| Nicola Silva meets a devoted follower
of Amma, the inspirational and selfless Hugging Saint.
A mother's embrace has the power to change many things:
to stop the tears of a distraught babe, to soothe the
sting of a broken heart and, in the case of Amma, to
change and inspire a troubled world.
"The power of Amma's embrace is unconditional
love and the motherly touch - it's so pure," says
Swami Ramakrishnananda Puri, a senior aide of Mata Amritanandamayi,
or Amma, as she is known. "Amma says love is everything.
It's not as simple as we think. Love is the thread that
connects everyone."
Amma herself says that her hugs and kisses are not
ordinary: "When Amma embraces or kisses someone,
it is a process of purification and inner healing. Amma
is transmitting a part of her pure, vital energy into
her children...When Amma holds someone, it can help
to awaken the dormant spiritual energy within them."
Amma, or the "Hugging Saint" as the American
media call her, is the modest daughter of a fisherman
from Kerala, in Southern India. As a girl, she witnessed
the poverty and suffering of the fisher folk, who often
went hungry for days at a time when their fishing expeditions
failed. Even as she asked herself "Why must people
suffer?" she saw that it was her duty to ease the
suffering around her.
Today, Amma's humanitarian efforts have seen thousands
of houses built for the poor. She has instituted a free
pension scheme for 100,000 destitute women, and the
physically and mentally challenged in India. Amma's
organisation has committed millions to tsunami relief
and $1 million to the Hurricane Katrina relief fund,
as well as support for schools, hospitals and orphanages.
In her daily audiences with people from all walks of
life, Amma's hugs spread a message of hope, love, strength
and service.
Swami Ramakrishna says, "People from all walks
of life who are considered successful in their respective
fields still come to seek Amma's guidance and blessings.
Despite their so called success, they still seek something
more. Their worldly success has not given them what
they really want: contentment and peace of mind."
Swami Ramakrishna has a serene gentleness that instantly
puts me at ease, allaying my preoccupations with correct
etiquette (this is my first meeting with a swami). There
is a faint scent of incense in the air and somewhere
in the background is the tinkling of a water fountain.
Dressed in bright saffron robes, Swami Ramakrishna talks
easily about the exemplary life of Amma and the spiritual
truths he has learned since meeting her 30 years ago.
He says Amma is a living example of love and patience
who continues to inspire him.
"She sits so many hours every day, without getting
bored. People come to her with the same problem - job,
family, marriage, financial trouble, sickness. These
are common problems everywhere. So she listens to the
same thing day after day after day. We cannot listen
to 10 people's problems in one day: we get very upset,
angry with them.
"Each time she meets a person, she feels like
it's the first time a person is telling their problems.
She is so focused on what they say; she doesn't just
brush it aside and say it's a common problem. People
feel that she is their own mother because she gives
so much personal attention and care to everyone. Sometimes
she does this for 24 hours non stop."
Swami Ramakrishna has seen with his own eyes the extent
of Amma's love. On one of his first visits to Amma's
ashram, he noticed a leper waiting in line for darshan
(an audience) with Amma. "His body was ruptured
all over and there was pus and blood oozing from those
places. His body had a terrible stench. Nobody could
be near him."
Nevertheless, when everybody finished meeting Amma,
she called the man. "I was sitting near her at
that time; it was a really disgusting sight to see him,"
the swami recounts. "When he came, without any
hesitation or any aversion, just like Amma received
everyone, she put him also on her lap." Amma then
began tending to the leper's suppurating wounds.
This event left an indelible impact on the swami. "I
started asking what is she doing? Has she gone crazy?
Even doctors would not touch (him) without wearing some
gloves. I thought, if ever I want to follow someone
in my life this is the person I want to follow - she
has extreme love and extreme compassion. That sight
really turned my life."
Later, he asked Amma how she was able to show such
deep compassion to the leper. She replied, "I'm
not different from him. I am in him; he's in me. I see
my own self in him."
The swami says it took a long time for him to understand
the meaning of Amma's words. Years later, after joining
Amma's ashram, he began attending some scriptural classes.
"Then I understood that there's only one consciousness.
We are all different manifestations of the same consciousness.
She loves everyone equally because she doesn't see the
difference."
