Shree Anandamayee Ma, the personification of supreme wisdom, draws her own understanding from the same eternal source from which all religions and philosophies have come forth. Her existence knows no separation from the Divine One, but is constantly identified in Him - with the One, in the One, from the One. To questions on her identity she replies, “1 am whatever you imagine, think or say. ” For Her everything is the One who, although manifested in countless forms, remains immutable, with no possibility of distinction. As the earth provides each plant with the substances necessary for its growth, thus Shree'Anandamayeé Ma guides each aspirant, according to his or her individual leanings, towards the supreme vocation of a human being: self-realisation. Men and women from every social level and from many different races and religions come to Her from every corner of the Earth to listen to her replies, prompt and spontaneous, reaching straight to the heart of each person, whether he or she were in search of the Truth or an unbeliever. Shreé Ma never searched for or established a philosophy of her own. She endeavored to uphold the faith and convictions of all religious disciplines. She insisted on the importance of achieving perfect self-discipline in one's mind, speech and actions, in order to be able to live in Truth. Shreé Anandamayeé Ma left her physical body on 27th August, 1982 to enter Maha-Samadhi, at Kankhal near Haridwar, India.

Sri Satyananda was born in 1933 as Sushil Mazumdar into a cultured Bengali family with deeply religious traditions in a small village of the land now called Bangladesh. Graduated in 1955 from the ‘Government College of Arts and Crafts', Calcutta, he rapidly became a well-known artist, both at home and abroad. In those years the French and Dutch Ministries for Cultural Affairs gave him grants for pursuing his art research. His works, shown in many personal exhibitions, now belong to important private and public collections. Inspired by fervent spiritual desire he made long pilgrimages to the sacred places of the Himalayas. It was on one of these pilgrimages that destiny led him to the decisive meeting of his life, with Shreé Anandamayeé Ma, the Saint most venerated of contemporaneous India. During this meeting, a divine revelation convinced him that She alone could guide him along the path of Self-Knowledge. With her special Kheyal (spontaneous Grace), Sri Ma initiated him to the spiritual life, bestowing upon him the new name of Sri Satyananda, “Bliss in Truth”. Foregoing his career as an artist, he went to live with Her in her Ashrams. Accompanied by her constant presence, and above all with Divine Grace, he trod the most difficult path, the one leading to the realisation of the Supreme Goal in life. Then no longer differentiating between social and religious characteristics but seeing in everyone only an extension of his own Atman (Self), Sri Satyananda came to Europe, not to teach or reveal some mysterious technique, but to help us to rediscover the right way to know ourselves and the enormous possibilities that we all have realizing the Divine within us.

The Mother as seen by Sri Satyananda.