Suburban Chicago News.com

India's 'Hugging Saint' visits Naperville

By Ann Piccininni
STAFF WRITER

Amma gives free hugs to everybody. Accountants, teachers, bus drivers, lawyers — even journalists.

And a hug from Amma — known to many as the "Hugging Saint" — is something people travel far and wide to receive.

"She's a mystic. She's a profoundly rare kind of mystic," said Rob Sidon, a spokesman from the organization that supports Amma's visits to the Chicago area. "There are millions of people who come to see her. Everyone feels they have a personal relationship with her."

Sidon was standing outside a ballroom at the Holiday Inn Select in Naperville on Saturday, the first day of a three-day visit from the woman from south India and her disciples. Sidon was surrounded by scores of people, many dressed in white and most barefoot.

Inside the ballroom, 49-year-old Amma was presenting her "darshan" program, Sanskrit for "audience in the presence of a holy person." Though Amma, whose full name is Mata Amritanandamayi, may be well known for her healing hugs that sometimes inspire people to weep with joy, Sidon said her humanitarian efforts are just as great of an expression of her love and compassion.

"She's also profoundly humanitarian," Sidon said. "She's just a giver. Her whole life is about giving. She figured out early in life that the world's problems stemmed from lack of love."

She has established schools and a hospital. She works to feed, educate and care for the poor. Last fall, the United Nations bestowed the Gandhi-Kind Award for Non-Violence on her, a distinction previously given only to Kofi Annan, Nelson Mandela and Dr. Jane Goodall.

Sidon said Amma, who makes her home in India when she isn't traveling the world to spread her message of love and compassion, was brought up in the Hindu tradition.

"She's not espousing Hinduism whatsoever. She encourages people to go deeper into their own faith," Sidon said.

He ledreporters through the crowd sitting on the floor to the front of the room, where Amma hugged anyone who asked. She embraced each person, sometimes whispered in their ear, sometimes sprinkled flower petals over their heads.

Sidon asked Swami Amrit, standing behind Amma, to translate the press' questions to Amma and her responses. Amma speaks in her native Indian dialect.

In answer to a question about the message she wants to send to the people of Naperville, she said, "The universal message, the most important message, is peace and love. There is so much darkness, a lot of conflict. Even in a family, people are isolated like islands in an ocean. Even though there is love within everyone, people are not able to express it. Love has become very shallow, very skin deep."

Amma also spoke about how women can help the world become a more peaceful place.

"Because women have the capacity to give birth, she can be more patient and have more compassion than men. There is infinite strength. She can channel it properly. She can bring harmony and peace to the world. She has the strength, the patience and the compassion to do that."

"Religion is just a pointer," Amma said about her acceptance of all religions. "The goal is love and compassion. The real principle of religion is spirituality."

Donna Faur came to see Amma with Mike Pniewski. Both live in Wheaton.

"It's an incredible feeling of peace and love and being one with her heart, which I believe is God's heart," Faur said after she got her hug. "It's very blissful."

"I felt one with her, completely," Pniewski said. "When we were leaving, I was literally breathless. You almost feel like the weight of anything you brought up there with you was lifted."

07/13/03