“For him whose knots of heart have been undone, only Vrindavan and nothing else exists.”
Vrindavan, 2022-04-26 (Vrindavan Today News): Shri Maa Anandmayi was a widely revered self-realised seer of India. Following is an excerpt from Maa’s discourse with her disciples where she explains the essence of Vrindavan, and why the formless absolute and its divine form are one and the same. The article concludes with some interesting accounts about her Vrindavan ashram situated on the Mathura-Vrindavan road.
“When the kingdom of pure consciousness has been attained, form is revealed as the essence itself. What was sorrow from the worldly point of view is now ‘viraha’ – separation from THAT; in other words, the agony of existing in a particular form. This separation is without end, and manifests in ever new ways.
By a mere stroke of God’s imagination this vast universe comes into being. What actually is this creation? He himself, the one.
Why then are there distinctions? Why should there be others? There are no others. The ocean is contained in that form.
How can this be when ‘the one’ reveals itself as a form, a ‘vigraha’, say for instance as Radha-Krishna? This ‘vigraha’ exists eternally. Where? In Vrindavan.
For him whose knots of heart have been undone, only Vrindavan and nothing else exists. What you have thus realised as ‘lila’ is infinite, and this infinity will be known by discarding the world and all that belongs to it.
One who sees Vishnu everywhere is a ‘Vaishnava’. The idea that the world has a boundary is delusive. It is you who have created the distinction between the natural and the supernatural. As a matter of fact all and everything is but his ‘lila’. In the ‘all’ He is to be found. The supernatural is not apart from the rest.
If one remains confined within the boundary, one’s heart cannot become Vrindavan. When realisation has occurred, there is nothing but Vrindavan, nothing but Vrindavan, complete non duality.
Maa Anandmayi and her Vrindavan Ashram
Maa Anandmayi was born in 1896 in Kheora village of present-day Bangladesh to a pious though impoverished Brahmin couple. Her parents named her Nirmala Sundari Devi. Maa took Samadhi at the age of 86 in the year 1982. Her disciples carry on her unmatched legacy through her many ashrams located all across the country, including in Vrindavan.
Shri Haribaba, a well known saint of Vrindavan, had a special desire that there should be an ashram of Maa in Braj Dham. He took the lead to welcome her into the ashram after it was built. Temples gradually came up on the grounds of the Vrindavan Ashram. At first, through the earnest desire of Dr. Panna Lall, the temple of Nitai Gaur was constructed in March 1955. It was followed by a Shiva temple on 10 March, 1956. On 7 September 1966 – the day of Janmashtami, the two supreme deities of Radha and Krishna were installed in the central temple. There’s an interesting account associated with it.
According to information available on the ashram website, Maa had a divine vision of a curly-haired boy of tender age dancing on the banks of Yamuna at the place where the ashram stands today. She also saw someone holding an umbrella for him. Moreover, a mahatma in the form of a stone was also found to bow down at the blessed feet of Maa here.
To everyone’s amazement, when the plinth was being dug for the construction of the temple, the fact came to be revealed that the Yamuna once flowed at the site and the entire area was in fact a pastoral ground.
