“Listening to the able master is an effective means of killing the mind – provided your surrender is earnest.”

“Light and darkness can never exist together.
where there is light, there can be no darkness – and where there is darkness,
there can be no light and your mind is darkness personfied! that is why it is said you must free yourself of your mind.”

Alhat Ed Din was a very famous sheikh who lived in Crimea. He had several disciples. One night, when he was sitting by a pond, a sufi named Shams Tabreez passed by. Seeing Alhat Ed Din, he wondered what he was doing sitting next to the pond at night. So he went near him and asked, “Mister, what are you doing? Who are you?” The man replied, “I am Sheikh Alhat Ed Din and I am meditating on the shadow of the moon in this water.”
Shams Tabreez asked, “Do you have a boil on your neck that you are finding it difficult to look up at the moon? The real moon is visible in the sky and you are looking for the shadow in the pond!” Alhat Ed Din raised his head – and what did he see? – the radiant face of Shams Tabreez in the moonlight. Automatically his head bowed in reverence. He was astonished: “I – a sheikh – am bowing to this man?” And then he remembered the words of a wise man who had told him that the moment he saw his master, his head would automatically bow in reverence. Alhat Ed Din got up immediately and said, “Will you make me your disciple?” He was greatly moved by the fact that his head had involuntarily bowed in reverence. The magnetic power that was pulling his heart towards the charm of Shams’ face was saying that the man in front of him was no simpleton, but a man of God.
Once again he asked, “Will you make me your disciple?” Shams said, “Yes, but only if you fulfill one of my requirements.” He said, “Please order! What is the condition?” Shams said, “My condition is that you go and get a decanter of liquor and sit and drink with me in the open market! Only then will I make you my disciple.” On hearing this, Alhat Ed Din was scared. He was highly respected in society and his knowledge and intelligence were acknowledged by the whole city. He was called `sheikh’ by everybody; how could he sit in the market place and drink shamelessly? His religious belief too was at stake.
Alhat Ed Din said, “This is not possible. How can I do this?” Shams Tabreez answered, “Well, then you can go. You can never be my disciple. You are not worthy of being my student because my student has to be courageous. The one who does not have courage can never be my disciple. You say you want to be my student but you do not even understand that when a sufi says ‘go and bring liquor,’ it means the liquor of God’s love. How can one who does not understand such a small thing be my disciple? What did you think – that you are religious and I am not? Your character is pure and my character is impure? Go, you cannot be my disciple!”

But Shams Tabreez did not allow him even this much. Without pre-conditions, this relationship can neither be established, nor accomplished, nor carried forward. The fact is, as sufis say, no guest will come and take a seat in a person’s house whose courtyard is not clean. You clean your courtyard for your guests’ sake. You clean your house too for his sake. And God is a guest who is above all others. So unless and until you clean your heart’s courtyard for the supreme guest, he will not come, or even step in, leave alone take a seat in your house.
This is the nature of your mind! It is unable to accept this reality. Your spirits are forever sinking in the ditch of this dirt. Sullied in this dirt, you can never become one with the glowing Almighty. Light and darkness can never exist together. Where there is light, there can be no darkness – and where there is darkness, there can be no light. And the mind is darkness personified! That is why it is said that you must free yourself of your mind.
As long as your mind is alive, it is bound to have disorders and abnormalities. This mind is not new. It is millions of years old. You may gain knowledge today, but the seeds that have been sown in the field of your mind are not new. So it is foolish to expect that the seeds sown thousands of years ago, will be destroyed in just a few days, or with a few months of practice.
For the present, it is important to understand that your apparent outward body may be twenty, thirty, forty or fifty years old, but your mind is millions of years old. It has been in existence from the time the world came into being. It is since then that the mind has been accumulating ’samskaras’ (fundamental subtle impressions) – which manifest as inborn instincts. From these impressions desires arise. Therefore, it is not possible to get rid of the mind’s impurities by concentrating only on the heart’s surface.
Then how do we rid ourselves of these abnormalities? How do we get rid of sexual desires? How is it possible to rid ourselves of anger and doubts? For all this, there is only one recourse – this mind must die! As long as the mind is alive, these disorders will keep surfacing; if you curb them at one point, they will appear at some other place. If you curb them there, your instincts will show up someplace else. This game will carry on for eternity.

You clean your courtyard for your guests’ sake.
Clean your heart’s courtyard for the supreme guest.
God is a guest above all.

In Urdu, a disciple is called a ‘mureed’ and a teacher is called a ’sheikh’. Mureed means one who has set out on a journey to kill his own mind. If the mind itself has become dead, then what is it that is left? If you let your mind die, you will get a new life from the death of the mind. Things will not fall in place as long as the mind is alive. It does not make any real difference if you fill this mind with knowledge or let it be ignorant. A knowledgeable person is as full of desires as an ignorant man. The amount of anger visible in an ignorant person is the same as that in a person who regularly attends satsangs. And those who attend religious meetings have another reason to be proud – they consider themselves superior to others. They feel they know more than others; understand more than others. This is an even worse scenario.
The root cause of all evil is the mind. So we will have to kill the mind. In order to kill the mind and the ego, you must sing this prayer with the request: ‘God, do not endow us with any knowledge, instead we just want the death of our mind and ego. We do not seek knowledge; knowledge becomes an unnecessary reason for pride. We have set out to kill our pride. So now we do not need a conceited mind but freedom from it.’ And that is possible only with the death of the mind.

An urdu couplet says:

One who is ready to destroy his persona in love one who is ready to perish will reach the destination

Fana – this word has been coined by sufis. Fana means ‘annihilation’. The mind has to perish completely; this is the only remedy for all its ailments; as long as the mind is present, its shadow will always be there. And these disorders – desire and passion – are all shadows of the mind. Now, if someone wants to be rid of his shadow, how will he achieve that? As long as the body exists, its shadow will also be there. Similarly, as long as the mind exists, desire will be there. It is the mind’s nature to think. The very objective of this machinery is to think. It thinks about things that are present and it also thinks about things that do not exist any more.
The form of the mind is subtle. It does not exist in any particular part of our body. Suppose I ask you where exactly the mind is located in the body as per human physiology? If you put your hand on your head, the brain is there. You may put your hand on the chest, but there you have the heart. Then where is the mind? If you see it from the point of view of physiology, you will get really confused.
To avoid this confusion, people just give up and say that there is nothing such as the mind. But the fact is that the mind is everywhere. Right from head to toe, the mind is everywhere. You call yourself ‘I’ – but if I ask you which part of your body is actually this ‘I’, you will not be able to answer. You cannot put your hand on any particular part of the body and say ‘this is the real me’ and the rest of the body is not.
Just as we call our whole body ‘me’, similarly this subtle body of the mind is also ubiquitous – spread throughout your apparent body. The moon, stars, earth, sky, trees, rocks, hills – they all lie within your mind. Do not think that the mind is something small. All that is visible in this world rests in your mind. That is the reason why your mind weaves a similar kind of world when you are sleeping or dreaming. The world of your dreams does not have even an iota of this physical world, yet it appears to be as true. The creator of this dream-world is your own imagination, your own mind. Infinite is the power of the mind!

The world of your dreams does not have even an iota of this physical world, yet it appears to be true.

And you consider the disorders, the abnormalities arising out of such a powerful mind to be a petty thing? But it is not small; it is colossal. Whatever you percieve of your mind from the outside, it is much deeper within. The conscious mind as we know it, is just ten percent of the whole; the rest is hidden from our knowledge. We have no idea of the unconscious and sub-conscious mind which comprises a major part of the mind. The territory of the unconscious is vast and the sub-conscious is the bank of memories; of every minute detail of all sensations and perceptions which carve out our habits, behaviour, choices – our whole character.

