Evolution of love

JAI MAA

There were only about a dozen of us there. Anandamayi often retreated from the crowds to this ashram. It was a perfect, unhurried setting in which to imbibe the nature of her being and savour the atmosphere of this enchanted spot. It was a remarkably non-culture-specific scene. On that hilltop one might have been almost anywhere in the world, so muted was the detailing. At the ashram, people wore plain, anonymous garments, mostly unadorned lengths of wrap-around cotton with woollen shawls.
These clothes were white and indeed the whole scene was very muted in colour. In this basic environment I had the sensation of being located at the outer reaches of what had once been a single, vast hegemony which stretched from the eastern extremity of India to the furthest western fringe of Ultima Thule.
Upon this domain, as one can often feel in the Gangetic plain, there remain faint traces of an ancient uniting force, that of Greece, which spread across immensities of time and space to leave their gentle impress - no more than ghostly traces now, but palpable none the less - upon dwellings and people.
In this antique land, Anandamayi had something about her of the sibyl and walked abroad like a Homeric prophetess or Hebraic psalmist. She also brought to mind archetypes from the basilicas of Byzantium and Constantine's home, and from Zeud Avesta and Mahabharata.
The upper storey of the ashram contained Anandamayi's very simple quarters, with surrounding balconies. She would sit here on the southern balcony every morning in light shade, perhaps dictating letters while having her long and fine hair combed by an attendant. One morning it became wordlessly clear that I could approach with my camera. The light was perfect; all was quite still. I stood directly and silently in front of her, paused to collect my thoughts, made some camera adjustments, pre-focused my lens to its closest range and moved forward until her features came into focus on the ground-glass viewfinder of my reflex camera. Holding the camera below my own eye-level, I slowly looked up from it. My eyes were now level with hers and she was precisely 68 centimetres, 27 inches away. For what seemed like an eternity I steadied my breathing and we very gently gazed into each other's eyes. Or at least I did, but she cast her cleansing glance right through me into the far distance. For a moment I felt myself to be completely transparent, without substance. Then I pressed the shutter once and moved away. I never needed, nor wished, to do that again.
I used to go for walks in the sacred groves and wander around the temples, quite alone. I peered into dark, sinister niches in the rock where stood terrifying images of deities. Only in close-up could the truly Indian character of Vindhyachal be appreciated, particularly in the juxtaposition of these deities of the local folk culture with the refined sweetness of the classical sculpture that tumbled from some great, lost monument nearby. Then I would pick my way among rocks and pebbles beneath intricate networks of bare winter branches, or clear the autumn leaves from the sculptures strewn around. Everywhere there were streaks, veins, marks, striations, dapplings, twigs, bark, lichen, moss, ferns, and thickets.
I would return to the ashram and take my place with the others at the foot of Anandamayi's bed. She was only a pace or two away; sometimes there was talk and laughter, animated discussion and tales recounted of her early life. There was no exaggerated emotionalism about her; her voice flowed, mellifluous and clear, like the water in a stream, tumbling without hesitation over sparkling pebbles. At other times she was silent, swaying a little from side to side, her head tilted as if listening to something far away Her face was tender and her whole personality radiated a secure warmth. In a swift mood-change her sense of humour shone. She was at home, among her people, perfectly natural, charged with life.
Now and then I would disengage myself from this deep immersion and look into the room from outside, along with a few bystanders from Vindhyachal. The scene, especially by lamplight, reminded me of Flaubert's famous remark on catching sight of cottagers in their lighted hovels: "Ils sont dans le vrai" - literally; "they are in the truth". But the analogy I will use for these scenes is that of a conductor with an orchestra, each musician playing a different instrument. Here, Mataji was conducting a symphony of quietness, not by commands or even by a unifying beat, but by a kind of focused persuasion, suggestion, inspiration. Each person present would be pursuing his own inner tune and perhaps occasionally giving voice to a solo or joining a duet discussion.
