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Mata Amritanandamayi

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Image:Amma1.jpg Mātā Amritanandamayī Devi (Devanagiri: माता अमृतानन्‍दमयी, Malayalam: മാതാ അമൃതാനന്ദമയി), also known by her followers as 'Amma', 'Ammachi' or 'Mother' (born September 27, 1953), was born Sudhamani in the small village of Parayakadavu (now partially known as Amritapuri), near Kollam, Kerala. She is widely respected as a humanitarian and revered by some as a Mahatma (Great soul) and a living Saint.<ref name="latimes.com:weekphotos">Los Angeles Times: The Week In Photos, (2006). www.latimes.com. Retrieved on October 15, 2006.</ref>

Sudhamani was born to a fishing family (see Arayan). Her schooling ended when she was nine, and she began to take care of her younger siblings and the family domestic work full-time. From these humble beginnings she began her journey on the path to "universal motherhood", which took her to the United Nations General Assembly, where she addressed the world.<ref>BBC-News Article About Mata Amritanandamayi</ref>

Contents

[edit] Rise to fame

Her devotees claim that she had many mystical experiences as a child. Since 1981, she has been teaching spiritual aspirants all over the world. She founded a worldwide organization, the Mata Amritanandamayi Mission Trust, which is engaged in many spiritual and charitable activities.

[edit] International events

[edit] Recognition

In 1993, she was one of the representatives of Hinduism at the Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago.

Amritanandamayi was the keynote speaker at The Global Peace Initiative of Women Religious and Spiritual Leaders, at the UN in Geneva, Switzerland held in October 2002. This was an initiative of the UN' Millennium World Peace Summit, in which Amritanandamayi spoke in August 2000.

In 2002 Amritanandamayi was presented with the Gandhi-King Award for Non-Violence by The World Movement for Nonviolence at the UN General Assembly Hall (Palais Des Nations) in Geneva in recognition of her lifelong work in furthering the principles of non-violence. The three previous recipients of the award were Kofi Annan, Nelson Mandela, and primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall.

[edit] Senior disciples

The first set of monastic disciples of Amritanandamayi came to her in the late 1970s. Today, they as well as other disciples and devotees look after the ashram's multifaceted activities. The first disciple to be initiated as a sanyasi was Swami Amritaswarupananda <ref>Ammachi - A Biography of Mata Amritanandamayi by Swami Amritaswarupananda, ISBN 1-879410-60-5</ref>. Other senior disciples are Swami Turiyamritananda, Swami Ramakrishnananda, Swami Purnamritananda and Swami Amritatmananda. The Ashram is now known as Amritapuri.

[edit] Darshan

Amritanandamayi is known to the world media as 'the hugging saint'. She offers warm hugs to everyone who approaches her and in India she has been known to individually hug over 50,000 people in a day, sitting sometimes for over 20 hours. Worldwide, Amritanandamayi is said to have hugged at least 30 million people in the past 30 years.<ref>BBC-News Article About Mata Amritranandamayi</ref>

"Darshan – The Embrace", a film on the life of Amritanandamayi was officially selected for showcasing at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. Jan Kounen, an award winning filmmaker who was born in Netherlands and is based in France, directed the film. Manuel De La Roche of France, is the producer. Jan Kounen and his crew began shooting the footage for the film in 2003 during Amritavarsham50 [1], Amritanandamayi's 50th birthday celebrations in Kochi. The team also traveled with Amritanandamayi on her Indian and International tours in order to complete the movie. About the film, Kounen says, "when I first took up the project and started filming, I thought, 'Amma is a good person, doing good things, in turn I can do something good for her'. But as it went on, I realized, no, I am the one who is receiving the gift" <ref>I am Receiving the Gift, Interview with Kannadi on September 10th 2004, Cochin, Kerala, Available Online</ref>.

[edit] Bhajans

Amritanandamayi is also well known for her singing of Bhajans, or Indian devotional chants. Amritanandamayi joins the daily chanting when she is present at ashram. She has sung in over 30 different languages. Since her early childhood she has composed hundreds of bhajans. The senior swamis are accomplished musicians in both vocal and instrumental areas of music.

