A Week with the Hugging Saint
The Journey There
We took a small taxi from our Homestay in Fort Kochi to the train station in the city of Kochi. Fort Kochi is a small tourist town, and Kochi, the “Queen of the Arabian Sea”, is the biggest city in the state of Kerala. This took about an hour. Check the video below for a little taste of what the taxi ride was like.
Once we got to the train station, our train was late (surprise!) so we had to wait for over an hour. This was actually a blessing because we had to solve the puzzle of the departure board, and decipher which track our train was arriving on and what platform number to stand by. It’s important you’re in the right spot because these trains are really long and they sometimes only stop for a couple of minutes. If you’re in the wrong place you could miss your train, which is something you don’t want to happen. More on this later.
It’s 3 hour train ride from Kochi to the train station in the small village of Kayamkulam. Once we got off the train and I had a look around, I thought, “you’re in the real India now, son”.
There were a bunch of auto-rickshaw guys waiting for passengers and we hired someone to take us on the final bumpy, crazy leg of our journey to see Amma. Once we made it through the town of Kayamkulam, we ended up on a curvy, winding little two lane road filled with people, scooters, animals, cars, colored lights, women dancing, shrines with exotic gods, and vendors selling fruit, fish, meals, snacks, trinkets, clothing, and jewelry. Did I mention there were a lot of people? The remainder of this ride was, for me, otherworldly, unfamiliar, disorienting, and absolutely exhilarating.
We rounded a corner and the tuk-tuk stopped suddenly in front of a giant pedestrian bridge that spans the backwater to Amritapuri, the ashram of the Hugging Saint. We made it!!! We lept out, paid the driver, and took some pictures from the bridge.
Who is Amma?
Amma is considered a living Saint by her followers who believe she is the embodiment of the Divine Mother, God in human form. She is associated with the Hindu Goddess Kali, and her ashram contains a temple dedicated to the deity.
The name “Amma” means “Mama” and her darshan (blessing) is given by hugging. At the time of this writing, Amma has hugged over 34 million people (plus one – me)!
Whatever your ideas about Amma, the impact she has is undeniable. She builds hospitals and schools, housing for the unhomed, provides pensions for those unable to work, empowers women, and participates in disaster relief.
Learn about Amma’s humanitarian work at Embracing the World.
A Typical Day
My room was in a building right next to the temple, and every morning I was awakened at 5:00 am by three rings of the giant temple bell. It was hard to sleep because my bed was a thin pad on a wooden cot so the first night felt like sleeping on a bench.
At some mysterious signal all the birds would begin squawking at the same time. They didn’t gradually begin and then crescendo, it was immediate, usually around 5:45. I suspect this was the sound of the crows that are everywhere and will steal your food if you’re not paying attention.
Around 6:00 am someone in the temple would begin chanting. I’m fairly certain they were chanting the 1000 names of the Divine Mother. The stamina required to chant non-stop and quite loudly for over an hour was impressive. I never left my room to explore, I simply stayed in and meditated or dozed and let the sounds wash over me.
There are two outdoor cafes on either side of the giant meeting hall, one of them serving Indian food and the other , both vegetarian. Each morning I would meet Vicki and Joseph there around 8:30 for breakfast, usually on the western side, for omelettes and toast.
One morning after breakfast we took a tour of the ashram. There is a small building where Amma grew up on the other side of the temple; the ashram grew up around her birthplace. We experienced meditating in the temple. On another morning I engaged in seva (sacred service) and spent time working in a secret garden by the backwater. There are also a number of little stalls, tables, and stores to visit which open at random times of the day.
After a late lunch we generally retired to our rooms to prepare for the evening with Amma.
The View from the Top
Photography and video is not allowed inside the ashram. I must admit that I did take a few pictures from the 9th floor balcony of the building where Joseph and Vicki stayed.
These were taken outside the ashram by the bridge.
Our Time with the Saint
In which Dale gets a hug
There is a huge meeting hall or pavilion where Amma’s programs are held. It’s open on three sides. There is a big stage at one end with two ramps on each side in front. They use these for the arita or honoring of Amma. There are also wings and ramps on either side of the stage with doors for stage entrance.
Amma sits crosslegged on a small platform and the musicians and others in the program sit around her on the floor of the stage. She is on the platform for the duration of the program which begins around 4:00 or 4:30 PM and continues until everyone who wants a hug has received her blessing. Amma has been known to give darshan for over 20 hours without taking a break even to use the restroom.
