Embracing The Mystery Known As ‘Amma’.
{Photo via Wikimedia Commons}
“If we keep holding on to God, there is nothing to fear.” ~ Amma
I am curious about all things spiritual. I always have been. It started when I was nine, and my mother took me to meet Mother Teresa. I remember holding this amazing saint’s hand and realizing, I’m almost the same height as her.
Something clicked in me that day and I was transformed. I kept asking my mom, “How can one person change the world? How is that possible?” Mom answered, “Because they’re walking with God.” Whoa! I was going to need about 20 years to think about that statement.
Thus started my fascination with all things otherworldly, especially my interest in any person who seems to be filled with the juice (i.e., my term for true spiritual power).
So, who better to connect with than Amma, the Hugging Saint, who travels the world hugging (for free) the young and old, the rich and poor, from world leaders to Bombay lepers, from Fortune 500 CEOs to tie-dyed hippies? She has hugged more than 33 million people. 33 million! Can you even imagine that?
You might hear yourself asking, “So, why does she hug all these people?”
Her followers have said things like, “Through her hugging you, she shows you the real, Divine you,” and “(Her) hugs strip away whatever image or façade you may have been consciously or unconsciously holding up, allowing you to see yourself and be seen for the essential ‘you’ that you are,” and “In Amma’s embrace, you can experience true stillness of mind… freedom.” [1]
“So you can get all that from a ‘hug’?” you may be skeptically wondering. I, too, couldn’t wrap my head around what she was doing, thinking, “She’s certainly got something mysterious going on here… right?” And as I said at the start, I’m a spiritually curious animal, if anything. So, I decided to explore this mystery directly, and boy what a trip I took!
On a rainy day in June 2013, I drove with two of my friends to one of her centers in Illinois. We arrived early in the morning to get a place near the front of the line, and by the time we were ready to start filing into the building, there were at least 2,000 people waiting to receive darshan from Amma.
Darshan is the Sanskrit word for the super-high good vibrations and enlightened consciousness radiating from an awakened soul.
As soon as I walked into the facility, I could feel a shift in energy. Her devotees were busy setting up food stations, straightening out long rows of folding chairs and filling tables with Amma-related goods for sale: books, handmade jewelry, framed photos of Amma, etc.
There were huge video-screens set up, showing the wide variety of work Amma and her followers do all over the world: from feeding thousands of starving children to cleaning up after natural disasters to building homes for the homeless… and yes, Amma’s hugging millions of people and blessing them with her boundless love.
My mind was exploding as I watched more images pass by my eyes on the wide-screen monitor. In India, she’ll hug people for 15 hours, then go out into the streets of Calcutta or Bombay and shovel garbage all night. How can this woman do what she does year-round? Jeez, I’m exhausted after working on my blog for an afternoon!
Then my mom’s words hit my like a hurricane: She is walking with God. With tears streaming down my face, I stood there, blown away by this angel-in-human-form, benevolently spreading light in the world her own way.
As luck would have it, even with quite a few people standing around in front of me, I was chosen to be the first person in line to go up to her. I thought, How cool is this? That I end up being the first person here to get hugged by Amma? Wowza!
I took my shoes off and was ushered up in front of her. She looked at me briefly and, without question, immediately knew my soul. Amma pulled me to her chest, turned my head and started speaking in my ear. “Maaaaaaaaaaa…” The sound echoed through my entire being. It was so loud, I thought there was an earthquake happening.
I tried to pull away, but she held my head down and close to her. It felt like this roaring sound went on forever: “Maaaaaaaaaaa…” I noticed there was energy leaving my body, as though something was being taken from me. When she was done, I was asked to kneel next to her for about 30 minutes.
One by one, I saw her hug dozens of different people, who then walked off the stage.
As I was on my knees watching all of this, I was a combo platter of dizzy, confused, scared and exhilarated. How could being hugged by someone cause such emotion in me?
I proceeded to go home that afternoon… and slept for two days! Literally! It took me months to realize what (I believe) had happened to me. She’d assisted in the removal of something from my soul that was standing in the way of my spiritual growth.
Indeed, my consciousness had gotten a boost that day that continued to pay dividends for months (to this day, actually).
This is why she’s considered to be one of a small handful of people at the top of the world’s spiritual pyramid.
I don’t understand how she does what she does, but I am convinced she has stepped beyond the typical human security gate and found her way to where what the vast majority of us call extraordinary is considered normal… and where uplifting (even healing) the hearts and souls of millions is all in a day’s work.
Frankly, I think what allows me to truly appreciate what Amma is about is my willingness to hug the Cosmic Riddle myself, even if it’s just my unflagging openness to trying new things (be it peach-and-coconut flan or skydiving), following my intuition and the Signs of the Universe, regardless of what others say (including my dad), or my continuing to believe, unwaveringly: “The Universe has my back, is on my side, and responds superbly to whatever I consistently hold in my heart.”
The fact is, even though I can’t tell you what causes the Cosmos to dance so elegantly between chaos and orderliness, embracing the mystery, I think, has made the biggest difference of all in my life.
Sources
- Meredith Bryan, Main Squeeze, O: The Oprah Magazine, Dec. 2013.
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