[edit] Humanitarian activities

Mata Amritanandamayi Math executes various charitable and humanitarian projects.<ref>Social Service,</ref>. Examples include a program to build 100,000 homes for the poor; hospitals; orphanages; hospices; women's shelters; pension disbursements for widows; community aid centers; homes for the aged; eye clinics; and speech therapy centers.<ref>Social Service,</ref> Many of Amma's centers in the US run 'Mother's Kitchen', or 'vegetarian soup-kitchens', where volunteers prepare and serve meals to the poor and needy.

The Mata Amritanandamayi Math runs 33 schools, 12 temples, one super-speciality hospital in Kochi, feeds thousands during mass kitchen, provides pension every year to over 15,000 widows, builds 25,000 houses annually for the homeless and has 35 Amma welfare centres all over the world to spread her spiritual message <ref>Hindustan Times, "Healing wounds with a hug" by Surendra Singh, October 9th 2003, Available Online</ref>.

Recently, Mata Amritanandamayi Math announced a billion rupees (23 million dollars) in aid to the victims of the 2004 tsunami<ref>Tsunami relief</ref>. The Math's relief work is happening in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, Andaman & Nicobar islands and in Sri Lanka[2].

In September 2005, Mata Amritanandamayi donated $1,000,000 to the Bush-Clinton Hurricane Katrina fund.<ref>Hurricane relief</ref>. She also sent a top aide to the devastated areas soon after the storm struck in the United States to assess the kind of help needed by victims.

In October 2005, thousands of blankets were sent and distributed to the survivors of the Kashmir and Pakistan earthquake <ref>M. A. Math Responds to Kashmir Earthquake Available Online</ref>.

[edit] Miracles

Many of Amritanandamayi's followers believe in her powers to perform miracles. For instance, she mentioned in an interview [3] given to The Week (Kottayam, Kerala, September 21, 2003) that she is often asked by her devotees to perform miracles. She goes on to say that water was miraculously changed to panchamrutham (a sweet often prepared for Hindu religious ceremonies) in her presence and that her devotees were able to light lamps out of conches filled with water. Such claims cause many people to be skeptical of her powers while fueling more devotion in others[4].

[edit] Criticism

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Mata Amritanandamayi, her followers and their activities have not been above criticism. Many writers and activists of Leftist ideology have expressed doubts about her divinity.[citation needed] A book by rationalist writer Sreeni Pattathanam (see references) was published in 1985 which talks of suspicious deaths reported from the precincts of her ashram which he says need investigation.

In April 2006, an outbreak of measles associated with people who attended Amma's tour in Australia was reported by the West Australian Department of Health.<ref>Communicable Diseases Network Australia. Measles outbreak in Australia: Fact sheet. www.health.gov.au/internet/wcms/publishing.nsf/content/cda-cdna-measles-fs.htm. Retrieved 9 Nov. 2006</ref> An official of the Mata Amritanandamayi Math stated that there was "absolutely no health problem with any of the (48) tour members", but that it was possible that the virus could have spread via other people attending the tour.<ref>The Hindu International: Measles outbreak link to religious tour denied. Saturday, May 06, 2006. Online edition at www.hindu.com/2006/05/06/stories/2006050604312000.htm; retrieved 9 Nov. 2006.</ref>

[edit] Controversies

These are described in detail by Sreeni Pattathanam. He has written a book, Matha Amritanandamayi: Divya Kathakalum Yatharthyavum (Matha Amritanandamayi: Sacred Stories and Realities), first published in 1985, that later became controversial and brought the threat of legal action from one resident of the ashram against the author.[citation needed]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. BBC-News article about Amritanandamayi
  2. Hurricane relief
  3. Tsunami relief
  4. Social Service
  5. Amma: Healing the Heart of the World by Judith Cornell, (William Morrow & Company, ISBN 0-688-17079-X)
  6. Messages from Amma: In the Language of the Heart by Janine Canan (Ten Speed Press, ISBN 1-58761-214-3)
  7. Department of Health issues measles warning: CDNA
  8. Getting to Joy: A Western Householder's Spiritual Journey with Amma (Mata Amritanandamayi) by Karuna Poole (Shantini Center, ISBN 0-9643629-2-9)

[edit] Notes

<references/>

[edit] External links

gl:Mata Amritanandamayi nl:Mata Amritananda Mayi sa:माता अमृतानन्‍दमयी fi:Äiti Amma

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