Story on Amma by Reuters Los Angeles Tues Jun 26th

[Guest guest]

By Sarah Tippit

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - In the City of Angels, which some say can

be among the most cutthroat places on Earth, thousands of people from

all walks of life have been lining up for a free hug and a pat on the

back.

This is not just any hug, it is the mother of all embraces from

none other than the "Mother of Immortal Bliss," a.k.a. Mata

Amritanandamayi, a humble Hindu woman with a diamond stud in her nose

who is fast becoming a world-renowned spiritual leader, like Mother

Teresa or Mohandas Gandhi.

Cherubic, always smiling, the tiny woman who friends call Amma or

Ammachi made her way from her home in southern India to Los Angeles

last week on a 10-city U.S. tour ending July 17 that includes stops in

Santa Fe, Dallas, Chicago, Washington, New York, Smithfield (Rhode

Island) and Boston.

The drill is the same wherever she goes. From dawn to late at night

people stream toward her. One-by-one they place their heads on her

breast or belly or shoulder for a hug. She pats them on the back,

chucks their chins, listens to their woes, smoothes their hair, smiles

broadly and whispers heartfelt blessings into their ears, sometimes

drying their tears.

Rapidly growing in popularity and a sought-after guest, Amma, 46,

goes where she is summoned and does not publicize her visits. She

stays where people offer lodging, asks for nothing, eats little and

spends up to 18 hours a day -- rarely moving from her seat -- hugging,

praying for, and blessing anybody and everybody who comes to her.

She never seems to tire or get sick. "We can't keep up with her. I

have to go to bed. She keeps going. You wake up and she's still at it.

After 15 hours she's radiant," her spokesman Rob Sidon said.

Proceeds from snacks sold at her appearances and money donated

directly to her go to one of several charities begun in her name,

which to date include four hospitals, 33 schools, 12 temples, 25,000

houses for the poor, an orphanage, pensions for 50,000 destitute

women, a home for senior citizens, a battered women's shelter and

various technical education projects.

In the United States her followers have organized schools in San

Francisco and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her assistants work on a gratis

basis, said Sidon, who left a lucrative marketing career to volunteer

for her organization.

Although some people claim she has cured their ailments or provided

divine advice, she does not claim to be a messiah, nor does she seek

converts to her Hindu religion. Rather, her aim is to spread pure,

heartfelt, divinely inspired love to everyone in the whole world who

asks for it, and so far she has personally touched and prayed for more

than 20 million people.

 

GOOD EFFECT ON BAD DOGS

"In France Catholic nuns come to her, in Japan Zen Buddhist monks

come, she's universal," Sidon said. "She stands up after having sat

for 13 hours, fresh as a daisy. The only telltale sign of wear and

tear is a large black streak on her white linen sari from all the

tears shed on her shoulder."

In her travels she has sucked poison from a leper's lesions in

India, cradled AIDS patients in San Francisco, hugged tough New York

cops and embraced movie stars with equal energy and concern. She has

been a featured speaker at the United Nations and has advised world

leaders, particularly in India.

"She doesn't fear anything. Rabid dogs sit next to her and calm

down," Sidon said.

For a week in Los Angeles, a steady stream of locals poured into

the lobby of a Hilton hotel to see Amma. Forlorn-looking businessmen

in suits, college students, women with sick children and various

artists and performers, some in white, braved sweltering heat and

heavy traffic to sit for hours on the hotel lobby floor, cross-legged

and barefoot, waiting.

One-by-one they moved along the line for her "darshan," or

blessing, reverently kneeling before her throne, a wooden chair

covered in candy pink fabric and adorned with roses.

"Often holy people don't touch followers or allow themselves to be

touched, but she breaks tradition and hugs everyone," Sidon said.

She smiled broadly at each person who came before her as assistants

directed their arms around her and their heads to her incense-scented

breast. The point was to place oneself in the center of her being,

they said.

Against a backdrop of soft, tinkling music played by orange-clad

swamis sitting cross-legged behind her, she went to work, hugging,

stroking backs, chucking chins, smoothing hair, kissing cheeks,

whispering in peoples' ears words of love spoken in her native

Malayalam: daughter, daughter, daughter or son, son, son or truth,

truth, truth.

She squeezed each one tightly as if to press her love into their

very soul. They came up crying, beaming, dazed. Children looked

unafraid. Adults looked childlike and rapturous.

With a radiant, utterly guileless expression, she wiped tears and

held faces in her cupped hands. After a moment she gave them Hershey's

kisses wrapped in rose petals, apples containing her love energy and

healing packets of sacred ashes, then sent them on their way with

blissful expressions.

"I'd like to have another child," one 46-year-old woman said in a

quivering voice, before kneeling before Amma for a blessing. Another

woman in a peach sari placed her head in Amma's lap and began sobbing

loudly.

For a moment Amma looked pained, as if she was absorbing the

woman's sorrow, but she immediately recovered and began to smile again

as she dabbed the woman's tears with a tissue handed over by a

bystander.

 

HOLINESS RARE IN L.A.

"That truly was intense," said Greg, 43, a sculptor, after a

blessing by Amma. Greg, who came at the urging of a friend and did not

want to reveal his last name, added: "There isn't much that's holy in

L.A. I feel very peaceful."

Amma was born in 1953, the daughter of a poor fisherman in a small

village of Kerala in South India. Her father made her drop out of

school in the fourth grade to work as a house slave. Early on she

became known for radiating an unusual amount of love and light. She

began hugging the sick and impoverished in her teens and soon

attracted a following.

Despite a limited education, Amma speaks metaphorically, answering

all types of questions from world leaders, scientists. farmers who

want to know why their cows will not produce milk, and passersby with

relationship questions.

Reporters streamed in to see her as well and she was happy to grant

interviews in-between blessing people. As a man rested his head on her

breast, she answered one reporter's questions in her native language,

which was translated into English by her personal assistant, Swami

Amritaswarup, an early disciple.

"I seek to give and give and give, to personally wipe away tears

through selfless love, compassion and service. I seek to fill the

people with ... love," she said.

"That's what the world wants today because parents are not setting

an example for their children and therefore children are not learning

how to give and take properly," she said.

"There is a destructive tendency in the world. You cannot give what

you don't have. Even if one has a full tank of gas a car will only run

if it has a properly working battery of love. I want to awaken an

awareness of a profound feeling of ... love in order