This quote is from Anandamayi Ma or some other saint of modern India,
possibly from a book called "Mother -- a Saint of the Highest Order."
Can you help me locate it?
Here's the quote: Man appears to be the embodiment of want.  Want is
what he thinks about and want indeed is what he obtains.  Contemplate
your true being or else there will be want, wrong action,
helplessness, distress and death

You are correct in attributing these words to Sri Anandamayi Ma. The
quote appears at the end of Chapter 8 of "That Compassionate Touch of
Ma Anandamayee," by Narayan Chaudhuri, in a section entitled "Words of
Ma":

"Man appears to be the embodiment of want. Want is what he thinks
about and want indeed is what he obtains. Contemplate your true being
- or else there will be want, wrong action helplessness, distress and
death."

Anandamayi.org
http://www.anandamayi.org/books/book1.htm

If you'd like to purchase "That Compassionate Touch of Ma
Anandamayee," it is readily available in several editions:

Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/offering/list/-/8120802101/all/ref=dp_pb_a/102-7310719-0732914

Addall Used Book Search
http://used.addall.com/SuperRare/submitRare.cgi?author=&title=That%2BCompassionate%2BTouch%2Bof%2BMa%2BAnandamayee&keyword=&isbn=&order=TITLE&ordering=ASC&dispCurr=USD&binding=Any+Binding&min=&max=&timeout=20&match=Y&StoreAbebooks=on&StoreAlibris=on

After a Google search failed to turn up this exact quote, I turned to
other search engines. I located the quote by using the AllTheWeb
search engine, searching for instances of the phrase "man appears to
be the embodiment of want":

AllTheWeb Search: "man appears to be the embodiment of want"
http://alltheweb.com/search?avkw=fogg&cat=web&cs=utf-8&q=%22man+appears+to+be+the+embodiment+of+want%22&_sb_lang=pref

I hope this information is useful. If anything is unclear, please
request clarification; I'll be glad to offer further assistance before
you rate my answer.

Best regards,
pinkfreud

Thank you so much Mr. Freud!  I'm happy to know about the AllTheWeb engine, too.
MN