Mata Amritanandamayi (Mother of Immortal Bliss)—affectionately called Amma or Ammachi (mother)—is a prominent contemporary religious leader, attracting devotees of all ages, races, religions, and walks of life. Known as the ‘Hugging Saint’ since she has literally embraced millions of devotees across the globe, Ammachi is regarded by her devotees as the embodiment of the Divine Mother. Born on 27 September 1953 into a poor, low caste family in rural Kerala, south India, Sudhamani—as she was known before her religious experience—rose from an impoverished childhood of abuse and rejection to great heights of spirituality. Her hagiographies stress that she was a spiritually gifted child who had an intense longing for union with the Divine. Following two watershed spiritual experiences in late 1975 in which she claimed to have experienced oneness initially with the Hindu god Krishna and later with the Divine Mother, Ammachi is said to reveal her true identity during a weekly ritual when she assumes the mood or form of the Divine Mother (Devi Bhava).
Ammachi’s spiritual fame and mission spread, in India and abroad, as her devotees attributed miraculous powers that include clairvoyance, bilocation, levitation, dramatic healing of various physical and psychological disorders, and creating children for the childless. While the Amritpuri ashram (hermitage) instituted in 1981 in Kollam, Kerala serves as home for Ammachi and her growing global spiritual movement, numerous local and transnational congregations (satsang)—often under lay leadership—have emerged in India, Europe, Latin America, and North America. The movement also has a vast network of educational, social welfare, charitable, and medical institutions concentrated mainly in India. While religious power, authority, and leadership are consolidated in Ammachi, the temporal administration of her growing network of institutions is delegated to a band of trusted disciples.
Born and raised Hindu, Ammachi has introduced several creative innovations into the Hindu ritual tradition best exemplified in the Ammachi darsan or spiritual embrace that has become her spiritual trademark. Ammachi transmits her core spiritual message of unconditional love through the medium of the spiritual embrace. Involving intense physical contact in the form of hugging, kissing, and touching, darsan is also the most intimate and personal mode of interaction between Ammachi and her devotees. In redefining darsan, Ammachi—who is firmly grounded in the Hindu mystical, philosophical, and devotional traditions—defies and transcends orthodox Hindu norms concerning ritual purity, pollution, and bodily contact between the devotee and the embodied divine as well as Hindu social norms governing gender relations. Thus,
Ammachi embodies, in her person, message, and rituals, the confluence of two distinct streams—of fidelity to tradition and defiance of tradition. Located at the juncture between tradition and change, Ammachi both supports and confounds the religious and social status quo through her simple message of unconditional love, embodied and transmitted through her innovative darsan ritual as well as through her ability to acculturate her message and medium to an ever widening global audience that extends beyond the Hindu and Indian frontiers. She is the recipient of several national and international awards, including the United Nation’s Gandhi-King Award for NonViolence in 2002.
