Anandamayi Ma: The Joy-Permeated Mother Who Needed No Teacher

Some saints are known for what they taught. Anandamayi Ma is known for what she was. Born in a poor village in eastern Bengal in 1896, she had almost no schooling, married as a young girl, and spent her days cooking and cleaning in her in-laws’ home. Then, one August night in 1922, she initiated herself into a mantra with no teacher present. Within a few years crowds were gathering to sit in her presence. Millions came to call her Ma, and she was widely known as the Joy-Permeated Mother. This guide follows her story from the village of Kheora to her final days in Dehradun, explains what she taught, and tells you what is documented and what is devotional memory.

Who Was Anandamayi Ma?

Anandamayi Ma was an Indian mystic whose life spanned most of the twentieth century. She was born on April 30, 1896, in the village of Kheora in eastern Bengal, in what is now Bangladesh. She died on August 27, 1982, in Dehradun in the foothills of the Himalayas. In between she traveled across the length of India, accompanied by a steady stream of disciples, ministers, scholars, villagers and seekers from abroad.

The name by which she is known, Anandamayi, joins ananda, bliss or joy, with mayi, full of or permeated by. Her devotees simply call her Ma, Mother. Many Bengalis and North Indians who met her describe a feeling that is hard to explain, a sense of being seen entirely and loved without conditions.

She is unusual among modern saints for several reasons. She had no formal spiritual education. She claimed no lineage and no human guru. She did not found a school of teaching, and she insisted that she had no disciples. And yet an extraordinary range of people, from village women to prime ministers and Sanskrit scholars, spent years in her company.

That raises a question every honest account of her has to face. How do we write about a person whom devotees regard as a divine incarnation and who herself seemed to resist all labels? In this guide we try to hold both: the facts that can be checked, and the testimony of those who loved her. We say which is which.

One Woman, Many Names

She was born Nirmala Sundari, a name that means something like “pure and beautiful.” Family and neighbors called her Nirmala. Later, as her spiritual state became obvious to those around her, her husband and others began calling her “Ma.”

The name that stuck came in Dhaka in 1925. According to her ashram’s own history, a devoted follower named Jyotish Chandra Roy, known to everyone as Bhaiji (“elder brother”), named her Anandamayi Ma. Bhaiji was a government official and one of the first people to organize the growing circle of devotees. He became a lifelong helper in her work.

Interestingly, Ma herself did not seem to give the name much weight. She referred to herself in the third person as “this body,” ei sharir, and often as “Ma.” When people asked who she was, she answered in ways that deflected attention from her personality. She might say that she was whatever the questioner took her to be. She might say that she had always been the same, whether as a girl, a wife or a saint.

This habit of speaking about herself from a slight distance gives her teaching an unusual quality. She was not performing humility. She seemed genuinely to experience the body and its history as something that happened around her, not to her.

Kheora: A Childhood in Eastern Bengal

Nirmala’s parents were Bipin Bihari Bhattacharya and Mokshada Sundari Devi. They were Brahmins, but poor, and they followed the Vaishnava path of devotion to Krishna. Her father was known as a gifted devotional singer who spent much of his time absorbed in kirtan, the call-and-response singing of divine names. He was not much interested in earning money, and the family moved from place to place in the countryside, living on the generosity of relatives and neighbors.

The village landscape was one of ponds, rice fields and bamboo groves, with the monsoon rivers of eastern Bengal running through it. It was a world of small rituals, village festivals and long evenings of song. Spiritual life there was not set apart from daily work. The Name of God was spoken when you cooked, when you walked to the pond, when someone fell ill.

The accounts of her early years, written by devotees, agree on a few features. She was a quiet child with an unusual calm. She did the household work without complaint. She had a very good memory and picked up what she heard with surprising ease. And she showed a remarkable sensitivity to devotional music. When kirtan was sung, she sometimes fell into a state of absorption, her body still, her face luminous, unresponsive to those who called her.

These episodes are described by family members and neighbors, and they were taken by some as signs of a spiritual nature and by others as an unusual nervous temperament. She herself, when asked about them much later, said little. She indicated that she had always been in this state, and that it had simply become more visible.

Her schooling was minimal. She attended the village school for a short time, perhaps two or three years in all, and learned only the rudiments of reading. This is important for understanding what came later. When she spoke in a way that scholars admired, she was not drawing on books. Whatever was happening, it was not education in the usual sense.

Marriage at Twelve

In February 1909, when Nirmala was twelve, she was married to Ramani Mohan Chakravarty, a man from a nearby family who worked as a clerk. This was typical for the time and place, and her parents, who were poor, saw it as a duty. After the wedding she returned to her parents’ home for several years, and later joined her husband when she was a teenager.

