#Amma ashram free#

#Amma ashram 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: вЂњFrom nothing, she has built an empire.вЂќ She has built a vast organization that is the envy of both IndiaвЂ™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.ДЄmma 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 вЂњthe hugging saint.вЂќ 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 вЂњmother.вЂќ On Friday, she began a two-month North American tour during which she will be accompanied by 275 volunteers.