NEW YORK (RNS) — Who is Amma?
Some see her as a conduit, a wayfinder who has a direct line to the Almighty. Some worship her as a spiritual figure among other Hindu gods, as a living embodiment of holy spirit.
But to me, a newcomer in her orbit, Amma is a joyful, plump Malayali woman wrapped in a simple white robe. She smells strongly of fresh roses and hugs you like she’s known you for years. Mata Amritanandamayi embodies what her popularized name means: a mother.
And this summer, for the first time in the U.S. since the pandemic, Amma’s followers could experience the spiritual teacher’s aura in person. Her tour began in Seattle on July 4, has traveled through cities such as Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and will end Sunday (Aug. 11) in Chicago.
The maternal spiritual guide has embraced an estimated 40 million people since she was a teenager in Kerala, at times hugging lines of people for 22 hours straight. Her network of charities, Embracing the World, is known throughout India for its disaster relief, women’s empowerment and health care initiatives. She’s called Mahatma, or “open-souled.”
“She is able to see other people’s problems as her problems, to celebrate other people’s successes as her success, and at the same time to understand that there is an aspect of our personality that transcends all of those things and is untouched by the ups and downs of this world,” said Sachin Mayamrita, a Massachusetts native and part of Amma’s communications team. Mayamrita had a “jaded, negative” outlook on life before he found Amma, he said.
People line up on a stage to hug Amma, Aug. 7, 2024, at Javits Center in New York. After meeting Amma, people were invited to sit and reflect on the experience, foreground. (RNS photo/Richa Karmarkar)
Hundreds of people from all walks of life filed in to see Amma at New York’s Javits Center on Wednesday morning. Though Amma has held virtual calls for her followers since 2020, her main appeal — giving hugs and blessings — could not be replicated through a screen. Some admirers shook and cried in her presence.
For three poetic devotees, finally seeing Amma again was like “having a drink of water after five years” or “a drench of rain after a very, very hot summer” that gets rid of the “ego’s stories that feel like dirt, and cover up who we are.”
Believers say that Amma’s grace is surrounded by divine timing. When you need Amma the most, I was told, she will find you.
Take the Catholic high school music teacher from Buffalo, New York, whose randomized Priceline hotel landed him mere blocks from the Javits Center where the event was held, a blessing during Wednesday’s downpour. Or the software engineer from California who first heard about Amma yesterday and called in sick to work today because of a strong “pull.” Or even the longtime devotee who first heard of Amma at a healing circle for men with AIDS in the ’90s,