The marriage was unusual from the start. According to the Sangha’s biography, Ma had a wish to remain celibate for life, and Ramani Mohan respected it. Whatever the details, all accounts agree that the marriage was never a conventional one. He became, in time, her devoted companion, protector and disciple.

For some years she lived in the household of her husband’s family, where she served as a daughter-in-law was expected to serve. She cooked, cleaned, tended the sick, and attended to guests. People who knew her then remembered that she was gentle, efficient and almost silent. Those who looked closely noticed that she seemed to be doing every task with great stillness, as if the work were a form of prayer.

Some of the stories from this period show her even then as unusual. A neighbor would remember a night when she appeared to be sitting in deep absorption in the courtyard, wholly unmoved by the noise around her. Another recalled that she once cured a sick relative by her touch. Such stories come mainly from devotional sources, and they should be treated as memory and tradition.

What is clear is that she was living a double life that few could see: a household girl in the day, and something much larger underneath.

Bajitpur and the Intensive Years

Around 1918, Ramani Mohan took a job in Bajitpur, a town in what is now Bangladesh, and Ma went with him. In the following years, the quiet absorption that had marked her childhood intensified. She began to enter long states of silence. At times she would sit motionless for hours. At others her body moved on its own in ways that looked like yoga postures she had never been taught: mudras, breathing patterns, and positions held with an ease that startled onlookers.

She sang and laughed and wept without apparent cause. She would shift from deep stillness to bursts of ecstatic dance. She sometimes recited Sanskrit verses and invocations that she could not have learned from any known source. On some occasions she was heard to chant in Sanskrit and perform what looked like the full procedure of a ritual worship, with no teacher or book at hand.

This phase lasted several years. Her ashram’s chronology describes it as a period of intense sadhana, spiritual practice, and treats it as a time in which all the stages of the path, as laid out in the different traditions, passed through her body and mind in succession.

The people around her did not know what to make of it. Some thought she was ill. Some thought she was possessed. Some were awed. Her husband, a practical man, was deeply worried. He sent for doctors, and for priests, and he tried a number of remedies. None produced a cure, because there was nothing to cure.

For the modern reader, this part of the story is a reminder that spiritual awakening in a body does not always look serene. It can look like illness, madness or eccentricity. The traditions of India have long recognized this. They speak of states of divine intoxication, bhava and mahabhava, that are not pathologies but intensifications of love. The question is always what the person is like afterward.

Bholanath: The Husband Who Became a Disciple

Ramani Mohan is one of the most moving figures in her story. He was an ordinary man in many ways: a clerk, a householder, a husband bound by custom. And he watched his young wife pass into states he could not understand.

At first he did what many husbands in his place would have done. He sought a medical explanation. He took her to doctors. He arranged for exorcism, when a neighbor suggested she was under a spirit’s influence. He worried about what people would say. Then, gradually, he began to see something else. He noticed that the more he tried to treat her as sick, the more she seemed to him a presence he could trust. He began to call her “Ma.”

A decisive moment is described in the biographies as a night when he approached her with a husband’s desire. According to the accounts, he found himself shaken, unable to proceed. He felt as if he were in the presence of something sacred. He fell at her feet and took a vow that he would serve her as his spiritual teacher for the rest of his life. It is the same story Yogananda heard from her in the 1930s and recorded in his Autobiography.

From then on he was known as Bholanath, a name of Shiva that means the “Lord of the simple-hearted,” and to many devotees as Pitaji, “Father.” He became her first disciple, her companion in travel and the manager of the growing crowds around her. In time, he practiced his own austerities and gave initiation to others. He took a vow of silence for a period. He took sannyas, the monastic vow, in secret at Lake Manasarovar, a fact that became known only after his death.

Bholanath died on May 7, 1938, at the Kishenpur ashram in Dehradun, while kirtan was being sung around him. Ma cared for him through his last illness. It was said that at the end she placed her hand on the crown of his head. The story of this couple, a husband who became the devoted disciple of his wife and a wife who stayed tender as a wife, is among the more unusual love stories in the history of Indian spirituality.

August 3, 1922: The Self-Initiation

The most remarkable event in her life story is the one that happened on the night of the full moon of the month of Shravan, known as Jhulan Purnima, on August 3, 1922. By her ashram’s account, her family were asleep. She rose, sat down, and drew a sacred design on the floor. Then she performed what looked like a full initiation ritual, with all of its steps: invocation, offerings, and the reception of a mantra. She acted as both guru and disciple, giving herself the sacred sound.

In traditional Hindu life, initiation, diksha, is given by a guru to a disciple. It passes a living line. For a woman to perform the ritual alone, without a teacher, was unheard of. For a girl with so little education to do so was even more extraordinary.

Ma herself, when asked about it later, said that the Guru and the disciple were the same. She indicated that no outside teacher had been needed because she had never been separate from what an initiation points to. Her devotees take this as a sign of her divinity. A more reserved reader might say that the account describes a person who had a powerful experience of inner guidance and who performed a ritual that gave it form.

