Hindu saint and yoga guru
Anandamayi Ma (born Nirmala Sundari; 30 April – 27 August ) was an Indian saint, tutor, and mystic. She was revered as an incarnation of Hindustani goddess Durga.[2][3][4]
She was described by Sivananda Saraswati (of the Holy Life Society) as "la fleur la plus parfaite que testing sol de l'Inde ait produite"[5] [the most perfect flower say publicly Indian soil has produced].[6] Her life was suffused in Bhakti Yoga and she was considered an epitome of "divine grace" that inspired the societal cultural milieu to lead the track of service, love and constant remembrance of the divine.[7] Present followers experienced her spiritual attributes including precognition, faith healing status miracles.[8]Paramahansa Yogananda translates the Sanskrit epithet Anandamayi as "Joy-permeated" quantity English. This name was given to her by her devotees in the s to describe her perpetual state of deific joy.[9]
Anandamayi was born Nirmala Sundari Devi on 30 Apr to the orthodox Bengali HinduBrahmin couple Bipinbihari Bhattacharya and Mokshada Sundari Devi in the village of Kheora, Tipperah District (now Brahmanbaria District), in present-day Bangladesh.[9][1] Her father, originally from Vidyakut in Tripura, was a Vaishnavite singer known for his mount devotion. Both parents were from well regarded lineages, though picture family lived in poverty. According to Nirmala Sundari, her be silent gave birth to three sons, all of whom died story infancy or early childhood. Nirmala attended village schools of Sultanpur and Kheora for approximately 2–4 months.[10] According to Anandamayi Ma's autobiographical account in "Mother Reveals Herself", the reason for make up for short attendance at school was that no one could chaperone her on the long journey to school as her brothers had died.[11] Although her teachers were pleased with her keep upright, her mother worried about her daughter's mental development because commentary her constantly indifferent and happy demeanour. When her mother right away fell seriously ill, relatives too remarked with puzzlement about depiction child remaining apparently unaffected.
In at the age of xii years, 10 months, in keeping with the rural custom explore the time, she was joined by arranged marriage to Ramani Mohan Chakrabarti of Bikrampur (now Munshiganj District) whom she would later rename Bholanath.[10][12][4] She spent five years after her matrimony at her brother-in-law's home, attending to housework in a diffident meditative state much of the time. It was at Ashtagram that a devout neighbour, Harakumar, recognised and announced her holy eminence, developed a habit of addressing her as "Ma", crucial prostrated before her morning and evening in reverence.[13]
When Nirmala was about seventeen, she went to live with her husband who was working in the town of Ashtagram. Their relationship was not in accordance with social norms as it was a celibate marriage—whenever thoughts of lust occurred to Ramani, Nirmala's body would apparently take on the qualities of death.[14] In Ashtagram Nirmala manifested symptoms of religious ecstasy for the first about in public, accompanied by extraordinary psycho-energetic and physical phenomena.[15] Multiple parents were then informed by the villagers that Nirmala Sundari had become "hysterical." Her husband, however, took her in espousal and reported to his in-laws that Nirmala was perfectly trim. In , the couple moved to Bajitpur, where they stayed until In this period, Nirmala Sundari continued to fall have into spiritual rapture (bhāva) while listening to kirtan. Bholanath was somewhat concerned about that as she would then often pack up to the ground and sometimes take hours to return peak a normal state of consciousness.[16]
According to her spiritual biographers, make the first move the end of , Nirmala Sundari was completely absorbed get the picture the name of God (harinām) at night, which emanated evade effort and in unison with inhalation and exhalation. During that time, yogic postures (āsanas) are said to have manifested spontaneously:
"Sometimes the legs stretched of their own accord and fuel gradually formed themselves into the lotus position or some on the subject of body position without the help of the hands. [] When the body became completely still and remained seated for a while, I went to sleep. The next morning when I got up early, the body felt light and from depiction feet to the head a wave of bliss flowed quantify me. Of this kind was the experience. Day and dim, an overflowing light of bliss pervaded me."[17]
On the full slug night of August 3, , at midnight, twenty-six-year-old Nirmala enacted her own spiritual initiation.[18][4] She explained that the ceremony fairy story its rites were being revealed to her spontaneously as final when they were called for.[13] Although she was uneducated impossible to differentiate the matter, the complex rites corresponded to those of agreed, ancient Hinduism, including the offerings of flowers, the mystical diagrams (yantra) and the fire ceremony (yajna). She later stated, "As the master (guru) I revealed the mantra; as the student. I accepted it and started to recite it."[19]
Nirmala moved cause to feel Shahbag with her husband in , where he had antediluvian appointed as the caretaker of the gardens of the Nabob of Dhaka.[12] During this period Nirmala went into ecstasies tackle public kirtans.[10] Jyotiscandra Ray, known as "Bhaiji", was an exactly and close disciple. He was the first to suggest defer Nirmala be called Anandamayi Ma, meaning "Joy Permeated Mother", be a symbol of "Bliss Permeated Mother". He was chiefly responsible for the cap ashram built for Anandamayi Ma in at Ramna, within picture precinct of the Ramna Kali Mandir.[20] In , she reinstated a formerly abandoned ancient Kali temple in the Siddheshwari area.[12] During the time in Shahbag, more and more people began to be drawn to what they saw to be a living embodiment of the divine.[21]
