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 |  I have tried to summarize my observation with vivid and simple manner. |
| With marvellous plasticity, with "concrete" poetry she makes a murti image of a deity out of words - samudra means sea; sva mudra, His own expression; taranga, a wave; tar, His; anga, limb, intrinsic part. In spite of these difficulties with the translation of some passages, Atmananda succeeded in rendering the meaning of Mataji's subtle teaching with clarity and precision. She had the longest association of any European - 40 years almost to the day - and played a significant role as the principal interpreter of Anandamayi to the non-Indian world. Her journals, a remarkable account of a 20th-century woman's spiritual pilgrimage towards her final goal as a disciple of Anandamayi, are currently being prepared for publication. When, as Blanca Schlamm, she became a permanent resident sadhaka, her name was changed to Atmananda, and Mataji allowed her to adopt the ochre robe of a sanyasini in 1962. She was given jal-samadhi, immersion in the waters of the Ganges, a privilege reserved for renunciates, on her death in 1985 at the age of 81. The Sanskritic roots of most modern Indian regional languages run even deeper than those of Latin in some modern European languages, and the Sanskrit vocabulary for spiritual matters, being the richest and most precisely differentiated of all ancient languages, figures prominently even now in daily religious usage. Around 200 of the Sanskrit terms used by Anandamayi are included in the English glossary used in her ashrams, compiled by Atmananda with assistance from Gopinath Kaviraj. The precision and tensile strength of Sanskrit were well suited to Anandamayi's purposes; unlike Sanskrit scholars, she would pick up words and play with them like toys or trinkets - yet remain mindful of their philosophical implications and semantic resonance. Like the Buddha's Four Noble Truths and Eight-fold Path - a formulation indelibly stamped with Gautama's style despite millennia of elaboration - Anandamayi's compressed formulation of God's essence - like ice and water, waves and limbs - will also enter the mainstream of mystical thought and probably survive for just as long. By the time I met her, Anandamayi's "genius" went into her public and private discourses as well as her on-going tutelage of innumerable sadhakas. Her large following included many distinguished and impressive people. Because they had known her, and each other, for a great many years and had witnessed many extraordinary scenes associated with Mataji, there was a vast repository of oral history at the disposal of anyone like myself who was interested in the anecdotal level of so lively a scene. I learnt more about India's living spiritual culture in this way than by any other means. My own anecdotes are few; I include some here to amplify what I think my photographs express more vividly; During the 59th-birthday celebration in Almora, a very large number of people gathered daily for satsang; the hall would be absolutely packed. In the mornings, distinguished speakers gave talks while Anandamayi sat to one side listening. There was always a pile of recently offered flowers beside her on the dais, and I watched her one day playing with these flowers abstractedly while someone sang bhajans. She selected one particularly handsome bloom, a big dark red dahlia, so dark that it was almost black. She started to smooth down its petals and sway from side to side, shaking out her hair, which had been coiled on top of her head. Now she went into a wild bhava, she herself darkened and the structure of her head became noticeably different. The bhava was somehow secretive, in-drawn, particularly when she began, with accelerating speed, to pull off each petal, one by one. When, finally; she had pulled off the last petal she held the dahlia by its stalk, fingered the golden centre, and then for a long time gazed at this with the most rapt and delicate attention. Had she, I wondered, made the connection between what she had just done, and an incident recorded by her beloved disciple, Bhaiji? The Almora ashram, after all, was built beside Bhaiji's last resting place, his samadhi, in 1937: One day at the ashram, Sri Ma took a flower and plucking away all its petals, said to me: "Many of your samskaras, psychic traces, have dropped away and many more will fall off like the petals of this flower, till I shall remain as your main prop, just like the one stalk of this flower. Do you understand?, saying this, she began to laugh. I enquired: "Ma, how can I reach that state." She replied: "Every day remember this once: you need not do anything else." One of the morning speakers that season in Almora was an eminent and powerful monk who headed the Shankaracharya Math in Bombay; A very tall and imposing figure with bald head, bull neck and ash-smeared brow, he was an intimidating presence on his dais in the centre of the hall, while Anandamayi was seated well to one side, taking no part at all in the proceedings. She was in a restive mood, looking about her, apparently not listening to what the monk was saying. He was lecturing on Vedanta, larding his words with formidable Sanskrit terminology in a somewhat hectoring tone. Playing with the string of a flower garland, very casually, almost in an absent-minded aside, Mataji interjected a one-sentence remark, addressing the Swami respectfully as Pitaji father, but in the lightest of tones. The Swami stopped in mid-sentence, paused, looked down and suddenly burst into tears. To everyone's astonishment the giant monk just crumpled before our very eyes. With a word to an attendant, Mataji swept the girls of the ashram school into bhajans and everyone joined in. The mood relaxed, the Swami regained his composure and was soon rattling on. What had touched him to the quick nobody could tell. During satsang in Varanasi about 50 of us were gathered while Mataji listened to someone talking. In the background, down below in the courtyard, two men were talking, their voices rising in a crescendo until they were bellowing angrily at each other. Hitherto, no row had ever erupted during any of my stays in the ashram. The noise was now beginning to wreck the peaceful atmosphere in the hall. Mataji looked at me, beckoned an attendant to her side and sent him over to speak to me. Would I, he whispered please go and stop the argument. I had no alternative but to do as I was bidden. I went down to the yard and found that the row was between the senior Swami and Mataji's brother. It suddenly dawned on me why I in particular had been selected to remonstrate with the culprits. The plain fact was, I realised, I could not speak their language, nor could they mine! Thus are the winning ways of Anandamayi! She knew I would not become ensnared in the karmic net of other men's disputes and that everyone's self-esteem would remain intact. It ended with both protagonists reduced to helpless laughter by my futile remonstrations. |
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