AkhandanandaBholanath DidimaGurupriya Didi Paramananda
HaribabaBhaijiGopinath Kaviraj
Br TanmayanandaSwami KeshavanandaNarayan-Swami
Swami NirvananandaSwami BhagavatanandaSri Satyananda
Swami Maitrikananda (previously Maitreyi Didi.)
Maitreyi Didi was born in 1933 in a Vaishnava family – Pushti Marg – of the Sw Narayan lineage. The family guru was Yogibaba, and she had diksha in that tradition. Her mother died when she was young and her father did not take her out. She never had an inclination towards marriage.
She first saw Sri Ma at Kantibhai Munshaw’s place in Ahmedabad at the end of 1947. After she garlanded Sri Ma there she felt a strong pull, and did not want to be separate from her. On Sri Ma’s departure at the train station Ma touched her head. From then on she often kept maun and did not relish her food. On another visit of Sri Ma, following a dream, she asked if she could go with Sri Ma. Sri Ma asked her to prepare herself. Then in 1960 Ma wrote to her from Solon that she could join her at Naimisharanya, where there would be a Bhagavat reading. She did so and remained with Sri Ma from that time on.
It was there she received from Ma her name Maitreyi, where the sage Yagnavalkya who had married his wife Maitreyi, had stayed at the conclave of the sages.
Originally Maitreyi Didi served Ma’s mother, Didima, and helped in the diksha preparations. She also helped in pujas and consecrations and became an expert in the details of Bhagavat Saptahs. Once Sri Ma said to her “Do you consider this body different from the Bhagavat?”
Her puja would be done to a picture given by Sri Ma, of Sri Ma as Krishna. She always held that whatever Gods or Goddesses there were, all is Ma.
She passed away on 3rd April 2018 in Kankhal ashram after a period of physical weakness.