The creator of this dream-world is your own imagination, your own mind.
Infinite is the power of the mind!

If you have been to Himachal Pradesh, you will have seen the cedar tree. Some of the trees are a hundred feet tall. And for the hundred feet that you see above the soil, there are a hundred feet below the ground as well. This is because if the tree does not go down so deep into the earth, it cannot rise up to that height. Similarly, whatever you know about yourself and your mind, in reality it is several thousand times that. This is why, the devices that are made available to you to control your mind, are brought within the orbit of the mind very soon.

Every master is a master designer who creates various devices to kill your mind.

Listening to the able master is an effective means of killing the mind – provided your surrender is earnest. You must use the all-powerful words of the master only for strengthening your mind. This is the reason why all mystics and teachers, present in different times, have to devise new methods to handle your mind. Every master is a master designer who creates various devices to kill your mind. These methods will be different from the earlier methods. The mind is very cunning; it begins to reject old methods because it is prepared for its shocks and strategies. So the master has to design and devise new methods – this is how various religions have evolved.
You are given knowledge to cure ignorance – the disease of the mind. But knowledge has to change into knowing and into experience – only then is its purpose served. But when the listener is engrossed in words, then knowledge becomes a bondage and a burden.

Medicine is given to a patient to relieve him of pain; but often he is unable to give up the medication even after the illness is over. This is because the patient becomes addicted to the medicine. It is seen that those medicines that are not really required are sold the most and the stranger thing is that the people who buy these medicines have no ailment at all. So when the medicine itself becomes an addiction, how does one get rid of it?

Sitting close to your guru and listening to him could become a medium; but you use this medium in such a way that it does not remain a medium any more. It is not the guru you love but the image of him that you create in your mind. You surrender to that image and not to the guru! If you are not able to fully master the method, then just listening will not dissolve the myths and confusions. Darkness is not dispelled and therefore you are not able to comprehend the truth. The truth remains beyond the perception and understanding of those who are delusional and full of desires.

A living master who is so ordinary in her extraordinariness!
She is a challenge to the intellect, a pleasing sight to the eyes,
humorous, and a lively new age Buddha.
She is the embodiment of love and knowledge.

Mesmerizing persona, piercing eyes, a crystal clear mind, the wisdom of the ages and a beautiful demeanour – such is the personality of Anandmurti Gurumaa. Defying definition, pragmatic, realistic, of liberal views, she is open-minded like the sky and intense like space. Gurumaa had a wonderful childhood – when other children were learning nursery rhymes, she was listening to the philosophy of Vedanta. While other children dreamt of dolls and cars, she was learning the art of awakening from dreams. A bubbly spirited teenager, she was not seen with girls of her age but with yogis and gurus. Meditating and lovingly serving spiritual masters, she had her awakening at the tender age of sixteen. Soon life groomed her to be a master and a guide to other seekers. As fish to water, so did poetry come naturally to her.

She is a sufi when she speaks on Sufism;
a rishi when she speaks on the upanishads and the Geeta; a Shankrachraya; a Buddha; a Zen Master; a poetess; a singer.
Gurumaa is all of these and yet, she is none of these!

Gurumaa has written hundreds of poems. She has also set them to music and sung them in her mellifluous voice. People sometimes wonder how an apparently simple girl has achieved such heights in such a small span of time. In thinking so, are they not merely looking at the physical and missing the important point that spirit is ageless and the mind carries all its achievements from one life to the next? Gurumaa’s early speeches carried such fervour that she was branded a rebel. While the young ones loved her for her modern thoughts, the elders felt challenged.

She has simplified meditation for the masses and made it of such ease that no one ever felt that this path was for a chosen few only.

People who witnessed her eccentric behaviour; her fervour; her fiery spirit; her zealous soul; her divine dance – soon realized that she was much more than what she appeared to be. An incident from her school days is worth mentioning. Gurumaa was in the sixth grade and a christian priest who was taking a moral science class asked the students if they had any questions. None of the students had any query but Gurumaa had so many! The priest was soon embarrassed as he found it difficult to answer the questions of this little girl. He dismissed the class and rebuked her saying that she was insulting him with her unending stream of questions. In his heart however, he had a different plan. Her father was summoned and presented with a proposal. He was asked to give this bright young girl to the church, for in her they could see a great evangelist. Her father naturally declined.
Gurumaa had a sober but happy childhood and a fiery youth. She was always seen meditating or sitting in silence. Soon the fragrance of her spirituality spread and people from all over started coming to her seeking knowledge and guidance. Busy meeting people and traveling to nearby cities, she was never restricted by her gender. Surprisingly, even her parents never restricted her or forced her to do anything she didn’t like to – which is pretty unusual for Indian parents.
Her satsangs were getting crowded and her popularity was soaring in the small city of Amritsar. One day she went into silence and after seven months of deep silence, she left her home and hometown for good. She started wandering and traveled mostly in North India, finally settling in Rishikesh – a holy city on the banks of the Ganges. Then her traveling started again, but this time to address conferences, meet people and to give them guidance. Later she started her meditation retreats which gave her a working ground. Thousands of people would come to unlearn the worldly ways; to rise above dogmas and doctrines of religion. She simplified meditation for the masses and made it of such ease that no one ever felt that this path was for a chosen few only.

Gurumaa says she does not belong to any one tradition, religion, path or label. She considers herself a citizen of world and is not limited by narrow considerations. She is a free-spirited, transendentalist and is carving out a path-less path for seekers. She says that no guru can grant you enlightenment; no master can awaken your kundalini; one has to toil hard oneself – but without making the effort seem a strain. Seek, but with patience; meditate, but without any goal; sharpen your awareness so that you rise above the ‘me-mine-I’ syndrome of identification with the self.
Today Gurumaa resides in a beautiful ashram in Gannaur, Harayana, India. Ever welcoming to seekers; ever inviting to all; a hard task master who will not appease your ego, Gurumaa says, “People do not need a living guru; they need a look-alike guru, a toy. As one has to surrender totally to the guru, people, who love their selves so much, find it difficult to do so. Therefore most prefer to stay away!”
Gurumaa has spoken on almost every subject: psychology, religion, family, society, mysticism. Her talks are interspersed with beautiful music and her soul stirring singing. She is a sufi when she speaks on Sufism; a rishi when she speaks on the upanishads and the Geeta; a Shankrachraya; a Buddha; a Zen Master; a poetess; a singer. Gurumaa is all of these and yet, she is none of these!
Anandmurti Gurumaa is a living master who is so ordinary in her extraordinariness! She is a challenge to the intellect, a pleasing sight to the eyes, humorous, and a lively new age Buddha. She is the embodiment of love and knowledge.

No guru can grant you enlightenment; no master can awaken your kundalini; one has to toil hard oneself – but without making the effort seem a strain. Seek, but with patience; meditate, but without any goal; sharpen your awareness so that you rise above the ‘me-mine-I’ syndrome of identification
with the self.

HE ALONE KNOWS

to whom He will reveal Himself

under which form.

By what path and in what manner

He attracts any particular man to Himself

with great force is incomprehensible

to the human intellect.

The path differs indeed for different pilgrims.

India is a country which is fortunate to have witnessed her daughters rise to be great mystics. A person strives to learn the intricacies of religion, practices it diligently and then after many years may reach the zenith of spirituality. But there are some individuals who are born with all the prerequisites, a great mind and a high level of consciousness.