Western woman: “Is Amma coming down early today like she did yesterday?”
An interesting exchange that took place at the international check-in desk
Ashram worker: “When the bell rings, we all go over there.”
Each afternoon / evening program went in basically this order:
- Amma arrives and leads a meditation.
- Satsang: devotees read testimonies. These are read in the native tongue of the devotee and translated into English and other languages on the big screens on either side of the stage. Sometimes Amma makes comments in her language but these aren’t translated.
- Bhajans: devotional songs led by Amma. These songs are like Kirtan chants, in that Amma sings a line and then the musicians and the crowd respond. In between songs, Amma consults with someone who seems to serve as the “worship leader”, so it appears they choose the songs on the fly.
- Arita: this is an honoring of Amma. People line up in pairs on the ramps in front of the stage, and two at a time they hold an oil lamp and circle it in front of Amma while everyone sings her song and a loud bell clangs repeatedly. Usually everyone approaches the stage during this part.
The Hugs Begin!
The program is over around 8:30 and then everyone goes to eat at the cafes on either side of the pavilion. Before you go eat, if you want to be hugged, you need to get a token so that you have a place in line. Vicki and I were so blessed to be able to receive our hugs on Amma’s 70th birthday!
The Indian people get to line up first and then the Westerners. There is a big wooden sign at the front of the hall with letters and numbers on it that the person in charge of the line keeps changing periodically, but they seem to have no correlation to the numbers and letters on our tokens. Eventually we stopped trying to figure out the system and just went and lined up front with everyone else.
The whole time that Amma is hugging people she is also holding court, and talking to people who are standing around her on the stage. There are a number of people who are sitting on the floor around her, as well as people sitting in chairs against the wall.
We went up a ramp on the left side of the stage, after removing our shoes, passing through a metal detector, and showing our token to a solider with a machine gun! Once on the stage, we sat in rows of chairs and moved over one chair at a time as people got their hugs before us. This was a thrilling process, to just be on the stage with everyone. There was a band of women on a platform on the floor in front of us, singing and playing the harmonium, the tabla, and the violin. I can’t describe the intensity of this experience.
When it was my turn to receive my hug, I was instructed to kneel on the floor and put my hands on either side of Amma on the arms of her chair; you are not allowed to actually touch her. She put her arms around me and held me to her breast and all I could do was laugh! Then when I thought she was done, she pulled me to the other side of her and began repeating one phrase over and over in my ear. Before I stood up, she placed a package of cookies in my hand along with some vibhuti, the sacred ash used on the forehead.
After my hug, I could have stayed on the stage and sat with everyone if I wanted, but I felt complete, and at this point no one was guiding me, so I just walked down the ramp at the side of the stage, collected my shoes, and went down and sat in the front of the room with Vicki and Joseph. By this time it was after midnight, so we sat together in this love energy for a while and then went back to our rooms to lay down and contemplate what just happened.
When I embrace people, it is not just physical contact taking place. The love I feel for all of creation flows towards each person.
Amma
The Trip Back
By Friday it was the end of our time at the ashram, and the beginning of our long journey back to the homestay in Kochi. So that meant another rickshaw adventure from the ashram to the train station, a three hour train ride, and then an hour in a taxi. And what a blessing that it rained the whole way back!
We almost missed our train ride, because we were standing on the wrong spot on the platform. When we realized our mistake, the train had already started moving away. We Westerners were trying to get to the correct spot on the platform, and a local man with an umbrella starting yelling at us, “Get on! Get on!” Joseph was already far ahead and had jumped on, and I was behind Vicki, saying, “Just get on! Just get on!” So we got on the train and THEN tried to find our correct car. We thought we were in the proper car, and we moved a young woman out of her seat so we could sit down in our seats. The ticket man came our way and checked our tickets, and said, “You’re in the wrong car”. We apologized profusely to the young woman who just kept smiling at us, and with the ticket man’s help finally got in the right seat on the right car. I remarked to everyone that “our ride will seem so much shorter now that it’s taken us so long to find our seats!”
We were so happy and grateful to be picked up by our taxi driver at the train station. We celebrated the week at the ashram by stopping in the city at a restaurant for a traditional Indian thali meal served on a banana leaf. This is basically an “all you can eat” experience, as the wait staff continues to come around with little buckets of food and keeps filling up your banana leaf with different Indian delights until you say “please – stop!”. Thank you, Amma!
