yogaprivatelessons:

Questioner: Am I right to believe that you are God?

SRI ANANDAMAYI MA: There is nothing save Him alone, everyone and everything are but forms of God. In your person, also He has come here now to give darshan.

Q: Then why are you in this world?

SRI MA: In this world? I am not anywhere. I am myself reposing within myself.

Q: What is your work?

SRI MA: I have no work. For whom can I work since there is only One?

Q: Why am I in the world?

SRI MA: He plays in infinite ways. It is His pleasure to play as He does.

Q: But I, why am I in the world?

SRI MA: That is what I have been telling you. All is He, He plays in countless forms and ways. However, in order to find out for yourself why you are in the world, to find out who you are in reality, there are various sadhanas. You study and you pass your exams, you earn money and enjoy spending it. But all this is within the realm of death, in which you continue for life after life, repeating the same thing again and again. But there is another path too, the path of Immortality; which leads to the knowledge of what you really are.

Q: Can anyone help me in this or must I find it out for myself?

SRI MA: The professor can teach you only if you have the capacity to learn. Of course he can give you help but you must be able to respond, you must have it in you to grasp what he teaches.

Q: Which is the best path to Self-knowledge?

SRI MA: All paths are good. It depends on a man’s samskaras, his conditioning, the tendencies he has brought with him from previous births. Just as one can travel to the same place by plane, railway, car or cycle, so also different lines of approach suit different types of people. But the best path is the one that the Guru indicates.

Q: When there is only One, why are there so many different religions in the world?

SRI MA: Because He is infinite, there is an infinite variety of conceptions of Him and an endless variety of paths to Him. He is everything, every kind of belief and also the disbelief of the atheist. Your belief in non-belief is also a belief. When you speak of disbelief, it implies that you admit belief. He is in all forms and yet He is formless.

~ from: “Anandamayi, Her Life and Wisdom” by Richard Lannoy
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