Anandamayi Ma was one such evolved woman. Anandamayi Ma was born in East Bengal (now Bangladesh) in 1896. Her father, Bipin Behari Bhattacarya sang Vaishnava songs, often appearing intoxicated. He would rise early in the morning and sing songs; he was given to wandering around for long periods. His wife would have to go looking for him to bring him back home. Once during a storm the roof of his house blew off but he continued to sing in the rain, oblivious of what had happened!
Anandamayi’s mother Moksada Sundari Devi was known for her states of bhava or religious emotion. As she performed her household duties, she was visited by avatars and deities who shone with light. While pregnant with Nirmala – Anandamayi’s given name – she would see visions of sages and deities which would appear and then suddenly disappear. Later on she took her vows and became a ascetic.
The sound of religious chanting would make Nirmala ecstatic. In temples she would see deities emerging from their idols and then re-entering them. She was often distracted and would gaze into space – her eyes not focused on any worldly object. Her education was limited and her writing skills minimal.
At the age of thirteen she was married to Ramani Mohan Cakravarti or Bholanath as he was more popularly known. She spent a few years living in her brother-in-law’s house – most of them in a trance. She was a hard worker but sometimes had difficulty concentrating on housework. Her relatives assumed that the trances were due to overwork. When her brother-in-law died she went to live with her husband. At that time she was eighteen years old. Here she met a young man who was impressed by her quiet and gentle ways and he started calling her ‘mother’ (Ma in Bengali). This young man predicted that one day the entire world would address her in the same manner.

She was lost in a great void… The Maha Shunya

Hers was an unconsummated marriage, though not by her husband’s choice. When thoughts of sexuality occurred to Bholanath, Anandamayi’s body would take on the qualities of death and she would grow faint. He had to chant mantras to bring her back to consciousness. Sometimes in such situations her body would become contorted or it would stiffen. She would later say that she gave her husband spontaneous electric shocks when he touched her in a wrongful way. Bholanath thought the situation was temporary but it proved to be permanent. His relatives said he should remarry but he did not follow their advice. Later Bholanath was initiated by her and he accepted Anandamayi as his guru.
While living in Dacca, people came to recognize her spiritual qualities. At the sound of religious chanting she would become stiff and even fall to the ground in a faint. Sometimes her body became contorted during these episodes. At times she would stretch her body and at times shrink it; sometimes her limbs would go into seemingly impossible positions – as if her skeletal structure had changed shape under her skin. She would hold difficult yogic postures (asanas) for long periods of time and spontaneously form complex tantric hand positions (mudras).
Her husband thought she was possessed and took her to exorcists. One physician said that she was not mad in the conventional sense but may have a kind of god intoxication – a divine madness for which there was no known cure.

In 1916 she became ill and moved back to her parent’s home in Vadyakuta. In 1918 she and her husband moved to Bajitpur where she began Shaivite and Vaisnavite spiritual practices. Inner voices would tell her what actions to perform and which images to visualize. Her yogic practices (kriyas) were spontaneous and she described them as occurring automatically – much like a factory where the various machines worked together in perfect coordination to produce a product.
Anandamayi would weep profusely, laugh for hours, and talk at tremendous speed in a Sanskrit-like language. Other unusual actions included rolling in the dust and dancing for long periods whirling like a leaf in the wind. She would also fast for long periods and at other times consume enough food for eight or nine people.
In Indian devotional tradition, changes in body structure and state are considered spontaneous expressions of religious emotion. Anandamayi’s changes were more extreme than the common sattvika bhavas. Some respected Indian saints of the past are said to have had similar bodily changes.
Anandamayi went on various pilgrimages traveling throughout India, staying in ashrams and attending religious festivals. In Dacca her disciples built a temple to her but she left the day it was completed. She traveled to Dehradun where she lived in an abandoned Shiva temple for almost a year, with no money and often in freezing temperatures without blankets.

Anandamayi Ma was known for her siddhis or yogic powers wherein
she could read her devotee’s thoughts and emotions from a distance,

make her body shrink and expand and cure the sick.

She was known for her siddhis or yogic powers wherein she could read her devotee’s thoughts and emotions from a distance, make her body shrink and expand and cure the sick. One disciple claimed that she was saved from death in a car accident when Anandamayi grasped her ‘life substance’ and brought it back to her dead body.
Anandamayi was sensitive to environmental influences. Once as she passed by a Muslim tomb, she began reciting portions of the Quran and performing the Namaz (Muslim prayers). This and other similar acts showed that Anandamayi was always in a trance -moving through a variety of psychic and religious states, each one expressing itself through her. She often objectified her body by describing her actions with phrases like ‘this body did this’ or ‘this body went there’. She believed her chaotic actions were expressions of the divine will.

“My consciousness has never associated itself
with this temporary body.

Before I came to this earth, ‘I’ was the same.

As a little girl, ‘I’ was the same.

I grew to womanhood but still ‘I’ was the same.

When the family I was born to arranged this body’s marriage,

‘I’ was the same.

Even afterwards, though the dance of creation changes around

me in the hall of eternity, ‘I’ shall be the same.”

- Anandamayi Ma

Sometimes she ascribed her actions to a personal though unnamed god:

“I have no sense of pleasure or pain, I stay as I have always been. Sometimes He draws me outside and sometimes He takes me inside and I am completely withdrawn. I am nobody, all of my actions are done by him and not by me.”
At times she described herself as completely empty with no sense of the ‘I’ remaining. She was lost in a great void – the mahashunya – which was responsible for her actions. The actions that emanated from this void were often chaotic and incoherent. Her view was that a universal state of chaos arises due to spontaneous expressions of the divine will which arises out of this nothingness. But she also talked in theological terms stating that her bhavas or expressions were the play of the Lord acting through her body.
Anandamayi considered individual identity to be a kind of spiritual disease. She called it bhava roga or the disease in which a person sees himself as a separate individual. When some of her disciples complained about the large crowds of people that would follow her she would say, “As you do not feel the weight of your head, of your hands and feet … so do I feel that these people are organic members of ‘this body’; so I don’t feel any pressure nor find their worries weighing on me. Their joys and sorrows, problems and solutions, I feel to be vitally mine … I have no ego sense nor concept of separateness.”
Though she was never formally initiated by a guru, one evening she spontaneously performed her own initiation visualizing both the ritual scene and the movements. Spontaneously she heard the chanting of initiatory sacred mantras within herself.
She explained that there were four stages in her spiritual evolution. In the first the mind was ‘dried’ of desire and passion so it could ignite the fire of spiritual knowledge easily. Next the body became still and the mind was drawn inwards as religious emotions flowed in her heart like a stream. Thirdly her personal identity was absorbed by an individual deity, but some distinction between form and formlessness still remained. Lastly there was a melting away of all duality. Here the mind was completely free of all movement of thought. There was full consciousness even in what is normally characterized as the dream state.
When speaking of spiritual evolution she also maintained that her spiritual identity had not changed since early childhood. She claimed that all the outer changes in her life were for the benefit of her disciples.
When Paramahansa Yogananda met Anandamayi Ma and asked her about her life, she answered: “Father, there is little to tell.” She spread her hands gracefully in a deprecatory gesture, “My consciousness has never associated itself with this temporary body. Before I came to this earth Father, ‘I’ was the same. As a little girl, ‘I’ was the same. I grew to womanhood but still ‘I’ was the same. When the family I was born to arranged this body’s marriage, ‘I’ was the same. And Father, in front of you now, ‘I’ am the same. Even afterwards, though the dance of creation changes around me in the hall of eternity, ‘I’ shall be the same.”
Anandamayi Ma would sometimes assay a variety of roles and later explain that this was a performance staged to teach someone present a lesson. However such acts were not a function of her will and occurred without planning or intent.
Anandamayi was a holy woman – without formal religious training or initiation – whose status was entirely due to her ecstatic trances. She did not have a worldly guru though she did hear voices that told her what religious and meditative practices to perform. She emphasized the importance of religious devotion and of detachment from the world. She also encouraged her devotees to serve others. She traveled and wandered a great deal, at times refusing to stay in the ashrams her devotees arranged for. While her parents worshiped Krishna, she could not be placed in any definite tradition.
An ecstatic child of ecstatic parents, she became a famous saint who like many other female Indian saints stood on the edge of several religious traditions yet in the midst of none. Throughout her long life till she died in 1981, she influenced the spirituality of thousands of people who came to see her. She never initiated people or considered herself a guru to anyone, yet there were throngs of seekers who learned a lot from her and their spiritual journey began only because of her silent presence.

