Sri Anandamoyi Ma

Sri Ma Anandamayi
Date of birth	April 30 1896(1896-04-30)
Place of birth	Kheora, Brahmanbaria, Bangladesh
Date of passing	27 August 1982 (aged 86)
Place of passing	Kishanpur, Dehradun, India Last rites were performed in Kankhal, Haridwar, India

Sri Anandamoyi Ma (Bengali: শ্রী আনন্দময়ী মা Sri Anondomoi Ma; 1896 - 1982), also called Anandamayi Ma, was a spiritual teacher (Guru), saint and a mystic from Bengal, and hailed as one of prominent mystics of the 20th century. During her times, she was considered the embodiment of spiritual bliss and her name literally means Joy Permeated Mother.

Anandamayi was her ashram name, but she was also called Dakshayani, Kamala, Vimala, and "Mother of Shahbag". Swami Sivananda (Divine Life Society) had said that she was the finest flower that the soil of India had produced. Precognition, healing and other miracles are reported of her.

Biography

Early life

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, who came originally from Vidyakut in Tripura, was a Vaishnavite singer. His devotion was shown when during a storm which blew the roof off their home, he was said to have continued singing during the downpour. His daughter experienced the presence of divine power in herself since childhood and went into a trance (Bhava) on hearing kirtans. She attended the village school for barely two years.

At the age of thirteen, in 1908, she was married to Ramani Mohan Chakrabarti of Vikramapura, who she called Bholanath and pitaji. She spent 5 years after her marriage at her brother-in-law's home, where she was in a trancelike state much of the time. It was a celibate marriage because whenever thoughts of sexuality occurred to him, Anandamoyi's body would take on the qualities of death and she would grow faint. When Nirmala Sundari was about 17, Nirmala went to live with her husband in Ashtagram. It was here that a devout neighbour, Harakumar, developed a habit of addressing her as "Ma", and prostrated before her morning and evening. In 1918, they went on to live in Bajitpur, where she became famous for her beauty. Here they stayed till 1924, while Nirmala went deeper into her trances. 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 - all by herself. Members of Bholanath's family did not respond to his wife’s strange behavior as calmly as he did. While his relatives suggested he remarry, he became her first disciple in 1922. Her second disciple was Bhaiji.

In Dhaka

Nirmala moved to Shahbag with her husband in 1924, where he had been appointed caretaker of the gardens of the Nawab of Dhaka. During this period Nirmala used to manifest the ecstasy that resembled Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. In 1926 she set up a Kali temple in the Siddheshwari area and devoted herself to spirituality. Nirmala underwent a mystic experience while praying in the temple one day. In her trance, she would hold difficult yogic positions for long periods and spontaneously form complex tantric hand positions and gestures. Henceforth, she became known as Anandamoyi Ma, meaning the Joy Permeated Mother. She set up an ashram at Ramna within the precinct of the Ramna Kali Mandir. Though her parents were Vaishnavas, she followed the Tantric creed.

Scholars were attracted to Anandamoyi Ma's spiritualism, though she called herself "a little unlettered child". Mahamahopadhyay Gopinath Kaviraj, Sanskrit scholar, philosopher, and principal of Sanskrit College in Kolkata and the physician Triguna Sen were among them. Uday Shankar, the famous dance artist, was impressed by Anandamoyi's analysis of dance, which was used as a metaphor defining the relationship between humans and God.

In Dehradun

In 1932, Anandamoyi Ma went to Dehradun with her husband and started working there. She travelled across the subcontinent to enlighten others. Several ashrams, and seats of learning hospitals were established in her name at Ramna (near Shahbag) and Kheora in Bangladesh, and Benares, Kankhal and other areas in India. Twenty-five ashrams are named after her. She also renovated many dilapidated holy places, including the Naimisharanya, where she set up a temple there and arranged for the recitation of holy names and the performance of kirtan and other religious rites. At this times people like Arnaud Desjardins, the French producer of sprititual films, Melita Maschmann, the German novelist, and Dr. Collin Turnbull, the English author, became her disciples.

Kamala Nehru, wife of the future prime Minster, Jawaharlal Nehru, became a devotee in 1933. Anandamoyi was then staying at a small temple in Dehradun, while Pandit 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. 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.

She visited Ramana Maharshi at his ashram and also met J Krishnamurti. Although she is mentioned in many books about Indian spiritual teachers, she is 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:

"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."

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

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)

Anandamoyi never prepared her discourse, wrote anything down, or revised what she had said. It is said that noting down what she said in her discourses was difficult, as the musicality and alliterative word-play of her saying died in writing. Only Brahmachari Kamal Bhattacharjee is said to have had the ability to transcribe her discourse with scrupulous fidelity.

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. She did not give formal initiations and refused to be called a guru, as she maintained that "all paths are my paths" and kept telling "I have no particular path".

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 everyone of them He gives Himself to Himself, so that each person may advence according to his inborn nature." Though she was Tantric, Anandamoyi Ma blessed Saivas, Shaktas, Vaishnavas, Muslims and Christians equally. Even now, the Muslim population of Kheora still refer to her as "our own Ma". She taught how to live a God-centered life in the world and provided the powerful living inspiration to enable thousands to aspire to this most noble ideal. Her way of teaching involved jokes, songs and instructions on everyday life along with long discourses, meditation and reading of scriptures.

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 congregration to devote a week to collective meditation, religious discourse and devotional music.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Fitzgerald, Joseph and 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. 
• 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. 

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

• Sri Anandamoyi Ma  ^history

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

• History of "Sri Anandamoyi Ma"

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.