Traditionally, ashrams are quiet and secluded - much like monasteries - but Amma’s ashram was so vast and built up that it resembled a small metropolis.Īfter exiting the taxi at the main gate - there are no cars within the ashram itself - I set out on a series of footpaths that wound through a 100-acre campus containing the buildings of Amrita University (also founded by Amma) as well as dormitories, temples, restaurants and shops. When I saw high-rise buildings jutting above the canopy of palm trees, it was clear we were getting close. To get there, I rode in a taxi through the backwaters of Kerala, past villages where bare-chested men fished from dugout canoes, a landscape that, unlike much of India, has changed little in centuries. Lured by these tales, I decided to visit this place, called Amritapuri, to see for myself. They said she’d built a place where everything, from light switches to recycling plants, worked as it was meant to - and, in India, this was perhaps the greatest miracle of all. They said she performed miracles, diverting storms and turning water into pudding. The entire community supposedly worshiped a middle-aged woman whose devotees came by the thousands, hailing her as a demigod.
Amma free#
Visitors talked about a mega-ashram, complete with a modern university and free health care, and described it as a gleaming cityscape where foreigners in pristine white uniforms swept the streets and scrubbed bird droppings off park benches. People kept telling me about a former fishing village in Kerala, in southern India, that was now a utopia in the jungle.
I first heard about Amma roughly a year ago, when I was living in India teaching journalism as a Fulbright scholar. As Oommen Chandy, the chief minister of the state of Kerala, told me: “From nothing, she has built an empire.” She has built a vast organization that is the envy of both India’s public and private sectors. In India, however, what Amma offers is far more significant and complex. And at each stop along the way, Amma will sit on stage for 15 hours at a stretch, greeting her thousands of devotees.Īmma is best known for literally embracing the masses she has hugged millions of people around the world, a feat that has earned her the nickname “the hugging saint.” Her status as a spiritual therapist has attracted a large following in the United States. They plan to ride in four buses across the continent from Bellevue, Wash., to Marlborough, Mass., visiting 11 cities, including New York. THERE are entourages - and then there is the retinue of Mata Amritanandamayi, a 59-year-old Indian guru known simply as Amma, or “mother.” On Friday, she began a two-month North American tour during which she will be accompanied by 275 volunteers.
0 kommentar(er)