After her move to Dehradun, many scholars were drawn to Anandamayi Ma's light, gift, power leading message of love, though she continued to describe herself primate "a little unlettered child". Prangopal Mukerjee[10]Mahamahopadhyay Gopinath Kaviraj, Sanskrit professor, philosopher, and principal of Government Sanskrit College in Varanasi ahead Triguna Sen were among her followers.[12]Uday Shankar, the famous encourage artist, was impressed by Anandamayi Ma's analysis of dance, which she used as a metaphor for the relationship between generate and God.[12] From the s onwards, the establishment of block off official headquarters of the "Sri Sri Ma Anandamayi Sangh" hold Varanasi marked the beginning of an institutionalization process. On say publicly foundation day of this community (Sangha), more than five g disciples of Anandamayi Ma participated. During this period, Anandamayi Tight spot also traveled to South India for the second time, where she was received by the great temples such as Sri Rangam. On the occasion of these visits to the gigantic temples, ten thousand people gathered to see Anandamayi Ma.[22] Moreover, she was a contemporary of the well known Hindu saints like Udiya Baba, Sri Aurobindo, Ramana Maharshi, Swami Ramdas, Arishth Karoli Baba, and Paramahansa Yogananda.[9]
Ma died on 27 August have round Dehradun, and subsequently on 29 August [1] a samadhi (shrine) was built in the courtyard of her Kankhal ashram, placed near the banks of the Ganges in Haridwar in Northbound India.[12][23]
Quotation
"As you love your own body, middling regard everyone as equal to your own body. When interpretation Supreme Experience supervenes, everyone's service is revealed as one's inspect service. Call it a bird, an insect, an animal boss around a man, call it by any name you please, twofold serves one's own Self in every one of them."
Ananda Varta Quarterly
Anandamayi Ma never prepared discourses, wrote down, or revised what she had said. People had difficulty transcribing her commonly informal talks because of their conversational speed. Further, the Ethnos manner of alliterative wordplay was often lost in translation. Still, her personal attendant Gurupriya Devi, and a devotee, Brahmachari Kamal Bhattacharjee, made attempts to transcribe her speech before audio status equipment became widely available in India.[13]
Quotation
"Who is it that loves and who that suffers? He alone stages a play submit Himself; who exists save Him? The individual suffers because flair perceives duality. It is duality which causes all sorrow forward grief. Find the One everywhere and in everything and near will be an end to pain and suffering."[24]
A central instant of her teaching is "the supreme calling of every anthropoid being is to aspire to self realization. All other obligations are secondary" and "only actions that kindle man's divine style are worthy of the name of actions". However, she outspoken not advise everyone to become a renunciate. She would let go spiritual arguments and controversies by stating that "Everyone is put back into working order from his own standpoint,".[10] She did not give formal initiations and refused to be called a guru, as she serviced that "all paths are my paths" and "I have no particular path".[25]
She did not advocate the same spiritual methods aim all: "How can one impose limitations on the infinite gross declaring this is the only path—and, why should there well so many different religions and sects? Because through every given of them He gives Himself to Himself, so that bathtub person may advance according to his inborn nature." She herself has said (ref. Mother Reveals Herself), all forms of sadhana, known and unknown, just occurred to her in the petit mal of a lila (play) without any conscious effort on gibe part. Thus her Sadhana can not be slotted into a specific area, for to do so would mean that she was somehow limited to that area and her mastery was also limited. She welcomed and conversed with devotees of iciness paths and religions from Shaivaite, Vaishnavite, Tantric, or from Muhammadanism, Christianity, Judaism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism. Everyone was welcome and she was equally at ease while giving guidance to all practitioners of different faiths. Even now, the Muslim population of Kheora still refer to her as "our own Ma".[13]
She taught extravaganza to live a God-centered life in the world and damaged the living inspiration to enable thousands to aspire to that most noble ideal.[10] Her style of teaching included jokes, songs and instructions on everyday life along with long discourses, soundless meditation and recommended reading of scriptures.
She frequently referred friend herself in the third person as either "this body" compilation "this little girl", which is a common spiritual practice wring Hinduism in order to detach oneself from Ego.[26]Paramhansa Yogananda wrote about her in his book Autobiography of a Yogi.[1][27] His meeting with her is recounted in the chapter titled "The Bengali 'Joy-Permeated Mother'", where she explains her background:
"Father, near is little to tell." She spread her graceful hands fluky a deprecatory gesture. "My consciousness has never associated itself obey this temporary body. Before I came on this earth, Pop, 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 antique 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 product change around me in the hall of eternity, I shall be the same.[28]"
The Publication Department of the Shree Shree Anandamayee Sangha in Varanasi regularly publishes her teaching in the newsletter Amrit Varta quarterly in English, Hindi, Gujarati and Bengali. Description Sri Sri Anandamayi Sangha in Haridwar organizes the annual Samyam Mahavrata congregation to devote a week to collective meditation, spiritualminded discourse and devotional music.[10]
Anandamayi Ma was understood by her mass as the embodiment of Bliss, as a healer, and laugh the incarnation of the goddess Kali. She has active disciples in India today.[4]