Amma's miracle of love lies in compassion

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>From the Times of India, news from Amma's Delhi tour

stop. On to Lucknow!

 

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Amma's miracle of love lies in compassion

SWATI CHOPRA

 

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 2003 01:18:32 AM

]

 

NEW DELHI: Despite being in an obscure part of Vasant

Kunj, the Mata Amritanandamayi Math is not difficult

to find. One just needs to follow the crowds, dressed

in white, walking barefoot, softly chanting 'Om

Shivaya'.

 

 

The Math wears a festive look; there is incense in the

air, and a constant japa of the sacred Lalita

Sahasranamam. Huge crowds congregate before a

throne-like chair, awaiting Amma's darshan.

 

 

Amma is Mata Amritanandamayi, beloved guru of scores

of devotees in India and around the world. An avatar

of the Universal Mother to her devotees, Amma is

famous as the 'hugging guru' because of the warm hugs

she gives to all her 'beloved children'. A disciple,

Swami Amritaswarupananda, tells of occasions when Amma

sits for hours on end to hug each of the thousands of

devotees who visit her.

 

 

"Amma's compassion has manifested in the form of

several charitable programmes, which she supervises

herself," says Amritaswarupananda. These include

educational institutions and free health care

projects, such as the Amrita Institute of Medical

Sciences in Kochi, a cancer hospice, and Amrita Kripa

Sagar in her village in Kerala, now rechristened

Amritapuram.

 

 

In the past five years, the Amrita Kuteeram project

has provided 25,000 houses to the poor in nine states.

Last October, the United Nations conferred the

Gandhi-King Award upon Amma.

 

 

For someone who started life as an illiterate

fisherwoman in Kerala, Mata Amritanandamayi has come a

long way. In a rare interview, Amma told The Times of

India that early in life, she began questioning the

suffering she saw all around her. "I would ask myself,

why do people suffer? If it is their fate, then it is

my destiny to help them. That is why I hug people, it

is a spontaneous response of love to their grief,"

said Amma.

 

 

Amma is a contemporary spiritual icon for the

oppressed, even though she says she has risen above

limitations of caste and gender. "The same power is

within everyone," explained Amma. "A precious stone

loses its lustre if kept in oil. You polish it and it

shines again. Instead of expecting others to change,

realise your own power."

 

 

Aware of the clouds of war in Iraq, Amma talked about

a 'spiritual solution'. "Let us light the flame of

love within to dispel the darkness outside," she said.

Her long-term vision for conflict resolution, however,

is based on an urgent revision of the education

system.

 

 

"We must contemplate the fact that the system is only

enabling us to understand the language of machines. We

forget we are human beings, parts of a whole. Let's

treat each other as that." Immersed in seva, her form

of God-adoration, Amma says she "is a beginner, living

always in the present". "The past does not exist,

neither does the future. So why worry?

 

Just follow the bliss that is in you," said the

ever-smiling Amma.

 

 

 

 

 

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