Anandamayi Ma

Anandamayi Ma is one of the most revered spiritual figures of twentieth-century India — a mystic of extraordinary power whose mere presence transformed the consciousness of those who entered her orbit. Born Nirmala Sundari Devi in the village of Kheora in East Bengal, she showed signs from childhood of an unusual inner state: she would lose herself in prolonged ecstasies, communicate with invisible presences, and display spontaneous mudras and pranayamas as if performing an inner yoga she had never been taught.

Married at the age of twelve to Ramani Mohan Chakrabarti (who became her lifelong devotee and assistant), she continued deepening in her interior life. In the years between 1922 and 1928, she passed through a period of intense spontaneous sadhana, performing practices she had never formally learned, culminating in her own self-initiation and her teaching of mantra to her husband without having received it from any human guru. Her explanation was simple: the one who dwells within her was conducting the sadhana.

She spent the rest of her life travelling across India, establishing ashrams, and simply being available to all who came — rich, poor, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, scholar, or illiterate. She never formally distinguished between them. She gave darshan (the grace of presence) tirelessly, often in states of deep absorption from which she would emerge to address the person before her with astonishing precision. Indira Gandhi, Morarji Desai, and countless leaders sought her blessing. But her greatest care was always for the most ordinary, the most broken.

Her reported experience was of constant non-separation from the divine: ‘In this body,’ she said, ‘there is no I, no you, no this, no that — only That.’ She lived until 1982, never aging in spirit, always recognisable by the radiant smile that gave her her name: Anandamayi — the Joy-Permeated One.