I would say “She HAD many
names,” since she left her earthly body in 1982, but to many who still feel her
loving presence within them and around them, she has not really left her
devotees.
Anandamayi Ma was one of
those major-league enlightened beings of
the last century that I had mentioned in an earlier entry. How I became aware
of Ma was another one of those “search and search for something of value, until
you trip and fall face first into it” moments for me.
Around the year 2000, I
started my own publishing company (evidently more for my own enjoyment than for
anything related to profit). Within months of becoming an official publishing
house, queries from aspiring authors came trickling into my PO box and email
account asking if my publishing company would be interested in their creative
endeavor.
Some manuscripts, or
condensed synopses of a manuscript, were very intriguing, but being so small
and underfunded as a publisher, I could do little other than offer a few fellow
authors encouragement and suggestions on which other publishers to query next.
One day I received an
intriguing email from a Swami Mangalananda of the Omkareshwar Ashram, in India. Swami Mangalanda was an American
who had devoted the majority of his life to following Sri Anandamayi Ma while
she was still living, and he had written an amazing journal documenting his
personal experiences of meeting various saints, mystics, and sadhus during his
many years in India. To me, his manuscript read like one of my
favorite-books-of-all-times, a modern-day version of Autobiography of a Yogi—the Life of Paramahansa Yogananda. I
thought it was phenomenal.
I told him that he needed a publisher who could do
him justice, promote the book the way it needed to be handled, to really put
some money behind the book—and I felt this book could be every bit as popular
as Autobiography of a Yogi, had been.
I then offered him the only thing that I could give—a book review that he could
quote from if it helped him to sell the manuscript to another publisher.
He was such a nice man, and we communicated back and
forth for awhile—which I truly enjoyed, and I still receive the ashram’s
newsletter, which is what I wanted to now quote from because it was in
yesterday’s email and sort of applies to what I had just been blogging—to keep
your eye on the prize (who you really are and how you wish to live your life)
and don’t be distracted by life’s dancing rats and con men's shifting shells.
Matri
Vani (Words of Ma)
(From
“As I Have Known Her” and “Matri Vani” Volume 2)
[The author
speaking:] Full of emotion, one day I said to Ma when I found Her alone: “Ma,
after we have seen you, we have no more duties to attend to.” In support of my
point, I quoted Paramhansa Sri Ramakrishna,
who said, “If you light just one match stick in a room which has been left dark
for a thousand years, it is instantly lit up.” At this Ma observed, “That is an
odd plea that people often put forward. The thousand-year-old darkness may end
instantly, but how will the foul odor in the room, which has been closed for a
thousand years, go off? The task is not quite that easy. Sadhana (dedicated and disciplined cultivation of knowledge) has
to be done!
In order to go beyond
belief and disbelief, believe in Him (God). Instead of doing so, you believe in
all kinds of other things. Just as there is a veil of ignorance, there is also
a door to Knowledge.
Be it meditation or
the repetition of a mantra (japa); engage in some practice of this kind. Try to
keep your mind on God. The impressions and dispositions developed in countless
lives act as a cover of ignorance, veiling the true nature of things. Endeavor
to get rid of the screen.
Knowing that one is
but an actor on the stage of this world, one lives happily. Those who mistake
the pantomime for reality are of the world (samsari) where there is
constant change and reforming, ceaseless going and coming and the oscillation
between happiness and sorrow. Those who are dressed up in various disguises and
costumes must not forget their real nature! Verily you are the offspring of the
Immortal. Your real Being is truth, goodness and beauty (Satyam, Shivam,
Sundaram)!”
Thank
you, Ma. To learn more about the life of the amazing Anandamayi Ma, visit the
website: www.SriAnandamayiMa.org And if you would like to receive their newsletter
also, you can sign up for there.
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