“May the tree of our life be firmly rooted in the soil of love.
Let good deeds be the leaves on that tree.
May words of kindness form as flowers
And may peace be its roots.”
Despite all our mocking of Amma’s organisation, at its heart lies a caring and genuine woman. It has been recognised by the UN for making a massive contribution to many disaster relief efforts and tens of millions of dollars are raised annually but more importantly does this more quickly than any government or NGO. For example 46 million dollars was given to Tsunami victims in India, building 100,000 new homes for slum dwellers in India, earthquake disaster relief, projects to end farmer suicide in India, training women, care homes for the elderly, orphanages, hospices, schools, universities, food for the homeless, medicines, pensions, medical research, schools of dentistry, pharmacy, engineering and bio-technology. We genuinely believe that her heart is in the right place but there is definitely a cult element to the way that she is worshipped by others especially the SSC’s. But the good she does outweighs the (in our view) spiritual nonsense that is peddled. She probably is a cause for good and brings comfort to many millions. The unbelievable thing about this is that is it all achieved by hugging and this is what we came for….
Amma (meaning the universal mother) has a global organisation, and has addressed the UN. She has hugged everyone from Clinton to Richard Gere to Mother Theresa and Gill and Ant. She spends a lot of time travelling overseas fundraising so we were really lucky to be at her home ashram when she was there. Whilst at her home ashram, Amritapuri, (amritapuri.org) she holds Darshan or blessing /hugging four days a week. This involves
“tenderly caressing everyone who comes to her, holding them close to her heart in a loving embrace, Amma shares her boundless love with all – regardless of their beliefs, who they are or why they have come to her. In this simple yet powerful way, Amma is transforming the lives of countless people, helping their hearts to blossom one embrace at a time.”
The sessions can last up to 22 hours. On our Darshan day she hugged non stop for 11 hours and we calculate she hugged her way through 3500 individuals – apparently she has hugged over 27 million people. Amma’s teachings are universal. Whenever she is asked about her religion, she replies that her religion is love. She does not ask anyone to believe in God or change their faith, but only to enquire into their own real nature, and to believe in themselves. The whole support infrastructure of the hugging process is fascinating. She turned up at the Darshan hall at 11 am and the hugging commenced. As it was to be our first meeting with Amma we had been given early numbered tickets to receive our divine hug but had been warned we may have to wait many hours. Full of curiosity we sat in the hall, fully robed in white, awaiting our turn when we were approached by an SSC asking simperingly if we gave “good Prassad”. We had no idea what this meant but we said yes anyway. We then spent 15 minutes in intense training as it turned out we had been selected to kneel at Amma’s left side and place prassads (Holy gifts) into her left hand whenever she displayed it in a certain way – these gifts were then passed on to each huggee! We were both a little nervous at being chosen, and suddenly catapulted from obscurity to the centre of a huge stage in the temple on our knees all in white as personal handmaidens to the universal mother. We managed (just) not to laugh! We were handed from SSC to SSC who instructed us in the very precise form that the prassad was to be place in Amma’s left hand whenever she opened it. It was serious stuff – the prassads consisted of a very small brown envelope full of holy ash wrapped around a pink boiled sweet that were being furiously wrapped by other SSC’s who were also on their knees, to be handed to us to be placed in Amma’s divine hand. This sounds very simple but the intensity and seriousness of our training meant we became terrified to hand a series of boiled sweet to this divine figure in front of 3500 people – it could have gone horribly wrong. Gill went first and was very successful as Amma picked up speed as her confidence in Gill’s prassad giving increased. Every time Amma’s left claw-like hand appeared Gill was urgently prodded by anther SSC in case she was out by a millisecond. Five passads in two minutes must be a world record by any standards. In complete contrast and despite all his training, Amma, during Ant’s two minutes, was in deep conversation with a huggee and the claw never appeared, so Ant was never able to demonstrate his prassad delivering technique. But we have both knelt at the feet of Amma as she was busy hugging, talking and laughing with person after person in her Divine hugging conveyor belt. We reckon it was our ashram chic that got us chosen. And for us this wasn’t even the main event - we still were due our hug.
