| Sri Anandamayi Ma | |
|---|---|
Studio photo of Anandamayi Ma |
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| Born | 30 April 1896 Kheora, Brahmanbaria, Bangladesh |
| Died | 27 August 1982 (aged 86) Kishanpur, Dehradun, India—last rites were performed in Kankhal, Haridwar, India |
| Birth name | Nirmala Sundari |
| Quotation | "Who is it that loves and who that suffers? He alone stages a play with Himself; who exists save Him? The individual suffers because he perceives duality. It is duality which causes all sorrow and grief. Find the One everywhere and in everything and there will be an end to pain and suffering."[1] |
Sri Anandamayi Ma (Bengali: শ্রী আনন্দময়ী মা Sri Anondomoyi Ma; 30 April 1896 - 27 August 1982) (also Anandamoyi Ma) was a Hindu spiritual teacher and guru from Bengal, considered a saint by many and hailed as one of the prominent mystics of the 20th century.[2] Anandamayi means "bliss-permeated mother", a name given by her disciples in the 1920s to describe what they saw as her habitual state of divine bliss.[3] During her life, she attracted thousands of followers who saw her not only as a teacher and guru, but as a manifestation of God, or Devi.[4]
She was also called Dakshayani, Kamala, Vimala, and "Mother of Shahbag". Swami Sivananda (Divine Life Society) described her as "the most perfect flower the Indian soil has produced."[5] Precognition, healing and other miracles were attributed to her by her followers.[6]
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Anandamayi Ma was born Nirmala Sundari (নির্মলা সুন্দরী; Nirmôla Shundori, English: "Immaculate, Beautiful") on 30 April 1896 to Bipinbihari Bhattacharya and Mokshada Sundari Devie in Kheora, Brahmanbaria District, British India, in what is now Bangladesh. Her father, originally from Vidyakut in Tripura, was a Vaishnavite singer known for his devotion.[7] His daughter claims to have had frequent experiences of the divine in childhood and, it is claimed, often went into a state of ecstasy on hearing kirtan (devotional chanting).[7] She attended the village school for barely two years.[8]
In 1908, at the age of thirteen, in keeping with the custom at the time, she was married to Ramani Mohan Chakrabarti of Vikramapura, whom she called Bholanath and Pitaji.[7][8] She spent five years after her marriage at her brother-in-law's home, where she was in a withdrawn meditative state much of the time. It was here that a devout neighbour, Harakumar, developed a habit of addressing her as "Ma", and prostrated before her morning and evening.[9] When Nirmala was about seventeen, she went to live with her husband in Ashtagram. In 1918, she moved to Bajitpur, where she stayed until 1924, during which time Nirmala went deeper into her spiritual states. It was a celibate marriage—whenever thoughts of sexuality occurred to Bholanath, Anandamoyi would grow faint and her body would take on the qualities of death.[10]
On the full moon night of August 1922, at midnight, twenty-six-yearold Nirmala went through the actions of spiritual initiation—initiating herself, rather than following the tradition of initiation by a guru or priest.[9] She later stated, "As the master (guru) I revealed the mantra; as the disciple (shishya) I accepted it and started to recite it."[11] Because of his wife's condition, members of Bholanath's family suggested that he remarry. Instead, he asked her when and by whom he should be initiated. She gave him a date five months in the future when she would initiate him. After an acquaintance asked her for proof that she was qualified to do so, she touched Bholanath on the top of the head. He went into a deep withdrawn state for several hours, declaring later that he was feeling "indescribable bliss."[12]
At that time, her sadhana (spiritual practices) took on more concrete form. It is claimed that she began spontaneously chanting Sanskrit hymns, even though she was completely uneducated. She also performed intricate yoga postures and went for days at a time without food or drink. At one point, Bholanath called an exorcist to 'cure' her—these attempts failed, and finally a physician told him that she was experiencing God intoxication rather than mental illness.[13] It was during this period that, it is claimed, she began exhibiting various spiritual powers, or siddhis. In January, 1923, she began three years of complete silence, or mauna.[14]
Nirmala moved to Shahbag with her husband in 1924, where he had been appointed caretaker of the gardens of the Nawab of Dhaka.[7] Nirmala continued to perform household tasks, though she often practiced silence and was said to be in a withdrawn state of ecstasy much of the time. These states began to interfere with her work.[15] On his return from the office at the end of the working day, Bholanath often found Nirmala lying on the kitchen floor, the food half cooked or burnt. In 1926 she set up a Kali temple in the Siddheshwari area and devoted herself to spiritual practices.[7] Nirmala claimed to have undergone a mystic experience while praying in the temple one day.[7] In a deep meditative state, she held difficult yogic positions for long periods and spontaneously formed complex tantric hand positions and gestures.
