MOTHER

The present work brings together some papers from a number of writers, Indian and Non-Indian, on what each of them thinks about Mother Anandamayi and of the reaction of each to the influence of Her superb personality. All these writers claim to be among Her devout admirers, and though some of them may have known Her for a short time only, others have been privileged to be in more or less close touch with Her for several years. What they have written is naturally interesting, being a sincere expression of their views, and for some it has indeed been a frank out-pouring of the heart. It seems, however, that all of them have been deeply impressed with Mother's sanctity, wisdom and love, and greatly influenced by the extraordinary qualities of Her life and character; although none of them have anything to say, except incidentally, on the mystery of Her Being and Personality.

This is as it should have been. For it hardly becomes us, children as we are, to analyse and dissect our Mother, nor is it possible for us, crying ourselves for light in the darkness of night, to shed any light on Her. It is evident that an attempt of this kind, even if it were made, is bound to be a failure.

(2)

I have been asked by friends to write a few lines in appreciation of Mother, which might be prefixed, to the present volume as a brief introduction. I confess I could not find a way to decision so easily. Requests were insistent, but my indecision did not for a long time seem to give way. At last, however, I have had to yield and am now trying to comply with their request, though with the greatest reluctance. But what should I write in appreciation? I am simply noting my incompetence. I had already felt years ago, when writing a foreword to Mother's "Life" by Sri Gurupriya Devi (published in 1938) that it was beyond my power to delineate through words a faithful picture of Mother, showing Her not merely as She truly was in Herself, but even as She appeared to me. I feel the same difficulty and hesitancy even now, perhaps all the more strongly with the deepening of my sense of mystery about Her, consequent on closer and more immediate contact with Her personality.

(3)

I, therefore, sympathise with those to whom Mother is verily a riddle. She is so very unlike ordinary or even extraordinary persons known to us that it is extremely hard to make any positive statement about Her with any degree of confidence of accuracy. We know that similar difficulties leading to misunderstanding were experienced in the case of some of the supremely great persons of the past and that as a result many of these persons actually felt that they were not truly appreciated and were even misunderstood by those among whom they lived and for whom they worked. Sri Krsna, for instance, complained that most people - some of the gods as well - not knowing his true nature looked down upon him as an ordinary mortal. Gautama, the Buddha, too in a subsequent age spoke in the same strain saying that very few people understood him properly.

That Mother's life, even Her earliest life, should abound in extraordinary incidents is not surprising, - we are accustomed to such incidents in the lives of genuine saints, mystics and yogins.

They exist and have their place of honour in those lives.

But all these pale into insignificance before the wonderful poise and bliss of Her sweet but magnificent personality - a personality which, strong as it is, blends into the Impersonal, nay is utterly undifferentiated from it.

It is well-known that the illumination and liberation of saints and mystics presuppose an earlier stage of ignorance and bondage, followed usually by a period of aspiration, personal exertion and austerities. This stage is usually found in the present life itself, or, in exceptional cases, in a pre-natal state of existence. But in the case of Mother we are told that such a prior state of ignorance never existed at all. The possibility of an ante-natal embodied existence is ruled out on Mother's definite assurance that Her life is not subject to the laws of natural causation and that She has no prior life to account for Her present existence. And even what looked like a path of discipleship in Her pre-marital and early post-marital life was not, as we shall see presently, more than a playful representative with self-imposed discipline in which She con-descended to take part merely as a matter of sport.

It had no meaning for Her subsequent life in any way.

Among the well-known mystics of the world we seldom find any in whom we do not observe a period of gloom and subjective torture antecedent to the descent of Light. Mother had no experience of darkness in Her life, either of the soul or of the spirit nor had She any experience of the descent of Light except as a matter of play. It is said that from Her very birth She was aware of what She had ever been and what She would always continue to be and that there was no possibility of a deviation from Her self-conscious stature for a single moment.

Her self-knowledge, we are assured, did not arise under the impact of an extrinsic element outside of Herself - it was always with Her, being a state of Her nature. It was there already in its fullness, requiring no effort on Her part, nor any ace from above, to bring it into greater perfection.

(4)

Ordinarily three sources of illumination are recognised, viz.

(a) Daiya, (b) Arsa and (c) Paurusa.

In the first case (Daiya), knowledge dawns on the soul absorbed in contemplation of some heavenly form as illustrated by the knowledge of Arjuna coming from Sri Krsna. This contemplation may or may not be accompanied by the descent of self-conscious grace from the form of the deity concerned; and in the case of descent of grace it may be gross, subtle, more subtle, or even the subtlest depending on whether it is effected through touch, speech, vision or mere thought. Apart from the difference in degree of grace there may be difference in the quality of the grace infused, according as it results in the unification or otherwise of the soul with the source of its knowledge. There are cases known to history where such knowledge is not found accompanied by conscious grace at all, e.g. the knowledge of the analysis of the five-fold sheath of the soul which was received by Bhrgu from Varuna, or the particular Vidya which Yama imparted to Nachiketa.

The Arsa variety is called pratibha. It is not derived from anybody's verbal instruction, but is produced from within spontaneously. Its classical example is Trisanku who was engaged in continued upasana identifying himself in thought with the Supreme Brahman. This gave rise in due time to the actual intuition of Brahman.

The third or Paurusa type is the normal variety in which a human Guru communicates his wisdom to a human disciple as Suka Deva did to Pariksit. This type of Brahma Jnana arises in one devoted to one's teacher on account of the virtuous acts of one's previous lives having come to maturity. In this case too the possibility or otherwise of conscious Saktipata from the human teacher as an accompaniment is to be considered. Whether there is Saktipata or not, the alternative of upasana or its absence is also there, The quantitative classification as in the other types is possible even here.

We can easily dismiss the first and the third, as both of them imply the origin of knowledge from a separate source, divine or human, and as they refer respectively to one who meditates on God or who is devoted to Guru. The second variety is also discarded as it refers here to cases of persons who having attained to some degree of perfection have subsequently experienced a fall from the height. It is not true jnana at all. As regards genuine pratibha we shall revert to it later.

(5)

Now what is the nature of the self-knowledge which was innate with Mother?

It is clear from what has been said above that though self-knowledge, on the analogy of lower knowledge, has its roots within, its exciting cause is usually outside, as it is initiated by forces working without us. But it may also be, as already pointed out, due to initiation from within, in which case the external agencies would be no more than merely propagating forces. History records instances of illumination of both these types. The Divine Grace is the most important factor, not only in the awakening of religious consciousness in man but also in its subsequent development in him till the union with the Divine is accomplished. Granting this as a necessary pre-condition of active spiritual life, what is needed in ordinary cases is the operation of a mediating factor through which such grace may become accessible to man. For the bodily and the mental mechanism of an average individual is not capable of bearing the strain involved in the direct transmission of Divine Grace. As a rule God's Grace is said to act on a receptive vehicle free from contact with matter, i.e. on an un-embodied soul in a pre-creational state.

But if the soul in the process of creative evolution happens to take on a body of impure matter it can no longer receive grace directly from the Divine source, but receives it only through a medium. The medium would be an embodied being whose body may be of exclusively pure matter or of pure matter mixed with impure. Barring the immaculate bodies of the heavenly brotherhood entrusted with the guardianship of the world and with the task of imparting knowledge in the beginning of creation we have to consider in this context the hierarchy of Teachers consisting of three well-known groups (Ogha), viz. Divya, Siddha and Manava.

The Divya or celestial and Manava or human correspond loosely to the Daiva and Pauru mentioned above.

Between these two the Agamas place the Siddha or superhuman group.

This medium serves the purpose of an Acirya or Guru to the uninitiated seekers after Knowledge.

Thus Grace acts freely and immediately in the case of souls which are not clogged with material vestments. This is possible where Grace does not require any external support for its manifestation (Niradhikarana Anugraha) and it acts indirectly through pure bodies on recipient souls endowed with bodies of maya. This is an instance of Grace acting through a support as its medium (Sadhikarana Anugraha).

By the term 'Grace' we should understand here the special Grace of the Lord and not the general grace which confers benefit other than Supreme Realization.

There are thus two ways of approach to Grace in Indian cultural tradition and the two ways generally meet and seem to be really two aspects of one and the same way. Both are concerned with one's outlook on Guru as the Principle of Divine Grace, functioning in one view by itself, and in the other through its concrete expression in a manifested form available for the purpose. In fact there appears to be no substantial difference between the two trends of thought. In actual practice the object of veneration is held from both these standpoints to be above the entire creation. But one should remember an important point in this connection which is likely to be lost sight of. During Manifestation each of the different Aspects of Pure Order beyond Time, where the sequence is only logical, involves complexities in its features, but in the simple Unity of the Eternal Self-luminous all complications are conspicuous by their absence, for the Transcendent is above all categories. For instance, Guru as an abstract principle is one of the eternal verities. The Universal Being pervades All and is one with All; by virtue of its presence it occupies every position simultaneously and is identified with each and yet it retains its transcendent character and uniqueness. An individual human being on the other hand by virtue of the spiritual elevation may very well occupy the position of a Guru for the time and perform the function connected with this position. This, however, is tentative and endures so long as the merit of the incumbent is not exhausted, whereupon he retires giving place to another individual of the same kind who continues the function and keeps the chain unbroken. This shows that Guru is both human and divine, human in view of the transitional character of the medium adopted by the Divine Power for its own purpose, and divine in consideration of the Supreme Principle of Compassion which is eternal and inspires the medium concerned. The Power of God functions through a man or any other embodied being. For this reason it is enjoined that even a secondary Guru, human, super-human and even celestial, should be looked upon by the disciple as divine. Strictly speaking, the Divine Being is free from all attributes incidental to contingent existence and does not deserve to be called by any of the names associated with human activities.

Those in whom the supreme intuition does not arise from within, have naturally to depend for its origin either on illuminated persons or on revelation. But to one in whom it flashes up spontaneously revealing Truth fully and immediately, external aids are held to be unnecessary. Such a man is believed to be a master of every phase of spiritual life and possesses the ability to impart it successfully to the needy. It is said that the process of his so called self-initiation is in reality a process of introversion of senses and their subsequent unification with the true Self which awakens the latent divine consciousness. This is the secret of his self-acquired authority. He never feels any urge for resorting to an external teacher for interpreting the sacred word, for his inner sense reveals it to him. This is an illustration of how Pure Light, free from intellectual and conceptual elements, comes into manifestation. In the matter of communicating his wisdom to others, he is guided solely by the consideration of the receptive capacity and other qualities of the seeker Thus if the minds of the recipients are absolutely pure the beneficent Will of the Master is by itself sufficient to kindle their spiritual sense. But if they are not so pure, external accessories of a formal character consistent with their inner demands may have to be conceded to suit their requirements. Such a unique person is a Guru unto himself and is known as Akalpita Guru, possessed of Full Knowledge and Power manifested from within.

