Sri Anandamoyi Ma
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| Sri Ma Anandamoyi | |
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| Born | 30 April 1896 Kheora, Brahmanbaria, Bangladesh |
| Died | 27 August 1982 Kankhal, Haridwar, India |
Anandamoyi Ma (Bengali: আনন্দময়ী মা) (Alternaively spelled: Ananda Moyi Ma or Anandamayi Ma) (1896–1982) was a spiritual teacher and Guru from the Bengal region of India.
Though she is mentioned in many books about spiritual teachers from India, she is most notably written about in Paramahansa Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi. His meeting with her is recounted in the chapter titled The Bengali "Joy-Permeated Mother", where he wrote:
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Father, there is little to tell." She spread her graceful hands in a deprecatory gesture. "My consciousness has never associated itself with this temporary body. Before I came on this earth, Father, 'I was the same.' As a little girl, 'I was the same.' I grew into womanhood, but still 'I was the same.' When the family in which I had been born made arrangements to have this body married, 'I was the same... And, Father, in front of you now, 'I am the same.' Ever afterward, though the dance of creation change[s] around me in the hall of eternity, 'I shall be the same. |
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—Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi, (New York, Philosophical Library in New York City, 1946), Chapter 46 |
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[edit] The Name
Her real name was Nirmala Sundari. Anandamoyi was her ashram name. She was also known as Dakshayani, Kamala and Vimala. She is often reffered to as The Joy Permeated Mother. Many used to call her the "Mother of Shahbag".
[edit] Family and Early Life
She was born in the village of Kheora in the district of Brahmanbaria in Bangladesh, then East Bengal, on 30 April 1896. Her father, Bipinbihari Bhattacharya, from Vidyakut in Tripura, also lived an ascetic life as Muktananda Giri and sang devotional kirtans. It is said[Please name specific person or group] that, during a storm, the roof blew off the house and he continued singing in the rain.
Anandamoyi is said[Please name specific person or group] to have experienced the presence of divine power in her since childhood and went into a trance (Bhava) on hearing kirtans. She had no formal education.
She was married, at the age of 13, to Ramani Mohan Chakrabarti of Vikramapura in 1908. Her husband also took to ascetic life and came to be known as Bholanath. It is said[Please name specific person or group] that, it was celibate marriage because when thoughts of sexuality occurred to Bholanath, Anandamoyi's body would take on the qualities of death and she would grow faint.
[edit] Beginning of a Mystic Life
She came to Shahbag with her husband where he had been appointed caretaker of the gardens of the Nawab of Dhaka in 1924. She set up a Kali Temple (1926) in the Siddheshwari area and devoted herself to religious devotion.
Ma Anandamoyi underwent a mystic experience while praying in the temple one day and emerged as Nirmala Anandamayi. It is said[Please name specific person or group] that, in her trance she would hold difficult yogic positions (Asanas) for long periods and spontaneously form complex tantric hand positions (Mudras) and gestures. Henceforth, she became known as Anandamoyi Ma, or Mother Anandamoyi. She set up an ashram at Ramna within the precinct of Kali Mandir. Though her parents were Vaishnavas in creed, she followed the Tantric creed.
[edit] Work as an Ascetic
Anandamoyi went to Dehradun with her husband in 1932 and started working there. She travelled across the subcontinent to make people spiritually enlightened. One of her achievements is her revival of Naimisharanya as a place of pilgrimage. She set up a temple there and arranged for the recitation of holy names and the performance of kirtan and other religious rites.
She renovated many dilapidated holy places and built many new ones. Several ashrams, seats of learning, hospitals etc. were established in her name at Ramna, near Shahbag, and Kheora in Bangladesh and Benares, Kankhal and other areas in India. There are now around 25 such ashrams named after her. It is said[Please name specific person or group] that she blessed Saivas, Shaktas, Vaishnavas, Muslims and Christians equally.
[edit] Death
She died on 27 August 1982 and was buried on the banks of the Ganges near the Kankhal Ashram in Haridwar in North India.
[edit] Followers and Admirers
Her spiritualism attracted many scholars, including Mahamahopadhyay Gopinath Kaviraj, Sanskrit scholar and philosopher and principal of Sanskrit College in Kolkata, and the physician Triguna Sen. Gopinath Kaviraj wrote:
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I have no sense of pleasure or pain, and I stay as I have always been. Sometimes He draws me outside, and sometimes He takes me inside and I am completely withdrawn. I am nobody, all of my actions are done by him and not by me. |
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—Gopinath Kaviraj, Sri Sri Ma Anandamayi: Upadesa O Prasnottara (Calcutta: Pasyant Prakasani, 1382 B.S.), p. 1 |
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As you do not feel the weight of your head, of hands, and of feet ... so do I feel that these persons are all organic members of THIS BODY; so I don't feel their pressure or find their worries weighing on me. Their joys and sorrows, problems and their solutions, I feel to be vitally mine ... I have no ego sense nor conception of separateness. |
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—Gopinath Kaviraj, ed., Mother as Seen by Her Devotees (Varanasi: Shree Shree Anandamayee Sangha, 1967), p. 94 |
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The famous dance artiste Uday Shankar was impressed by her analysis of dance which she used as a metaphor to define the relationship between human beings and God.
[edit] Some Sayings
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Enquire: 'Who am I?' and you will find the answer. Look at a tree: from one seed arises a huge tree; from it comes numerous seeds, each one of which in its turn grows into a tree. No two fruits are alike. Yet it is one life that throbs in every particle of the tree. So, it is the same Atman everywhere. All creation is That: There is beauty in the birds and in the animals. They too eat and drink like us, mate and multiply; but there is this difference: we can realize our true nature, the Atman. Having been born as human beings, we must not waste this opportunity. At least for a few seconds every day, we must enquire as to who we are. It is no use taking a return ticket over and over again. From birth to death, and death to birth is samsara. But really we have no birth and death. We must realize that. |
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—Anandamayi Ma, Ananda Varta Quarterly I/60 |
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As you love your own body, so regard everyone as equal to your own body. When the Supreme Experience supervenes, everyone's service is revealed as one's own service. Call it a bird, an insect, an animal or a man, call it by any name you please, one serve's one's own Self in every one of them. |
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—Anandamayi Ma, Ananda Varta Quarterly I/60 |
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[edit] External links
- Anandamoyi Ma Website
- Ananda Moyi Ma
- Joy Permeated Mother
- Cosmic Harmony Website
- Quotes of Ma Anandamayi
- More quotes of Ma Anandamayi
[edit] Brief Biographies
[edit] Books on Ma Anandamoyi
- Words of Sri Anandamayi Ma, Translated by Atmananda
- Matri Vani —From the Wisdom of Sri Anandamayi Ma (2 Volumes), Translated by Atmananda
- That Compassionate Touch of Ma Anandamayee, Narayan Chaudhuri
- Sri Ma Anandamayi (6 volumes), Gurupriya Ananda Giri
- Mother As Revealed To Me, Bhaiji (J.C. Ray)
- A Bird on the Wing —Life and Teachings of Sri Ma Anandamayi, Bithika Mukerji
- Life and Teaching of Sri Anandamayi ma, Dr. Alexander Lipski
- In Association with Sri Ma Anandamayi (3 Volumes), Amulya Kumar Datta
- Anandamayi Ma the Mother Bliss-incarnate, Anil Ganguli
