state, providing all the details as to exactly how large and how high it should be, although she was not in a normal state. Dec 29, 2015 - Explore Donna Osborn's board "Anandamayi Ma" on Pinterest. Do you not see how, whatever you require in the way of food and sleep, each at its own appointed hour, is without exception an ever-recurring need? Written horizontally across Anandamayi's brow were five lines like those of a music score; crossing these were a myriad fine-spun vertical lines in constant movement, knitting and fanning out, narrowing and widening like the action of a loom when the warp and weft open and close. I suppose I fancied myself as an ultra-modern photographer extending the possibilities of visual instantaneity. In the course of time, when they got the measure of Nirmala Sundari's personality, it became clear to them that it would never be possible for Bholanath to lead a conventional home life, settle down and have children. Question: When speaking about visions that one has during meditation, you have said that these are not Visions of Reality, but a mere 'touch'. There is love between fire and air, between earth and water; without this love neither heaven, nor earth, nor the nether world would have originated at all. I have been asked many times if I could supply someone with a picture of Anandamayi looking straight at the viewer. But it cannot enter because the receptacle is turned upside down. "Anandamayi" means the Self of bliss. God has not yet been realised, but the treading of this path has become attractive. Be mindful of one thing: if when following a particular line of approach, one does not attain to that which is the consummation of all sadhana, namely the final Goal, it means that one has not entered the Stream. For Anandamayi there was no separation from the One, so therefore leaving the body was nothing special, which was possibly why she said that she would leave it in "the most ordinary of ordinary manners". repeat mantras to bring her back to normal consciousness. Her teaching certainly did point to the unity hidden beneath all the outer symbols, affording a glimpse into a universalistic stratosphere without departing from down-to-earth detail. You take whatever pleases you. The Guru's power is bestowed on the disciples, but only one among millions is capable of holding it. "On enquiry, we learnt from her that while she was in that condition her breath deep and prolonged, her whole body suffused with languor and fatigue, she would feel a fine thread-like current of energy flowing upwards from the base of the spine right to the topmost centre of the brain. This world is itself but an embodiment of want; hence the heartache due to the absence of fulfilment must needs endure. Therefore never relax your efforts until there is Enlightenment: let no gaps interrupt your attempt, for a gap will produce an eddy. What I wanted was clarification on the way I could carry the Spirit into my daily life as a visual artist. From December 1922 Nirmala became maunam for three years - that is to say, she took a vow of silence, an entirely normal procedure adopted by many a serious sadhaka. In the perishable there is no Self-revelation. The sense of separateness is the root-cause of misery, because it is founded on error, on the conception of duality. Yet there is also another side to this problem. worker but sometimes had a difficult time concentrating on housework. The young woman shed abundant tears of joy. The marvellous thing about this terrace stage was the fact that every action, which took place there, sprang from the inner motivation of all who walked upon it. They are nearer to nature than the towns and are therefore in closer touch with the fountain of life. All felt hunger, but even Anandamayi's aged father did not take anything without first feeding his divine daughter. Nothing in the world should be repulsive to you. "What train do you intend taking?" There were also countless stories of her healing the sick or taking the illness of a devotee upon herself while the devotee at once recovered. This body, however, doe not exclude anything. Holding it in her right hand she began, very slowly; with the most attentive care, to wind it round the first joint of her left index finger. Only a few of these transcriptions have been translated into English. The simple highland women of Almora would say to her, "Now that we have you with us, we do not need to visit the temple. With Bhaiji's strength failing fast, the party was forced to return to Almora, where he died beside the Patal Devi temple. Question: Which is the best path to Self-knowledge? At the appointed time, however, Nirmala sent for him. read her devotee's thoughts and emotions at a distance, make her body There were no external accessories and she herself was Guru, Mantra and Ishta chosen deity. When you say: "He is only this" and then "He is also this". 1915, Astagram: Staying with Bholanath After the demise of Sri Revati Mohan Chakravorty Ma came to live at Astagram where Bholanathji was posted. There was a pond beside a large house with tiled roof and smoothly moulded mud walls. The scene, especially by lamplight, reminded me of Flaubert's famous remark on catching sight of cottagers in their lighted hovels: "Ils sont dans le vrai" - literally; "they are in the truth". or it would stiffen. One must be fully conscious, wide-awake. Instruction, Mataji said, was for the individual alone and not a matter to share with others. There were other occasions when she spent five or six months eating a small quantity of rice only twice a week; on other days a few fruits sufficed. In the classic ancient texts it is described as the final result and the crown of all an ascetic's spiritual efforts and exercises, but we can put aside this aspect in Anandamayi's case. During the day, the air was very clear and every speck of detail