Sri Anandamayi Ma


Sri Anandamayi Ma

Studio photo of Anandamayi Ma
Date of Birth 30 April 1896(1896-04-30)
Place of birth Kheora, Brahmanbaria, Bangladesh
Birth Nirmala Sundari
Date of death 27 August 1982 (aged 86)
Place of death Kishanpur, Dehradun, India—last rites were performed in Kankhal, Haridwar, India
Quote "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]
This box: view • talk

Sri Anandamayi Ma (Bengali: শ্রী আনন্দময়ী মা Sri Anondomoi Ma; 1896 - 1982), also called 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 "Joy Permeated Mother", a name given by her disciples in the 1920s to describe 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]

Contents

Biography

Early life and sadhana

Anandamayi Ma was born Nirmala Sundari (নির্মলা সুন্দরী Nirmôla Shundori) 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 had frequent experiences of the divine in childhood and 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, who she called Bholanath and Pitaji.[7][8] She spent 5 years after her marriage at her brother-in-law's home, where she was in a withdrawn meditative state much of the time.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] In 1918, she moved to Bajitpur, where she stayed until 1924, during which time Nirmala went deeper into her deep spiritual states. When Nirmala was about 17, she went to live with her husband in Ashtagram. It was a celibate marriage—whenever thoughts of sexuality occurred to Bholanath, Anandamoyi's body would take on the qualities of death and she would grow faint.[10] 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.

On the full moon night of August 1922, at midnight, 26-year old 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 from 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 this time, her sadhana (spiritual practices) took on more concrete form. 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—those 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 she began exhibiting various spiritual powers, or siddhis. In January, 1923, she began three years of complete silence, or mauna.[14]

In Dhaka

Anandamoyi Ma

Nirmala moved to Shahbag with her husband in 1924, where he had been appointed caretaker of the gardens of the Nawab of Dhaka.[7] During this period Nirmala used to experience ecstasy similar to that of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.[8] Nirmala continued to perform household tasks, though she continued to practice silence, and was in a withdrawn state of ecstasy much of the time. These states began to interfere wih her work.[15] In 1926 she set up a Kali temple in the Siddheshwari area and devoted herself to spiritual practices.[7] Nirmala underwent 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 "Joy Permeated Mother", or "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 Anandamoyi 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 physician Triguna Sen.[7] Uday Shankar, the famous dance artist, was impressed by Anandamoyi Ma's analysis of dance, which she used as a metaphor for the relationship between people and God.[7]

In Dehradun

Wikisource
Wikisource has original text related to this article:

In 1932, Anandamoyi 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 like Arnaud Desjardins, the French producer of sprititual films, Melita Maschmann, the German novelist, and Dr. Colin Turnbull, the English author, became her disciples.[8]

Kamala Nehru, wife of the future Prime Minster 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]

She visited Ramana Maharshi at his ashram and also met J Krishnamurti.[19] Paramahansa 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 he wrote:

Ma Anandamayi Samadhi Mandir, Kankhal, Haridwar

"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."

Sri Daya Mata, a disciple of the Paramahansa Yogananda and President of Yogoda Sat-Sanga Society of India and Self-Realisation Fellowship of America, met her on February 12, 1959. She writes:

Many years ago, in Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., my blessed Gurudev, Paramahansa Yogananda, showed me a photograph of Ananda Mayee Ma and said to me "Strive to become like her." That memory has remained these many years in my heart, and on February 12th I met at last my Ideal in the mother-form.[20]

She died on 27 August, 1982 and was buried on the banks of the Ganges near the Kankhal Ashram in Haridwar in North India.[7]

Teachings

“ 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. ”

—Anandamayi Ma, Ananda Varta Quarterly

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".[21]

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, Anandamoyi 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.[21]

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]