During the time in Shahbag, more and more people began to be drawn to what they saw as a living embodiment of the divine.[16] Jyotiscandra Ray, known as "Bhaiji," was an early and close disciple—he was the first to suggest that Nirmala be called Anandamayi Ma, meaning "bliss-permeated mother". He was chiefly responsible for the first ashram built for Anandamayi Ma in 1929 at Ramna, within the precinct of the Ramna Kali Mandir.[17]
Scholars were attracted to Anandamayi Ma's spirituality and teaching, though she called herself "a little unlettered child".[8]
Her early followers included Mahamahopadhyay Gopinath Kaviraj, Sanskrit scholar, philosopher, and principal of Sanskrit College in Kolkata, and the educationist Dr Triguna Sen.[7] Uday Shankar, the famous dance artist, was impressed by Anandamayi Ma's analysis of dance, which she used as a metaphor for the relationship between people and God.[7]
In 1932, Anandamayi Ma moved to Dehradun with her husband.[7] From that time, until her death in 1982, she traveled across the subcontinent, never staying more than two weeks in the same place.[18] Several ashrams and teaching hospitals were established in her name at Ramna (near Shahbag) and Kheora in Bangladesh, and Benares, Kankhal and other parts of India.[7] Twenty-five ashrams are named after her.[7] She also renovated many dilapidated holy places, including the Naimisharanya, where she set up a temple and arranged for the recitation of holy names and the performance of kirtan and other religious rites.[7] During this period many people, such as Arnaud Desjardins, the French producer of spiritual films, Melita Maschmann, the German novelist, and Dr. Colin Turnbull, the English author, became her disciples.[8]
Kamala Nehru, wife of the future Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, became a devotee in 1933. Anandamayi Ma was then staying at a small temple in Dehradun, while Jawarharlal Nehru was incarcerated by the British in Dehradun jail. Later she took Kamala to the Ambika temple in Kajpur to perform a three-day yajna. She gave to her daughter Indira the rosary which Mataji had given her.[9] Mahatma Gandhi came to hear of Anandamayi through Kamala and sent his aid, Jamnalal Bajaj, to see her. He in turn became a devotee. After the unexpected death of Bajaj, she went to Wardha to console Mahatma Gandhi.[9]
Paramhansa Yogananda wrote about her in his Autobiography of a Yogi. His meeting with her is recounted in the chapter titled "The Bengali 'Joy-Permeated Mother'", where she explains her background:
"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 around me in the hall of eternity, I shall be the same."
She died on 27 August 1982 in Dehradun, and subsequently on 29 August 1982 was given Samadhi in the courtyard of her Kankhal ashram, situated in Haridwar in North India,[7][19][20] a shrine was later erected over the samadhi, now known as the “Ananda Jyoti Peetham”.[21]
| “ | 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 serves one's own Self in every one of them. | ” |
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—Anandamayi Ma, Ananda Varta Quarterly |
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Anandamayi Ma never prepared her discourses, wrote anything down, or revised what she had said. People had difficulty transcribing her talks, as the musicality and alliterative word-play didn't translate well to writing. Only Brahmachari Kamal Bhattacharjee was able to transcribe her discourses with scrupulous fidelity.[9]
The central theme of her teaching, in endless variation, is "the supreme calling of every human being is to aspire to self realization. All other obligations are secondary" and "only actions that kindle man's divine nature are worthy of the name of actions". However she did not ask everyone to become a renunciate. "Everyone is right from his own standpoint," she would say.[8] She did not give formal initiations and refused to be called a guru, as she maintained that "all paths are my paths" and kept saying "I have no particular path".[22]
She did not advocate the same method for all. "How can one impose limitations on the infinite by declaring this is the only path—and, why should there be so many different religions and sects? Because through every one of them He gives Himself to Himself, so that each person may advance according to his inborn nature." Though she was a Tantric, Anandamayi Ma blessed Saivites, Shaktas, Vaishnavas, Muslims and Christians equally. Even now, the Muslim population of Kheora still refer to her as "our own Ma".[9] She taught how to live a God-centered life in the world and provided the living inspiration to enable thousands to aspire to this most noble ideal.[8] She also advocated spiritual equality for women; for example, she opened up the sacred thread ritual, which had been performed by men only for centuries, to women. Her style of teaching included jokes, songs and instructions on everyday life along with long discourses, meditation and reading of scriptures.[22]
The Publication Department of Shree Shree Anandamayee Charitable Society in Kolkata regularly publishes her teaching in the periodical Anandavarta Quarterly. The Shree Shree Anandamayee Sangha in Haridwar organizes the annual Samyam Mahavrata congregation to devote a week to collective meditation, religious discourse and devotional music.[8]