But when this self-derived knowledge and power is imperfect he has to remove it and bring the knowledge into perfection by some means or other, e.g. through a mental act viz. bhavana or contemplation or japa or yoga. Thus by constantly turning in his mind the thought that he is verily one with Brahman or by repetition of a potent mantra or by some such means he has to supplement the knowledge he has acquired from within. Such a person is called Akalpita Kalpaka. The difference between the two is that while in the former or superior type of self-illumination the co-operation of the mind, prana, senses or body is not essential, in the latter it is indispensable.

A superficial observer might find in Mother's self-knowledge some resemblance to the illumination of one of the two types mentioned above. If Her subsequent course of life be interpreted as a real process of sadhana intended to bring into perfection what She has derived from Her inner Self it would come, they say, under the second category. But if it means simply an outer expression of what She found within and does not convey the usual significance attached to sadhana, it would fall under the first category.

A little reflection would however show that Mother's case is exceptional and does not come under any of the two categories. The mere fact that Her knowledge did not originate from a Guru does not take us very far into its mystery.

In Vedic tradition we hear of one Trisanku as being blessed with such spontaneous illumination due to his deep contemplation on his self as identical with the Supreme Brahman. Recently we know of Jacob Boehme (1575-1624 AD.) of Germany, the "God-taught philosopher", as blessed with some sort of intuitive Jnana directly from within or from above.

In the history of mysticism we come across cases of a sudden as well as of a gradual process of the on-coming of Light without the intervention of any mediating agency. The illumination differs, of course, in kind, quality and degree in each case. The self-evolved gnosis of the Akalpita Yogi stands also on a similar footing. But we must bear in mind that all this is a result of an intensive action of grace. For from a careful study of works on mystic theology, especially of the Tantras, it appears that there are three degrees of grace in respect of its intensity viz. high, medium and low, each of these being sub-divided into three similar classes. Thus in a general way we may speak of nine degrees in all, the first being the most intense and the ninth the mildest. The second degree of grace under this classification would by its descent enable the recipient soul to have self-knowledge without the aid of an external Guru. It purges and transforms the soul instantaneously. What is technically known as Anaya or Sambhava Upaya belongs to this class.

Here the Upaya or means is no other than the Supreme Power itself or its first manifestation as the Cosmic Will. It is certainly higher than jnana as well as kriya. But it is nonetheless a means to an end and not an end in itself and is intended to convert an animal soul or pasu into the divine Self or Siva. Its sole objective is to divinise the soul or rather to reclaim it into its divine status, which lay always inherent within itself.

Mother's self-knowledge as already pointed out is not easily explicable on the analogy of the cases referred to above. It cannot be interpreted in terms of the experiences of saints and sages. Hence the difficulty of estimating Mother's personality. We cannot ignore the fact that She was never subject to ignorance and the question of saving grace even in its highest degree can never arise in Her case. She played the role of a sadhika in Her earlier years, no doubt, and during this period She seemed to have passed through all the stages of a real sadhika; In this play She started with ignorance and proceeded through various austerities, observing silence, regulating diet, practising japa and yogic exercises and performing puja and other similar rites. Dawn of knowledge formed also a part of this play. A sense of agony and dryness of the soul followed by the bliss of union had Their own places in this self-enacted drama.

The whole affair was an imitation of sadhana and it was so arranged that it had all the air of naturalness in it. Her self-knowledge, fortified in its unshakeable purity, stood behind this play of self-assumed ignorance and the dramatic impersonation of an ordinary sadhika in quest of supreme Realization.

One should not take it as an illustration of divided self and of its activities - it is rather the outcome of an eternally vigilant and self-conscious will, playing the double part of impersonation of a sadhika, passing through the shadows and lights of a disciplined life and still is a witness behind observing and directing its own play on the stage.

Some people are inclined to regard Mother as an Avatara or incarnation of a god or goddess. This view, whatever its merits may be, is supposed to be free from the difficulties noted in the earlier view. But what is an Avatara? It is the descent of Energy to the earth level from the pure causal plane with the object of bringing order into a troubled world, establishing righteousness and restoring moral balance to humanity. The Energy which comes down to an Avatara is distinguished from what descends to a man on the ground that its connection with the source remains unbroken whereas in the case of a man it is discontinued.

Notwithstanding this its relation with the source is like that of a part with the whole, and even when the descending Energy is continuous with the source, it is only a projection and nothing more. The original source lies outside the field of the descended energy. The very expression Avatara mean descent and presupposes a higher source from which the descent is made. All the Avataras as such have their respective centres, their proto-types so to say, in the Para Vyoman (Highest Heaven) or Maha Vaikuntha and these are different modes of the Central Energy of the World Administrator.

We are not concerned- here with the particular god or goddess of which She is claimed to be an Avatara. The difficulty is everywhere the same. Even if the god or goddess be taken to be divine in essence the difficulty remains.

Knowing Mother through personal contact in the light of what She says about Herself indirectly from time to time I cannot bring myself to believe that this view would solve the difficulty. If Avatara is understood in the sense ix which a Buddhist would consider a Nirmada Kaya in relation to Dharmakaya it would be a different matter. But even then some difficulty would persist.

If the Nirmana Kaya is considered to be a projection of Dharmakaya, the difficulty of Avatarahood would remain as before. If the absolute unity of all the Kayas of the Buddha is recognised as a fact, the difficulty may perhaps be removed to some extent. We should then be left with the supposition of the Adi Buddha as it were and not with any of the historical Buddhas appearing in time. In the case of a historical Buddha we have a long history of strenuous sadhana extending over a series of successive lives with a view to eradicate the fundamental obscurations and cultivate the basic virtues and seeds of knowledge.

As a result of this, the historical Buddha was endowed with fourfold knowledge, viz.

Adarsa Jnana,

Samanta Jnana,

Pratyaveksa Jnana and

Krityanusthana Jnana.

In Mother all these types of Jnana are believed to exist from the very beginning. Of these the first kind means a general vision of all things of all times without any let or hindrance. It is like a mirror reflecting on its bosom the entire creation. The second kind refers to realization of the essential equality or sameness in all beings. The third variety of Jnana enables one to have a sense of absolute certainty in regard to everything in existence. The fourth Jnana has a bearing on the world and its good and is devoted to the service of humanity. It is a knowledge of manifesting an infinite number of Nirmana Kayas in response to the different needs of different persons.

Some people are disposed to look upon Mother as a Vilasa, a self-projection in time and space of the Timeless Divine. I do not know how far this view is tenable. If the conception Narayana (of Vaikuntha) as a Vilasa of Sri Krishna (of Goloka) be the true conception of Vilasa, which involves loss of power and knowledge in relation to the original, we shall find it difficult to explain her own statement regarding Herself like the following:-

"Yet here the aforesaid holds good, for this body responds strictly to the line of thought and to the spirit in which a question is asked. Consequently, what is the opinion of this body and what is not? If there is a line of approach, there must be a goal to which it leads and beyond that is the unattainable. But where the distinction between the attainable and the unattainable does not arise is THAT Itself. What you hear depends on how you play the instrument. For this body the problem of difference of opinion in no wise exists."

"Words of Sri Anandamayi Ma," p.119.

This statement cannot apply to a Vilasa for obvious reasons.

Is She then the Divine in its Svayam Rupa, in its plenary and perfect Form? Is She then a visible expression of the Absolute Itself? Is She the outer manifestation, within a self-imposed veil, of the Inner Atma of the world, of all of us, revealed to us clothed in a human form simply to draw us towards Herself away from the turmoils and tumults of fettered existence? Who can say?

These were some of the difficulties I anticipated in writing about Mother. I have placed them before my readers. Let them judge for themselves and draw their own conclusions.

It is believed by some that Mother has come down on a definite mission viz. to awaken divine consciousness in man and bring love and peace into the present world. But some deny this on the ground that Her actions are purposeless in the sense that they are actuated by Divine Will directly and not by a personal will of Her own as an ordinary individual. In any case it seems clear that a descent or manifestation so remarkably great as this cannot fail to have a great consummation in its own course.

She never claims to be a Teacher though she sometimes seems to some to function as such indirectly, for the Teacher is one who has the limitation of teacher-ship attached to him on account of his pure Vasana. But the Mother is free from every kind of Vasana as such from the very beginning. She claims to be Herself alone - nothing more and nothing less. In a sense She is perhaps the very Truth which the Teacher promulgates.

We are often told that Mother has no mind and no body. The meaning of the statement does not seem to be clear, at least to some of us. To me it means that the statement is intended to convey the sense that as an ordinary body or physical organism together with its term of existence as a vehicle of worldly experience is due to one's prior karmas maturing for fruition and having their roots in ignorance, Mother on account of Her immunity from these causal factors cannot be said to bear the burden of such a body and of such a mind. It means that even a pure body and a pure mind cannot be really attributed to a person who is eternally free from ignorance and karma. It is evidently for this reason that the human body of Sakya Muni was pronounced illusory in the ancient Buddhist work, Saddhidharma Pundarika.

The view of this work on the life and achievement of Gautama Buddha has been ably summed up by Poussin and is reproduced below:

"Although completely divine, Sakya Muni is not God, be is Buddha 'from the beginning' he is the father of the worlds, the father of the future Buddhas and Saints, the universal Providence in order to save human beings and to lead them to Nirvana. He appears in a human form which is illusory; he is born, teaches and enters Nirvana - at last as far as ordinary men can see; but in reality, which illusory Sakya Munis are appearing in this world, the true Sakya Muni reigns on a divine 'mountain of vulures' surrounded by future Buddha: and imparting to them the true teaching, the true law." Even the true Sakya Muni, according to the teaching of Saddharma Pundarika, though eternal and divine, is not God.

In all cognate schools of Indian thought we art familiar with a similar conception of the relation between karma and body. In Jainism, for instance, we are told that Jivan mukti follows on the wake of the cessation of what is called ghati or obscuring karma, viz. karma which deludes, obstructs and obscures knowledge and intuition. But ghati karma, which gives rise to experience of pleasure and pain, determines one's term of life and status and builds one's body, continues.*( * These correspond to Jati, ayu, and bhoga of Patanjali. )

Even a Tirthankara is not immune from this.

When even these are destroyed there is an absolute cessation of karmas and the body ceases to exist. It is a bodiless state of Atma.

Kevala Jnana emerges at the end of ghati karma, which implies the end of impure mind (and of impure body) while Perfection arises at the end of aghati karma, which means the cessation of pure body and pure mind as well.

Similarly in Buddhism we find that an Arhat or Jivanmukta is liberated from kleshas and is consequently free from a defiled mind. But this is not an essential character of Arhat, for even a person in Nirodha Samadhi as one in the meditation on nothingness or a vitaraga or an anagami has his lower mind inhibited (though not cleansed, as it re-appears on reawakening). The lower mind is held in abeyance in the supernormal Way also for a definite period. Even an Arhat has to experience the fruits of his earlier karmas.

Maudgalayana, for instance, was a great yogi, the greatest perhaps among Buddha's disciples, and yet he was tortured and his body cut to pieces by robbers and even the bones were powdered. Buddha explained that this was a retribution of heinous karma viz. patricide committed by him in an earlier life.