It matters for our own path. Some people who read this story feel a quiet challenge. If the teacher can be found within, as the self-initiation suggests, then what is the role of outer teachers? Ma did not discourage seekers from seeking. She often said that the guru is one, whether in the form of a human teacher or the voice within. She also made a point of encouraging people to remain with the path they had.

Her ashram’s chronology records that in the months that followed, Bholanath came to her as a disciple, the first of many.

Dhaka, Shahbag and the Birth of a Following

In 1924 Bholanath took up work in Dhaka, where he was employed at the garden estate of the Nawab of Dhaka at Shahbag. Ma went with him, and for the first time her presence became known beyond a small circle. People began to come. At first they were relatives and neighbors. Soon they included professionals, officials, scholars and ordinary seekers from across Dhaka.

Jyotish Chandra Roy, a government employee, arrived and soon became a devoted follower. He watched her, took notes on her sayings and saw to it that her needs were met. In 1925, at the Siddheshwari area of Dhaka, it was he who gave her the name Anandamayi Ma. Around the same time she was drawn to an abandoned Kali temple in the Siddheshwari area. She had seen it in a vision earlier, and when she located it in the countryside she was moved. The temple and the land around it became the first center of her work.

In 1926 devotees built an ashram at Siddheshwari. Ma did not stay there. In fact one of the most revealing features of her life is that she never settled. For the remaining decades she moved from place to place, and ashrams grew up wherever she stayed.

This was a crucial moment for the spread of her fame. Within a few years her reputation reached Calcutta, and then beyond. Stories of healing, of answered prayer and of astonishing calm spread through word of mouth.

Recognition at Deoghar, 1928

In May 1928, Ma traveled to Deoghar in Bihar, where she met a well-known saint named Balananda Brahmachari. According to her ashram’s chronology, he recognized her as the Divine Mother. Statements like this from respected figures mattered a great deal in establishing her reputation. They told the traditional religious world that this woman was not an eccentric but a genuine saint.

From the late 1920s, her work spread across India. She went to the great pilgrimage centers: Varanasi, Haridwar, Vrindavan, Puri. She went to the Himalayan towns of Dehradun, Almora and Uttarkashi. She stayed at ashrams built by her devotees and at the homes of ordinary families. Wherever she went, a crowd formed.

She became one of the first Indian women saints to be visited by leaders of the political world. Among those drawn to her was Kamala Nehru, the wife of Jawaharlal Nehru, who became a devotee in 1933. Scholars, too, were drawn to her, among them the Sanskrit scholar Gopinath Kaviraj of Varanasi, who became one of her closest followers.

What drew them? Almost every account says the same thing: they came away changed, not by an argument or a teaching, but by the experience of sitting with her.

Gandhi, Kamala Nehru and the Political World

Ma never took part in politics, but the political world found its way to her. A key link was Kamala Nehru, the wife of Jawaharlal Nehru, who met her in the early 1930s and became a devoted follower. Kamala was often ill, and her husband was frequently in prison. Those who knew her said she found in Ma a calm center during hard years.

Through Kamala, the news of Ma reached Mahatma Gandhi. According to the accounts, he sent his close supporter Jamnalal Bajaj, a businessman and a leading figure in the freedom movement, to see her. Bajaj became a devotee. After his death, Ma visited Gandhi at Wardha.

What is striking is how little Ma changed when she moved among such people. She did not flatter leaders, and she did not preach to them. She treated a minister the way she treated a village widow. Those who came to her from the world of power often remarked on the relief of being with someone who wanted nothing from them.

This is a quiet lesson for anyone who has been around influence. The deepest authority is not the kind that seeks followers or favor. It is the kind that remains the same in every room.

The Wandering Mother

For more than five decades, Ma lived on the move. She traveled by train, by car and on foot, often with a party of devotees who set up camp wherever she stopped. Her itinerary was not planned in the usual way. She used a word, kheyala, to describe what moved her. It can be translated as spontaneous divine will or sudden impulse. She might say that a certain place, a certain person or a certain day called, and the party would leave within the hour.

Devotees describe a life of extraordinary simplicity. She owned almost nothing. She slept on the floor or on a simple bed. She ate very little, and for many years she is said to have taken food only when it was placed in her mouth by someone else, as she paid no attention to her body’s needs. Women devotees served as her close attendants. Sometimes she sat for hours in silence, and sometimes she laughed and sang with childlike abandon.

She also took up the pilgrim’s path. She visited holy places across India, in the Himalayas and in the south, and she met other great teachers of her day. In each place she seemed at home, and the local people felt that they had met someone from their own family.

There is an inspiring plainness to the picture. Here was a woman who could have stayed in comfort and instead kept moving among the poor, the sick and the curious, available to anyone who came.