After this prassad excitement, we returned to the floor to await our turn, and then our number was called (bit like Sainsbury’s really) so we joined the back of the queue and were handed through yet another stream of SSC’s for two hours in order to receive our Darshan. There were shopping opportunities in the queue where gifts for Amma could be purchased – bowls of fruit or plastic flower garlands. These, once presented to Amma were swiftly recycled by yet another team off SSC’s, back to the stall in a never ending loop of divine recycling. Watching the joy in other people’s faces after they received their hug was amazing – and she has a lovely face and looks a comforting person. As we got closer we were asked to wipe our faces of sweat, remove glasses and jewels and leave our bags behind. We were asked what language we spoke before yet again having to go on our knees to crawl across the stage towards Amma who was still resplendent in her big white armchair. She is a well built, 55 year old woman, of ample bosom. This time Ant went first and greeted her with hello and a big smile – she clutched his head to her bosom laughing loudly and rocking back and fore as she whispered “my son, my son, my son”. Being a politely brought boy, he said thank you which brought about even more laugher and yet another round of hugging. She smelt of a sweet rose oil which is now divinely impregnated on our ashram chic outfits. Not looking at Ant in case of fits of giggles, Gill crawled forward on her knees for her turn at a hug – this time Amma whispered “my daughter, my daughter, my daughter” but Gill didn’t get quite the laughter Ant did.
This was full circle for us – we were each given a prassad by the mother. We probably each spent 20 seconds with Amma but it felt genuine – given she had been doing this for eight hours by the time we were hugged it felt like we were the first, and she looked fresh as a daisy. She is certainly a pro, but on balance it was probably the most bizarre day we have had in our lives. We are sure she does great work, ashram life is not for us, spirituality is not our bag but we both in hindsight are really chuffed that we spent 48 hours in an Indian ashram, got hugged by the Mother and bought some fab white clothes – but are unlikely to repeat it!
Let good deeds be the leaves on that tree.
May words of kindness form as flowers
And may peace be its roots.”
Despite all our mocking of Amma’s organisation, at its heart lies a caring and genuine woman. It has been recognised by the UN for making a massive contribution to many disaster relief efforts and tens of millions of dollars are raised annually but more importantly does this more quickly than any government or NGO. For example 46 million dollars was given to Tsunami victims in India, building 100,000 new homes for slum dwellers in India, earthquake disaster relief, projects to end farmer suicide in India, training women, care homes for the elderly, orphanages, hospices, schools, universities, food for the homeless, medicines, pensions, medical research, schools of dentistry, pharmacy, engineering and bio-technology. We genuinely believe that her heart is in the right place but there is definitely a cult element to the way that she is worshipped by others especially the SSC’s. But the good she does outweighs the (in our view) spiritual nonsense that is peddled. She probably is a cause for good and brings comfort to many millions. The unbelievable thing about this is that is it all achieved by hugging and this is what we came for….
Amma (meaning the universal mother) has a global organisation, and has addressed the UN. She has hugged everyone from Clinton to Richard Gere to Mother Theresa and Gill and Ant. She spends a lot of time travelling overseas fundraising so we were really lucky to be at her home ashram when she was there. Whilst at her home ashram, Amritapuri, (amritapuri.org) she holds Darshan or blessing /hugging four days a week. This involves
“tenderly caressing everyone who comes to her, holding them close to her heart in a loving embrace, Amma shares her boundless love with all – regardless of their beliefs, who they are or why they have come to her. In this simple yet powerful way, Amma is transforming the lives of countless people, helping their hearts to blossom one embrace at a time.”