stood out sharply, as in a medieval miniature. He whose one and only goal is the ocean has nothing else to look at and nothing else to consider, and then, what is to be, will be. For this reason the phase of her sadhana lila is crucial. One disciple claimed that Question: Who has the capacity to confer power and who to receive it? Equipped with a lightweight camera and fast film, engaging with a peaceable community where stillness and timelessness were of the essence, I would focus upon the fugitive and fleeting instant. The woman nevertheless seemed to hold everyone in silent thrall. Suppose one has acquired the power that whatever one utters becomes true or whatever one desires is fulfilled. He wished to know whether she approved of the replies he had given them. For me all places are good.". But He has no limitation whatsoever. The contrast between such reductionist confusion and the certainty with which Anandamayi speaks of her own state of mind in infancy is most striking. Her body gradually shrank so much in size that everybody had the impression that only her sari was left on the vedi. She rose, still swaying. This act she called her kheyala which elsewhere has also been called lila, or Will, or the Divine Word, or the Logos, or the Will to become - but in reality there is neither any will nor any becoming. In order to attain to a particular stage along only one of those lines an ordinary individual may have to be born again and again, but in this body it was a matter of seconds. The state of bhava should not be viewed as an isolated event. She felt neither hunger nor thirst, nor extremes of heat and cold. Bholanath, so staunchly loyal, so warmly liked by all his wife's followers, was as zealous as Nirmala in maintaining outward appearances. This light gradually seemed to spread out, enveloping the whole universe'. While her parents worshiped Krishna, she could not be placed in any definite tradition. Question; What is the work of the Guru and what is the work of the disciple? Question: Will man ever destroy this world and himself? It has prepared dishes for all, so you may call it a cook. Aiming at the Supreme, at the ultimate, will lead you on through the movement of your true nature. I had felt years ago that it was beyond my powers to delineate through words a faithful picture of Anandamayi, showing her not merely as she was in herself, but even as she appeared to me. She related the incident when her uncle had questioned her, and these learned men wanted to find out what exactly had transpired. Whatever she said was done. she started with ignorance and proceeded through various austerities, observing silence, regulating diet, practising japa and yogic exercises and performing puja and other similar rites. Only when my emotional temperature was sufficiently high, or sufficiently cool, so it seemed, did she pick up the correct signal and make way for me. Then I said to Bholanath. This is a lovely small intro to the remarkable story of the Bliss-Permeated Mother. In her case and in daily terms, her kheyala appears to have taken shape from the needs of her companions. There is certainly a state where both difference and non-difference exist simultaneously - in very truth. Sri Ma Anandamayi was born in a small village called Kheora, in what is now Bangladesh, on April 30, 1896. She seemed to be at ease with neither cloth nor pillow, in all weathers, in the cold, on damp ground or dust, or outdoors in pouring rain. I could focus on one eye quite easily, being as near as I was; I could settle on it comfortably even when she seemed to be looking straight at me. So, by sitting under a tree you will get shelter, shade, flowers, fruit, and in due course you will come to know your Self. bhava or religious emotion. His feet are everywhere and therefore one may do namaskar, salutation, everywhere, remembering the feet of God. Struck by its beauty, he stopped to admire it. She became very serious. . As an exemplary figure, she emanates a feeling of complete ease, warmth and secure confidence in her femininity. Answer: He plays in infinite ways. Mataji looked at me, beckoned an attendant to her side and sent him over to speak to me. On the full moon night of August 1922, at midnight, Nirmala Sundari went through the actions of spiritual initiation - all by herself. This bare-minimum view opened upon a void cleansed of everything save the omnipresence of God. Their desire is calmed, their passion eliminated. Not far from this great focal point of Hindu and Buddhist pilgrimage, beside the shore of Lake Manasarovar, Bhaiji, now in the terminal stages of tuberculosis, was overcome by a spirit of supreme renunciation. It is, of course, true that the clothes will not be clean unless the soap is rinsed off again. Were it not for her lifelong exertion for the good of all, this perfection would be insufferable. In the midst of the prevailing "anarchy" partly a misnomer, for the word means "without rule", whereas the whole point of Mataji's methods was to make and break rules all the time, serious devotees would be taken aside by Mataji for private instruction and given tasks, more arduous discipline, tighter and tougher sadhana, and sent off to accomplish missions more challenging than they had ever had to face in their lives before. Without the help of such a doctor there is fear of injury. Sri Anandamayi Maa was an Indian saint from Bengal. But the wonder is that where That is, there is not even room for different stands to be taken. Closing her eyes, she said, "No mud shall fall on the altar. Body lived on three grains of rice daily for four or five of us were gathered Mataji... To your actions - this is real happiness quality to her at her ashram in Vindhyachal commenced a sort reasoning! Direction it is he not the physician on the altar in the of... 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