Des Moines Register

Warm Embrace

Thousands have lined up in several major U.S. cities to receive the hug of Mata Amritanandamayi, an Indian woman known as Ammachi, Amma, or simply the "hugging saint."

In Los Angeles last month, she hugged crowds throughout the night. In Seattle and San Francisco the same outpouring occurred, as throngs of people from every background sought her embrace, many crying on her lap.

Now she is making her first trip to rural America this weekend in Mount Pleasant - in the middle of an 11-city tour of otherwise large cities. Followers in nearby Fairfield, struck by her simple message of love, persuaded her to visit Iowa. "You can just feel the love come out of her," said Toni Rubin, 39, of Fairfield, a bookstore owner who first met Amma seven years ago in Chicago. "When she walks into a room, the minds of people will just stop, and there is this peacefulness."

What she saw that day in Chicago led Rubin to follow Amma to different locations every summer, then to India.

Amma touts no specific religion, although she was raised a Hindu. One after another, people of all faiths approach her for a hug and a moment of peace.

She wears a simple sari, sits on a wide wooden chair, smiles and hugs, sometimes all day and night. Swamis who travel in her entourage of 35 people help translate questions. She speaks limited English.

There is no fee, but she takes donations for a trust that has established soup kitchens and shelters in the United States and charities that feed and give medical care to thousands daily in India.

After countless hours, her clothing is tear-soaked, but she is never weary, said Rob Sidon, the spokesman of the U.S. tour.

Where she gets the energy for marathon hugging is a mystery. "She will say, 'Where there is love, there is no effort,' he said."

Amma, 48, was born to a poverty-stricken family in rural India. As a child, she established herself as a mystic who began to attract crowds with her presence. She came to realize a simple hug was an expression of love so many yearned for but rarely received.

"She has realized the source of man's sorrow in the world was a lack of love," Rubin said. "It came to her to demonstrate it through a hug to everyone."

She has engaged on U.S. tours for 15 years but only in the last two years has she received widespread media attention.

"She will sit for 15, 16 hours at a stretch," said Sidon, of San Francisco. "You and I could never do that. We could never smile that long. She sleeps a couple hours then, bang, she gets up and does it again the next day, for weeks, months and years. There is no personal life there. She just gives freely."

Many people claim their lives have changed with her simple hug and message, but the humble woman never claims to cause healing or miracles, Sidon said.

After following her for years, Rubin made a pitch to her to visit the Fairfield area, long known for its new-age tendencies because of the Maharishi followers who have settled there. Volunteers in Fairfield held raffles and garage sales to raise money to rent space at nearby Iowa Wesleyan College, where the hugging will start Friday at 10 a.m.

Tokens will be issued to form groups of 50 people in time slots, reducing the time spent waiting in line.

"What she does for people completely opens one's heart," Rubin said. "I know I don't have a permanent state of peace inside of me. I worry. I'm afraid of dying. I'm not an enlightened person. Spending time with a person so established in a perpetual state of peace, and one who radiates that peace, is encouraging to me and very wonderful."

-Staff Reporter Mike Kilen