Hug Hunger (Toronto Globe and Mail)

[Guest guest]

>From today's edition of the Globe and Mail

(pretentiously claiming to be "Canada's national

newspaper") http://tinyurl.com/kxmkv

 

>

> NOTICED

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> HUG HUNGER

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> >

>

> KAREN VON HAHN

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinions/columnists/Karen+von+Hahn.html

> Columns

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> I am a really good hugger. If you were to ask my

> close friends and family,

> they would tell you that I hug both frequently and

> with conviction. In

> response to those Christian family organization ads

> that ask, "Have you

> hugged your kids today?" I could truthfully answer

> in the affirmative any

> day of the week (in fact, I still pull my

> 16-year-old into my lap for a good

> squeeze regularly, even though she's bigger than I

> am).

>

> Turns out, however, I've got nothing on India's

> Amma, the living Hindu saint

> of hugs, who, last week in Toronto, winding up her

> whirlwind hugging tour of

> the globe, hugged about 10,000 devotees at a

> Sheraton in Richmond Hill at

> the spiritual equivalent of a kissing booth.

>

> "A hug from Amma is just very calming," explains

> Toronto television producer

> Elizabeth Allan, who received her first hug from the

> Hugging Mother at a

> retreat in Kerala, India, and now wears a gold

> pendant with an image of Amma

> around her neck. "She's so giving and open that you

> feel completely calm in

> her arms."

>

> Amma, which means "divine mother," is the loving

> nickname bestowed on tiny,

> white-clad 52-year-old Mata Amritanandamayi, who was

> born in dire poverty in

> a fishing village in southern India and now presides

> over a network of

> schools, orphanages and hospitals adorned with

> images of her benevolent

> smiling face (although Amma's hugs are free, her

> supporters fund her

> ministry through gifts and purchases of Amma

> trinkets).

>

>

> Clearly her message of unconditional love is one

> that's resonating: In the

> past two years, Amma has committed $23-million to

> tsunami relief and

> $1-million to the survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

> She has been showered with

> international adulation, been given the Gandhi-King

> award for non-violence

> and addressed the United Nations.

>

>

> "Amma and [guru] Sai Baba are the two biggies on

> Westerners' spiritual tours

> of India," says Allan, who was fortunate enough to

> secure a coveted spot for

> Amma's Toronto appearance, where the Hugging Mother

> was welcomed by the

> Governor-General.

>

> In India, where they consider her a living deity,

> about 10,000 people a day

> travel miles to line up for hours for darshan,

> Sanskrit for an audience with

> a holy person, which, in Amma's case, translates as

> a hug. A film about her,

> called Darshan: The Embrace, which premiered at the

> Cannes Film festival, is

> to be released in North America this fall.

>

> Darshan works on a first-come, first-served basis.

> "It's sort of like a

> deli, where first you get a token with a number, and

> then you wait," says

> Allan, who picked up her token at 10 a.m., and was

> fully hugged by 7 that

> night.

>

> "She doesn't stop until everybody gets a hug," Allan

> says.

>

> By this point, according to USA Today, Amma has

> probably hugged more than 27

> million people. Three years ago, on her birthday, it

> was estimated that she

> hugged 75,000 people in 23 hours, 20 minutes (or

> 1.12 seconds per hug).

>

> So, not to sound bitter or anything, but what's so

> great about Amma's hugs

> that people are willing to travel continents by dire

> roads and line up for

> hours in the sweltering heat (or even worse, in the

> stale air of the

> ballroom of a Sheraton hotel in Richmond Hill) just

> to get a one-second

> version?

>

> "By the time you get in front of Amma, you are

> shuffling along on your

> knees, and her assistants push your head right into

> her bosom," Allan says.

> "She smells very intensely of rose oil and

> sandalwood, and since she wears

> all white, you can see the marks of lipstick and

> sweat on her armpits from

> others who've been hugged ahead of you. But then she

> just grabs onto you.

> She's a very huggable and soft woman and, for just

> an instant, she gives you

> her full attention and the physical and the

> spiritual and emotional

> combine."

>

> Indeed, for many, a hug from Amma is, according to

> Allan, "like you are in

> the presence of God."

>

> Hug-envy aside, I have to admit that I have often

> felt something deeply

> spiritual in the gentle ministrations of masseuses

> and aestheticians who, no

> matter how scabrous our calluses or deep-rooted our

> blackheads, would

> willingly rub and squeeze away our angst in exchange

> for mere lucre.

>

> Certainly Amma's got to be one heck of a woman just

> to get that close to all

> those 27 million of us. But her appeal offers other,

> more compelling,

> questions: Just how badly do we all need a hug? And

> how deep-seated and

> widespread must our collective anxiety have become,

> now that a mere hug,

> given unconditionally, offers us a glimpse of the

> divine?

>

> kvonhahn (AT) globeandmail (DOT) com

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