When Mataji fell silent, as she often did for minutes on end, she would tilt her head upwards in a variety of ways, but always accompanied by a flick of her locks and a shift in her gaze - intent, alert, hearkening. It seemed to me that, with these little pauses, she was whisking all present through the portals of an open door into a larger, more magical domain of invisible intimations. Even as I write, I can recall these little adjustments of her posture exactly: they had a "creature" quality, like a bird ruffling its feathers before it settles to roost.
These were moments of pure enchantment when I could watch everyone respond as if to fresh inspiration. Like ears of ripening wheat in a light breeze, they would sway a little before they too would settle and glow.
I could look over her shoulder, through door and balcony, and see the branches of trees, pebbles, rocks, leaves and twigs which I had recently examined closely. My eyes would return indoors and scan this sibylline figure as she sat relaxed and bemused. I marvelled at the soft texture of her skin, at the way the shadows round her eyes seemed to have the density of velvet. She retained a youthfulness, which belied her age: 58. I was fascinated by her incessantly mobile features, especially the multiplicity of extremely delicate lines that wove a mobile network across her skin, notably on her forehead and on her lips.
I felt I was looking again at all the intricacies of line I had been tracing in the woods - as if she were a part of the vegetation and the markings of her face and the markings on the trees were all part of a long intricate inscription written in one single script. I had stored in my memory a beautiful observation of Paracelsus on this theme.
It went something like this: 'there are many kinds of chiromancy, not only the chiromancy of man's hands, from which it is possible to infer and discover his inclinations and his fate; there are yet other kinds of chiromancy - for example, that of tree leaves, of herbs, of wood, of shells, of rocks and mines, the chiromancy of landscapes, countries, their roads and rivers."
Written horizontally across Anandamayi's brow were five lines like those of a music score; crossing these were a myriad fine-spun vertical lines in constant movement, knitting and fanning out, narrowing and widening like the action of a loom when the warp and weft open and close. At the mid-point, her brow was momentous, with a suggestion about it of a membrane for receiving and transmitting signals. The brow arched high, expansive and flat, to meet the hairline abruptly. This arching forehead and an energetic jaw like the prow of a ship sailing out of harbour were her most distinctive features. The nose and brows were rounded, gentle, and unassertive. The mouth was very wide, with a multitude of little dips and puckerings, a trenchant line dipping at the centre; so changeable was her mouth that to find any definitive shape in it was impossible.
The eyes of a sage are, of course, the focus of intense interest. Anandamayi's eyes were, as might be expected, most unusual and strange. It was actually quite difficult to settle your gaze on them, regardless of whether or not she happened to be looking at you. At times they were serene and still, but more often they flickered and fluttered like hovering moths, with neither self-consciousness nor agitation certainly not in any way flirtatious or hypnotic. No, their flickering seemed to indicate intense receptivity, mental agility, as if she was listening to a myriad inaudible and different signals on a radio receiver.
I have never watched such an eventful face. It was not exactly focused on any one spot however, but this acute attention seemed diffused in order to encompass both the very near and the very far. Then, like a light being switched off- without the least drama - all animation, all expression, all the fine sensitivity that held you in thrall, would abruptly vanish. Just for a little while, the face would become, like that in the last of the Ten Ox-Herding Pictures, nothing special.
Once or twice on these occasions our eyes would meet. But even then, it was hard to say whether they did or didn't meet, for the radar power of her eyes seemed to cover a wide range. It is difficult to tell what their colour was either, but I guess it was a mixture of black, brown and russet. The irises were irregularly flecked, crumbly with golden glints. I could focus on one eye quite easily, being as near as I was; I could settle on it comfortably even when she seemed to be looking straight at me. But if I made a concentrated effort to look into the other eye, it was not only extremely difficult to hold my gaze but the eye became strangely perturbed and to blink within an otherwise impassive face. My description of this scrutiny no doubt reads as detached, clinical, controlled. In fact, it was much more feeling-saturated and communicative than I can put into words. It was a truly extraordinary experience, inspirational, uplifting, consolidating. Yet it is natural that I should describe this particular face in such impersonal terms, considering who she was. In her silence she was, it seemed, aside, detached, apart. She did not give an impression of coldness in the very least, but her sheer presence was paradoxical.