Books on Sri Anandamayi Ma

  • Fitzgerald, Joseph; Alexander Lipski (2007). The Essential Sri Anandamayi Ma: Life and Teaching of a 20th Century Indian Saint. World Wisdom. ISBN 978-1-933316-41-3. 
  • Banerjee, Shyamananda (1973). A Mystic Sage: Ma Anandamayi: Ma Anandamayi. s.n.. 
  • Chaudhuri, Narayan (1986). That Compassionate Touch of Ma Anandamayee. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. ISBN 8120802047. 
  • Datta, Amulya Kumar. In Association with Sri Ma Anandamayi. 
  • Ganguli, Anil. Anandamayi Ma the Mother Bliss-incarnate. 
  • Ganguly, Adwaita P (1996). Yuga-Avatar Sri Sri Ma Anandamayee and Universal Religion. VRC Publications. ISBN 8187530006. 
  • Giri, Gurupriya Ananda. Sri Ma Anandamayi. 
  • Hallstrom, Lisa Lassell (1999). Mother of Bliss. US: Oxford University Press. ISBN 019511647X. 
  • Joshi, Hari Ram (1999). Ma Anandamayi Lila, Memoirs of Hari Ram Joshi. Kolkata: Shree Shree Anandamayee Charitable Society. 
  • Kaviraj, Gopinath (1382 B.S.). Sri Sri Ma Anandamayi: Upadesa O Prasnottara. Kolkata: Pasyant Prakasani. 
  • Kaviraj, Gopinath (1967). Mother as Seen by Her Devotees. Varanasi: Shree Shree Anandamayee Sangha. 
  • Lipski, Alexander (1983). Life and Teachings of Sri Anandamayi ma. Orient Book Distributors. 
  • Bhaiji, Swami Atmananda (1975). Sad Vani: A Collection of the Teaching of Sri Anandamayi Ma. Shree Shree Anandamayee Charitable Society. 
  • Bhaiji. Matri Vani — From the Wisdom of Sri Anandamayi Ma. trans. Swami Atmananda. 
  • Maschmann, Melita (2002). Encountering Bliss: My Journey Through India with Anandamayi Ma. trans. S.B. Shrotri. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. ISBN 8120815416. 
  • Mukerji, Bithika (1998). A Bird on the Wing — Life and Teachings of Sri Ma Anandamayi. Sri Satguru Publications. ISBN 8170305772. 
  • Mukerji, Bithika (2002). My Days with Sri Ma Anandamayi. India: Indica Books. ISBN 8186569278. 
  • Mukerji, Bithika (1970). From the Life of Sri Anandamayi Ma. India: Sri Sri Anandamayi Sangha, Varanasi. 
  • Ray, J. Mother As Revealed To Me, Bhaiji. 
  • Yogananda, Paramahansa (1946). Autobiography of a Yogi. New York: Philosophical Library. 

References

  1. ^ Ananda Varta, Vol. 9, No. 4.
  2. ^ Lipski, Alexander. "Some Aspects of the Life and Teachings of the East Bengal Saint Ananadamayi Ma". History of Religions (The University of Chicago Press) Vol. 9 (No. 1 (Aug., 1969)): pp. 59-77. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1062142. Retrieved on 29/11/2008. 
  3. ^ Heehs, Peter (2002). Indian Religions: A Historical Reader of Spiritual Expression and Experience. NYU Press. p. 534. ISBN 9780814736500. 
  4. ^ Coogan, Michael D. (2003). The Illustrated Guide to World Religions. Oxford University Press US. p. 142. ISBN 9780195219975. 
  5. ^ Mother, as Seen by Her Devotees. Shree Shree Anandamayee Sangha. 1995. 
  6. ^ Chaudhuri, Narayan (1986). That Compassionate Touch of Ma Anandamayee. Motilal Banarsidass Publ.. ISBN 9788120802049.  pp. 16-18; pp. 24-26; pp. 129-133
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Ghosh, Monoranjan (January 2003). Banglapedia. Dhaka: Asiatic Society of Bangladesh. Anandamayi. ISBN 978-9843205766. http://banglapedia.search.com.bd/HT/A_0237.htm. 
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h Introduction, As the Flower Sheds Its Fragrance, Shree Shree Ma Anadamayee Sangha, Kankhal, Haridwar; Retrieved: 2007-12-08
  9. ^ a b c d e f Richard Lannoy; Ananadamayi: Her Life and Wisdom; Element Books Ltd; 1996; ISBN 1852309148
  10. ^ McDaniel, June (1989). The Madness of the Saints: Ecstatic Religion in Bengal. University of Chicago Press. p. 194. ISBN 9780226557236. 
  11. ^ Hallstrom, Lisa Lassell (1999). Mother of Bliss: Ānandamayī Mā (1896-1982). Oxford University Press US. p. 39. ISBN 9780195116472. 
  12. ^ Hallstrom, p. 39.
  13. ^ McDaniel, p. 196.
  14. ^ Hallstrom, p. 41.
  15. ^ Hallstrom, p. 42.
  16. ^ Hallstrom, pp. 42-43.
  17. ^ Lipski, p. 66.
  18. ^ Heehs, p. 534.
  19. ^ Pupul Jayakar, "Krishnamurti", p. 144.
  20. ^ Ananda Varta., VOL VII No 3.
  21. ^ a b Mataji's Methods, As the Flower Sheds Its Fragrance, Shree Shree Ma Anadamayee Sangha, Kankhal, Haridwar; Retrieved: 2007-12-08


External links

Sister project Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Sri Anandamayi Ma
sex





stock | retire | vm
Why are we here?
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License
This page is cache of Wikipedia. History