Meetings with Other Great Teachers

During her travels, Ma also sought out and met other spiritual figures of her time. According to the available accounts, she visited Ramana Maharshi at Tiruvannamalai in South India, and she met the philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti. Such meetings in the Indian spiritual world are often described in terms of mutual recognition rather than debate.

She also met Yogananda, as described below, and many lesser-known teachers, monks and householder saints. Her habit was to bow with the same respect to all.

This tells us something about her view of the spiritual world. She was not a competitor in a marketplace of paths. She saw the same light shining through many lamps. For a modern seeker who feels pressure to choose the “right” teacher and drop all the others, that is a relief. You can honor more than one guide.

What Did She Teach?

Anandamayi Ma did not write books or give formal lectures. Her teaching comes to us through her conversations, recorded by devotees, and through collections of her sayings, such as Matri Vani, “Words of the Mother.” She taught in short, direct statements, often in response to a question. Her tone was affectionate and sometimes playful.

Several themes recur.

• The one Self. She taught that there is only one reality, and that everything else is its appearance. Individual selves are waves on a single ocean. She said this simply, without elaborate philosophy.
• Remember God. She encouraged constant remembrance through japa, the repetition of a divine Name, and through kirtan. For her the Name was not a technique. It was God’s presence in sound.
• Satsang and silence. She valued time spent in the company of truth, whether with a teacher, in a group or alone. She also valued silence as a form of speech.
• Surrender. She taught that suffering often comes from clinging to the idea that we are the doer. When we offer our actions and our lives to the Divine, we are freed from carrying them alone.
• Service without ego. She taught that work done with love and no thought of reward is itself worship. She had nothing against householders; she wanted them to live their lives as an offering.
• All paths. She never asked anyone to change religion, and she blessed people of every faith. She taught that God reveals Himself through many religions, so each person can progress according to their own nature.

Her style could surprise those who expected a stern guru. She told jokes. She teased. She might respond to a deep question with a laugh, and then with a sentence that went to the bone.

Why She Spoke in the Third Person

Ma’s habit of calling herself “this body” sounds strange at first. It can seem evasive, or even theatrical. But it fits what she said about her own experience, that the sense of being a separate person who does things was absent for her, or at least not in the foreground.

In the Advaita tradition this is described as living from the Self rather than from the ego. The body acts, the voice speaks, the mind thinks, but the sense of “I am the doer” does not take hold. A person in that state may talk about their body the way you might talk about a coat.

Whether you take this as literal description or as a teaching device, there is something useful in it for the rest of us. Try, for a day, to notice the difference between “I am angry” and “anger is arising.” Between “I failed” and “this attempt did not work.” The second phrasing is not denial. It leaves room to breathe, and room to change.

Ma did this naturally. For us it can be a practice. The point is not to disown responsibility, but to loosen the grip of a story that makes every event a verdict on who we are.

Kheyala: The Play of the Divine Will

The idea of kheyala is central to understanding how Ma saw her own life. She said that everything she did arose from kheyala, a spontaneous movement of the divine will rather than a personal plan or desire. If she went to a place, it was because kheyala moved her. If a certain event took place, that too was kheyala.

This might sound abstract, but it describes a way of living that many seekers find appealing. Rather than steering life through anxious planning and the push of personal desire, you listen for what is being asked in the moment, and you act from there. It is not passivity. It is a deep trust.

Ma did not offer kheyala as a technique to copy. Her teaching was subtler. She suggested that every person has moments when the usual sense of “I am doing this” loosens, and an action seems to arise by itself. Those moments, she implied, are glimpses of the truth about how things happen. By noticing them, we begin to see how much of our effort is unnecessary.

There is also a challenge in this idea. People sometimes hide behind it, saying “it is the Divine will” when they simply want to avoid responsibility. Ma’s own life shows the difference. She was tireless in service and attentive to the people around her. Surrender, in her case, produced action, not escape.

Bliss Is Not Constant Cheer

The name Anandamayi invites a misunderstanding. People hear “bliss” and imagine a person who smiled all day and never felt sorrow. That is not how those who knew her describe her.

In the Indian understanding, ananda is not a mood. It is the ground of being, the nature of awareness itself. A person established in it can sit with grief, with illness and with loss without being flattened by them. Ma wept with the bereaved. She was deeply moved by the suffering of the sick and the poor. Her joy did not shield her from feeling. It gave her the strength to stay present.

This matters for those of us who have been taught, in some spiritual circles, that a high state means constant positivity. That idea leaves many people ashamed of their sadness. Ma’s example points the other way. Joy is deeper than mood, and it can hold the full range of human feeling.

If you are in a hard season, you do not need to hurry toward cheerfulness. You only need to stay in contact with what is steady beneath the weather. That is what the name Anandamayi points to.