How then are we to account for what appears like Mother's body and mind? May they not be due to an act of the Supreme Will playing in its freedom or to the same Will in response to the cumulative karmas of humanity crying out for ages for a Divine Appearance? It comes to this, then Mother's body is no body and Her mind is no mind in the ordinary connotation of the terms. They are only apparent and exist for the ignorant who are under maya and unable to see behind the veil.

This is a dociletic view to be sure, but there seems to be no escape from it. Did we not hear of it in connection with the Buddha's body and also the body of Jesus Christ? Did not Sri Krisna too says that he did not really take any birth and had no karma of his own like ordinary men and that his birth and karma were both divine in nature?

Mother Herself said once as to whether the persistence in consciousness of a body is consistent with the dawn of knowledge "For a Self-realized Being neither the world with its pairs of opposites exists, nor does the body. If there is no world there can obviously be no body either!

Who says the body exists? There is no question at all of name and form. To wonder whether a realized Being sees anything outside of himself is also beside the point. Who is there to whom he can say: "Give, give"? Yet this state of wanting is precisely the reason for one's belief in the reality of the body. Therefore, since there is no world and no body there can be no action either; this stands to reason.

To make it quite clear: after Self-realization there is no body, no world and no action not even the faintest possibility of these - nor is there such an idea as "there is not". To use words is exactly the same as not to speak; to keep silent or not is identical -all is THAT alone."

This is in regard to persons who have awakened to eternal life from the torpor of worldly existence.* (* The context refers to the life of the young queen Chudala who realized Self-knowledge through yoga and jnana and converted her ignorant husband Sikhidhvaja. It was asked how Chudala could possibly conduct the affairs of the world after her Self-realization instead of keeping her-self as the witness of all that happened in nature's course. Mother said in reply that true knowledge burns out the worldly life and with that the body also.)

It is equally applicable certainly with a greater force to those who have never been in that existence.

(6)

We hear of a general complaint that Mother's language is not intelligible. The complaint is unfounded in go far as it relates to the language used by her in ordinary correspondence and conversation. The language of Matri Vani extracted from letters written to Mother's dictation is, for instance, simple, graceful, straightforward and luminous. The complaint is perhaps true when we consider the language employed for interpreting profound experiences and transcendent truths. But it should be remembered that supra-mental truths do not easily lend themselves to an expression on the lower or even on the higher mental levels to which alone our language is adapted. It seems to me that what appears to the average reader with his logical bent of thought-structure as a riddle is a plain truth on a higher level of consciousness and has been recognized as such by eminent philosophers and saints. What looks like contradiction in logic and on the finite plane of mind, is verily a truism when the threshold of consciousness is lifted and we are face to face with the Infinite.

I propose, therefore to analyse some of Mother's well-known utterances which are apparently meaningless, and try to see if we can discover any great significance in them. Out of a large number of sayings we have chosen a few by way of illustrations. This will give an idea of what for want of a better word we might call Mother's outlook on life and reality.

(a) Yata: This expression cannot be easily rendered. The usual rendering would be something like 'It is - what it is'.

These words are often uttered by Mother when She speaks of the Absolute. It is difficult to say what it exactly stands for. One may equate it with the conception of Pure Being, Non-Being, Self, the Infinite, the Ineffable, the Universal, the Immaculate, the Immutable etc. according to one's point of view. It is the Nameless referred to under different names and the Formless under different forms. She also speaks of it as Charam Param in the sense of Ultimate Reality. As for the implications of this enigmatical expression we may compare the following sayings of Mother Herself :

Whether you say it exists or does not exist, or that it is beyond both existence and non-existence, or even beyond that, as you please.

Whether you call it the One, the Two, or the Infinite, whatever anyone may say, all is well.

When this is possible the wall is not there although it exists and even if no wall exists, yet it is there.

For the Supreme it is possible to be everything and yet nothing.

A state of being exists where it is immaterial whether He assumes a form or not what is, is He, In this state of complete poise nothing at all is any longer apart from Him, what is, is the Thing Itself.

This shows that in it, there is no difference at all –

not even between Being and Non-Being,

between Light and Darkness,

between Good and Evil,

between Motion and Rest and

between Person and Impersonal.

All is one - one is all.

Even the equation is not possible,

for True One is where there is no sense of the one.

All this sounds paradoxical, but it is the highest truth. - Nagarjuna says: "- It cannot be described as void or non-void, nor even as both void and non-void simultaneously, or as above the two modes of statements whatever is expressed in language is only a thought and appeals only to the thought level of human consciousness."

We have a similar description of the Supreme Reality by Manjusri when he refers to Dharma Kaya of the Buddha.

Thus Manjusri says:

"- The Body of Truth is neither - one nor many;

it is the foundation on which the great wealth of individual or universal good is based.

It is neither Being nor Non-Being;

it is a state of balance like the Akasa;

its nature is beyond man's power of imagination;

it does not allow itself to be attached to anything and he soiled by it;

it is free from change;

it is auspicious;

it is equal as well as unequal at one and the same time;

it is all-pervading and transcendent."

We have an utterance in a similar strain from the great yogi Abhinava Gupta of Kashmir in a still later age. The following lines are addressed by the Guru to the disciple who has attained to Supreme Realization:

"Things do not emerge of themselves - they appear only when they are thought out by Thee (projected by Thy imagination). They are unreal and yet for a moment seem to he real due to experience which is only apparent. The glory and grandeur of this creation is the result of Thy will and has its source nowhere else. It is for this reason that Thou, though one, shining in all these worlds as many by virtue of Thy self-multiplying power.

Whatever shines in the mirror of consciousness - be it true or false, small or great, eternal or temporary, defiled through Maya or pure by itself. All these experienced on the dawn of the Supreme Wisdom as of the nature of Prakasa and marked by reflective self-knowledge Thou, the Lord of the world, realizing Thy greatness through personal intuition, wilt preserve in Thy memory."

The yogins speak of two-fold Samadhi, yiz. Nimilana and Unmilana. I the former aspect One alone shines in its unity - undifferentiated unity and one may say that the sense of unity is absent. One is, but it is not aware of itself as one. This means that Shakti does not function. In the other aspect Shakti is unceasing in its movement producing in consciousness a sense of one, many-in-one, one in-many and many. And yet the two aspects are mysteriously one and the same in reality. They are co-eternal, and truly speaking they represent a single truth. The Great Prakasa - infinite in its extension is wonderful - all contradictions are solved in that Light and it seems as if darkness and light have lost their difference in meaning in that unity.

(b) Kheyala (i) : It is also very difficult to render correctly and in terms intelligible to the average reader the exact significance of the expression kheyala used often by Mother in Her discourses. Ordinarily it means a sudden and unexpected psychic emergence, be it desire, will, attention, memory or even knowledge without any adequate causal antecedent behind to account for its origin. There is thus an -element of spontaneity in the act. It might thus seem to be -analogous to the playful vagaries and caprices of an eccentric and non-purposive mentality. The word is in popular use. Mother has borrowed it and used it in Her own sense, enriching it with Her own associations.

Why One becomes many, why the primal Unity, Being and Power, divides itself into infinite varieties in creation, why the subject itself becomes the object of its own action, or why the Ineffable splits itself up into subject and object is a mystery which no man can dare to unravel. All that we can say is that it is due to an act of the ultimate One which is named kheyala by Mother and is variously named by various thinkers. By some it is called the Lord's Svabhava, for the One Being free from desires cannot have any desire:

By others it is called krida (play) or lila.

By others still it is called Will, emanating from the overflow of Bliss on the white screen of Eternal Consciousness and followed by creative action It is called the Divine Word or Logos. It is in fact the Will-to-become where in reality there is neither any will nor any becoming. It is called by different names in different Systems of thought. The expression kheyala as used by Mother covers all these senses.

We have spoken of the Supreme Reality, the Ultimate One as Mother refers to it, and of the expression of its outgoing inner act in the form of what She describes as kheyaIa. Divine Power is really inscrutable - it is one and yet embraces an infinite range, each being associated with a function appropriate to it.

But we should remember the general truth that behind the outer manifestation each power is within every other as identical with it, so that all powers- are latent within each. This is as true in the centre as in every sphere of the manifestation. Still, however, we should confine ourselves, in all schemes of intellectual analysis, to the basic powers of the Divine Reality. The following lines describing the working of some of the central powers may be of some use for a clearer understanding of the empirical side of Divine Mind. There are, if we may say so, different centres of Being and Consciousness in- the Divine Self, and corresponding to these there are different centres in man. So long as a man is ego-centric, his actions which follow from his individual will constitute karma, the consequence of which in the form of pleasure and pain he has to reap - in life. As he believes himself to be the doer of the action independently of Divine initiative, he is affected by its consequences. If he could realize truly that he had no power of his own and that even his will did not really belong to him but formed an expression of the Divine Will, he would get rid of the moral responsibility. It would be the beginning of Wisdom when a man could see the working of a general Will behind all phenomena in man and nature. Going deeper down along the line he would find that there is no will left in him no, not even a shadow of it. He then finds no will in the Divine Consciousness as well, for he cannot find in God what he is unable to find in himself.

Evidently it refers to a centre in God beyond will - a centre in which will is absent but from which will in the lower centre springs. This centre is the inner Divine Sakti from which Will, Knowledge and Action issue forth in separate streams - it is the centre of Ananda or Divine Bliss and Love. Behind Ananda is the uncoloured Chit or Supernal Light where even Joy transcends itself through self-obliteration. This is the Supreme Divine Power co-related and co-eternal with the Supreme Divine Essence in a sort of undifferentiated oneness. All contradictions and conflicts lose their strength of opposition and become one with the One.

The divine power of action (Kriya) is Maya controlled by Isvara.

The world as we know it in its lower material aspect is a product of Maya and is under Isvara who, as its moral governor, is responsible for the maintenance of righteousness and justice. The principle of Justice called niyati as a natural and moral law operates in this world and is inviolable. Man being ignorant and ego-centred sows seeds of karma, the fruits of which are awarded by Isvara in strict conformity to the principle of justice. It is asserted by some that the karmas bear their own fruits under the laws of Nature. But these laws are in the ultimate analysis explicable as the dictates of an inscrutable Will in the Divine Centre of that name. For God is law.

It was in this sense that Dharma used to be identified with the Buddha and Guru Vakya is identified with the Guru and Word of God with God.

This Will is of the nature of the general Will and has no special or individual reference. A man who has the insight to see behind his own will has the privilege of discovering in the Divine Will the hidden spring of the Cosmic Laws which regulate individual existence. He sees clearly that like the general Will special Will also has its place in the centre. Looked at from this view-point God would appear to him as love (prema) and compassion (mahakaruna), which is the fulfilment of Law. If it is true that Law prescribes penalty for its transgression, that any offence is bound to be visited with punishment in proportion to its gravity to meet the demands of justice in nature, it is also true that Love condones, makes - amends, forgives and atones. There is no conflict between the two - the special Will or Love when it is exercised simply supplements the general Will expressed in Law.