The sessions can last up to 22 hours. On our Darshan day she hugged non stop for 11 hours and we calculate she hugged her way through 3500 individuals – apparently she has hugged over 27 million people. Amma’s teachings are universal. Whenever she is asked about her religion, she replies that her religion is love. She does not ask anyone to believe in God or change their faith, but only to enquire into their own real nature, and to believe in themselves. The whole support infrastructure of the hugging process is fascinating. She turned up at the Darshan hall at 11 am and the hugging commenced. As it was to be our first meeting with Amma we had been given early numbered tickets to receive our divine hug but had been warned we may have to wait many hours. Full of curiosity we sat in the hall, fully robed in white, awaiting our turn when we were approached by an SSC asking simperingly if we gave “good Prassad”. We had no idea what this meant but we said yes anyway. We then spent 15 minutes in intense training as it turned out we had been selected to kneel at Amma’s left side and place prassads (Holy gifts) into her left hand whenever she displayed it in a certain way – these gifts were then passed on to each huggee! We were both a little nervous at being chosen, and suddenly catapulted from obscurity to the centre of a huge stage in the temple on our knees all in white as personal handmaidens to the universal mother. We managed (just) not to laugh! We were handed from SSC to SSC who instructed us in the very precise form that the prassad was to be place in Amma’s left hand whenever she opened it. It was serious stuff – the prassads consisted of a very small brown envelope full of holy ash wrapped around a pink boiled sweet that were being furiously wrapped by other SSC’s who were also on their knees, to be handed to us to be placed in Amma’s divine hand. This sounds very simple but the intensity and seriousness of our training meant we became terrified to hand a series of boiled sweet to this divine figure in front of 3500 people – it could have gone horribly wrong. Gill went first and was very successful as Amma picked up speed as her confidence in Gill’s prassad giving increased. Every time Amma’s left claw-like hand appeared Gill was urgently prodded by anther SSC in case she was out by a millisecond. Five passads in two minutes must be a world record by any standards. In complete contrast and despite all his training, Amma, during Ant’s two minutes, was in deep conversation with a huggee and the claw never appeared, so Ant was never able to demonstrate his prassad delivering technique. But we have both knelt at the feet of Amma as she was busy hugging, talking and laughing with person after person in her Divine hugging conveyor belt. We reckon it was our ashram chic that got us chosen. And for us this wasn’t even the main event - we still were due our hug.
After this prassad excitement, we returned to the floor to await our turn, and then our number was called (bit like Sainsbury’s really) so we joined the back of the queue and were handed through yet another stream of SSC’s for two hours in order to receive our Darshan. There were shopping opportunities in the queue where gifts for Amma could be purchased – bowls of fruit or plastic flower garlands. These, once presented to Amma were swiftly recycled by yet another team off SSC’s, back to the stall in a never ending loop of divine recycling. Watching the joy in other people’s faces after they received their hug was amazing – and she has a lovely face and looks a comforting person. As we got closer we were asked to wipe our faces of sweat, remove glasses and jewels and leave our bags behind. We were asked what language we spoke before yet again having to go on our knees to crawl across the stage towards Amma who was still resplendent in her big white armchair. She is a well built, 55 year old woman, of ample bosom. This time Ant went first and greeted her with hello and a big smile – she clutched his head to her bosom laughing loudly and rocking back and fore as she whispered “my son, my son, my son”. Being a politely brought boy, he said thank you which brought about even more laugher and yet another round of hugging. She smelt of a sweet rose oil which is now divinely impregnated on our ashram chic outfits. Not looking at Ant in case of fits of giggles, Gill crawled forward on her knees for her turn at a hug – this time Amma whispered “my daughter, my daughter, my daughter” but Gill didn’t get quite the laughter Ant did.
This was full circle for us – we were each given a prassad by the mother. We probably each spent 20 seconds with Amma but it felt genuine – given she had been doing this for eight hours by the time we were hugged it felt like we were the first, and she looked fresh as a daisy. She is certainly a pro, but on balance it was probably the most bizarre day we have had in our lives. We are sure she does great work, ashram life is not for us, spirituality is not our bag but we both in hindsight are really chuffed that we spent 48 hours in an Indian ashram, got hugged by the Mother and bought some fab white clothes – but are unlikely to repeat it!