Enquire:

‘Who am I?’

Look at a tree:
from one seed arises a huge tree;
from it comes numerous seeds,
each one of which in its turn grows into a tree. No two fruits are alike. Yet it is one life that throbs in every particle of the tree.
So, it is the same Atman everywhere.

These are the words of the female sufi saint Rabia al Basra. She grew in the tender love and training of the higher intuitive powers of God and is one of the few women in Sufism – indeed she is considered the first female saint in Islam. She was not trained by a murshid but was born a devotee with great love for God. Rabia was born sometime between 712 and 717 C.E. in Basra, Iraq.
Many spiritual stories are associated with her, but what we do know of her life is essentially reality merged with legend. Much of her early life is related, recorded and narrated by Farid al-Din Attar, a later day sufi saint and poet, who is the only source of her history as Rabia herself did not leave behind any written work.
She was the fourth daughter of her family and therefore named Rabia, meaning ‘fourth’. She was born in a poor but respectable family. Her parents were so poor that there was no oil in the house to light a lamp, nor a cloth to wrap her in when she was born. Her mother requested her husband to borrow some oil from a neighbour but he had resolved to never ask anything of anyone except the Creator; he pretended to go to the neighbor’s door and returned home empty-handed.
In the night the Prophet appeared to Rabia’s father in a dream and said, “Your newly born daughter is a favorite of the Lord and shall lead many Muslims to the right path. You should approach the Amir of Basra and present him with a letter in which should be written this message; ‘you offer Durood to the Holy Prophet one hundred times every night and four hundred times every thursday night. However, since you have failed to observe the rule last thursday, as a penalty you must pay the bearer four hundred dinars’.
Rabia’s father went to the Amir with tears of joy rolling down his cheeks. The Amir was delighted on receiving the message. He realized that he was in the vision of the Prophet and as thanksgiving he distributed 1000 dinars to the poor and gave 400 to Rabia’s father and requested him to come to him whenever he required anything, as he would benefit from the visit of a soul dear to the Lord.

Rabia’s parents died in her childhood and some time later when Basra was in the grip of a fierce famine, she got separated from her sisters. She was captured by a man who sold her off for six dirhams. The purchaser subjected her to hard labour. Many hardships fell upon her but she immersed herself in relentless devotion and worship of Allah. Her devotion for Allah was fired by a deep-rooted love and longing for the Divine.

“Rabia’s worldly possessions are said to have been
a broken jug from which she drank, an old rush mat to sit upon and a brick for a pillow. She spent each night in prayer and often chided herself for sleeping as it prevented her constant contemplation and active love of God.”
Little is known of her early years except that she spent her youth as a slave and was later freed. What we do know of her however, is that throughout her life her asceticism was absolute and unwavering as was her love for God. Poverty and self-denial were Rabia’s constant companions. For example, her worldly possessions are said to have been a broken jug from which she drank, an old rush mat to sit upon and a brick for a pillow. She spent each night in prayer and often chided herself for sleeping as it prevented her constant contemplation and active love of God. She refused all offers of marriage – of which there were many – because she had no room for anything in her life that might distract her from complete devotion to God. Indeed, in this same manner she rebuffed anything that could distract her from the Beloved, i.e. God. More interesting than her absolute asceticism however, is the concept of Divine Love that Rabia introduced. She was the first to introduce the idea that God should be loved for His own sake and not out of fear- as earlier Sufis had done. For example, she is reported to have walked the streets of Basra with a flaming torch in one hand and a bucket of water in the other. When her intentions were questioned, Rabia replied: “I want to pour water into Hell and set fire to Paradise so that these two veils disappear and nobody worships God out of fear of Hell or hope of Paradise, but only for the sake of His eternal beauty.”
In her master’s house she fasted by day and spent the night praying. One night her master is said to have been awakened by a strange voice urging him to free Rabia his slave. When he looked through the window of his apartment, he saw Rabia in prostration offering the litany “O God, you know that the desire of my heart is to fulfill your commands and that the light of my eye is in serving you. If the affair was with me I would not rest even an hour from serving you, but you yourself have left me at the mercy of a creature.” Her master then perceived a lantern suspended above her head giving out a blinding light. When day broke he summoned Rabia and set her free. Rabia left the house and wandered through the desert in search for what Allah had apportioned for her. For a while she served God in a hermitage and according to one version returned to her master some days later, playing a flute with the skill of a professional musician. Determined to perform the pilgrimage she then set out for the desert to pray and became an ascetic. Unlike many sufi saints she did not learn from a teacher or master but turned to God himself.
It is said that on the way to the desert the donkey carrying her bundle died. She entreated the Lord saying “O my God, do kings deal thus with a woman, a stranger and the weak? Thou art calling me to thine own house but in the midst of the way thou hast suffered my donkey to die and left me alone in the desert.” She had hardly completed her prayer when the donkey stirred up and came to life.
Rabia was a mystic of the newly emerging Sufi order. She often spoke of the concept of Hubb-e-Illahi or Divine Love in sufi philosophy. She expressed her love of God as: “I love you with two loves, a love of passion and a love prompted by your worthiness of that. As for the love of passion, it consists in occupying myself with remembering you and no one else. And as for the love of which you are worthy, it consists in your lifting the veils so that I may see you. However mine is not the merit in this or that. But yours is the merit in this or that.”

“She was so singularly devoted towards achieving divine union that all other attractions were meaningless to her.”

Though she had many offers of marriage from admiring Sufi companions (including a proposal from Hasan al-Basri), she refused them all as she had no time for anything in her life other than God. On being asked about marriage she remarked “If anyone can give me the answer to these four questions, I shall marry him. First; what will the judge of the world say of me when I die – whether I am a muslim or a non-believer? Second; when I am put in the grave and Munkar and Nakir question me, shall I be able to answer them satisfactorily or not? Third; when the people are assembled at the Resurrection and the books are distributed, will I be given mine in the right or the left hand? And fourth; when mankind is summoned, some to paradise and some to hell, in which of the two groups will I be?” No one being able to answer these questions, she concluded:”since the answers to these questions are unknown and I have them to concern myself with, how should I need a husband to be occupied with?” She was so singularly devoted towards achieving divine union that all other attractions were meaningless to her.
As her fame grew she had many disciples. She also held discussions with many of the renowned religious people of her time. She often performed miracles to expose the contradictions in the relationship between men and women. Rabia confounded her male contemporaries with her unconventional ideas. The esteemed Sufi leader Hasan-al-Basri was one such man humbled by her spiritual and intellectual power. In a short Sufi narrative he declares, “I passed one whole night and day with Rabia speaking of the Way and the Truth and it never passed through my mind that I was a man nor did it occur to her that she was a woman. At the end when I looked at her I saw myself as bankrupt and Rabia as truly sincere.”
There are many other narratives written about the interaction between Hasan-al-Basri and Rabia which show Rabia surpassing her male counterpart. In one story Rabia is seen by al-Basri meditating near the bank of a river. To get her attention al-Basri placed his prayer carpet on top of the water, sat on it and called out to Rabia to float over and converse with him. Understanding his intention was merely to show off his spiritual powers to others, Rabia tossed her prayer carpet high into the air and floated up to it. “Oh Hasan,” she said, “come up here where people will see us better.” Hasan became silent because he knew it was not within his power to fly. “Oh Hasan,” Rabia continued, “that which you did a fish can do . . . and that which I did a fly can do. The real work for the sufi lies beyond both of these.”

