Anandamayi Ma

Teaching

Remembering God throughout daily life, with fixed times for prayer or meditation every morning and evening, and work done with devotion. Alongside this she points to the question 'Who am I?' and to the Self as the one reality behind all paths. ^{3, 5, 6}

Who it is for

For people who want to bring devotion and self-enquiry into ordinary life, within or alongside the Hindu tradition.

Where to start

• Matri Vani (volume I) gathers short pieces of advice from her letters, translated by Atmananda. Words of Sri Anandamayi Ma collects her replies to questions. ^{4, 5, 6}

Works

• Matri Vani, Volume I

  Book · 1995 · Shree Shree Anandamayee Sangha

  Short pieces of advice from letters she dictated in Bengali in reply to devotees, translated into English by Atmananda. Part I gives general advice, Part II is on the path of Self-realisation.

  anandamayi.org

• Words of Sri Anandamayi Ma

  Book · 2025 · Shree Shree Anandamayee Sangha

  Her replies to questions at meetings, on meditation, the spiritual path and Self-realisation. Kamal Bhattacharjee noted them as she spoke; Atmananda translated and compiled them from the Bengali.

  anandamayi.org

• Sad Vani

  Book · 1973 · Shree Shree Anandamayee Sangha · About this teacher

  The first collection of her teaching to appear in print. Bhaiji wrote down afterwards what he had heard her say, so the preface calls it her teaching in Bhaiji's language.

  anandamayi.org

The short summaries are ours.

In their own words

Short passages in the words of Anandamayi Ma, each with its source. Where the quoted text is not in the language of this page, a translation follows and says whose it is.

• Who am I ? With this attitude endeavour to let the mind stand back as a witness. Search after your Self. As long as may be, sit immersed in meditation, becoming quite still, steady and fully concentrated.

• The Self, Self-contained, calling to Itself for its own Revelation — this is happiness.

• What is expressible in words can certainly be attained. But He is THAT which is beyond words.

Documented teaching relationships

• Personal encounter with Paramahansa Yogananda

  In Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda describes meeting Anandamayi Ma in the Bhowanipur district of Calcutta, her later visit with her party to his school at Ranchi, and a further brief meeting on the station platform at Serampore.

  Self-reported · en.wikisource.org , anandamayi.org

• Personal encounter with J. Krishnamurti

  The website of Anandamayi Ma's devotees quotes Atmananda's diaries, Pupul Jayakar's biography of J. Krishnamurti and Anandamayi Ma's own words, recorded in November 1948, on a meeting of the two in Delhi, held in the garden of Kitty Shiva Rao's home, where they spoke about the need for a guru.

  Biographical tradition · anandamayi.org

• Personal encounter with Mirra Alfassa (The Mother)

  According to the website of Anandamayi Ma's devotees, Anandamayi Ma met the Mother (Mirra Alfassa) at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry on 3 November 1952; the page quotes Anandamayi Ma's own account of the meeting from Ananda Varta (1960) and an account by Ethel Merston, who was present.

  Self-reported · anandamayi.org

• Personal encounter with Swami Chidananda

  In a talk of 1990 and an article of 1995, both reproduced on the website of Anandamayi Ma's devotees, Swami Chidananda says he first heard of Anandamayi Ma in 1945 in the presence of Swami Sivananda and first met her in February 1948 at her ashram in Varanasi.

  Self-reported · anandamayi.org

• Personal encounter with Swami Sivananda Saraswati (Rishikesh)

  According to the website of Anandamayi Ma's devotees, quoting their journal Ananda Varta, Anandamayi Ma visited Swami Sivananda's ashram at Rishikesh in June 1956; he welcomed her, showed her round the ashram and sang kirtans.

  Stated by an institution · anandamayi.org

• Personal encounter with Neem Karoli Baba

  The website of Anandamayi Ma's devotees quotes two accounts of Neem Karoli Baba coming to her: Hari Ram Joshi's memories of a visit to her ashram at Pataldevi near Almora in May 1944, and a story from Ram Dass's Miracle of Love in which he went to her ashram and the two of them handed out a meal to the devotees.

  Biographical tradition · anandamayi.org

• Personal encounter with Swami Chinmayananda

  The website of Anandamayi Ma's devotees, quoting a Chinmaya Mission text, says that Swami Sivananda sent Chinmayananda, during his days as a student at Ananda Kutir, to Anandamayi Ma for help with a problem in his breathing practice, that she was a guest at the Mission's Sandeepany Sadhanalaya in Mumbai in 1975, and that he was among the swamis invited to speak at her 83rd birthday celebration in Bangalore in 1979.

  Stated by an institution · anandamayi.org

• Personal encounter with Shri Shivabalayogi Maharaj

  According to an account of Shivabalayogi's devotees, Anandamayi Ma invited him by a handwritten letter to her ashram in Dehradun during his first tour of North India and received him there; the account calls it their only visit, and a devotee dates her first darshan there to about 6 June 1966.

  Biographical tradition · shivabalayogi.org

Teaching relationships are documented statements. They confer no trust and do not attest realisation.

Compiled by us from the sources listed. Last checked 11 Oct 2026.

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This description is factual. It contains no recommendation, ranking or assurance. Statements about effects are those of the respective source.