From ‘Encountering Bliss. My Journey through India with Anandamayi Ma’ by Melita Maschmann

……she herself talked about the time when she lived on a few measured rice-grains. “It appeared like a miracle. But I could also only do it because it is just not impossible. The body does not really need everything we usually eat. As it is, it excretes the most after it has retained the essence.” As a consequence of sadhana, the body can adjust itself in such a way that it can live from what it absorbs from the air and other components of its surroundings, apart from its own reserves.

Something that corresponds to the concept of community does not exist in traditional Hinduism. Everyone has his individual relationship with his Guru, and he goes on his path. One hardly finds temples which are meeting places of the community.

“You must utilize our free will to find the Highest. All efforts you make to approach him are an expression of this free will. Your destiny (determined by your karma) can also be changed by God’s Grace. A change is possible, if you firmly believe in it. Of course, there are laws in God’s creation, and yet nothing is impossible for him.”

“If you want to do pranama to a deity or a living saint or a Mahatma, then first take the darsana of his whole person. Begin from the feet and look upwards to the head, while slowly breathing in. Imagine that you are taking into yourself – along with your breath – the spiritual power of the one to whom you want to bow. Then let your look slide down slowly to the feet, while you breathe out. At the same time, offer yourself to God with all your being-good and bad. Empty yourself completely before him without any reservation whatsoever. When your forehead touches the feet of a god or a saint, his spiritual power enters you. When his hand touches your head, he transfers a part of this power.”

Ma was standing in the sun…. Suddenly our eyes met. Her look had an expression of all-encompassing love. It rested for a long period upon me. I felt that I was bound by it, but I felt at the same time, that it penetrated equally lovingly the trees behind me, the village, the clouds, the thief, who was coming up the way with his stolen she-goat. It was strange, but I did not feel that I was robbed of the love which benefited the trees, village and the thief. On the contrary, I felt, I was love more. In Ma’s love, mine also reached out to the horizon.

One who is finely tuned picks up the vibrations of the man in whose room he has been staying, of the bed, on which he has been lying, of his clothes, and tree whose shade protects him from the sun. Everyone registers these vibrations unconsciously with varying intensity. The emanation from holy places is based on the echo of vibrations which the holy man has left behind and on those of all devout souls which come after. ……. Ma repeatedly recommends satsanga.

One who lives in a desert or a Himalayan cave gets rid of the disturbing vibrations of his fellow beings, anyway of the crude disturbances of proximity. According to a Hindu view, there is a spiritual risk caused by these vibrations. Vibrations of a man can also be in his look or his clothes. A sadhu, therefore, never wears clothes which are worn by others, except when they are presented to him by an enlightened person …. The most intense influence of vibrations is through physical contact.

Corresponding to one’s own capacity, one should try to reserve one day for strict self-discipline. If not once every week, then once every fortnight, or at least, once in a month. Everything what we do – eating, drinking, talking, moving, visiting people - , simply everything with which we are busy, must be carefully controlled on this day. One can gradually succeed in one’s endeavor for self-control by it. Finally one will live in harmony with the rules, without an effort, even for two or three months in a year.

If you feel that energy (sakti) is growing in you, if new light shines to you from within, it will gain more intensity, the more you keep yourself protected in highest peace and silence within you. Even if it gets the slightest opening, there is always a danger that it would escape. Be vigilant.