her brother-in-law died, she went to live with her
husband; there she met a young man who was
impressed by her quiet way of being. He called her
Ma (mother in Bengali) and said that one day the
entire world would address her with that name.
Her marriage remained celibate because Nir-
mala’s body would grow stiff and faint when her
husband approached the topic of sexuality. She
would regain normal consciousness only after he
repeated MANTRAS. He eventually accepted her as
his GURU and took initiation from her.
Throughout her life, Nirmala exhibited bodily
states of trance, physical stiffness, and fainting.
She could hold difficult yogic positions (ASANAS)
for long periods and form complex hand positions
(MUDRAS) and gestures. After examination by exor-
cists and physicians, she was diagnosed as having
a kind of god intoxication, a divine madness. Her
status as a holy woman was based entirely on her
spontaneous ecstatic states, as she did not receive
formal religious training or initiation from a guru.
Instead, she heard voices that told her which
spiritual practices to perform and which images to
visualize. She would variously shed profuse tears,
laugh for hours, talk at great speed, roll in the
dust, dance for long periods, and fast for days.
At age 26 Nirmala began a stage of spiritual
discipline (SADHANA) without a guru. She per-
formed her own initiation (DIKSHA), spontaneously
visualizing the ritual and initiatory sacred words,
after which she entered three years of complete
silence. In 1925, Sri Jyotish Chandra Roy named
her Anandamayi Ma.
Although her parents worshipped KRISHNA,
Anandamayi is not properly placed in a specific
Hindu sect; rather, her influence was felt in many
religious traditions of India. She traveled widely,
staying at abandoned temples and other inhospi-
table sites, with little care for her physical body.
She taught detachment from the world, religious
devotion, and service to others. She was known
for her SIDDHIS, or yogic powers, particularly
telepathy, healing, and a variety of psychic states.
Her chaotic states of consciousness, she believed,
derived from spontaneous eruptions of the divine
will that arise out of the state of nothingness or
the void (mahasunya). She explained that her
emotional states were the play of the Lord acting
through her body, and that she as an individual
person did not exist. She died on August 27,- The Sri Sri Anandamayi Sangha of Varanasi
coordinates many ASHRAMS built for her by her
disciples throughout India.
Further reading: Gopinath Kaviraj, ed., Mother as Seen
by Her Devotees (Varanasi: Shri Shri Anandamayee
Sangha, 1967); ———, Shri Shri Ma Anandamayi (Cal-
cutta: Basyant Prakasani, 1982); Lisa Lassell Hallstrom,Anandamayi Ma (1896–1982), a renowned 20th-
century mystic of Bengal and North India (Courtesy
Anandamayi Ma Ashram, Haridwar)
K 32 Anandamayi Ma