Anandamayi Ma: the joy-permeated mother
Part 8 of The Masters Who Crossed the Ocean. She wrote no books, founded no method, and refused to be called a guru — yet she drew the century's great seekers to her, and reached the West through the pages of Autobiography of a Yogi.
The Masters Who Crossed the Ocean — Part 8 of 12.
Every other figure in this series built something — an institution, a method, a book. Anandamayi Ma built nothing, and refused the title of guru altogether. Yet the "bliss-permeated mother" drew some of the twentieth century's great seekers to her feet, and reached the Western world through the most widely read spiritual book ever written.
Nirmala Sundari
She was born Nirmala Sundari on 30 April 1896 in Kheora, a village in what is now Bangladesh, into an orthodox Bengali Brahmin family, with almost no formal schooling. Married as a child to Ramani Mohan Chakrabarti — whom she renamed Bholanath — her marriage remained celibate, by the accounts of devotees, because her body would fall into death-like states whenever desire arose in her husband.
The awakening
From around 1918 she entered spontaneous states of absorption, describing "an overflowing light of bliss" by day and night. On the full-moon night of 3 August 1922 she performed her own spiritual initiation — enacting intricate rituals she had never been taught — and devotees soon began to call her Anandamayi Ma, "the joy-permeated mother."
The mother of all paths
She was a saint unlike the institution-builders around her. She refused to give formal initiation and rejected the role of guru, saying "all paths are my paths," and welcomed Hindus, Muslims, Christians and others alike. She referred to herself only as "this body" or "this little girl." Scholars, artists and political figures were drawn to her — among her devotees were Kamala Nehru and Indira Gandhi.
The Western bridge
Her name travelled across the ocean inside someone else's book. Paramahansa Yogananda — the subject of Part 2 of this series — met her and devoted a chapter of Autobiography of a Yogi to "The Bengali 'Joy-Permeated Mother,'" recording her words: "My consciousness has never associated itself with this temporary body." Through that single book, read by millions in the West, a woman who almost never left India became known across the world.
She died on 27 August 1982 in Dehradun; her shrine stands at Kankhal, near the Ganges at Haridwar. Swami Sivananda — who appears next in this series — called her the finest spiritual flowering Indian soil had produced.
Next in the series: Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh, the teacher whose students taught the world.
Sources: Wikipedia: Anandamayi Ma.
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