The Female Mystic of Arunachala | Radha Ma

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]In Tiruvannamalai, people spoke about a woman who would suddenly fall unconscious for days after hearing temple bells.

[00:00:11]Not sick, not weak, just gone somewhere else.

[00:00:20]Her husband would sit beside her body the entire time, wash her, feed her when she awake, wait silently beside her, like a devotee guarding a flame.

[00:00:41]And then suddenly, she would open her eyes and speak as if nothing had happened, laughing, smiling, sometimes saying strange things before they happened.

[00:00:58]People did not know what to call her.

[00:01:01]Mystic, saint, mad woman, enlightened being.

[00:01:07]But she herself rejected every label.

[00:01:13]Her name was Radha Ma.

[00:01:23]Many Western seekers, the people who are coming to your satsang, have come to India looking for enlightenment as though it is an experience. What is enlightenment?

[00:01:36]It's a mind game. It's a [music] what do you call it? Mind trick.

[00:01:41]See, always this mind wants something higher. If you go to the material world, it wants to be rich. If you go to the emotional world, it you wants to be [music] it wants to be loved. If it is a spiritual, it wants enlightenment.

[00:01:52]Always the higher things mind [music] seeks.

[00:01:55]There is no such thing like enlightenment.

[00:01:58]There's no such thing as awaken.

[00:02:00]You are already that.

[00:02:02]We are already illuminated. We are not ignorant [music] to be enlightened.

[00:02:07]Ignorance need the enlightenment.

[00:02:08]Ignorance is the mind. It needs the enlightenment.

[00:02:11]There is no mind. We are not the mind.

[00:02:13]Before Tiruvannamalai, before seekers began traveling across India to sit near her, she lived an ordinary life.

[00:02:24]Or at least it appeared ordinary from the outside.

[00:02:29]She worked as a chartered accountant in Hyderabad.

[00:02:32]Numbers, tax files, office [music] work, computers.

[00:02:37]The kind of life no one associates with mystics. [music] And yet later, when people asked her who she really was, she answered in a way that confused almost everyone.

[00:02:52]I don't know how my last dream is over.

[00:02:55]Now I'm just awake. You ask me to identify [music] myself. Which dream I can I identify with? With the last dream or a dream last to that? [music] Prior to that? I don't have any option. I don't know how to identify myself with any of these things. I'm not that. I'm not the dreamer.

[00:03:08]I'm not the dream [music] character anymore to identify myself with.

[00:03:12]So you are forcing me to tell something about the dreams. It's all over for me.

[00:03:17]There is no need for me to go back and relate myself to any of these dream characters. Even as a child, people around her sensed something [music] unusual.

[00:03:26]Not because she tried to appear spiritual.

[00:03:30]In fact, [music] she had no interest in becoming a guru.

[00:03:34]No desire to create followers or teachings.

[00:03:38]She spoke about truth the way someone describes the sky.

[00:03:43]Directly, naturally, without philosophy.

[00:03:48]For her, the central illusion of human life was simple.

[00:03:53]The mind itself. [music] She would say the mind is only a collection of movements, memories, and [music] identifications.

[00:04:02]Something constantly changing.

[00:04:05]Never [music] stable.

[00:04:06]Never truly you.

[00:04:09]And yet people spend their entire lives protecting it, defending it, worshipping it.

[00:04:18]At some point, her crossed paths with a man named Girdhar.

[00:04:24]Before meeting her, Girdhar wanted to remain unmarried.

[00:04:29]He had watched life carefully and felt no interest in ordinary relationships.

[00:04:35]Then one day, while walking through the street, [music] he saw a woman pass by.

[00:04:41]Something about her presence struck him so deeply that he turned to look again.

[00:04:47]She had disappeared.

[00:04:50]A few moments later, he found her standing across the road watching him.

[00:04:55]Soon they ended up at the same bus stop.

[00:04:59]She casually asked him to come shopping with her.

[00:05:02]He agreed.

[00:05:04]Half an hour later, she asked [music] him to marry her.

[00:05:08]Months later, he said yes.

[00:05:12]But their relationship never looked ordinary. [music] Even other saints noticed this.

[00:05:18]Once they met Yogi [music] Ram Surat Kumar in Tiruvannamalai.

[00:05:23]The Yogi asked them, "What is your relationship?"

[00:05:27]"Husband and wife." They answered.

[00:05:30]The Yogi smiled [music] and asked again, "What is your real relationship?"

[00:05:38]This time, [music] they answered differently.

[00:05:41]"Brother and sister."

[00:05:44]"Yes." Yogi Ram Surat Kumar [music] softly.