“She often spoke of the concept of Hubb-e-Illahi or Divine Love in sufi philosophy.
She expressed her love of God as:
“I love you with two loves, a love of passion and a love prompted by your worthiness of that.”
Among the many anecdotes that have arisen relating to the life of Rabia is one which tells of the night a thief entered her hermitage. Being overcome by weariness she had fallen asleep. A thief entered and finding nothing of value decided to leave with her chador. When he made to leave, the doorway was barred. He dropped the chador and approached the exit finding it open this time. He seized the chador again and as he began to exit, the doorway got barred again. He repeated this seven times, utterly perplexed, when he heard a voice coming from the corner of the hermitage; “man do not put yourself to such pains – it is so many years now that she has committed herself to us. The devil himself does not have the boldness to slink around her. How should a thief have the boldness to slink around her chador? Be gone, for if one friend has fallen asleep, one is awake and keeping watch.” Such was the reciprocity awarded to Rabia by her Divine Friend and Beloved.
Rabia taught that repentance was a gift from God because no one could repent unless God had already accepted him and given him this gift of repentance. She taught that sinners must fear the punishment they deserve for their sins but also offered them far greater hope of Paradise than most other ascetics did. For herself, she held to a higher ideal worshipping God neither from fear of Hell nor hope of Paradise, for she saw such self-interest as unworthy of God’s servants. Emotions like fear and hope were like veils – hindrances to the vision of God Himself.

In her later years about seven years before she died, Rabia moved to the Mount of Olives [Tur] in Jerusalem with a woman companion and attendant. There she bought a small house with some land surrounding it and lived as a hermit inside the Tomb of Pelagia near the Chapel of Ascension where she was eventually laid to rest. Everyday she would walk down to Al-Aqsa mosque where she prayed and gave sermons to the people. Both men and women comprised her following – they would come in droves to listen to her. She was accepted as a master of the path by both men and women, as it was Allah who had made her a means of manifesting Himself to those who sought Him. After praying she would walk back up to the mountain. This she did every day till she died in the year 185 A.H / 801 C.E. After her death her followers built a tomb for her which still exists near the Christian Church of Ascension on Mt of Olives. It is visited by those who remember this lady saint and thank Allah for the blessing which He granted through her life – the example of a holy soul filled with Huu.
Rabia was in her eighties when she died, having followed the mystic way to the end. By then she was continually united with her beloved. As she told her Sufi friends, “My beloved is always with me.” She became the guide and spiritual director of many souls who came to seek her counsel. Her spiritual realization carried an overwhelming dread of judgment after death. The idea of sin disturbed her as leading to separation from the divine rather than the fear of punishment. In her, the fire of this all-conquering love demanded eternal union with the Eternal Flame and death to her was the bridge whereby the lover would be united with the beloved.
Rabia’s final departure from this world is recorded in a beautiful account by a Persian biographer. He says that during her last moments, many of her followers surrounded her but she bade them to leave, asking them to make way for the arrival of Allah’s messengers. When they had left her, they heard her voice making the profession of faith – La illaha ilallah – and then a voice saying “O’ soul at rest, return to thy Lord, satisfied with Him, giving satisfaction to Him. So enter among my servants and enter into my paradise.” [Al-Quran].

PHILOSOPHY

Rabia was the one who first set forth the doctrine of mystical love and who is widely considered to be the most important of the early Sufi poets. Much of the poetry that is attributed to her is of unknown origin. After a life of hardship she became spontaneously realized. When asked by Sheikh Hasan- al-Basri how she discovered the secret, she responded: “You know of the how, but I know of the how-less.”
On one occasion she was asked if she hated Satan. Hazrat Rabia replied: “My love for God has so possessed me that no place remains for loving or hating any save Him.”
When Hazrat Rabia would not come to attend the sermons of Hazrat Hasan Basri, he would deliver no discourse that day. People in the audience would ask him why he did that and he would reply, “The syrup that is held by the vessels meant for elephants cannot be contained in the vessels meant for ants.”

There are many folk lore attached to her – whether true or not is not the issue – the important thing is that she was quite an enigma for the people of her times. It is said that once Hazrat Rabia was on her way to Mecca and half-way there she saw the Kaaba coming to meet her and she said, “It is the Lord of the house whom I need, what have I to do with the house? I need to meet Him who said that whosoever approaches me by a span’s length, I will approach by the length of a cubit. The Kaaba which I see has no power over me; what joy does the beauty of the Kaaba bring to me?”

“Rabia al Basra was a woman of courage, love,
dedication – an example of a woman master in her own right.
She never claimed to be a master,
yet her life and her words worked as perfect catalysts
to transform the lives of many seekers.”
At that same time, the great sufi saint Hazrat Ibrahim-bin-Adham arrived at the Kaaba but he did not see it. He had spent fourteen years making his way to the Kaaba, because in every place of prayer he performed two rakats. Hazrat Ibrahim bin Adham said: “Alas! What has happened? It maybe that some injury has overtaken my eyes.” An unseen voice said to him: “No harm has befallen your eyes; the Kaaba has gone to meet a woman who is approaching this place.” Ibrahim Adham ran to see who it was and saw Rabia arriving and the Kaaba was back in its place. When he saw that he said: “O Rabia! what is this disturbance and trouble and burden which you have brought into the world?” She replied: “I have not brought disturbance into the world; it is you who have disturbed the world because you delayed arriving at the Kaaba by fourteen years.” He said: “Yes, I have spent fourteen years in crossing the desert because I was engaged in prayer.” Rabia said: “You traversed it in ritual prayer (Salat) but with personal supplication.” Then, having performed the pilgrimage she returned to Basra and occupied herself with the work of devotion.
It is hard to believe that a woman of her stature survived the Islamic conservative clergy. Rabia al Basra was a woman of courage, love, dedication – an example of a woman master in her own right. She never claimed to be a master, yet her life and her words worked as perfect catalysts to transform the lives of many seekers.
It is said in sufi literature that miracles were given as a sanction to the prophets, but to the saints they were granted as a test. Though endowed with such miraculous powers, Rabia knew the value of humility. Divine riza or God’s will was the only goal she fixed her vision on. Her resignation to the divine will and trust of Allah was so great that once when she was terribly sick, Sofyan-e-Thauri a fellow ascetic, on seeing her condition urged her to pray for a cure. She replied that he should be aware that God had willed her suffering and knowing that, how could he bid her to request Him the contrary of His will. She ended saying that it was not proper to oppose one’s Friend. She had reached such a level of spiritual synchronicity with the ‘divine will’ that to wish for anything else was a grievous sin.

“No harm has befallen your eyes;
the Kaaba has gone to meet a woman
who is approaching this place.”

Why should you avoid sugar?

