Evolution of love

Bhava and Samadhi

Receiving Anandamayi's darshan the blessing of her presence as distinct from listening to the discourse of a sage or the instruction of a Guru, was to remain the main source of her attraction for many years yet. All the firsthand descriptions show how particularly strange and compelling a drama her darshan on occasion could be.
There were several great spiritual personalities alive at that time in India, but none remotely like her in this particular respect. Well-attested examples from the past describing exalted trance in any detail are hard to find, but the two usually cited for the spectacular quality of their spiritual rapture are both Bengalis: Chaitanya and Ramakrishna.
When Nirmala was in her twenties, disciples of the latter great 19th-century mystic were still alive. Through a devotee of hers who was a disciple of Ramakrishna's wife, Nirmala and her companions were to meet Gauri Ma, the last living disciple of Ramakrishna himself and other great Vaishnavites in Navadveep.
For these dignified and venerable religious elders, the most respected in the community, ecstatic trance was a phenomenon of recognized spiritual significance. In fact, by this time in her life, Nirmala herself had become the centre of attention amongst the older generation of distinguished Bengalis who were steeped in the spiritual traditions for which the province had been renowned since the mid-19th century. These people were knowledgeable; they had long experience of judging the qualities of spiritual personality and at once recognized in Nirmala great holiness.
Bhava, while seated or lying in the vedi, was of focal significance for Anandamayi in her new Siddheshwari ashram. It should be said that the single most important activity of her followers was to look at her, to pay the utmost attention to everything she said and did. There was no rule about this - they wanted it that way; it was voluntary, spontaneous and unanimous. Bhaiji wrote of one occasion:

"All the devotees sat around in silence, absorbed in their own thoughts. Her body gradually shrank so much in size that everybody had the impression that only her sari was left on the vedi. Nobody could see her. All were wondering what would happen next. Gradually, there was an increase of movement within the cloth and very slowly and gently a body took shape and she emerged, sitting straight up. For nearly half an hour she looked up at the sky with a steadfast gaze and then said: 'For your life's work you have brought down this body'."

This is an example of what is called bhava. The word is an inclusive term, which encompasses a multiplicity of meanings. For our purposes, a bhava reveals an inner disposition towards and absorption in the Supreme Being. It is, at its lightest level, an intense spiritual mood, but it is an emotional state, which can deepen into spiritual ecstasy, yet it carries connotations of aloofness and apartness, of being withdrawn from ordinary waking consciousness.
However, it is not the same as the spiritual condition of samadhi where there is a complete cessation of consciousness. In the case of Anandamayi, bhava has an extravagant, endless variety of moods, and could last for a fleeting instant or up to several days. As with all her manifold states, she says she remained always the same, in an unbroken continuum of bhava, one with the Source.
Only to the eyes of the beholder did she seem to pass through a succession of diverse intensities. The dazzling variety of mood and changing physiognomy which she would manifest in the course of a single hour, and which I to some degree could record photographically, nevertheless bears out her assertion of sameness, for such diversity would surely be impossible unless it were deeply anchored in a single Source.
There is an account of a very curious bhava which seems to carry some kind of hidden or secret meaning, perhaps of an initiatory nature. It is described by one of the seven protagonists, Didi, but in such a deadpan style that it is impossible to tell whether the enactment of this odd little tableau was a solemn occasion or one of bizarre hilarity. That it took place on a serious festival day, Sivaratri, suggests that the mood was serious.

"On the afternoon of Sivaratri, Mataji took Bholanath, my father, Virendra Dada, Nandu, Maroni and myself to Siddheshwari. On reaching there, Mataji immediately went and sat in the pit. A little later she came out of it and asked Bholanath to sit there. As soon as he sat down, Mataji sat on one of his knees and made Maroni sit on the other. Then she asked Father to sit on her lap. He did so. Father was then asked to get up and Mataji made Virendra Dada sit on her lap. Subsequently Virendra Dada was made to get up and I was asked to sit on it. Then after Mataji made me get up, Nandu was asked to sit on her lap. Then everybody stood. This lila was performed secretly. Nobody else knew anything about it."
There was a fascinating ambiguity about Anandamayi's lila, not so much because there may have been, occasionally, some doubt as to whether something was to be taken lightly or with due solemnity but because it might appear so wayward or so arbitrary. Mataji would suddenly make or cancel a decision, issue new and perplexing instructions, break off, interrupt or upset elaborate arrangements - or perform some notably dramatic act with the most paradoxical meaning.

Life was like that the whole time - and it continued in this particularly volatile state for at least 30 years. It was a crucial feature of Anandamayi's lila, just as paying close attention to her every move was a major feature of her disciples' sadhana. Unpredictability was of the essence; everyone was kept on their toes; nobody was ever allowed to slide into torpor or become stuck in grooves of mindless repetition.

There was always a meaning or a message in the most bizarre of Mataji's initiatives and rules; sometimes it took a while for participants to fathom the meaning, and sometimes it was so cryptic as to remain a mystery. Her ways were indeed mysterious and the quality of life around her correspondingly full of magical enchantment - often disorienting, at times unnerving.
Life away from this ambience would come to look flat and colourless - life within it was full of hidden depths and could open up endless possibilities for psychic and spiritual development.
In the midst of the prevailing "anarchy" partly a misnomer, for the word means "without rule", whereas the whole point of Mataji's methods was to make and break rules all the time, serious devotees would be taken aside by Mataji for private instruction and given tasks, more arduous discipline, tighter and tougher sadhana, and sent off to accomplish missions more challenging than they had ever had to face in their lives before. Instruction, Mataji said, was for the individual alone and not a matter to share with others.