[00:05:49]That is correct. No other strong emotions for me. I don't think so. It's all fun.

[00:05:55]That's the whole problem. I found the whole life was full of this.

[00:05:58]So many times I found it a real problem for others.

[00:06:02][music] Maybe for him, too.

[00:06:04]>> [laughter] >> Must be a problem for him to live with you, you know. Huh, that you you already did this enough for me. Fancy marrying a woman like you. Yeah, that's right.

[00:06:14]>> [music] >> He must be very special to marry somebody like you.

[00:06:16]>> I was all the time having fun. I never Nothing was serious in my life. That's the whole [music] problem. That Lila, what you call it, was too much in my life.

[00:06:23]>> [laughter] >> Sometimes, >> [music] >> she would suddenly lose outer awareness for hours.

[00:06:30]Sometimes days.

[00:06:32]Temple bells alone could trigger it.

[00:06:35]Devotional singing.

[00:06:38]The name of Arunachala.

[00:06:41]Something would pull her inward completely.

[00:06:45]During these states, Giridhar cared for her constantly.

[00:06:49]And yet, even in those conditions, people [music] around her claimed she somehow knew things she should not know.

[00:06:58]Sometimes, she would suddenly wake and say things like, "A phone call is coming.

[00:07:04]Say this when they ask you."

[00:07:07]And then the call would come exactly as she described.

[00:07:12]But whenever people tried [music] turning these moments into miracles, she dismissed them immediately.

[00:07:20]She was not interested in [music] powers.

[00:07:22]Not interested in convincing anyone.

[00:07:26]For Aadamma, the greatest miracle was simply [music] existing without psychological suffering.

[00:07:33]Without the constant [music] noise of the mind.

[00:07:38]One incident especially disturbed people around her.

[00:07:42]At one point, she decided she wanted to learn computers professionally.

[00:07:48]But she had no formal background.

[00:07:50]The instructors initially resisted.

[00:07:54]They assumed she would not understand advanced [music] technical systems.

[00:07:58]In fact, I didn't study much of these things. Even computer, I never [music] studied. The moment I wanted to learn computer, I went to a hardware shop. I mean, hardware training institute. Those people were telling you are a tax consultant. You don't have any electronics background.

[00:08:13]And we can't teach you this because it needs some electronic background.

[00:08:17][music] So, they were objecting my lecturers.

[00:08:19]But after 2-3 days, they found me that I started as if I know the subject I was in that [music] class. Actually, I was even correcting them also that he was wrong lecturer. I told him he was wrong, too. In so many things, he was really shocked. He thought I learned it somewhere else and coming and teasing you.

[00:08:36]>> [laughter] >> That's how it really I'm not joking. The student is still there that who studied with me.

[00:08:41]>> [music] >> Actually, they were thinking that I learned it somewhere and came to class to harass these people. But it was not there. The moment I learn a little bit desire was there to learn it, the knowledge came to me.

[00:08:52]She called her gatherings [music] fun songs instead of satsangs because to her truth was not heavy, not intellectual, not dramatic. Sometimes seekers traveled thousands of kilometers carrying complicated spiritual questions and she would dissolve the entire [music] question with a joke.

[00:09:13]Marsha? Yes.

[00:09:14]I don't know what Werner told, but it's going to be fully fun songs. So, I make fun of everything. So, don't be ready for it. If you are serious type, you may not tolerate me, but it's only for fun.

[00:09:26]I told Long time we didn't nobody laugh, so we want to laugh. According to her, the truth was already here, already complete. The mind simply refused to stop searching long enough [music] to notice it.

[00:09:40]Over time, more and more people gathered around her in Tiruvannamalai, not because she claimed enlightenment, but because her presence itself felt free from conflict, free from psychological effort. [clears throat] Then one day, she told Giridhar [music] something quietly. She would leave the body first. He would remain behind.

[00:10:02][music] He still had work to do. And when the time come, according to those close to her, she entered Agni Samadhi, leaving through fire. [music] Even today, Giridhar continues living in Tiruvannamalai beside her Samadhi shrine, quietly maintaining the space they once shared together.

[00:10:22]And people still visit [music] searching for answers, searching for experiences, searching for enlightenment.

[00:10:29]But perhaps Radhamani would have smiled at all of it, because for her, the truth [music] was never somewhere else, never hidden in rituals or identities or spiritual achievements.

[00:10:42]It was simply what remained when the noise of the mind finally stopped.

[00:10:48]And somewhere in Tiruvannamalai, beneath the shadow of Arunachala, the memory of a laughing woman in orange robes still lingers. A woman who said, "You are not the dream."