Processed sugar has many harmful effects throughout the body and can cause major imbalances in the organ systems. You could say that sugar tends to throw off the homeostatic balance of the whole body by increasing the production of adrenaline by many times. In essence, sugar stimulates the nervous system by inducing a flight or fight response.

Diabetes is caused by the failure of the pancreas to produce adequate insulin when the blood sugar rises.

Too much sugar can adversely affect body weight and hormones; it may also cause fatigue, increased hyperactivity and tooth decay.
Do we know the harm being done by loading the body with sugar?
Refined sugar provides empty calories and if a lot of your food contains sugar, there’s no room for the nutrients you need to stay healthy. When sugar isn’t needed, it’s stored as fat, and by eating sugar, you’re also raising levels of the hormone insulin in your blood. Insulin stores fat, a risk factor of diabetes, and can damage artery walls, making it easier for cholesterol and fat to build up and cause heart disease. Too much sugar affects immune systems by causing white blood cells to be sluggish, thus lowering resistance to disease.
High sugar consumption leads to an overly acidic body and in turn will cause the body to strip nutrients from its reserves to counterbalance this effect. This can eventually cause the body to take calcium from the bones and teeth since calcium is the primary mineral used to neutralize high acid in the cells. The can lead to arthritis or osteoporosis.
Refined sugar is devoid of all nutrients, which leads to the body getting depleted of its stores of various vitamins, minerals and enzymes. If sugar consumption is continued, an over-acid condition results, and more minerals are needed from deep in the body to correct the imbalance. If the body is lacking the nutrients used to metabolize sugar, it will not be able to properly handle and rid itself of the poisonous residues. These wastes accumulate through the brain and nervous system, which speeds up cellular death. The bloodstream becomes over-loaded with waste products and symptoms of carbonic poisoning result.
Diabetes is a very commonly known disease caused by sugar as well as a high fat diet. Diabetes is caused by the failure of the pancreas to produce adequate insulin when the blood sugar rises. A concentrated amount of sugar introduced into the system sends the body into shock from the rapid rise in the blood sugar level. Diabetes (high blood sugar) is caused when pancreas fail because of overwork.

The effects of high blood sugar include:

a. Increased risk of diabetes
b. Increased risk of cancer
c. Increased free radical formation
d. Increased in advanced glycation end products (AGEs)
e. Increased risk of cardiovascular disease

“Many nutritionists believe that sugar can be addictive and it is difficult to break the habit of excess sugar intake.”

Research has also shown that refined sugar may be one of the major dietary risk factors in gallstone disease. Gallstones are composed of fats and calcium. Sugar can disturb the natural mineral balance in the body, and one of the minerals, calcium, can become toxic or nonfunctioning, depositing itself anywhere in the body, including the gallbladder.
The escalating aggressive behavioural pattern in adolescents perturbs everyone today. While many believe that the violence shown on television and cinemas is to be blamed, there is one hidden cause for this. Refined sugar are now being linked to various mental problems. Our brains are very sensitive and react to quick chemical changes within the body. As sugar is consumed, our cells are robbed of their B vitamin, which destroys them, and insulin production is inhibited. Low insulin production means a high sugar (glucose) level in the bloodstream, which can lead to a confused mental state or unsound mind, and has also been linked with juvenile criminal behavior.
Many nutritionists believe that sugar can be addictive and it is difficult to break the habit of excess sugar intake. In fact, sugar does more damage than any other poison, drug or narcotic because :
It is considered a “food” and ingested in such massive quantities.
The damaging effects begin early, from the day a baby is born and is fed sugar in its formula. Even mothers milk is contaminated with it if the mother eats sugar.
Practically 95% of people are addicted to it to some degree or other.

“High sugar products give instant energy and a feeling of “high” which is why they are now being consumed to the level of addiction by the younger generation.”

Healthful Tips

• eat Fresh fruits get goodness all the way!
• Avoid refined, processed carbohydrates (especially sugar).
• Seek opportunities to use whole, fresh foods.
• Eat whole fruits as desserts.

“A tapasvin into the world came I
And bodha illumined my path to the self”

Lalleshwari was a great poet-saint of Kashmir. Her life is shrouded in mystery, miracle and legend – and much of what we know of her is through the oral tradition. ‘Lalla Vakyani’ (1920) by Sir George Abraham Grierson and Lionel D. Barnett Litt. D., is the only scholarly work on the subject to date. The earliest recorded mention of Lalleshwari is in ‘Asrar-ul-Abrar’ by Baba Dawud Mishtaki written in 1654. Sanskrit documents dated earlier do not mention her at all, neither is there any mention of her in Kalhan’s Rajtaringini, or in any other chronicle till 1746 – may be because these were records of political events and not of social history. Or may be her teachings and fame took time to spread and she became a legend much later. It is only as late as the middle of the 18th century that Khwaja Muhammad Azam Dedamari writes in ‘Waqi ‘ati Kashmir’ : “Lalla Arifa, a saintly mystic of the highest order, devoted to God, flourished during the reign of Sultan Alau-ud-Din ( 1344-55). In the early period of her life, she was bound in wedlock; a prisoner of family life and household chores; but at the same time she became God-intoxicated and having given herself up to a life of detachment and retirement, she passed sometime in seclusion away from people……….She passed away during the reign of Sultan Shihab-ud-Din (1355-73).
Some though asleep, are yet awakesome though awake, are yet asleep despite ablutions, some are uncleandespite householder’s active life, some by their actions are untouched
Recent writers follow one or other of the earlier chroniclers, but none mentions the authority or source material for what they believe to be the date or place of her birth. Or indeed, of the events they narrate or of the legends current about her which they mention.
From various sources, we have three dates for her birth: 1300-01, 1334-35 and 1346-47 A.D., and two for her place of birth: Sempore (near Pampore) and Pandrethan. However, all agree that she was born in a brahmin family and was pious from childhood. There is evidence of the fact that in those times ‘liberal education’ was imparted to women. From a study of her ‘vaakh’ too, it is clear that she was educated during her early life in her father’s house.

“In time past, we were in time future, we shall be throughout ages we have been forever the sun rises and sets forever Siva creates dissolves and creates again.”

At the age of twelve Lalleshwari was married to Nica Bhatt. At her in-laws house she came under the influence of their family priest, Siddha Shrikantha, who was fondly called Siddha Mol or venerable father. Her husband’s step-mother treated her very cruelly. She was reproached, scolded and reprimanded at the slightest pretext. Padmavati – the name given to her after marriage – bore all quietly and never complained or protested. Several of her vaakhs are about the situation in her life. Her mother-in-law used to serve her food placing a stone on the plate and then covering it with rice so that other family members did not realize her cruelty.

“They may kill a big sheep or a tender lamb, Lalla will have her lump of stone alright.”

Early morning before dawn, Lalla would leave the house and go to the river to fill water. Her mother-in-law questioned this action and slyly accused her of infidelity. But the truth was soon out. Lalla used to go to the shrine of Nata Keshava Bhairava at the ghat of Zinypor and meditate quietly over there. One day when she returned home, her husband, instigated by his mother, struck the pitcher of water on her head with a stick. Legend has it that the pitcher broke but the water remained in place!

Lalla filled all the pots in the kitchen and then threw the remaining water outside. The water collected into a pond and came to be known as ‘Lalla Trag’ or ‘Lalla’s Pond’. According to Pir Ghulam Hassan – the Persian chronicler – the pond continued to be filled with water till 1925-26 and then went dry. Unfortunately, this incident revealed her truth to the public. Her fame spread far and wide and crowds started coming for her darshan. But Lalla was not interested in public adoration; the fall-out of this was that she was released from the bondage of a householder’s life. Now, in total disregard of appearances, she shed her clothes, let loose her long hair and walked away from home and all earthly constraints. She roamed the streets, singing and dancing in divine ecstasy – unaware of her nakedness or of people’s reaction to her state.