Both are forms of Iccha.

The overflowing qualities of Love and Grace are not in any way incompatible with the evenness of judicial outlook. For does not Sri Krisna say in the Gita that even in the midst of his evenness and impartiality there is a sort of hidden partiality towards those who love him- Between Will and Action is to be found the place of Knowledge, both intuitive and rational. This is judgement, for action follows judgement, which is the function of knowledge as a power. In other words the special Will is in the inmost Centre where from Love and Grace flow out; and general Will functions as the judicial and the executive. With Knowledge it is concerned with judgement and with Action it is concerned with its execution. This is how the world administration is being carried on.*

( * We all know that some Vaishnava philosophers of the Mediaeval Ages used to distinguish between different aspects of Divine Unity.

Thus for instance Svayam Bhagavan and Bhagavan on one baud and Bhagavan and Paramatma on the other are distinguished. There is no functioning of Maya and Tatastha Saktis (Extrinsic and Neutral Divine powers assbciated with ihe manifestation of the soul and with the creation of the world) within the central domain of Svayam Bhagavan (God in Himself) or even of Bhagavan (God), where the intrinsic Divine Powers consisting of Sandhini, Samvit and Hladini as connected with the triple aspects of Supreme Godhead (viz. Being, Consciousness and Bliss) alone prevail.

But while the latter (Bhagavan) represents mainly the Majesty and Compassion of the Lord, the former (Svayam Bhagavan) adds to them is Beauty and Love. For this reason Goloka, the Abode of the former, is distinguished from Vaikundha, the Abode of the latter. Both are Heavens, but while Vaikuntha is Heaven proper in its highest form, Goloka, though higher than Vaikuntha, is centrally situated and is the most secret region resembling the earth minus its defects.

Similarly the Lord of Vaikuntha is the proper Lord, being exclusively divine in character, while the Lord of Goloka is human and hides His highest divinity within humanity.

Even in Goloka the most secret centre is the Vrindavana where humanity and love alone have their play. The Lord of Goloka is Sri Krishna as Divine Man and the Beloved in Vrindavana is Sri Krisna as man per excellence.

In the same way there is a distinction between Bhagavan and Paramatma, because Bhagavan as such has nothing to do with Maya and Tatastha Saktis, while Paramatma is the controller of both, as a result of which the worlds and the souls come out into light and begin to function.

The Intrinsic Power is there too, for without it the souls or the spiritual monads could not have been manifested and the Iksana of Paramatma, which disturbs the equilibrium of Maya could not have been effected. The subsequent history of creation down to the formation of earth and of individual human beings is concerned with the four hypostases of Paramatma; viz.

the four so-called Vyuhas:

The world administration in all its phases including the making and enforcement of Law is entrusted to them.

Lower Grace leading to Kaivalya (freedom from Maya) and higher Grace leading to admission into the higher world of Narayana (Vaikuntha) or of Sri Krishna (Goloka and Vrindavana) flow from the respective sources above the Vyuhas.

All these plays are due to the action of Shakti or the Divine Power.

Brahman, however, in which power is not manifest, stands in its eternity and self-centred aloofness as the silent witness at it were of all these plays.

Really it cannot properly be described as the witness also, though it is self-luminous.

Beyond Special Will is the Centre where there is no longer any will at all. The entire creation is there in total abeyance.

Creation begins with will and ends with its cessation both in the individual and in the cosmos. The cessation of will opens out into the centre within the Divine Consciousness where one enjoys the bliss of communion with the Self, for what the mystics call 'spiritual marriage', generally from the view-point of a basically dualistic Self is a reflection of Self-delight of God.

This state is free from all outgoing urges and is self-contained. On the background of this Ananda there is the all-expansive Chit infinite in extension, continuous, self-revealed, unitary and self-sufficient.

These two are expressions of the Divine Power, which is always in undivided union with the Godhead.

Now God in His Essence is above all activity, but His Power is always bubbling with activities, though it is also true that somewhere in the Beyond, God and his Power are absolutely One.

What Mother calls kheyaIa is really an upsurge of Will in a particular direction which is undoubtedly free and not indicated in the plan of things - it is usually connected with the domain of special Will rather than general Will. No law governs this region and there is no interruption in its freedom of activity. Even pie-destination which takes into consideration the triple flow of time-current is not an appropriate word for an urge which knows nothing but the Eternal Present. There is no consideration of an outside factor - karma (merits and demerits) or anything of the sort has no meaning there. It is also difficult to say whether it is intellectual or volitional. It has all the freshness of a playful and apparently un-purposive act holding within itself incomprehensible possibilities.

(c) Ja haye jaya: Literally the expression means the attitude of one's abiding by God's disposal by all means and at all times. It implies an unconditional surrender to the Divine Will which shapes the course of events. Man does not know what lies in store as a possibility in the womb of the future. Ordinarily he has his own likes and dislikes and wishes that the future should be according to his liking.

But his life of resignation begins when he is free from these likes and dislikes and is prepared to accept gladly and without murmur whatever turn events may take in future.. This attitude of perfect equanimity under all circumstances makes one really free in spirit, as it does not allow outer forces f6 disturb the even poise of the mind, but it also makes oneself strong enough to welcome even sorrows as joys.

Whatever happens in life or in the world has really the sanction of God's will and as this will, however it may affect the actual happening, is believed to be not only in consonance with the demands of justice but also truly auspicious, one is able to greet with joy everything that takes place in life or in the world. But the expression also implies an attitude of passive but self-conscious complaisance in Divine Dispensation. As coming from Mother's lips it cannot have the possible sense of forced resignation to the inevitable.

(7)

Mother says that the teachings of all lines and of all teachers, provided they are genuine and proceed from the right sources, are correct and should be followed by those for whom they are meant. They may be opposed to one another, but that does not detract from each its peculiar value as a distinct path leading to the goal set before it. If this path is self-consistent and lies unblocked till the end of the journey it will not mislead, though it may carry the pilgrim to a sectional truth and not the whole Truth. But if the pilgrim has within him genuine aspiration for the Supreme Reality, Reality will assert itself and overtake him at any point of the journey. In that case the sectional truth will be either brought into relation with the whole and make a step in its direction or will be converted into a medium through which the Supreme Truth will reveal itself. The Ultimate Truth is one and the Way to it is also one.

An earnest Seeker, free from worldly attachments and desires, has no reason for disappointment. What is needed is unfailing patience, grim resolution, persistent endeavour, unflinching faith in Divine Providence and unconditional surrender to the Divine Will, preceded by a life of purity, devotion and self-dedication.

Mother has no line of Her own, no particular teaching or doctrine. She recognises that though at bottom the Way is unique, it assumes varied forms as the temperaments and capacities of individuals are varied. The true test of real advance in spiritual life lies in the gradual purification, illumination and transformation of the human soul whereby in the end it may be restored to its lost unity with the Divine. She is at times very eloquent on the deprecation of the so-called spiritual favours, including revelations, visions, locutions etc. and exhibitions of occult powers.

Not that they are always bad or inspired by dark forces, but the point to be remembered is that they have generally a tendency to deflect us from the right path, which consists in a single-minded and all-absorbing attention to the great Aim held in view.

She does not, however, actually comment, even in an indirect manner, on anybody's personal experiences.

She simply wants that we should be guarded against what Sri Aurobindo calls: - "the valley of the false glimmer".

Usually these experiences arise from perverted imagination or alien powers, hostile or neutral. Self-deception, She points out, is always possible on the path. In very rare cases these favours e real and welcome and may be helpful on the path. In such cases there is no harm in allowing them to continue, though even then the sadhaka should not actively co-operate with them until he feels strongly fortified against all outer influences. It is very important to bear in mind that the strength of personal will, self-consciousness and power of rational discrimination should not suffer in any way.

It is thus intelligible that Mother is tolerant to all. She sees the bright side of every object and every event and asks all to do the same as far as they can. Everything has its own use and importance. People have different points of view. what one says from his own view-point may be as true as what another says from his own view-point. She speaks to people from their own standpoints so that they may understand Her well, showing that She is familiar with all. This is the secret of Her universal sympathy and compassion. She always makes it clear that different people with different temperaments and intellectual backgrounds have to be led in different ways.

A great World-Teacher said "there are many mansions in my Father's house".

Mother says that there are really infinite mansions and that there are infinite ways leading to each and yet what She insists on is that we should not forget the fact that the House is one. All the creatures live in the same house and are members of one and the same family.

They all have descended from One and are parts of One and verily One and the Same.

Differences are in appearance only; due to Maya, but even this is in reality the play of the One. When we are ourselves again we are bound to realize this. Though She moves about from place to place She is always aware that She is in the same house - movement and rest, many and one, are always co-existent in Her consciousness; nay, they are aspects of the self-same Reality, indeed the Reality itself is aspectless.

For the same reason people of different creeds and persuasions find in Her their strongest support, each for reasons best known to himself.

Karma, Jnana, yoga and bhakti, in fact all the ways of spiritual life, find their best exponent in Her.

She knows the value of each, the relation of one with the others and the fact that all are simultaneously operative.

She recognises the different grades of spiritual advancement and yet She is emphatic - of course to those who can appreciate it - that the universal and integral self-revelation of God is always sudden and the question of a Moment, for it never happens in time.

She teaches the law of moral and spiritual causality on the analogy of natural law and yet She stresses the supreme value of Divine Freedom, which stands above all laws and restraints. She attaches great importance to Teachers and yet She holds that even Teachers (in the case of the strong personal will of the student)^V.M. are not indispensable.

She reconciles all conflicts in Her own inimitable way saying that behind all varieties and diversities one Truth shines in its own glory and adds strength to every position. It is not possible to speak at greater length on Mother's teachings within the brief compass of an Introduction which has already exceeded its scheduled limits.*

( * Readers, anxious to have some clear ideas of these teachings, may consult with profit "Matri Vani" and "Words of Sri Anandamayi Ma', published by the Shree Shree Anandamayee Sangha. The first of these books contains extracts from Mother's letters addressed to people seeking consolation and advice; and the second contains Mother's answers to questions asking for light on great metaphysical problems of a sadhaka’s inner life.)

There is a deep meaning in Mother's utterances some of which may seem to he obscure to a casual reader. It should not be thought that Mother is not accustomed to speak in plain language. So far as Her ordinary speeches are concerned, speeches addressed to the people of the world coming to Her in search of blessings or assurance or directions in a state of trouble or embarrassment, they are simple, straightforward, free from ambiguity and full of wisdom and compassion.

From what has been said above one may have a faint idea of what Mother is like and what Her central teachings are, but it would be a futile attempt to try to estimate Mother's position on the strength of what little we know about Her. We must go beyond surmises and grip Reality in its heart. The best thing for us- would be to try to love Her deeply and sincerely as Mother and by loving Her to bring ourselves into closer and closer union with Her true Self. I felt this years ago and feel this even now. I am convinced that as a result of this process Mother will surely reveal Herself to us more and more fully according to the degree of our fitness and receptivity and that we shall then be in a fortunate position to know immediately, and not through our intellect which sees through a veil and perverts what it sees, what Mother truly is. And in so knowing Her we shall be able to know our own selves also. For She is verily one with us.