The Power of the Name

Of all the practices she recommended, the repetition of the divine Name was the one she emphasized most often. She said that the Name is not different from the Named. To repeat it with love is to be in the company of God.

She did not insist on any particular Name. For a Vaishnava it might be Hari or Krishna. For a devotee of Shiva it might be Om Namah Shivaya. For a devotee of the Mother it might be Durga or Kali. A seeker with a guru should keep to the mantra the guru has given. A seeker with no guru could choose a Name that felt dear and stay with it.

Her advice was practical. Repeat the Name while you walk, while you work, while you wait. Do not fuss about posture or perfection. If the mind wanders, bring it back without scolding yourself. Over time the Name takes root, and becomes a thread running through the day.

If you have never had a spiritual practice, this is a gentle place to start. A single sacred word, repeated quietly, is a tool older than any institution. It asks nothing of you but attention. You will find echoes of it across traditions, from the Jesus Prayer to the Sufi dhikr to the mantra practices of Kriya Yoga. For an introduction to the last, see our guide to Kriya Yoga meditation.

On Suffering, Illness and Death

People brought Ma every kind of trouble: illness, poverty, family conflict, grief, fear of death. She received them all. Her response varied. To some she gave a word, to some a smile, to some a task. To many she gave nothing but her presence.

She did not pretend that suffering is unreal on the human level, but she placed it in a larger frame. She suggested that all experience, pleasant and painful, is a means of awakening. She encouraged people to face what comes with trust. At the same time, she urged practical action: seek treatment, care for the sick, help the poor.

On death, she spoke in the same voice. She said that death is a change of room, not the end. She sat with the dying and with the bereaved. Devotees tell of times when she calmed a dying person simply by being near.

Yogananda recorded a story that he heard when he first met her, of her visit to a dying man in Jamshedpur who recovered after her visit. Such stories are told about many saints, and we should treat them with care. But the common thread, that people felt less afraid in her company, is consistent across accounts.

The Sangha, the Ashrams and the Annual Retreat

In 1950, the devotees formed the Shree Shree Anandamayee Sangha to organize the growing number of ashrams, schools, hospitals and other activities connected with Ma. She did not run it herself. She said that the Sangha was the devotees’ concern, and that she was not its head. But she allowed it to carry her name.

Today the Sangha lists about twenty-six ashrams, including those at Kankhal near Haridwar, Varanasi, Vrindavan, Dehradun, Almora and Kolkata, with two in Bangladesh. They serve as places for worship, study, retreat and charity. Several run schools for girls and medical dispensaries. A number of them include Sanskrit study programs.

One of the practices that has continued since her lifetime is the annual Samyam Saptah, a week of discipline held at one of the ashrams. Participants observe silence, keep a simple diet, take part in group meditation and attend teachings and satsang. It is a modest retreat in format, but devotees speak of it with deep affection.

The ashrams were never grand. Their atmosphere, visitors say, is calm, ordered and devotional, with the sound of chanting often in the air. A newcomer is welcome to sit, and no one will ask what you believe.

One important point about the Sangha: it is not a sect that asks you to convert. Many visitors are Hindus from different traditions, and there are Western practitioners who come as guests. The institution is best understood as a custodian of her memory and a place of practice.

What a Visit to an Anandamayi Ashram Is Like

If you are curious to experience her tradition firsthand, an ashram visit can be a gentle introduction. Practices vary from place to place, and it is always best to contact the ashram in advance. But here is what visitors commonly describe.

• Simplicity. Rooms are plain, often shared. Meals are vegetarian and eaten together. Silence is valued, especially in the early morning.
• Daily worship. There are regular periods of prayer, aarti (the waving of lamps), chanting and kirtan. You are welcome to join or to simply sit.
• Respect. Modest clothing is expected. Shoes are removed at temples and shrines. Photographs may be limited in some areas.
• Samadhi shrine. At Kankhal, devotees circle the shrine, offer flowers and sit in meditation near the place where her body rests.
• No pressure. You will not be asked to convert or to join. Many guests are simply seekers who want a quiet place to rest.

Most people who go for the first time describe a surprising ease. The atmosphere is not heavy or exclusive. It feels like visiting a very large, very kind family.

If you cannot travel, you can create a small taste at home. Light a candle, play a recording of kirtan, and sit for ten minutes with a photograph of Ma or any image that brings you peace. Let the day settle.

In Her Presence: What People Describe

We can learn a lot about a saint by listening to those who sat with her. Accounts of Ma share a few notes.