“My guru gave me but one precept, from without withdraw your gaze within, fix it on the innermost self, I, Lalla, took to heart this one precept and therefore naked I began to dance.”

As time passed, anecdotes and legends grew around Lalla. Once, she demonstrated to her guru Siddha Shrikantha, what true penance should be. She stood on an earthen pot and her body began to shrink with the waning of the moon, till, on the 15th day of amavas, there was nothing left in the pot but a small quantity of quicksilver – shaking and trembling. Then, with the waxing moon, her body started growing and on the full moon night, she was herself again. Lalla, her guru realized, had progressed far beyond him. When he asked why the quicksilver in the pot was trembling, she said that it was her – shorn of all senses, desires, mind and ego – yet she (the quicksilver) was trembling in fear that she ( her penance) may not be accepted. “Penance”, said Lalla, “does not bring mukti.” It comes with God’s grace.

“Knowing the truth, O soul, be not misled it is distance that makes the turf look green.”

Lal Ded – or granny Lalla – as Lalleshwari now came to be called – had outgrown the need for pilgrimage, appearances, rites, rituals, ceremonies, fasts and the worship of icons. Sometimes, indeed, she denigrated all these, as is apparent from the following verses:
“O fool! right action does not lie in fasting and in ceremonial rites

The idol is but stone the temple is also stone from top to bottom all is stone O fool! with your eyes shut which stone do you worship?

The pilgrim sanyasi goes from shrine to shrine, seeking to meet the one who abides within his own self.”

One day, her father-in-law saw her in a public gathering. Embarrassed by her nakedness in public, he asked her to put on some clothes. She replied that she did not feel the need to dress for animals. Lo & behold! everywhere her father-in-law looked, he saw sheep!
To Lal Ded, all those engrossed in material pursuits were no better than animals. The only time she felt compelled to hide her nakedness was when she saw Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani approaching. Shouting, “here comes a man, I should cover myself”, she ran and hid in an oven in a baker’s shop. Legend says that when she emerged, she was ‘attired in cloths of gold’.

“Can you understand what oneness is?
it has turned me into
nothingness
Though he is one,
Alone and All
yet I am caught in the war of duality
though he has neither colour nor form
yet I am caught in his
wondrous forms.

”Lalla, who come to be fondly called Lalla-Arifa, Lalla-Ded and even Lall and Lalla-yogini, lived for long – roaming the streets of Kashmir – her vaakh or sayings spread by word of mouth and there is not a Kashmiri today who does not have atleast one on the tip of his tongue.
The date, time and place of her death are not known. She seems to have disappeared into the great void – only her ‘vaakh’ or ’speech’ remains, surviving to date.
There is no monument to Lal-Ded. But she lives on in her vaakh – her true legacy.

Some leave their home, some the hermitage but the restless mind knows no rest so watch your breath, day and night and stay where you are.

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It is Forbidden to Lie

The Sultan was told by his teacher that lying was a great crime and should be banned. So the Sultan ordered his executioner to the city gate and told him to ask each person entering the city why he was visiting and execute any who lied. Next morning, the Mullah stood in line to go to the market in the city. The executioner asked him on the penalty of death, “Why are you entering the city?”The Mullah replied, “I am going to be executed!”

That’s Right!

The Mullah was a judge and arbitrator in a dispute. First the advocate of the first side gave an eloquent discourse advancing his claims. The Mullah who had been listening intently agreed and said, “That’s right.” Next it was the other advocate’s turn and he was just as erudite. Once more the Mullah agreed adding, “That’s right.” His clerk listening to the
Mullah’s pronouncements commented, “They can’t both be right.” The Mullah agreed by saying, “That’s right!”

The death of the Mullah

One day the Mullah’s wife asked him when would be the end of the world and the last judgment day. The Mullah replied,” the end of the world and the last judgement day will be the day when I will die.”

Free Bread

The Mullah’s wife sent him to buy some bread. When the Mullah arrived at the bread shop, he saw a long line waiting to buy bread. He thought he would do something to get in front of the line. He shouted,”People, don’t you know the Sultan’s daughter is getting married tonight and he is giving away free bread?” The multitude ran toward the palace as the Sultan was generous to a fault and loved his daughter more than anyone. The Mullah was now in front of theline and was about to buy his bread when he thought to himself,”Mullah, you are truly a fool. All the citizens are getting free bread tonight and I am about to pay for it. So he ran to the palace and when he got there, was thoroughly
beaten by the disappointed people.

A German Catholic mystic On March 5, 1926, the first Friday of Lent, the first stigmata or sacred wounds of Christ appeared slightly above her heart. She kept it secret, confident it would be healed. This wound is believed to represent the spot where Longinus speared Jesus Christ while on the cross.

Therese Neumann – one of the most fascinating modern day catholic mystic and stigmatic – was born on April 8th 1898, which happened to be Good Friday, in the village of Konnersreuth in Northern Bavaria, Germany. Her ambition in life was to become a catholic missionary and to spread the faith in Africa, but due to a series of accidents and events, she spent her whole life in one place – never leaving her native land. Her father was the village tailor and her family was large – there were eleven children – but extremely poor. She belonged to the third Order of St. Francis.

When Therese was twenty years old, there was a terrible fire in her uncle’s barn next door. The whole family went to help put out the flames. Therese who was standing on a chair passing buckets of water, fell down and sustained several injuries to her head. Due to this she could not stand for long and sustained more falls and injuries in this period and after one particular fall she claimed to have lost her eyesight.
Sometime before her accident, Therese was criminally assaulted by an assailant who she managed to beat off. But the incident left a deep wound in her heart. Fixed in her mind was the deep seated belief that sex and war made beasts of men. From this time on, her affection turned completely to Jesus who alone among men was perfect and pure.
Around this time Therese heard of a young student of priesthood who had to leave the seminary due to a throat ailment. This distressed her greatly and she prayed to Jesus for the young man’s suffering to be transferred to her. Therese’s throat began to be afflicted and after sometime her voice was almost gone. The young priest improved and after a time returned to his church school. Jesus kept granting her prayers everytime she wanted to take on the suffering of another. She ‘took over’ her father’s rheumatism; the stomach ailment of a village woman; a hospital patient’s fever; a soldier’s wounds; even a woman’s delivery pains! The blind transferred their blindness to her; the lame came to her on crutches and walked out on their own two feet. “Ill? Give it to Therese”, became almost a jest.
By the year 1919 she was totally blind and completely bedridden. She reportedly developed bed sores that were sometimes so bad that her bones would be exposed.
In 1923, the miracles in Therese Neumann’s life started happening. She had been praying to Therese of Lisieux regularly ever since her ailments a few years ago. On April 29, 1923 – the day Therese of Lisieux was beatified in Rome, Therese Neumann’s eyesight was restored in Germany.

Ill? Give it to Therese

On May 17, 1925 – the day Therese of Lisieux was fully canonized as a saint in the Catholic Church – Therese Neumann said she was called and cured of her paralysis and bed sores. Her miraculous recovery was witnessed by Father Naber who wrote, “Therese described a vision of a great light and an extraordinarily sweet voice that was asking her if she wished to be healed. Therese gave the most surprising answer when she said it made no difference whether she be healed or not, nor even if she dies, as long as God’s will was done. The mysterious voice told her that every day she would receive a small joy; the healing of her infirmities – but that she still had a lot of suffering in her future.”
Ever since that day she gave up all food and drink except for one small consecrated wafer or Eucharist a day. For an year or so she lived in fairly good health, but in 1926 her most important mystical experiences started; they lasted till her death.

