The Shame of India

I have read for the third time the pamphlet “Shree Shree Anandamayee Ma” dedicated to Shree Shree Anandamayee Ma on the occasion of her 60th Jayanti Celebration. And I say though the words will fail to impress those who read this, they will be read and they will impress thousands of whom you have not heard, and I go further to predict, God willing, they will impress many million in the years to come.

Perhaps it was psychological that the article “Mother Anandamayee” by Mahamahopadhyaya Gopinath Kaviraj appears before “Mother’s Words. From the very beginning the shadow overshadows the substance and that is and has been the curse of India. I repeat that it is and has been the curse and the shame of India; I hope to will not be so forever.

To me, a stranger and an American, there is nothing in the Mother’s words that cannot be accepted as coming through an Oracle of God. Some of you people may not like this. Some of you people who have as never experienced Samadhi yourselves and whose outlooks, though you call them “spiritual” have never gone beyond the territories of India seem totally unaware that God has in previous times used women as His outlets though in India it has been boldly proclaimed that all Avatars are men. When somebody says “all Avatars are men” he puts a limitation on God which becomes all the more distasteful and spurious when he adds a host of prefixes, suffixes and adjectives to his verbal adoration of God. This puts “self” first and self remains first.

Madame Blavatsky, whom we may otherwise dismiss, published a best seller called “The Veil of Isis.” The early inhabitants of North Africa, probably of what we call the Berber race had a supreme goddess Taanit. Taanit means nothing but She. The wedding of Osiris and Isis in Egypt I take to mean the alliance and perhaps coalescence between those who accepted God in a male form (Ishwara, Asar, Osiris) and God in female form (Taanit, Isis). This did not in the least impede the higher faculties of women who were not adored and worshipped symbolically or ritually, but rather were permitted to function as the mouthpiece of God.

All the mysteries of Greece and Egypt were based upon it, and on a much lower level—no doubt due to degradation—those of Japan almost to the present day. Few people know that the Jewish prayer book calls for a return of the Oracle. It is repeated over and over again by millions, yet in face of this official prayer they dared to restored a political state against their own verbal, spiritual traditions, for they too, have long lost the true sense of women’s potential functions in the higher spiritual life.

To confine Anandamayee to a complete Indian background runs immediately contrary to the very explanations offered condemning her personality. As she herself refers to God as the One Reality, I see no justice and no pure worship in placing her alongside that which she herself places way beyond her. This unfortunately is a trick, and I say it is a trick, being tried more and more by the disciples of both the spurious and true lights of India for the past century.

I do not think Professor Kaviraj has the slightest idea of the functions of a Buddha and the fact that he brought vast numbers of people into a state of Samadhi, if not to pure spiritual illumination quickly and entirely. While I shall not dissent with the calling of the Mother a Pratekyabuddha, one must remember that this term has limitations. It is definitely the words I am quarreling with here.

How can one judge the statue of anybody far beyond him if he has not had some pretty definite higher experience throwing direct light thereunto?

As in the time of Buddha India is full of people trying to out-adjective each other in praise of their gurus, etc. instead of offering praise to God. In regard to “God and Co.,” The Mother mentions only God and the disciples mention only “& Co.” This to me, a foreigner and a seeker, is nothing but vanity and egotism and I think I rather stand on the tradition of Tathagatha Buddha than with some of my contemporaries.

I do not question the possibility of the Mother being Kali, Durga or Saraswati because I do not know the cosmic status of these titles, be they goddesses, devas, archetypes or female avatars. But when it is said “Perhaps and Incarnation of the Divine came down to earth to relieve its suffering,” I boldly ask “what relief” to “what suffering.” I myself, though a nobody in the spiritual life, have come to India to bring food because I, though a nobody, feel a tremendous pain in my stomach which can be sated by seeing and knowing others eat.

In other words I am bringing to India the thesis of the spirituality of Anandamayakosh as taught in the Upanishads, and maybe the Vedas. And what is more I am doing something about it, not just bringing words, Perhaps this is because I have long taken the Bodhisattva’s oath, perhaps for other reasons. But we in the United States are deeply studying Semantics, the science of finding out the expression of truth-in–words and the non-sense of words-devoid-of-substance.

As a scientist I say you missed a splendid opportunity in not letting the tantrist test the Mother. We in the United States are now most interested in “testing” spiritual people. I have already found the same interest in India though your methods are different. Still the purposes are the same.

One fake teacher I found giving out his words under the guise of high spiritual philosophy and thus hiding the noble Dharma from the multitudes. I am sure he is not alone. Articles written from the maushic point of view appeal only to manas and cannot touch buddhi. The higher vijnana and gandharva faculties and appeals remain untouched. The anadic and deva aspects of life are drowned. Shree Shree Anandamayee is not Shree Shree Manuchamayee no matter how hard the learned professor tries to prove it.

When the so-called Swamiji dares to ask “What is the nature of your Samadhi, is it ‘Savikalpa’ or ‘Nirvikalpa?’” we again have manas masquerading as buddhi, vijnana and higher potentialities. The very fact that he asked those questions proves to me that he is no Swamiji.

After Buddha left this world his place was taken by Mahakashyapa. Ananda came to Mahakashyapa and asked him what was the secret that was transmitted between the Tathagata and himself. Mahakashyapa looked at the Lord’s cousin and shouted: “Ananda” In that moment was Ananda illuminated.

Dear friends, if you want to testify as to Anandamayee do so in poetry and song. These essays fall flat. They have nothing whatever to do with the Message of your spiritual Mother. And please note: I have not here dared to judge her status.