Lewis Thompson On Anandamayi Ma
19.IV.48.
Ashram. Blanca Schlamm reporting Sri Anandamayi’s replies, last night to a questioner:-
1. What times are most auspicious for meditation?
Sri Anandamayi: No fixed times ! —All times are auspicious. (Sadhakas say the four sandhyas are the most auspicious, but the day can be further sub-divided, indefinitely.) The real thing (Blanca’s words) is not to have any particular hour for meditation—one can meditate at any time during the 24 hours.
2. Sri Anandamayi: Every state or mood, she says, has its corresponding asan (posture), from which it can be read. Asan depends upon the rhythm of the breath. During ‘sadhana’ Sri Anandamayi took up the most extraordinary postures which she could not herself repeat next day when the rhythm of the breath was different. If mind and breath are perfectly tuned the corresponding asan becomes perfectly easy (the body is not felt) and it can be sustained with no sense of time. Just as during sleep the body can remain for hours without discomfort in one position, such spontaneous concentration automatically perfects the asan that supports it. Any strain during meditation or pain felt in the body afterwards shows imperfect coordination of mind and breath.
3. Sri Anandamayi: Vibheda drishti.
Though the thought or mood of everyone can be seen from his posture, all is seen as it is but vibhed, as forms of the One. Vision of the aura (that temple also has an aura) depends upon bheda (limitation—is relative only).
4. Do you still, did you today, read, see the thought of each from his posture as you used to during the play at sadhana?
Sri Anandamayi: That (play) was only krama (gradualness). This cannot be asked: there is no today.
Her gaze. The indescribable effect of Her direct gaze—not quite human: it seems to directly touch the deepest spiritual centre. It lasted only for a moment then Mother looked away; otherwise, I felt, if I could continue to look I might have been lost, absorbed.
12.I.48. Dream.
I meet Sri Anandamayi. Sitting down she says: “There is a special time (ksana) for (I understand) the meeting with Sri Krishna Menon. How use the time between, I thought. Oh, I know I should work—for realisation—but how dry (I felt to work with mind and will ! I remark to her chargé d’affaires, Anandapriya. I am weeping at Sri Anandamayi’s feet. “Does he (Sri Krishna Menon) not give you great pleasure?, She asks (She means, of heart—in every way). He said once: “The guru gives pleasure to the heart, intellect, the senses of the disciple. I could not simply say Yes.
Raising Her arm to full length over Her head (not touching mine, as only the guru should do), the hand open, almost standing on tiptoe with zest and emphasis, She blesses me (in the ‘tone” of Her happy, humorous laughter, which one might expect to break out after this). [Perhaps it would be fair to assume that, for want of access to Menon, his dictum that dreaming of one’s guru is auspicious, applies in this instance and L.T. knew that to be true.]
A little girl (possibly a relation of Hers), very earnest and concentrated, looking at me with very intent eyes, almost severe with seriousness, begins to prophesy. Sri Anandamayi puts her aside, but standing there, still looking at me, she continues to recite what seems to be an inspired, impromptu verse.
2.V.45.
(On a photo of Sri Anandamayi Ma). Though all the joys and sorrows, doubts and certainties of a world ceaselessly reflect themselves in it like light and shade, they find in its unfathomable depth endless perfectly responsive surfaces, Your face, a ceaseless flower, is ever bright, simple and fresh with a Loveliness that is its own pure and eternal source—a Loveliness too simple to be seized, for it is All and the Source of All—not even the Source of All.
27.V.48.
Raja Sahib tells me stories of saints. Anandamayi Ma told (his wife?), Roma Devi, alone with her at Vindhyachal, that no-one who comes to Her will fall to a lower state, and if he does not realise in this life will in the next—will not need many births.
The first time Kali-puja was performed with Mataji there, at Didi’s father’s house, Mataji began to make offerings to the murti, then put them on Her own head and finally appeared as Kali, with four arms and long red tongue and gave a laugh at which several fell senseless.
At one time when Mataji used to have fever, she was in such a bhav that the lady-doctor who felt her pulse fell senseless and remained so for half an hour. Raja Sahib once heard Sri Anandamayi Ma, in bhav, recite for five to seven minutes, spontaneous verses in perfectly enunciated Sanskrit. For about 24 hours afterwards her speech was confused like a child’s.
... The Sri Aurobindo’s, Sri Krisha Menon’s, Sri Anandamayi Ma’s, when it comes to the point, always silent towards me, and in their silence I sense an unseizable quality or meaning... as if a secret that I have to discover—if I dared—can never be put into words.
16.VI.48.
JCC: Cites example of Anandamayi Ma’s forevision:
The sadhu Kamal says that before the killings in Bengal Anandamayi Ma said she was seeing the gutters running with blood. But after a difficult period, dawn of the Satya-yuga.
Mataji has said that she sees in every case why a man has come to her, what benefit he will derive, how he will leave the body.
Blanca Schlamm’s diary account of Lewis Thompson
Mid-March, 1945
It must be made clear that Thompson had a very sharp, critical intellect and was extremely difficult to please. Only the very best, the highest, interested him and he coldly would dismiss everything else. To my amazement I found him (in Sarnath) all but in raptures when I asked him about his impression of Sri Anandamayi Ma. “As soon as I saw her’, he said, ‘I knew that my intuition had been correct (when showed a photo)—except that I found far more than I expected. I simply could not tear myself away. . . I went back to see her in the evening and
remained till late at night. I have never seen anyone like her. There is not the slightest trace of ego to be detected in her’. “How can you possibly judge in one day?”, I questioned, “you cannot even have talked to her”. “I am quite certain,” he declared with emphasis, ‘I have spent many years studying the great mystics of India and have developed some insight in this respect. There is no need to talk. I watched her very carefully; I have never before come face to face with such perfection; there is no flaw in her, none whatever.”
29.VI.48.
Kamalda’s notes of Anandamayi Ma’s talk:
She had full jnana from her birth. Whatever is manifested in her body is because others want it and for their benefit. So, every sadhana was manifested—nothing was a drama. [Reference to her self-initiated practices when young.] For sadhana day and night, food, sleep should not arise—if the individual feels need for them he is not a real sadhaka.