On November 7, 1925 Therese took to her bed again. On November 13, she was diagnosed with appendicitis. While preparing for surgery, she convulsed violently, stared at the ceiling and finally said, “Yes.” She asked her family to take her to the church to pray. She then announced that she had been cured of all traces of appendicitis.
On March 5, 1926, the first friday of Lent, a wound appeared slightly above her heart but she kept it a secret. However, she did report a vision of Jesus with the three Apostles at Mount Olivet. Later stigmata, or sacred wounds of Christ began to appear on her head, breasts, hands and feet every Thursday and would last till sunday, the day of resurrection.
On Good Friday, Therese allegedly witnessed the entire Passion of Christ in her visions. She displayed wounds on her hands and feet accompanied by blood apparently coming from her eyes. Supposedly blood ‘poured’ from the wounds. However, onlookers did not actually see the bleeding but only the blood. By 3 p.m. that day, her parish priest Fr. Josef Naber was summoned to give her the last rites. By 4 o’clock her condition improved. When she was bathed, the wounds on her feet and hands were seen. On Easter sunday she claimed a vision of the resurrection of Christ. For several consecutive fridays after that, she stated she experienced the Passion of Christ, supposedly suffering in her own body all his historic agonies. During some of her friday trances she would utter phrases identified by onlookers as ancient Aramaic. She was also said to have been able to understand Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.

Therese described a vision of a great light and an extraordinarily
sweet voice that was asking her if she wished to be healed. Therese
gave the most surprising answer when she said it made no difference whether she be healed or not, nor even if she die, as long as God’s will was done.The mysterious voice told her that every day she would receive a small joy; the healing of her infirmities -
but that she still had a lot of suffering in her future.

On March 12, she said she had another vision of Christ at Mt. Olivet along with the crowning of thorns. She also claimed that the wound above her heart reappeared on this day and this time she told her sister about it. She claimed that the wound also reappeared on friday of the following week. By March 26, she was claiming the same wound accompanied by a vision of Christ bearing the cross and a similar wound on her left hand. Blood was observed on her clothing and she no longer attempted to keep the information to herself.
By November 5, 1926, she displayed nine wounds on her head as well as wounds on her back and shoulders. Supposedly these wounds never healed and were found on her body after death.
Father Naber who administered Communion to Therese wrote: In her, God’s promised word is accomplished: “My Flesh is real food and my Blood is a true beverage”. Therese offered the Lord her suffering caused by the stigmata – this suffering was dedicated for the intercession of sinners who sought her help. Every time she was called to someone’s death bed, she would bear witness to the soul’s judgment. Ecclesiastical authorities performed many examinations in regard to Therese’s continuous fasting. Carl Strater, S.J., directed by the Bishop of Ratisbonne, studied and examined the life of the stigmatized Therese and confirmed: “The significance of Therese Neumann’s fasting is to show the people of the world the value of the Holy Eucharist; to make the world understand that Christ is actually present in the bread of the Eucharist and that through the Holy Eucharist physical life can actually be preserved.”
From the years of 1922 until her death in 1962, Therese Neumann claimed to have consumed no food other than The Holy Eucharist and to have drunk no water from 1926 until her death. This phenomenon commonly referred to as inedia, is sometimes claimed by persons who aspire to a reputation of holiness.

Jesus kept granting her prayers everytime she wanted to take on the suffering of another.

From 14 to 28 July 1927, the church sent a medical doctor and four Fransciscan nurses to keep a watch on her 24 hours a day. They confirmed that she had consumed nothing except for one consecrated Host a day and had suffered no ill effects, loss of weight or dehydration. Urine tests done two weeks after daily surveillance was dropped, indicated however, that she may have begun eating and drinking normally.
Professors and doctors were flabbergasted. One Dr Otto Buchinger arrived in Konnersreuth with his team and scientific equipment to expose ‘the pure fable.’ After a thorough German style investigation, the learned doctor wrote without any hesitation that this was no fraud. Here was something that defied modern science. The phenomena and the miracles were inexplicable by any so called rational thinking. Some mysticism was at work here. How can a human being seemingly in mortal flesh and blood stop eating and drinking? How can a simple woman actually physically suffer the same agony as Lord Jesus?
As she did not eat regular food, the Nazi authorities withdrew her food rationing card and gave her a double ration of soap to wash her towels and clothing because every friday she would be drenched in blood while in ecstasy – experiencing the Passion of Christ. During the Third Reich Therese Neumann was the target of ridicule and defamation as the Nazis knew about her dissenting views and feared her growing popularity. However, she was never physically harmed and she did encourage Fritz Gerlich to continue his opposition of Hitler and his national-socialist party. Hitler is said to have been rather fearful of Therese.

On September 18, 1962, Therese Neumann died of a cardiac arrest. The Catholic Church has confirmed neither her inedia nor her stigmata and has in the past discouraged pilgrimages to Konnersreuth. The ‘Resl’ as she is colloquially known, nonetheless attained a place in popular piety – a petition asking for her beatification was signed by 40,000 people. In 2005, Gerhard Ludwig Müller, Bishop of Regensburg, formally opened the proceedings for her beatification.
The stories of Giri Bala and Therese Neumann are easy to dismiss as experiences by ’saintly’ people. Yet they were both simple individuals who had great trust and faith. Though it appears that both Giri Bala and Therese were sustained purely by liquid light, neither used this phenomenon to attain physical immortality.

“She gave up all food and drink except for one small consecrated wafer. As she did not eat regular food, the Nazi authorities withdrew her food rationing card and gave her a double ration of soap to wash her towels and clothing because every friday she would be drenched in blood while in ecstasy – experiencing the –Passion of Christ.”

The Great Indian saint Paramahansa Yogananda visited Therese Neumann and wrote about her in his book Autobiography of a Yogi. He wrote an entire chapter- Therese Neumann, The Catholic Stigmatist – which reverently gives a vivid first-hand description of one of her friday passion trances. Yogananda later said that in her past life Therese was Mary Magdalene and that the purpose of her existence was to show – like Giri Bala – that it is possible to live on God’s Light alone.
Throughout the thirty-six years that Therese bore the stigmata, thousands of tourists would visit her small cottage to witness the miracle. In 1946, just after the end of World War II, when asked by an American GI if the United States would ever be destroyed or invaded in a war, she said:

“No, but at the end of this century America will be destroyed economically by a series of natural disasters.”

“A girl is never less than a boy”
The day I was born,
I was considered a storm,
which came into my family’s life,
and the one to blame
was my father’s wife,
yes she was my mother,
who acted as my cover,
b’coz i was not a boy,
so, they treated me as a toy,
“we don’t want her”
they said to the nurse,
as for them I was a curse,
my mother went through the pain,
but all was in vain,
but I was the child of the god,
so I was saved by the lord,
he gave me a new life,
to be a good daughter, mother and wife,
an angel appeared on earth for me,
yes, my mother fought for me,
my family didn’t care,
as if I was no where,
they didn’t send me to school,
as they had to fill my brother’s pool,
when I grew older,
they thought I was being bolder,
so, they found a groom,
who fought me everyday with a broom,
my body used to ache,
but no noise I was to make,
I cried in pain,
but no reply came,
then I made a promise,
that I will give birth to a girl,
who will be a free bird,
to fly in the sky,
whose aim will be so high,
that she will set an example,
in the world of these mindless people,
that “A girl is never less than a boy”………..