No intellectual approach, however free from pre-dispositions and prejudices, is capable of revealing the heart of truth.

So much of disharmony and opposition in the world today, engendering bitterness and strife, is due to our lack of sympathy and sense of oneness. The root cause is the lack of self-knowledge. There is but one Self which is Love and Wisdom eternal and we shall share it if we but know it in a proper way. Discord and hatred are bound to disappear like mists before the light of the sun. It will herald the advent of a New Life in the world when the central principle of Unity and Love will reign and dominate all its thoughts and activities.

May Mother hasten that glorious day and shower Her blessings on humanity.

(A) Sigra, Banaras.

Gopinath Kaviraj.

SRI ANANDAMAYI

By B. Sanjiva Rao, B.A. (Cantab.),
Late Principal, Queen's College, Benares.

(return)

Many thousands of people, Her devoted followers, call Her MA, the great MOTHER, whose love fills the worlds visible and invisible with the radiance of an eternal peace and joy. I too will call Her MA.

Who is MA? What is Her special message or teaching, Her relationship to the world in which She has taken birth? What is the significance of Her life? These question naturally occur to the mind, especially to the one who undertakes the task of writing about Her. Swiftly the answer comes from the depths of my being, so beautifully expressed by Edwin Arnold:

Measure not with words

Th’ Immeasurable; nor sink the strings of thought

Into the fathomless. Who asks both err,

Who answers, errs. Say nought."

Whenever I have sat in front of Her, marvelling at the perfection of Her love, the profundity of Her wisdom expressing itself in the simplest of words intelligible to the least among us, I have realized that it is not by the mind that She can be under stood, that no mental plumb-line can ever discover the depths of Her being. Thousands have seen Her body, the radiance of Her wonderful face, but I do not know how many there are to whom She has revealed Her real presence.

To the mind She must ever remain a mystery. But to the heart that loves, She is no insoluble riddle - She is, in fact, intelligible only when the mind recognises its own limitations and surrenders itself to Her influence. To love Her is the indispensable condition for gaining a real insight into Her nature. It seems almost a paradox of the spiritual life that to under-stand the essence of things the mind must abandon its normal function of knowing - yet it is a fact of human experience, that so long as the mind is busy accumulating information about any object, it is incapable of gaining an insight into its real nature. The way of the artist and the mystic is not the way of the analytical scientist. So only those who love MA will understand Her. To them no evidence is needed to prove that She is one of those blessed ones through whom the Light and Love of the Divine pour into our world of darkness and conflict. She is Her own proof. She is self-luminous, Swayam Prakasa.

The function of the mind.

The achievements of the mind have been truly amazing in the realm of scientific thought. This has obscured its true function. It has assumed the role of a judge, a tribunal before whose bar all experience must be justified and proved.

It is only recently that the West has begun to question the authority of the mind as an instrument for the discovery of Truth. It is beginning to discover that the supreme values of life are beyond the realm of the mind. Truth, Love, Bliss, all these come into being only when the mind recognises its own limitations, and surrenders itself to the Light of the Supreme.

It must quieten itself by the constant rejection of the false contents of its consciousness. The discovery of Truth, even in the domain of Science, has been the continual abandonment of the imperfect formulations of the mind in favour of less unsatisfactory ones. When the mind has purified itself of all that is false and become quiet by giving up all its demands, then it becomes ready for the reception of the Light of the Spirit. It is in this quiet state that Truth dawns upon the human consciousness. Not by an intensification but by complete cessation of its activity does the mind discover the Right, the True, the Beautiful.

Mind is not the master, but the tool of desire - what we ordinarily mean by its controlling desire is merely the attempt to control the expression of desire and not desire itself.

Such control is necessary in the interests of the social order to which we belong. But we have to see clearly that desire does not die by mere control. All that the human mind can achieve is a sublimation, a diversion of it from one channel to another so that it does not endanger the stability of social life.

Cessation of Desire.

Desire dies when the mind surrenders itself to the Supreme. The soul must strip itself of everything, every possession, physical or psychological. It must have nothing, it must be nothing. It must make no claims, no demands.

This process of self-denudation is known as 'self-noughting'.

The (shadow of )^v.m. self must learn to die.

That is the condition for the gaining of Eternal Life.

It is the secret of the mystic life that when the self or the mind gives up its own egoistic life, it enters into the larger life of the Spirit.

Such a life seems an impossible one to the modern mind. If the self is annihilated, what remains? If the 'I' is destroyed, who is there to enjoy the bliss of Nirvana? These are the problems which the mind creates for its own diversion. There is n6 solution for these problems of the logical mind. They cannot be solved but only dissolved. Peace and joy form the very core and essence of our being. They do not depend upon outer conditions. They are unconditioned states of our essential being. Because of our fundamental knowledge or intuition of this truth, every satisfaction we derive from external objects is not enduring. Nothing can make us happy except being ourselves. To be just ourselves, neither more nor less than what we truly are, that is the beginning of wisdom. A

All things, all beings constituting what we call Nature, follow this way of life.

Therefore even in the midst of much destruction of forms, there is peace, beauty and splendour in the world of God's creation. It is only when man seeks to create his own world and lives in it as a prisoner that he is limited and creates ugliness and disorder. It is given to few human beings to live in the state of perfection, in the 'natural' state. In fact it is a rare experience to come into contact with one who is the living embodiment of this perfection. Ma is the living proof of the existence of what I may call the advaitic or non-dual state of consciousness.

Ma's psychological state is a rare phenomenon, which is worth examination and understanding. She contacts the world around Her, the world of people and of things without the mediation or interpretation of the mind. The mind carries on no independent activity of its own, but is a clear mirror for the reflection of Truth. It is like an extraordinarily sensitive, photographic plate, capable of recording without distortion or exaggeration the physical and psychic influences in the world around. Ma possesses an extraordinary gift of remembering people whom She has met or even of knowing those whom She is going to meet. The past and the future are blended in Her consciousness and fuses into the present. It is not memory, but what may be called knowledge of Being, some process which is the result of the non-dual state of consciousness. It is obviously impossible for one who has not attained this state to understand how this kind of knowledge is obtained.

But nevertheless it is an indubitable fact that Ma does possess this phenomenal power of remembering anyone whom She has met and being able to recall the details of such a meeting.

Ma repeatedly affirms that She does not use Her mind; I presume that it means that the mind does not indulge in its own independent activities, but is a focus for the Universal Life', which work through Her without obstruction. To the modern mind, or rather, to anyone who has not had experience of the super-mental condition, the idea of silencing the mind being a condition precedent to the manifestation of a higher state of consciousness, is completely unintelligible. Nirvana is to them a state of extinction, of nothingness. If the end of the spiritual life is nothingness, of what use is such a life? Ma's life is a complete answer to this natural question. She demonstrates that the mind is the 'slayer' of the Real and when the slayer is slain, the Real, the Eternal comes into being.

Real Action.

All action that comes out of this selfless state is true and right action. It is usual for the mind to distinguish between thought and action-between Being and manifestation. Such polarisation is the characteristic of the mental process. But in reality, Being is inseparable from its manifestation. To be is to be creative. Creation then is inseparable from Being. Ma ever acts from Her Being. That is what She implies when She says She does not plan, does not think. There is an activity which transcends the processes of the logical reasoning.

Plotinus said practically the same thing.

Contemplation was to him true action. It is most important to understand the full significance of such a statement. It does not imply that right action is right from the standpoint of the world, of society or that it conforms to the ideas and standards of modern or ancient thinkers. It simply means at the only state of Being which is right, is the selfless state, when the personal will is completely surrendered to and is in conformity with the Divine Will; and as in such a state, Being and action are inseparable, right state of being is also right action. Right action then is 'what should be' - not according to the standards of the mind acting in ignorance but acting in harmony with the Divine Will. Such a state is intensely dynamic; it sets in motion a vast amount of unseen activity. To live a truly holy life is not so much to be engaged in ceaseless activity, but to be in that dynamic condition which, without haste or without rest, creates the right conditions, both material and psychic in the world around. Ma does not do much Herself, but wherever She is, She is the centre of an enormous activity. An occasional directive is all that is needed.

The full implications of 'right' action can be easily understood from Ma's own personal history. She had no visible, human Teacher or Guru. She has practised no sadhana in order to attain Her present state. From Her early years of childhood She has been in intimate contact with the invisible worlds and has been guided by unseen influences. All that we can surmise is that She has no 'personal' life of Her own and has been completely free from desire of any kind. God's will has been Her will. It is no wonder then that the Eternal Itself has been Her guide, prescribed for Her body the sadhana that it had to go through, for some purpose of its own. It would be presumptuous to suggest what this purpose is. To understand the psychology of Ma's inner life, one has to study deeply the lives of the mystics. It is clear that the physical, material plane is closely connected with the subtler planes of the manifested Universe. No plane is superior or inferior, lower or higher. The physical body is the manifestation or expression of the subtler bodies on the physical plane. When there is an internal surrender, the acceptance of the Divine in every detail of life, no matter how trivial it may appear to the limited mind, then the entire governance of such a life is taken up by the Divine'. All planning by the individual life ceases. Even when there is apparent attempt at sadhana, it is merely the Divine Power purifying the various vehicles in Its own way. Real yoga is not an individual effort. It is the Divine that does the yoga through an individual. It is not the individual seeking God through yoga. All that the individual need do, is to give up the sense of separateness. The moment such a surrender of self is achieved, there is a descent of the Divine and it is the Divine activity that results from such a union that we see as yoga. Ma explained on one occasion how the body moves in obedience to the rhythm -of music. The gestures of the musician are the spontaneous expressions by the body' of its response to music. Likewise all asanas, mudras are the natural poses resulting from certain psychological states of the mind. By a careful study of these, Indian psychology has built up an elaborate structure of ritual and form of worship. Religion is really applied psychology. Ma's own experiences are of great significance. She discovered that Her body was going through extraordinary experiences of which She was more or less a' detached spectator; one such occasion was, when she suddenly discovered that Her body was performing with great accuracy the prescribed form of prayer or Namaz of the Muslims -with all its appropriate gestures. Her husband thought She had gone mad or was obsessed by some disembodied entity. The doctor who was consulted, however, seems to have been a man of deep understanding, and he declared that She was not mad and that She should be left alone. That anyone who surrenders himself to the Supreme is directly guided is borne out by the experience of several mystics. Sri Aurobindo had his inner voice, his Guide to whom he gave implicit obedience. Sri Anandamayi Ma was completely an obedient instrument of the Power that guided the activities of Her body. Her body and mind were given to the service of Her children, the devotees. It is stated that Ma is God, Pur Brahman Narayana. It is not for me to express an opinion on such a question and besides it seems to me not to be of any real importance. Whether She is the perfect instrument of the Divine, a channel for his Shakti or a Power of the Godhead acting directly, is impossible for us humans to decide. So the wisest answer is that given to us by Ma Herself: "I am, for you, what you think me to be." Speculation about Her spiritual status is both futile and presumptuous.

