Evolution of love

Mother Bliss-Incarnate

A lady: "Ma! A motor car is waiting to take you away from us. The sound of the horn causes my heart to ache. It seems as if Akrur has come to snatch away our Sri Krishna from our midst."

Ma: "Why are you so much moved? Am I not just an ordinary person like you? I have been here only on a short visit. And like a stranger I have wandered about in my own way. But you have offered me meals with great cordiality and tender care."

A young housewife said in her smart reply: "Ma, we belong to Tarapeeth, a sacred place of pilgrimage. We are used to seeing so many saints and sages. We can easily size up people. We have never come across one like you - verily a goddess in human form."

Ma replied: "No I am neither a sage nor a saint. How could I be compared to them?"

The lady's rejoinder was: "Why try to deceive us? You are indeed, goddess incarnate!"
From the book: Anandamayi Ma the Mother Bliss-Incarnate

On the occasion of the solar eclipse on Makar-sankranti (January 10th, 1926) nama kirtana (singing of a sacred name) was started at Shahbag in the morning. In the elevated mood of mahabhava, unmindful of her body, Anandamayi Ma started moving her head backwards so much that it touched her body. Her hands were lifted towards the sky. For a short while she performed Shiva's dance standing on one leg. Thereafter she lay down flat on the floor and her whole body rolled over the open space just like a piece of cloth or a dry leaf blown forward by a strong wind. People around Mataji tried to stop her movement but failed in their attempts.

Mataji says that sometimes dead persons in their subtle bodies appear before her just as we go to her for darshan. She also has said that these souls sometimes come to her in the guise of even snakes. At times devotees feel that they should leave Mataji alone in her room so that she may have the chance to rest. But Mataji has stated so often that even though she might be left alone in the room, souls not visible to ordinary human beings appear before her and talk to her in their own languages. She says that her body may seem to be sleeping but actually she does not sleep inasmuch as she never is unconscious. In her kheyala or bhava she knows what is happening all around. It is really surprising that when we are blessed with the presence of such a great Divine Being in our midst, only a few of our leaders, educationalists, reformers and well wishers of the oppressed and down trodden should take advantage of her guidance to solve the many intricate and complex problems facing the world.

Anandamayi Ma once observed: "Ma means Atma. All space is ma-may (i.e. pervaded by her presence)".

She once said to a group: "I am ever present with you all, but you have little yearning to see me. What am I to do? Know it for certain I have my eyes fixed on what you do or fail to do."

"You all love this body so much that you often come to see me, unmindful of the long distance that many of you have to travel. Yet, it is true that this body has no relationship with any of you except the kinship of the Atma which this body enjoys equally not only with each of you but even with all trees, creepers and the foliage around, as well as with rocks, mountains, and everything else."

Another time when she was leaving the Almora ashram after two month stay there. One of the residents lamented her leaving: "Mataji, you are leaving us! We shall feel so lonely; our lives will be empty without you." Ma consoled the devotees by saying: "Why do you say I am leaving you? Why do you push me away? I am always with you!"

At another time she said: "This body has her being in all ashramas. You imagine she is confined only to the ashram set up by you. This body knows but one sole ashram which extends over the whole universe."

A Devotee complained: "But we cannot see you with our eyes. If you had really been with us, certainly we would have seen you. I am not satisfied with such an explanation from you." Ma's reply was:

"By thinking about somebody one can come close to him. There is really no difference between seeing with the eye and seeing with the mind."