• Stillness. Visitors often remark on the stillness around her. She could be in a crowd and appear to be in a world of her own.
• Total attention. When she looked at someone, they felt completely seen. Each person felt they were the only one in the room.
• Childlike joy. She laughed readily and moved with the lightness of a girl, even in old age.
• Ease with all people. She treated princes and beggars the same way. She ignored caste distinctions, a stance that stood out in her time.
• Unusual states. Devotees describe moments when she appeared to enter deep samadhi, her body still, her breathing slow.
• Simplicity of speech. She answered in short sentences, often with a touch of humor.

Of course, these descriptions come from loving observers, and it is natural that they would be generous. Still, the fact that so many people from so many walks of life describe the same qualities is part of why she is remembered.

A sense of this is available even on film and in photographs. Her face in photographs is open and mobile, with a gaze that seems to look through the camera. People who have never met her describe being moved by her photograph. Whatever that means, it points to a presence that transcended words.

The People Who Came

Ma’s circle of followers was wide. In India it included villagers and royalty, scientists and ascetics. We have mentioned Kamala Nehru and Gopinath Kaviraj. There were also many monks and nuns of other lineages who came to sit in her company.

There were Western seekers as well. Among them was Abraham Weintraub, an American who came to India in 1950 and became known as Swami Vijayananda. Others included the French filmmaker Arnaud Desjardins, the German novelist Melita Maschmann and the English writer Colin Turnbull. Through such people her influence spread to readers who never saw India.

The American teacher Ram Dass has also spoken of her presence, and the Ram Dass organization keeps a page in her honor.

Many of these devotees wrote books or articles, and some of these are available in English. The more we read, the more we notice that the same qualities come up again and again, which gives the picture a consistency.

Not everyone was won over, of course. There have been skeptics, and there have been scholars who raise sociological questions about the cult around saints. These are fair questions, and we return to them below.

The People Who Wrote Her Down

A teacher who never wrote a book survives through the people who listened. In Ma’s case, a few close attendants and devotees took on the work of recording her words and the events of her life. Among the best known is Gurupriya Devi, called Didi, one of the women closest to her through the decades, whose multi-volume account of Ma’s daily life is a major source for later biographers. Jyotish Chandra Roy, Bhaiji, had begun the habit of noting her sayings in the Dhaka years.

This matters for how we read the record. These writers loved their subject, and their books are devotional as well as documentary. They describe what they saw with great detail, and they are generous in interpretation. A careful reader learns to separate the observed (she traveled to this place on this date, she said this sentence) from the interpreted (what it meant, what power was at work).

Even so, the sheer number of independent witnesses lends the picture weight. When people from different backgrounds describe the same qualities, patience, laughter, stillness, and a gift for making each person feel known, we can trust that something real stands behind the stories.

Ma and Yogananda

One of the best-known meetings in Ma’s life was with Paramahansa Yogananda, who described it in Autobiography of a Yogi. It is the chapter titled “The Bengali Joy-Permeated Mother.” Yogananda was in India in the mid-1930s, and his niece urged him to see Ma before he returned to America.

He found that she was staying at a disciple’s house in Bhowanipur, in Calcutta. When he arrived, she was standing in an open car, blessing a crowd of about a hundred followers as she prepared to leave. She came over and greeted him warmly, he writes, like a long-lost father. He saw that she was in a deep state of absorption, and they sat together in the car while she went into trance.

He describes a small woman with long black hair, a gentle face, and a mark of red sandalwood paste on her forehead. Her followers told him that she paid no attention to her body and would not eat unless fed.

When he asked about her life, Ma replied in the manner for which she became known. She told him, in effect, that there was little to tell: that she had been the same in childhood, as a wife and as a saint. Her sense of being had never changed. This answer, which seems to refuse biography, is perhaps the most characteristic statement we have from her.

She also visited his school in Ranchi, where the children held a festival in her honor, and he saw her once more, at a railway station, as she left for the Himalayas. Yogananda, who knew many saints, wrote of her with evident delight. If you want to read more about his path, our guide to Paramahansa Yogananda is a good next step.

A Woman Saint in a Man’s World

India has a long tradition of women mystics, from the Vedic seers to Mirabai, Akka Mahadevi, Lalleshwari and many others. But in the twentieth century, a woman with Ma’s level of public influence was still unusual. Within the Hindu monastic world, women had fewer paths to authority.

Ma did not argue for women’s rights in the way a reformer might. She simply lived in a way that made old assumptions seem narrow. A woman with little schooling became the center of a movement that included learned pandits. She sat at the head of gatherings of men, and they bowed to her.

This is not to say she was without constraint. She worked within a culture that had its own expectations. But her example opened a space, and many women found in her an image of the spiritual life that was not confined to the household.

For readers today, this might be one of the most inspiring features of her story. Authority came to her not through degrees or titles but through the quality of her being. The women who followed her, often themselves mothers and grandmothers, saw in her a mirror of their own potential.

How She Compares to Other Teachers

Placing Ma next to other saints can help clarify her particular flavor.