The study of Ma's psychological experiences throws a flood of light on what is called sadhana. There is the spiritual or rather psychological discipline which leads to the release of super-physical powers or siddhis.

Popularly this is called yoga.

Undoubtedly yogic powers are a genuine manifestation 'of the hidden powers latent in the psyche. They lead to an expansion of the ego-consciousness. The psyche becomes powerful, with enormous control over the material and even the subtler worlds. This heightened self-consciousness is attractive to minds which have not yet transcended the self-life. It is in the hands of the ambitious that such powers become dangerous. Power, material or super-physical, is not in itself either good or evil; but because it has a tendency to corrupt the wielders of such power that all spiritual teachers have warned sadhakas against the seeking of siddhis.

Ma's discipline is simply described as a complete surrender of the personal will to the Will of God. The release of Divine Shakti, which follows such surrender is never a source of corruption, never a danger, for the power is used by the Supreme Itself and never by an individualistic agency. The knowledge that is attained in such a state is not what is called conceptual knowledge. It belongs to a plane higher than the mental. Is it what in our ancient books is called the Sat-chit-ananda consciousness? It is difficult for those of us who are still living within the framework of the intellect, the logical mind, to speak of a supra-mental consciousness. But some of us have seen the manifestation of the results of such a consciousness. Even at the risk of being autobiographical, I cannot help mentioning a rather striking illustration of the power which Ma exercises with such extraordinary ease and spontaneity. I belong to a school of thought which looks upon running to a teacher for the solution of one's personal problems as rather childish. The pupil is expected to co-operate with the teacher in the helping of the world and not waste the teacher's time in diverting his attention to his own little self. But without any kind of warning, a problem, a conflict of a peculiarly difficult nature, arose in my mind. No amount of wrestling with it or attempts to quieten the mind in order to dissolve it, were of any avail. I felt that I could not waste more time over such a conflict. I asked for an interview with Ma, which was readily granted. I could only tell Ma that I had a problem - I was not in a position to explain the nature of that problem. So I sat quietly in front of Her. She spoke no word, offered me no verbal explanation; within a couple of minutes, the mind was in a state of a deep stillness, the problem was effortlessly dissolved - I was in a state of an ineffable peace and joy. She quietly said to me, - "Pitaji, you are in that state now -continue to be like that." I made my pranama and left Her presence. It is possible to give all kinds of psychological explanations of the manner in which such mental transformations are brought about. If I had been cured of some physical ailment as quickly, I am sure that such an event would have been hailed as a miracle. But the cure of a psychic disease is just as significant as the healing of a physical one. I cannot pretend to explain such a phenomenon. I merely wish to draw attention to the fact that the state of 'no-mind' as it is called in Zen Buddhism, or the Sat-chit-ananda consciousness, is a very vital and dynamic condition. It is not out of the emptiness, but of the fullness of Life that the Divine Shakti performs its miracles of healing, physical or super-physical.

The state of 'no-mind' is not a mere negation, a mere emptiness. The mind has to be emptied of all purely mental creations. But the state of emptiness is immediately followed by the manifestation of a Divine Consciousness, which has always been there, ceaselessly at work, but of which we become aware only when the play of the mind has ceased. What we call emptying is merely the cessation of such play. What is the part that Ma plays in such an event? Obviously, the mind of the patient must be receptive, sensitive to the great current of Love and understanding that is poured on him. But when I recall this experience, I am forcibly reminded of the great statement of Sri Krishna that when the Supreme is seen, desire dies. All those who have had the privilege of contacting Ma, will bear out my own experience that if one allows oneself to be receptive to Her Grace, all desire dies. Evil does not and cannot live in the wonderful atmosphere which She carries with Her wherever She is, and yet it is not s6 much the destruction of desire, as the transformation of it into a thing of Beauty by the extra-ordinary power of Love. The no-mind state is apparently a state of nothingness. But what is it? To have nothing, to be nothing. When one is stripped of all that one has and all that is distinctive in oneself, there is nothing else that one can lose; and that destroys fear -for no one can take away anything from us. And the state of fearlessness is the state of absolute Love - the state of Divinity itself. This, as far as I can understand, is the secret of Ma's extraordinary influence over all those who have the privilege of being blessed by Her.

Is there any distinctive teaching, any special message, which could be considered as distinctive of Ma's spiritual relationship to the world ?

Can a flower teach us anything?

Does the tree-top swaying in the breeze bring us any message?

Is the Beauty, the Peace of the everlasting hills, communicable through the medium of the spoken word?

I do not think so.

The song of the sea, the wild music of the storm, they just form part of that Eternal Harmony which enters into our being but is incapable of being rendered into human speech.

Likewise the mind is enable to create an intellectual system out of Ma's answers to the questionings of Her pupils. She is no teacher who accepts disciples and yet She is loved and revered as the Mother who loves, guides and protects, who is able to give, out of the inexhaustible store of wisdom, inspiration, solace and strength. Day after day She sits in the hall of Her Ashram in Benares and gives of Her rich experience and wisdom. The answers to the many questions that are put to Her come not as the result of deliberate thought but as a spontaneous pouring forth of an intuitive understanding.

"Why does not the Mother answer to the cry of Her children?" She was once asked. Immediately without a moment's deliberation, rang out Her voice, - 'Pitaji Pitaji". There was no response to Her call. Once more She called and someone stood up in the hall and responded. She laughed - and She laughs with the whole of Her being - and triumphantly said - "You did not answer, because you thought I was not serious in calling you. But you answered when you realised that I was calling you. Likewise the great Mother knows when Her children are at play and when they really need Her. They call Her often without really wanting Her. But when they fall and are hurt and cry for Her help, She answers immediately."

One is reminded of Christ's teaching, - "Ask and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock and ft shall be opened unto you." But this asking, seeking and knocking must be genuine, must come out of the depths of our being; only when there is this integral demand, will there be an appropriate answer.

One great quality of Her answers is worth noting: The answer is on the same plane as the question: She is able to read the thought behind the question, sense the precise need of the person who is asking for Her help. There is a completely perfect adaptation of the reply to the capacity of the individual concerned and to the demands of any particular situation. A friend of mine went to see Her after the loss of a dearly loved wife and was slightly annoyed when Ma greeted him with a loud peal of laughter. He asked "Ma, why are you laughing when I am so unhappy?" Spontaneously came the swift reply: "Pitaji, there is one less barrier between you and God."

For Ma, life has only one purpose, it is God.

Whenever a barrier of attachment is removed, there is cause for rejoicing. It is not my intention to multiply such instances. I desire only to emphasise a point, which is significant: k is that the answer comes out of a consciousness higher than that of the logical mind.' Ma identifies Herself with the individual who is asking for Her help, and out of the knowledge and insight that arises out of such identification does the appropriate answer come.

What happens in these cases of individual response to human need is also true of the collective need of humanity. When the cry of a world in suffering reaches the Supreme, there is an immediate answer. Teacher after Teacher appears in response to the need of the Epoch - it is no coincidence that in this fateful crisis, when the world is facing the destruction of a whole civilisation, there should have appeared in this country spiritual Teachers of extraordinary wisdom and insight. It is not entirely a coincidence that India should have thrown up great personalities of almost superhuman stature. Sri Ramana Maharshi, Sri Aurobindo, J. Krishnamurti and others are no mere accidents in world history. What is Sri Anandamayi's relationship to these Teachers?

The Disease and the Remedy.

What is wrong with our world today? Long ago, at the beginning of the century, a writer of great spiritual insight, Edward Carpenter, summed up the symptoms of the disorder from which humanity was suffering in a book called 'Civilisation, Its Cause and Cure'. Civilisation is the disease which is afflicting humanity - that is his diagnosis. Two World wars and a third one in the offing are a justification of his prophetic insight. Stated in their simplest terms, the roots of war and conflict are to be found in the idea that an individual can possibly be happy at the expense of another. This delusion is responsible for all the conflicts in human relationship. What is true of the individual is also true of groups, of those mentally constructed entities, which we call nations or races. Conflicts arise out of the ignoring of the vital truth that man is not an isolated unit.

Individual life gains its significance only in the con-text of an integrated whole of which he is a part. Torn from the context, the individual man, isolated from the family or the social group, has no meaning. Man can only be a man in relationship and not in isolation. The man who lives only for himself and disregards his relation to the whole misses happiness. Likewise a group has no meaning except in terms of the individuals which constitute the group. If the individuals are selfish, corrupt, no organisational changes can create an honest group out of such dishonest individuals. All democratic, individualistic societies, as well as all the totalitarian ones, are guilty of practising one or the other of these delusions. Modern civilisation built upon the- idea of achieving happiness by perfect organisation on the material and even the social level is bound to crash and crumble. The cement which holds modern society together is self-interest, enlightened or unenlightened. Such a society must sooner or later disintegrate. There can be and there is no future for a generation consisting of individuals who live only for themselves, whose criterion of the 'good' life is the largest share for themselves of the 'good' things of life. So long as this view of life prevails, war and conflict are inevitable.

What then is the remedy for such a disease? Obviously there must be a complete change of values. It is not an easy process to convince a modern man that the way of self-assertion is the way of destruction. Yet when an individual realizes -and not merely accepts intellectually -that happiness, peace and liberation spontaneously result when the self is abnegated, that he finds himself in harmony with everyone and everything. No league of nations can achieve world unity by compromise formulas which seek to balance the interests of one nation by the interests of another. Such a system of checks and balances is bound to break down. The imposition of a superficial unity by force, either physical or even 'moral', will prove a failure. Unity cannot be 'imposed' by any organisational methods, just as no law can compel a husband to love his wife. Unity is inner relationship of harmony.

Such harmony and unity can only be achieved by the removal of disharmony and disunity - you cannot impose health, you can only remove disease.

Any social order which is to be stable must be based on the sure foundations of the law which governs all relationships. Dharma is properly a network of such relationships, not only between humans, but between the individual and the entire universe, living as well as non-living. Dharma is the expression in terms of behaviour and conduct of this universal law of harmony. This law states clearly that man can only be happy when he lives for the whole and not for himself.

This is not a Utopian ideal - it is the law which daily governs the universe and even our human body.

My little finger cannot think in terms of its own growth and stature. If it did it would lead to a monstrosity. Even the growth of cells has to be bound by the law of harmony, which in the case of the body we call health. If they grow in defiance of this law, we call it 'cancer', a disease. Health is an indivisible state of harmony - one finger does not enjoy more of health than another - health is the harmony of the whole, the harmony of the inter-relationship of the parts. Such harmony can only exist when the smallest part, as well as the largest, the cell and the organ, both live in complete obedience to the law. In Nature there is no great and small, there is perfection, not a division f superior and inferior. Superiority and inferiority, which constitute the cause of all conflict, are the characteristics of our ego-centred civilisation. Where these are eliminated there are the true beginnings of a real community.

