Great Story About Amma

Back in April, I posted a rather lengthy article on Amma, the mahatma from India who travels the world and, as part of her ministry, gives out hugs to thousands and thousands of people. At last count, she has embraced more than 23 million people -- and the hugs just keep coming. The documentary that I had discussed in April gave an outside look of what it's like to travel with Amma and attend one of her gatherings; in today's Beliefnet e-mail (for which I highly recommend obtaining a free subscription), there's a wonderful article written from the first-person perspective of someone who actually waited for a hug.

Who says hugs can't change the world?
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Hugging Amma Was Not Nothing
by Valerie Reiss

I did my best to expect nothing. Waiting six hours for anything inflates expectations—much less for something you know will last two seconds and everyone says will change your life. They say she smells like roses, they say you may weep, they say it feels as if the divine mother herself is wrapping you in her nurturing arms and holding you.

So I waited. (click the link above for the full story)

Amma

A. and I just finished watched an interesting documentary on Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, known around the world as Amma; the documentary, entitled Darshan: The Embrace, followed her on a tour around her native India as she shared her teaching with the thousands who attended her rallies. Many of you may recall her as the mahatma who traveled to the United States last year and spent hours giving hugs to the people who waited in line to see her at her different appearances. In fact, at the end of the documentary the filmmakers flash a statement which says it is estimated that Amma has given 23 million hugs around the world -- and the film of the rally which closes the documentary includes the fact that over a 21-hour period, she gave hugs to 45,000 people.

This is far from the traditional style of documentaries I have seen in the past, in that there is no running commentary or narration to explain what we are watching. The genuine affection that people feel for Amma is there, however, and her love for humanity is equally apparent. She says at one point that as a bee looks at a flower and only sees honey, and a sculptor looks at a block of stone and only sees a statue, she looks at people and only sees the good within them. It would be nearly impossible to try and explain the tremendous emotion on the faces of the people who are with her, so I won't even try -- you'll just have to watch it for yourselves.

If there's one drawback to the documentary, it's that you're left at the end knowing very little about her background. We see film clips of her from earlier in her life, and learn that she has spearheaded the construction of thousands of homes and the construction of a state-of-the-art hospital in India, and that she has received the Gandhi Prize for Peace. You don't learn more, but you're definitely left wanting to learn more -- and so while I strongly recommend you see this documentary, you can also go here and here to learn more about this remarkable woman.