• Sri Sarada Devi (1853 to 1920), the wife of Ramakrishna, was also a woman of little schooling who became a spiritual mother to many. Both women were known for patience and a deep, quiet authority. Sarada Devi lived largely within the Ramakrishna order and gave initiation. Ma stood outside any lineage.
• Ramana Maharshi (1879 to 1950) taught self-inquiry, asking “Who am I?” Ma’s teaching, that there is only one Self, overlaps with his. His method was silence and inquiry; hers was more a combination of devotion, presence and play.
• Ramakrishna experienced many paths and found the same truth in each. Ma, too, saw all paths as one. He had a teacher in the Bhairavi Brahmani and in Totapuri; she had none.
• Mata Amritanandamayi (Amma), born in 1953, is a living teacher in Kerala who is also called Mother, and who embraces thousands. The two share the title and the motherly warmth, though their styles and settings differ.

Each of these figures shows another way the same light can appear. Ma’s particular signature was spontaneity: the sense that she was being lived by something, not living by a plan.

The Last Years and Mahasamadhi

In the last years of her life Ma remained active, though her body grew frail. She continued to travel between ashrams and to receive visitors. In August 1982, at Kankhal, she met Srimad Shankaracharya of Sringeri Math, who asked her to take care of her health.

She left her body on the evening of August 27, 1982, at the Kishenpur ashram in Dehradun, at the age of eighty-six. Devotees use the phrase “left her body” rather than “died,” in keeping with the tradition that a realized being does not die in the usual sense.

Her body was placed in a samadhi shrine at Kankhal near Haridwar, in the ashram complex on the bank of the Ganges. The place has become a pilgrimage site where devotees sing, meditate and bring offerings. The Government of India later issued a commemorative postage stamp in her honor.

Many followers say that she did not leave. They describe her as present in dreams, in moments of crisis and in the quiet after prayer. Whether or not you share that view, it shows how much she meant to them. A teacher whose absence is felt as presence has done something unusual.

Her Legacy Today

More than forty years after her passing, the Anandamayi Ma ashrams are still active. They host daily worship, annual festivals and the Samyam Saptah. Her sayings are read in homes across India. Books about her are in print in several languages.

Her influence is easiest to see in how people talk about her. Even those who never met her speak of “Ma” as a presence they can call on. For many, she functions as a figure of comfort, a mother who is always available.

She also stands as a reminder of how spiritual authority can arise outside institutions. She had no degrees, no lineage and no organization of her own making. And yet people from the highest and lowest ranks of society sat at her feet. In an age when many seekers feel suspicious of gurus who sell programs, her example is refreshing.

That does not mean her legacy is without complication, and we turn now to the honest questions.

Honest Questions and Cautions

A guide that tells only the glowing side does a disservice to the reader and to the teacher. Here are the questions worth asking.

Why do the sources disagree about her birth year?

Her ashram gives April 30, 1896. Some other sources, including a footnote in Yogananda’s Autobiography, give 1893 and a different birthplace. Birth records in rural Bengal at that time were informal, and the discrepancy is not unusual. We follow her Sangha’s chronology.

How reliable are the miracle stories?

Most come from devotional accounts written by followers, sometimes decades after the events. They are meaningful as testimony and as a sign of how she was received. They are not independently documented. We include a few to give the flavor, and we mark them.

Was her marriage a healthy one?

By modern standards, a marriage at twelve is troubling, and we should say so. It reflects the customs of her time and place. Her later partnership with Bholanath, which her ashram describes as a spiritual one, is unusual, and the biographies are written from a devotional viewpoint. It is wise to hold the narrative loosely.

Is it healthy to treat any person as divine?

This is a real question. Ma herself resisted being worshipped as a person and spoke of the one Self in all. Her devotees’ reverence is part of a long tradition in India of honoring saints as manifestations of the Divine. Readers from other backgrounds may feel uncomfortable. It is fine to appreciate her teaching without adopting the devotional frame.

Did she have disciples?

She said she did not. She called everyone her child. Yet over time a community and an institution formed around her. The Sangha is a response to that need, not a creation she directed.

A Mystic’s Reading: Why Ma Matters Now

Many of us are tired. We have tried so many programs to fix ourselves that the idea of being fixed has itself become a burden. Ma offers something different. She seems to say: you are not broken. What you seek is already here. Rest in it.

She also helps those of us who feel we have no spiritual credentials. She had no schooling, no teacher and no technique. What she had was a total openness to the sacred that she never lost. That openness, she suggested, is not rare. It is the natural condition of a human being before we pile on the noise.

Her stress on simplicity is a gift in a time of spiritual overload. You do not need ten practices. You can repeat a Name, sit in silence, serve someone, and trust.

And she models a kind of joy that is not shallow. Her laughter came from a place that had met sorrow and gone beyond it. When we say that Next Level Soul is for the rest of us, the seekers who do not want fear or hype, Ma is the kind of presence we have in mind.