In the family, there is an inequality of capacity, of temperament, of experience. But in any well ordered family such inequalities result merely in a differentiation of functions without the idea of superiority or inferiority. The family is the only social unit in which an individual can be fully himself. There is no ulterior purpose for which the different individuals have come together.

The child is not branded with the stamp of inferiority, of a lower status, because it is unable to earn its own way. Differentiation of functions involves no psycho-logical superiority or inferiority: out of such a relationship of love comes peace and joy. The family system in the West, and slowly in the East also, is beginning to feel the influence of political, economic and social organisation - and less and less does the family fulfil man's fundamental need for communion, for love. All social disorders, all conflicts at whatever level of our existence, are due to the increasing mechanising of man's consciousness, his mind, his work. Man is essentially a living force and his whole being revolts against the crushing burden of organisation. The Church, the State, increasingly direct his activity and thwart his spontaneity. It is man's attempt to be free from this deadening influence of his environment that results in all the hideous tragedies that are taking place around us. What will bring back to man the happiness, the peace, the living creative power of his being which are now almost hopelessly lost? Our spiritual Teachers speak with one voice in answer to the demand of the entire human race for the bread of life, the living waters that shall bring healing to a sorely afflicted world - only Love can bring salvation to man.

Sri Anandamayi is the refuge of thousands of despairing hearts - among them are many from western lands. They do not understand Her spoken words. But they do not fail to catch the fragrance of Her marvellous love. It heals the wounds of the heart, broken by all the cruel things that have happened to them.

"Peace is not to be found in the world outside. Dive deeply in the depths of your own being and find therein the pearl of great price." That is the message of every Teacher since the beginning of days. It is Ma's message. Love is the very core of our being and Peace and Joy. Shri Aurobindo speaks of the Supra-mental Power, Sri Ramana Maharshi and Krishnamurti speak of the Power of the Eternal, the only Reality. The Truth is the same. There is but one Reality, one Truth. That Truth is Beauty, it is the very heart of Love.

It manifests itself in a heart purified of self.

Ma is the living proof of such Love and Joy.

Effortlessly She pours out that Love on - all who come to Her. She is the Mother, and the men and women of the world are Her children. Their hearts are an open book to Her. The pattern of their individual lives is clearly visible to Her. She has come in answer to the cry of a world which has lost the power to Love. All problems are dissolved by and in Love - conflicts cease when men are prepared to break down the walls of prejudice, the walls created by self-interest. Problems, whether they are individual or national, are only capable of solution where there is a completely disinterested search for Truth. Truth becomes manifest when the false is given up. The life of sensation is false, the life which seeks satisfaction in power is false, whether that power is physical or super-physical. When all that is false in our thought is given up, Truth dawns upon us. Likewise when all that is false in our feelings is eliminated, Love comes into manifestation. Love and Truth and Beauty cannot be taught, are incommunicable through the medium of thought. They are directly apprehended by the spirit. Such immediate experience of Reality seems to be possible in the presence of one, who, like Ma, lives in the super-mental consciousness - one begins to sense the life beyond thought when one is in contact with Ma. Such a state of being becomes more concrete, is felt as even more real than the life of sensation. One has only to watch the results of the working of this higher consciousness, to realize how problems dissolve themselves around a person living in this state. On every occasion when men and women gather around Her the most noticeable feature is the quality of the atmosphere. Rich and poor, Maharani and humble devotee, the learned Pandit or Professor and the ignorant seeker, the Sannyasi, the Yogi and the Devotee a meet on a common level - they all drop their titles, distinctions, wealth, power and feel like common children of the great Mother. In Her blessed presence, all differences, inequalities are dropped with an ease that borders on the miraculous - and yet people are perpetually discussing the problems of Peace and War, of the way of removing international tensions. There is only one way, the way of Love. When people meet in the name of the Supreme, there the spirit of Love and Peace abides. Even a casual visit to Ma's Ashram is sufficient to make us aware of this Truth. The answer to every problem is Love. For a problem is an ever-varying manifestation of the spirit of isolation, the expression of the ego. There is only one essential problem - the self, the ego. Love dissolves this knot of the heart. In Ma's presence one achieves this sense of freedom, this release from the tension of self-consciousness. One realizes that the loss of the false life of the self is the gaining of Eternal Life. The teaching of the great Masters of Divine Wisdom is seen to be the only way out of this terrible crisis, the impending tragedy of a third global war.

Once in a long while Humanity puts forth a rare flower of exquisite Beauty and Fragrance. It cannot be said to teach, to have a message, it lives for only one purpose, to demonstrate the existence of a Power, that is ever at work creating by Its transforming influence, Beauty out of ugliness, Love out of strife. Such a Power is Sri Anandamayi.

May She bring peace and harmony into this world of strife.

GOD AS LOVE

Raj Sahib Akshoy Kumar Datta Gupta,

Kaviratna, M.A.

(return)

God is Love, say the wise.

But it may be asked: Is not there also Law, the natural antithesis of Love, which rights wrongs, decrees penalties, and so upholds the moral order of the world? So it has been said in the Gita that the Lord incarnates Himself from time to time in order to protect the good and destroy the wicked' for the rehabilitation of dharma. Here certainly the Lord speaks more of Law than of Love as the raison d' etre for His direct personal intervention in the affairs of this world.

In fact, however, the antithesis between Love and Law as applicable to the ways of God to men is more apparent than real. They are like the two faces, obverse and reverse, of a coin which in essence is the same. Love in fact is the fulfilment of Law.

In past aeons when the passions were more elemental and, therefore, more subversive and more catastrophic, God had to come down in person the more quickly and effectively to make short work of them. But as stated in the Durga-Saptasati (Chandi) the Divine Mother, instead of reducing the asuras to ashes by a mere glance, took the trouble of engaging in open battle to kill them in order that being purified by the weapons hitting them, they might have access to heaven.

And again "In Thee alone, O Divine One, that dispensest blessings, in all the three worlds, is to be seen ruthlessness in battle combined with compassion in the heart. "

Indeed such were the circumstances in those days that Lord Krishna in his early sports (Lila) in Vrindaban, designed chiefly to show how to love and be loved, had nevertheless to go -apparently out of his way to kill Putna, Agha, Baka, Kaliya, and a few other demons, not to speak of Kansa, Kesin, Sisupala and others who were disposed of after the Lord had left the serene precincts of Vrindavan.

Circumstances would appear to have changed very considerably since then. Even in this much maligned Kali Yuga the Divine does not have to descend in person to kill or otherwise to deal condign punishment to the wicked.

That is left to be accomplished by Law, the wheel of which grinds quite effectively, though somewhat slowly. So Buddha's message was ahimsa (non-violence), forgiveness and mercy and according to the Mahayana School, the essential nature of a Bodhisattva is a great loving heart (Maha Karuna Chitta) and all sentient beings constitute the object of his love.

So Christ's message was forgiveness and charity (love), and "forgive" was one of the last words that fell from his lips before his spirit left the mortal body. Nearer home we see Jagai and Madhai overwhelmed less by Sri Gauranga's call for the Sudarsana Chakra than by the matchless love of Sri Nityananda who is supposed to be the second self of Sri Gauranga.

If, therefore, agreeable to changed circumstances of the present epoch of the so-called iron age, the milder way of love commends itself to the Divine about to operate in human form for the rehabilitation of dharma by encouraging the good, sustaining and energizing the despondent and weaning the wicked from sinful ways, what more appropriate and attractive form can the Eternal Formless One assume than that of Mother?

For in all human relations, the Mother alone is all love.

You may be peevish, you may be rude, you may be cheeky, you may give pain and offence in a hundred foolish and inconsiderate ways, but your Mother is ever the same soft, patient, self-forgetful self that hugged you to her gentle breast in your infancy and is ever ready to forgive and forget. When weary or despondent or ill, no matter how old you are, you go to your Mother and without any ceremony recline on her lap as a storm-battered ship betakes itself to the nearest haven for shelter and safety.

So it has been truly said by Sankaracharya: There may be a bad son, but never, never a bad Mother.*

Christ preferred to call God father, and Father, Son, and Holy Spirit constitute the Christian Trinity. "Thou art our Father," says Sruti (Yajur-veda). But the Shakti Tantra, which originated and flourished in Bengal at least a thousand years ago, knows only the Mother and would not recognise any other independent reality by Her side on the same plane.

For Isvara or Siva is only an emanation from Her and waits for invigoration by Her before setting about his appointed task.

So says the well-known Ananda Lahari: "Only when joined by Sakti can Siva function. Otherwise he lacks even the pulsation of life force."

Bengal has been worshipping the Divine as Mother from the time when the Shakti Tantra was revealed to her and that was some centuries before the advent of Vaishnavism, the other popular creed, from South India. The Mother cult is still going strong here. Not so long ago Ramprasad Sen (d. 1775 A.D.), the great poet devotee, attained siddihi, that is, the goal of spiritual endeavour and aspiration, by his songs, beautifully rich in emotional fervour and reflecting in a superb way all imaginable moods, stable or fleeting, of filial love and devotion. Ramprasad's songs still ring in the throats of all classes of Hindus in both parts of Bengal. Many other devotees on this side of India, including even a few Bengali Mohammedans, have invoked the Divine Mother by means of songs instinct with beauty and emotion of no mean order before and after Ramprasad Sen.

The great Ramakrishna Paramahansa, who is now regarded as an Avatara by many, also was a devotee of the Divine Mother, often singing entrancingly, as only he could sing, the songs of Ramprasad and others. If, therefore, the Divine chose to operate here below in the role of Mother, what other region in all India might be thought to be more worthy of the honour of receiving Her on its lap than Bengal? Besides, dire misfortunes including vivisection after vivisection planned from political motives and attended by orgies of murder, rapine, rape and famine were ominously in the offing. As dispensations of Law or Karma of the Hindus who have suffered the most, these could not perhaps be prevented, but it was most necessary that they should not be left to wander miserably adrift on the uncharted sea of life at the mercy of the winds and waves of adverse circumstances, cut off from their age-old spiritual moorings.

It must also be said here that if Bengal's condition was much graver, the whole of India was standing on the edge of a precipice.

So here you have Ma Anandamayi come to give you the much needed spiritual succour. A tiny peaceful village in a remote corner of a remote East Bengal district, Tippera (Tripura), was elected to have the glorious privilege of first receiving Her on its lap in the holy month of Vaisakha of the Bengali year 1303, that is, 30th of April 1896 A.D.

