It is available at Amazon.com as an ebook and as a paperback. The kindle version is only 99¢ this week.
In this selection, Sri Anandamayi Ma gives direct and practical guidance on meditation—its necessity, its foundation, and the inner attitude required for its success. Her words are simple, yet they open into the deepest truths of spiritual life.
Sri Anandamayi Ma (1896–1982) was one of the most revered spiritual figures of modern India. Swamiji lived under her guidance from 1963 until her mahasamadhi in 1982, and his commentary brings out the full depth and application of her teachings.
The sections in bold are Ma’s words.
A member of a well-known Indian family, who had distinguished herself by devoting her life to social service, came for Sri Ma’s darshana and asked: “Does the capacity to meditate come by practice in this life, or is it an aptitude acquired in former births?”
It may be the result of either of the two, or of both combined.
Ma always gives the complete picture, never just a part or a fragment. The sadhaka must himself become complete in order to be a part of that complete picture. Total Self-realization is the absolute requisite. Ma was always practical, never just theoretical. So She reveals the means to become fully adept in meditation.
Meditation should be practiced every day of one’s life.
This is the only way to follow the previously-cited advice of Saint John Vianney to go to God like a shot out of a cannon. Meditation is itself the cannon and our aspiration is the force by which the transformation of our consciousness reaches the target as the means to total Self-realization.
Look, what is there in this world? Absolutely nothing that is lasting. Therefore direct your longing towards the Eternal.
To realize that the world is insubstantial and even empty is a great blessing–not a disillusionment that leaves us sad and hopeless. It is a blessed insight that brings us onto the path to the ultimate and absolute beatitude and fulfillment: Self-realization. It is the turning from the No Thing to The All.
Sometimes we hear the question: “But isn’t the desire for Self-realization a desire?” No. It is the only way to absolute fulfillment–and therefore elimination–of all desire. Ma often said that the desire for God was the way to God. For the “longing towards the Eternal” She calls us to is not a desire, but an aspiration arising from the awakening Self. For sadhana truly is, as has been said: The flight of the alone to the Alone: the Ekam [one], Evam [only], Adwitiyam [non-dual] Brahman.
Pray that the action done through you, His instrument, may be pure.
God alone is truly vishuddha–supremely pure. How, then, can our actions, even the highest in purpose, be pure with divine purity? By the truth that Ma keeps pointing us to: we are ourselves divine in nature. Our divinity is finite as contrasted with God Whose divinity is infinite, but on the level of our inmost being, that is the only difference between us and God.
However, we find ourself enmeshed in the dualities of samsara–something impossible to God. Therefore in samsara we act in the bondage of ego and ignorance. But if we keep our consciousness fixed on our own divine nature through sadhana, especially Soham japa, then we can act with divine purity and thus produce divine karma which results in the advent of atma-chaitanya: the consciousness that is the Self.
First we unite our consciousness with the Divine: then our thoughts and deeds will be manifestations of the Divine. This is a high state, but if we do not attain it we will remain “of the earth, earthly” (I Corinthians 15:47). So it is not really a choice for the awakening individual, the sadhaka. Rather, it is a necessity of an urgency that ultimately cannot be denied but must be fulfilled and made manifest. And how is this awakening produced and maintained?
In every action remember Him.
And that Ma always insisted was managed by a single thing: japa–the repetition of a mantra that has within itself the potential to awaken the divine consciousness which is our own essential being. Many are the mantras which bear within themselves as vibration the potential to awaken the divine consciousness of the Self. Japa is the way to manifest the divine life inherent in the mantra. As can be seen by the words of Ma given in this collection of Her teachings, this is the entire purpose of japa sadhana. And I have found after decades of practice and observance that the most direct and immediately effective practice and mantra is the japa of Soham. (Again, see Soham Yoga: The Yoga of the Self.)
The purer your thinking, the purer will be your action.
Though it may not seem so at first glance, this too is about japa. Japa of the Divine Name is the mental process by which divine consciousness is literally invoked into the mind. What could be more pure than the mind and will that is absorbed in repetition of the Divine Name which itself is described as vishuddha–supremely pure? Nothing could be surer or more effective. From a pure mind proceeds pure action. Therefore: The purer the thinking, the purer will be the sadhaka’s action. It is simple cause and effect. Experience will bear this out. The Divine Name effects the divine alchemy that transmutes the mind of earth into the mind of the Divine.
I will never forget the moment I first read the statement that God and His Name are one. The inner recognition and conviction of that truth was a trumpet blast of permanent awakening. Japa both awakens, empowers and guides the consciousness toward the goal of Realization. Japa, too, begins with two and ends with one. The life does not just become pure, it becomes divine. Ma affirmed this constantly.
Swami Nirmalananda’s newest book: The Eternal Wisdom of Anandamayi Ma—Guidance for Spiritual Seekers on the Path to Realization: A Commentary on Words of Sri Anandamayi Ma is available at Amazon.com as an ebook and as a paperback. The kindle version is only 99¢ this week.