Swami Ramakrishna believes that people who have spiritual
wisdom look at the world differently. He draws an analogy
with gold, which is used to make different types of
jewellery, rings, necklaces, bangles and so on.
He explains: "We see the different forms and names,
and then get attracted to them. I like the ring. I like
the necklace. I like the nose ring. But the masters
don't get attached to the name or form: they look at
the essence - the gold.
"Amma looks at the consciousness. Whether it's
a good person or a bad person, the consciousness is
the same. She is able to love everyone. That is her
wisdom."
As Amma's emissary, Swami Ramakrishna travels to around
35 countries meeting people and spreading Amma's message.
"Mostly we talk about love, service and cultivating
positive qualities," he explains. "We talk
about spiritual things, not religion. Spirituality focuses
on developing positive qualities, serving others and
improving your own understanding and emotional personality."
The swami observes that, for people all over, life has
become filled with pressures and tension. Relationships
are also more brittle than they were 50 to 100 years
ago: people often find it difficult to live together
for a long time. "Everywhere people are looking
for peace and happiness. But the thing is, without realising
the real path for long lasting peace they just take
up any method that can give them immediate happiness
and immediate peace. That, in many cases, leads to more
complications and (has) serious consequences on their
lives."
And he concedes that circumstances in our lives are
often beyond our control. "You cannot change the
things in your country unless you're very powerful.
You cannot change your neighbours. What we can try to
do is just to change ourselves so that the surroundings
do not affect us. When you remain calm and quiet in
a crisis, and are able to deal with everyone in a nice
way, then the others (who) see you also get a lesson."
The second aspect of a spiritual life is, of course,
selfless service. Amma expressed it on New Year's Eve
in 2005 like this, "This is the time to pray with
our hearts and work with our hands".
As the swami points out, "It's difficult for Amma
to do everything. What Amma is trying to do is create
awareness and help people to feel for others - that
same love and compassion. If everyone started helping
others it becomes an easy job." There are many
beautiful stories of service by those whom Amma has
touched, and here is one: when a devastating earthquake
struck Gujarat, India, in 2001, killing 20,000 people,
a medical team from Amma's AIMS hospital was sent there
to provide disaster relief. Many student volunteers
from Amma's university also gave emergency assistance.
Later, the Amma organisation rebuilt three villages
in Bhuj, which had been at the epicentre of the earthquake.
When the Boxing Day tsunami struck, those villagers
from Bhuj made a three day journey to help Amma rebuild
houses for tsunami victims near her ashram.
Amma inspires such goodwill and a spirit of service
that her organisation has achieved results which often
surpass those of government officials.
"Everyone is amazed (that) in such a short time
Amma has been able to do so much, even the government
administration!" Swami Ramakrishna acknowledges.
He pays tribute to the thousands of volunteers who
help out in so many ways. "The volunteers at Amma's
ashram, they're so dedicated. They are all there to
help her, to do whatever they can for Amma." Together
with this veritable army (the swami himself works exceedingly
hard, though he is too modest to mention this), Amma's
wisdom enables her to respond to people's needs, be
they small or large.
Arguably, Amma's largest humanitarian project has been
the tsunami relief effort. The organisation has doubled
its initial pledge to US$43 million, as relief efforts
have expanded. Thus far 4,500 houses have been built
for victims in India, the Adaman and Nicobar Islands,
and Sri Lanka. Amma's care has also extended to provide
counselling for families traumatised by the tsunami,
and even swimming lessons for the children to help overcome
their fear of water. Mothers who lost children in the
tsunami and who were unable to have more children due
to tubal ligation, were offered the opportunity to reverse
their sterilisation procedures.
Swami Ramakrishna says the organisation's many achievements
are all due to Amma's guidance. "Apart from her
wisdom, there is the experience that she gets every
day by meeting thousands of people - people telling
her different problems in their life, different experiences
in their life, different difficulties in their life.
Amma personally hears those things. With all that she
is able to guide everyone."
We live in a world yearning for peace and happiness.
The swami says that the only way to achieve this is
to see the divinity in all. "When you are able
to see everyone as your own self, how can you dislike
them? How can you fight with them? We have the same
divinity. Even if you cannot see the divinity in yourself,
see the same divinity in everyone. It's difficult, but
there's no gain without pain," he adds with a smile.
For details of Amma's next Australian visit, see www.ammaaustralia.org.au
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