Here the reader will kindly put up with a little digression. The district of Tippera, like most East Bengal districts, has long had a Mohammedan population, mostly descendants of converted Hindus. But when Mother was born, there were as yet no base communal feelings rampant in any part of Bengal and little religious acrimony. Indeed there had been a few well-known and esteemed members of that community in the Tippera district who sang of and worshipped the goddess Kali. The house where Mother was born was surrounded by houses of Mohammedans, mostly illiterate peasants, and was some years later purchased and occupied by a Mohammedan family.*

Mother in Her childhood used frequently to visit the houses of those Mohammedan neighbours who all loved and liked Her, as She also had a soft corner of Her heart for them. No religious scruples were violated. At one time the revered Ramani Mohan Chakravarti (later called Bholanath), Mother's late husband, was employed as keeper of Shahbagh, a garden at Ramna, Dacca, belonging to the well-known Nawab family of that town. He had his quarters within the extensive compound of the garden. Mother had already attracted many devotees who performed Kali Puja within the garden, without any objection raised by or on behalf of its owners. Indeed some members of the Nawab family, both ladies and gentlemen, soon learnt to appreciate and respect Her.

There was within the compound of Shahbagh the grave of a siddha fakir supposed to have hailed from Arabia. On one occasion Mother had the kheyala to go quite close to the grave and at once felt like performing namaz, uttering words She knew not of what language. A Mohammedan worker in the garden saw all this and soon a report of the incident reached the ears of the owners.

They came in great curiosity and the ladies among them earnestly requested Mother to repeat the performance; and though She at first declined, the old feeling came upon Her again when She was taken by them to the vicinity of the grave. They recognised that She was repeating portions of the Quran. Mother gave out later that the long, long departed fakir had revealed himself to Her with a disciple in his company at Bajitpur, the former place of Bholanath's employment, and invited Her to come and stay in Shahbagh where later She again saw him.

Another long departed saint, not a Mohammedan, who also played some, though not fully revealed, part in Mother's Lila, may be mentioned here. He followed Mother in the not very attractive form of a cobra at Vindhyachal (U.P.) and Dacca and lastly when She was going in a boat along a beel in Tippera District. He also was accompanied by a disciple. He bit a toe of Mother's foot at Vindhyachal, and at Dacca meekly allowed Her to tread on his reptile body. About the bite Mother said later that it had been no more than a caress. The saint had been interred at a spot in Ramna which later was chosen to be the site of Mother's Ashram at Dacca. The snake was given architectural commemoration and honour round the top of a small temple erected over the spot where the mortal remains of the saint were supposed to have been buried. A Jingam was installed in the temple.

The whole of East Bengal and the Dacca town in particular, falling some years later into the jaws of a rabid communal spirit, it is small wonder that the above ashram has not been spared the tender mercies of fanatics and this in spite of the fact that Mother was held in great respect not only by many members of the Nawab family of the town but by many other highly respectable persons belonging to the Mohammedan community there as well as elsewhere.

Now to return to Mother's birth and early life. The more than cherubic looks of the baby charmed everybody, as they have done ever since. The proud Mother named her darling Nirmala (Taintless) and no truer name could be given to the One whom Sruti has described as "holy and immaculate." About three decades later a spiritual son (the late Jyotish Chandra Roy) in a flash of genius called Her Anandamayi (All Joy), and the name caught on instantly, side-tracking the one given by the parents who had brought Her into the world. It was Mother's son's triumph over Her own mother, as perhaps it should be.

One or two years' very irregular attendance at a moribund lower primary pathasala, the only educational institution available for Her, was the only schooling She has ever had. Even rapid reading was not one of Her accomplishments when She left the school to be married. But is She or the world any the worse for it? Thousands have listened and still listen, to their intense delight and incalculable benefit, to the words of supreme knowledge and wisdom acquired at no second hand but welling up from Her nature. Long established custom which allowed to be transgressed only in the interests of Kulinism and had also at that time just begun to be defied in the cities by English education (both of which circumstances were absent in this case) required that girls should be given in marriage before they acquired either physical fitness or desire for motherhood. So the humble parents selected an equally humble husband for their girl before She completed Her thirteenth year, and She went to live in the husband's family in Dacca district, hiding Her angelic face under a cubit long veil, as village girls of those days invariably did for years after their marriage. Something unworldly was noticed in the girl even in Her childhood. She was often absent-minded, seeing or dreaming of we know not what, but nothing connected with play or work in hand. This trait developed after marriage into frequent fits of apparent insensibility to external surroundings, sometimes involving repetition of hymns or mantras in a tongue or tongues unknown to anybody near Her, although at other times She was perfectly natural, doing all that She was required to do to the satisfaction of every person concerned.

At first these fits were suspected to be hysteric or some distemper of that class. But they occurred generally, though not invariably, when religious chants came to Her ear and they had certain other characteristics that clearly marked them off from any morbid state of the mind. The result was that the young husband felt awe-struck in Her presence and soon enough ceased to look upon Her as wife proper. Thus in spite of marriage and staying with the husband, She continued a Kumari (chaste virgin), under which living form the followers of Shakti Tantra have worshipped the Divine for ages.

The first man to call Her mother was Hara Kumar, a Vaidya by caste, at Bajitpur in the district of Mymensingh where Bholanath was employed at that time in the estate of the Nawab of Dacca. Hara Kumar was regarded as an eccentric fellow, but his feeling was genuine, and he confidently and as it now appears with a prophetic vision, predicted that a time would come when She would be acknowledged as Mother by all. Blessed be his eccentricity! Bholanath liked him and he used to come twice every day to kneel and bow at Mother's feet. But She was as yet very young and this first son of Hers failed for a long time to persuade Her to speak to him, until at last Bholanath pressed Her to overcome Her shyness.

So the Mother, without any possibility of bearing any child by Her physical body, got Her first son. Hundreds and thousands of sons, and daughters too, perhaps more in number than sons, were to follow in good time, as She said later to some of them,

"You may not want me, but I want you."

This is Love.

This is Maha Karuna (Supreme Compassion) as the Mahayana Buddhists say. This is Ahetuki Kripa (causeless mercy) as we say.

After Hara Kumar had set the ball rolling, others including men holding positions in the Nawab estate superior to that of Bholanath, and the ladies of their families who had already been much struck by the stamp of other-worldliness on the young wife's features and Her trancelike fits, began gradually to see things in a new light.

Perhaps, thought they, that eccentric fellow Hara Kumar was right.

And when on the termination of Bholanath's employment at Bajitpur, he and Mother came to Shahbagh, it was found that reports about Her unique spirituality had preceded them to Dacca. People now began to come in larger numbers and view Her with admiration and amazement. Among them were Jyotish Chandra Roy (spoken of before), Personal Assistant to the Director of Agriculture, Bengal (whose headquarters were at Dacca), Dr. Sasanka Mukhei, a retired civil surgeon and his young daughter, familiarly called Khukuni, who, though married, continued a virgin by choice.

Some time later Jyotish Chandra Roy was snatched by Mother from the jaws of death, when lying helpless in an advanced stage of phthisis.

A few years afterwards he retired from the service of Government and devoted himself to the more congenial service of the Mother, his saviour in more senses than one. He even accompanied Mother and Bholanath to Kailas and Manas Sarovar, two most difficult places of pilgrimage across the Himalayas in Tibet, where he received samnyasa (the status of one who has renounced the world) and as a mark of renunciation received the name of Maunananda Parvat, and Bholanath about a year later the name of Tibbatananda Tirtha. The former died at Almora on his way back from Kailash in 1937 and the latter also departed from this life in 1938 at Dehradun. The urge for samnyasa in either case came from the inner Self - from Antaryamin, that is to say, who may be supposed thus to have completely snapped off their mortal coils - the fivefold as a student of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali would say, in order to prepare them for higher life -the life divine - in the Mother.

Dr. Sasanka Mukherji and his daughter also practically renounced the world and dedicated their lives to Mother's service with a devotion and single-minded purpose rarely equalled and never surpassed by any other person. The former also finally adopted samnyasa at Mother's advice from a guru and came thence to be known as Swami Akhandananda Giri. Few people have a more pleasant temper than he had or devote their time more assiduously to japa (repeating God's name) than he did. He shuffled off his mortal coil some years afterwards. His daughter, renamed Gurupriya by Mother and called Didi by everybody else, is still Her constant companion and no Mother could wish for a daughter and no mistress an attendant more devoted and tireless and possessed of both understanding and imagination.

If any of Mother's heavenly (‘retinue’) has come down to wait upon Her here, this Didi of ours must surely be such.

I hazard no guesses as to the identities of Swamis Tibbatananda Tirtha (Bholonath), Maunananda Parvat and Akhandananda Giri.

It may not be generally known that the first, Tibbatananda, openly and loudly called Ma Anandamayi 'Mother' on his death-bed; that is to say, he acknowledged the status of a son in relation to Her.

All, the while that Ma Anandamayi (not yet so called) seemed to be in fits of insensibility to happenings in the work-a-day world, She was experiencing in regular order all the known prakriyas (processes) of Yoga such as asana (posture), mudra (disposition ofthe hands and fingers as symbolic gestures), pranayama (control of the breath), trataka (fixation of the eye balls), japa (repetition of bija, mantra or name) etc. It must be emphasised that She did all this under no outside guidance.

Next began Her 'ministry' proper, which was done and is still done in answer to questions asked by the inquisitive or merely curious. She would be seen in the early part of this ministry sitting absent-minded and when a question was asked, Her face would light up with a divine smile and straight would come out the proper answer, even arguments ending with a charming laugh. Next came those long, tireless, and almost incessant tours over the whole of upper and central India which are still continuing.

She scarcely stays more than a very few days continuously in any one place but gives darshana to all and advice to those that seek it, encourages kirtanas and Nama yajnas, sometimes Herself taking part in them, answers questions and solves doubts. She has picked up beautiful Hindi by which She makes Herself understood by most up-country people. Mother's tours, long or short, are always unplanned.* She follows, so to speak, the bent of Her inclinations or movings of the spirit in every matter. That spirit as we see fails only in raising Her fingers to the mouth.

So She has to be fed like a child by somebody else's hand.

Now, from the beginning there has been no end of questionings as to who or what She may be. Not presuming to offer any solution, I only proceed to discuss the matter and that also not without much diffidence. May not She, some have said, be a fully God-conscious devotee, who having lifted Her soul to the highest plane, is now in a true spirit of love and mercy going about advising and assisting others to lift their souls from the mire of worldly entanglements? It may be pointed out in reply that there is no evidence of Her having performed any regular sadhana (conscious and determined spiritual endeavour), such as most other eminent saints are reported to have done.

Nor does She appear to have ever had the guidance of a guru (spiritual teacher) indispensable on that path. But, the arguer would say, She might be a free and enlightened (mukta and buddha) soul that performed all or nearly all the necessary sadhana in the preceding incarnation under the guidance of a Sad (competent) guru and has now come to complete the inescapable round of rebirths and incidentally to give spiritual light and leading to those coming in contact with Her.

To this suggestion it may be replied that persons attaining some height in their upward spiritual progress come to recollect the details of their previous births and often relate them to their closest disciples.

Mother on the contrary is positive that She has had no previous births.

Then is She an Avatara? ask others. Why not? reply some. No doubt this is a most natural supposition; and indeed I myself have commenced this humble tribute to the Mother by throwing out a suggestion of that kind. But the critical reader would not be satisfie