Tages-Anzeiger; 10 October, 2000; Switzerland

Amma Has Enough Love for Everybody

During three days an Indian saint is offering thousands of people happiness through a simple but whole-hearted hug.

The pilgrimage to the center of motherly tenderness leads to the “Stadthalle Dieitkon” –a drab-looking hall in a rather dull small city close to Zurich. Apart from Bruno Weber’s “Weinrebenark” in which you see an oriental tower, nothing shows that the “Limmattal” could favour esoterics. Maybe it is just this peculiar lack that makes the place receptive to it. The Indian saint Mata Amritanadmayi, who is called by everyone Amma, transforms Dietikon into a world-city of Love, and the “Stadthalle” is its palace.

One Amma, 900 hugs

Amma sits on a bench padded with cushions. (…) Hundreds sit in front of her and are waiting patiently for their turn for a very personal encounter and embrace. (…) The smiling, chubby little Amma receives and embraces all of them, holding their heads to her chest. Helpers are taking care that her followers don’t squeeze her. But there is much more to it then a rush along the assembly line. Amma takes her time, strokes hair and shoulders and whispers secret words into one’s ear. Thousands of eyes are fixed on her face, the kneeling human beings move up toward her, full of expectation, and after having had their turn their faces lighten up in a angelic way. “I got up at six in the morning to be here and I let myself be surprised,” says a man who will meet her for the first time. While he is getting embraced he is asking for advice for his addiction; he doesn’t get the answer though because Amma doesn’t speak English. “But it did a lot of good. I just got love – like when a real loving person embraces you.” Nobody it seems, goes away without being given something.

Parents put their retarded child on her lap, men start to cry, women gently stroke a photograph and hope for a blessing. Old and young, alternative people and businessmen, bankers and proletarians (workers)—your origin and religion don‘t matter anyhow.

Amma is on a hugging-tour. Dubai, Helsiniki, Dietikon, Munich, Bonn, Antwerpen, London, Paris, Toulon, Barcelona, Torino, California. Once a year she leaves her Ashram in the South of India (where sometimes in one single day 12, 000 seek her blessing) and carries her power into the world. Since 1987 a persumably 15 Million have been enfolded in her heart.

But who embraces Amma? Where does she get the power from, a power in which her followers believe and from which they are nourished, being in her lap? "Im in a constant embrace with the whole creation which gives me love," answers Amma and she says: "Love is energy."

Free consolation with side effects

The consoling-service is for free. The trips are financed with donations and the income from the sale of devotional objects and spiritual paraphernalia of all kinds (…) In a desired side-effect of her revered tenderness, Amma has collected enough money so that on her own she could realise a huge number of social projets: hospitals equipped with the most modern equipment for patients without means, mobile clinics, houses for the homelss, schools, educational programs for apprentices, orphaneges and a pension system for widows. These are charitable organisations that also are acknowledged by international organisations.

The 47-year old Amma has experienced the oppressiveness of the Indian system herself. She speaks out for for the rights of woman, fights against the injustice of the caste rules, and has spoken two times before the UN--but believes altogether more in the power of an embrace.

- translated from TagesAnzeiger the national newspaper of Switzerland