The Ordinary Mystic

It’s just a hug.

So why take a long drive? Why endure the crowds?

It’s just a hug.

[This is the third in a three-part series about my first visit to see the Mata Amritanandamayima, also known as the "Hugging Guru" or "Hugging Saint". Be sure to read parts I and II.]

Since our token number would obviously not be coming up any time soon, we wandered around the inside of the temple for awhile. Aside from the stage where Amma sat, the front half of the building was floor seating, and the back half were chairs. Along the walls were small tables offering information about Amma’s charitable organizations, areas offering (for a price) chair massages, and an entire side was basically a shop with books, tapes, clothing, and devotional objects for sale.

We went outside to look for something to eat.

Fortunately, they were offering snacks in an outside tent, so we picked up a few things and then sat down to relax and eat. At this point everyone was just happy to be able find something they liked to eat. After awhile we finished up and made our way back to the temple.

Aaron Pulls a Surprise

The program had progressed faster than we expected and so we were surprised to see that our group of numbers would be coming up next. That was when my wife broke the news to me, “Aaron (our youngest son) doesn’t want to do this. ‘Mom’ he said, ‘I’m not comfortable hugging people I know, so why would I want to hug a stranger?’”. Oh great. And I knew what that meant - since there was no way he was going to be left by himself, Mom would have to stay back with him.

I looked at David.

“I’ll go with you, Dad.”

Yessss!!!

“OK, so it’ll just be you and me,” I gratefully acknowledged, “Our turn is coming up.”

When the attendants finally flipped the numbers to our range, we made our way to the end of the line, which consisted of a long row of chairs up the aisle along the edge of the chair seating section. As the line moved up, you were constantly hopping from chair to chair until you reached the end of that section, at which point you had to get on your knees on the floor and keep scooting along with the flow of the line. Attendants were there to make sure everyone hopped or scooted on que.

The Moment Arrives

The last few feet seemed like a blur.

An attendant asked if I was alone or with someone, so I said that my son and I were together. That meant that we would also get a group hug. They handed out kleenexes to wipe our faces and also took my glasses. Amma was hugging the people who were ahead of us and they directed David and I to kneel right - and I mean right - behind them. There were so many other people up on the stage - attendants and others who were just sitting/kneeling there basking in Amma’s presence - that those who were waiting for a hug and those who weren’t just melded into one large group. Amma finished hugging the people in front of us, and then they were ushered away.

Finally our time had arrived, the moment towards which the entire trip had led.

The attendants positioned David and myself at Amma’s chair, and then Amma brought me to her bosom. My eyes were closed, and as Amma murmured in my ears, I felt myself falling into a black vortex. Time seemed to stop, as if an eternity took place within those moments. The sounds of the crowd inside the temple became silent, and all I heard was the sound of Amma’s voice. It was as if only she and I existed in that eternal moment.

Then she stopped and I remember David being brought in and she hugged us both at the same time. When she let us go, the attendants guided us out of the way for the next in line and for a second there was this disoriented feeling, not knowing which way to go in all the commotion. But we soon found ourselves walking down the appropriate path, and as I looked at my hand I noticed for the first time the Hershey’s kiss and rose petal that Amma put there. (When did she do that?)

Reflections and Impressions

I didn’t feel any shaktipat (transference of spiritual energy) that I was aware of, yet I did experience a tremendous feeling of peace which was significant considering the hectic nature of the whole process - especially for a first-timer.

David just commented on how stressful it was for him to be directed at every turn. The one interesting thing was that what he described hearing Amma say during the hug was not at all what I remember hearing - as if we each heard different “words”. Strange.

My wife, who observed the whole thing from the back of the temple, did not come away with a good feeling about it. She did not like how the routine was too much like people-worship, especially with everyone “crawling on their knees” to approach her.

For some reason I saw no problem with it. It’s understandable that people raised in a western culture - where the common concept of God is that he is a single, separate being who tolerates the worship of no one other than himself - would find the scene at Amma’s temple objectionable. Yet in some eastern cultures such activities are common in a guru-disciple relationship.

I did not get on my knees because I felt that Amma was God. I did so out of respect for the process and also because I recognized within this woman an expression of the divine that is so strong, it deserves to be acknowledged. This is divinity that is in each one of us, though hidden for the most part. It’s so difficult to see it within ourselves, when we see it more clearly in another it should be regarded as an opportunity to embrace.

Being in the presence of a spiritually advanced person, experiencing darshan such as receiving a hug from Amma, can not only bring us close to our own divinity as reflected within them, but it can also awaken a little bit of that divinity within ourselves.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 17th, 2007 at 2:29 pm and is filed under Amma. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.