Münchner Merkur

The Holy Woman and Her Loving Hugs

Already at the parking lot you get a sense of India. You smell Patchuli, and the scent of curry is tickling your nose. Entering the hall, you retain the impression of having changed continents. If you watch the scene from the gallery you see people sitting on the carpeted floor of the sports hall. There are hundreds of these people, and in the middle of them all sits Amma like the queen bee in her hive.

She is called Mata Amritanandamayi, or, for short, Amma or Mother. Tirelessly, the tiny woman, dressed in white, is holding one person after another to her chest whispering something comforting into each one's ears. She is always smiling. On the subcontinent, where she is not only the spiritual leader of a monastery but also the founder of numerous charitable projects, she embraces up to 15,000 people a day. Every day. (…)

(…)Hardly anybody is capable of putting into words what is happening to them when being hugged by Amma. Two girls just got embraced; one of them is incapable of speaking and the other one, her face red, is moved to tears. A family from Wasserburg brought their Yorkshire terrier to the Divine Mother; they are still dazzled. The woman has an other-worldly smile on her face, and her husband and her son seem to be coming back to this world gradually. Only the dog seems unimpressed. (…)

Paul Sharma is able to express it more clearly. He possesses a factory with 600 employees and retired from business to be able to cook for mother. (…) In the improvised kitchen in a tent, over thousand Indian meals are cooked daily. (…) Sharma says that he is very happy to serve Amma and that's just the way he looks. Just like Amma he also has that smile on his face which he seems to remove only when sleeping.

(…)With the help of a translating monk, the woman that grew up in a family of fishermen answers the question: What is she trying to give with her embraces? She says that she wants to transmit part of her Love to the people and thus help them to become independent. And that is exactly what the tiny, honoured lady does. Not with words, but through her acts.(…)

(Translated from German language newspaper Münchner Merkur) (excerpted)