A Practice: Seven Days with the Name

You can taste Ma’s way of practice in a week.

1. Choose a Name. It could be Om, a name of God from your own tradition, or a word like “peace” or “love” if you prefer. Pick one that feels warm.
2. Repeat it for five minutes each morning. Say it softly, aloud or in your mind. Let the rhythm settle.
3. Carry it through the day. Whenever you wait, walk or wash dishes, return to it.
4. Practice a short silence at night. Sit for three minutes without trying to do anything.
5. Offer one action. Before something ordinary, like cooking, say inwardly: this is for the Divine.
6. Notice kheyala. Once during the week, when you feel a gentle inner impulse to do something kind, follow it without arguing.
7. On day seven, write what changed. Even small changes count.

Do not judge the results. Ma taught that the Name works in its own time.

Books and Further Reading

• Matri Vani (Words of the Mother), the collected sayings of Anandamayi Ma, published by the Sangha.
• Mother as Seen by Her Devotees, an anthology of devotees’ accounts, from the Shree Shree Anandamayee Sangha.
• Sri Anandamayi Ma: Life and Teaching of a Modern Saint, by Alexander Lipski, a careful and readable introduction.
• Anandamayi: Her Life and Wisdom, by Richard Lannoy, a photographic and narrative portrait.
• Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramahansa Yogananda, for the chapter “The Bengali Joy-Permeated Mother.”

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Who Will Connect with This Teacher

Ma may speak to you if you are drawn to devotion and the mother archetype, if you are tired of complicated methods, or if you want a spirituality that is warm, playful and unhurried. She may also be a good companion if you are a caregiver. She spent her life attending to others without losing her inner stillness.

If you prefer a structured method or an analytic approach, you might find more ease in a lineage like Kriya Yoga, where the steps are clear. Our conversation with the teacher Yogiraj SatGurunath Siddhanath on the Kriya path to awakening is a good place to start.

Keep Exploring

To trace how India’s wisdom came west, listen to our conversation with Philip Goldberg, author of American Veda: The Life of Yogi Paramahansa Yogananda with Philip Goldberg. And you can watch Awake: The Life of Yogananda, available on Next Level Soul.

For a quiet companion to her teaching, the audio course The Inner Path offers ten lessons on intuition and clarity, each with a practical action item. The World Within adds twenty-four lessons on stillness and self-awareness. Both are included with Next Level Soul membership.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was Anandamayi Ma?

Anandamayi Ma (1896 to 1982) was a Bengali mystic and one of the best-known Indian women saints of the twentieth century. Devotees called her the Joy-Permeated Mother and honored her as a living embodiment of the Divine.

What does Anandamayi mean?

It means “permeated with bliss” or “joy-permeated.” The name was given to her in Dhaka in 1925 by her devotee Jyotish Chandra Roy, known as Bhaiji.

When and where was Anandamayi Ma born?

According to her ashram’s chronology, she was born on April 30, 1896, in Kheora, in eastern Bengal, now in Bangladesh. Some other sources give different dates.

What was her self-initiation?

On the night of August 3, 1922, she performed an initiation ritual for herself and received a mantra, acting as both guru and disciple. Her husband later became her first disciple.

Who was Bholanath?

Bholanath, born Ramani Mohan Chakravarty, was her husband. He came to regard her as his spiritual teacher and became her first disciple. He died on May 7, 1938, at the Kishenpur ashram in Dehradun.

What did Anandamayi Ma teach?

She taught that there is only one Self, urged constant remembrance of God through the Name, encouraged satsang, silence and surrender, and honored all paths. She spoke of kheyala, the spontaneous play of the divine will.

What is kheyala?

Kheyala is her word for the spontaneous movement of divine will or impulse. She said her actions arose from it rather than from personal planning.

Did Anandamayi Ma meet Yogananda?

Yes. Yogananda met her in Calcutta in the mid-1930s and described the meeting in a chapter of Autobiography of a Yogi titled “The Bengali Joy-Permeated Mother.” Read more in our guide to Yogananda.

What is the Shree Shree Anandamayee Sangha?

It is the organization formed in 1950 by her devotees to look after the ashrams, schools and charitable work connected with her. It now lists about twenty-six ashrams.

When did Anandamayi Ma die?

She left her body on August 27, 1982, at the Kishenpur ashram in Dehradun, aged eighty-six. Her samadhi shrine is at Kankhal near Haridwar.

What is the Samyam Saptah?

It is an annual week of spiritual discipline held at her ashrams, with silence, simple living, meditation and satsang.

Where should I begin if I want to know more?

Start with the chapter about her in Autobiography of a Yogi, then read Matri Vani for her sayings and Alexander Lipski’s biography for a fuller account.