My First Stay In An Ashram

It was really quite interesting to stay in an ashram and see how things operate. We stayed at Matha Amrithanandamayi Mission. The mission is headed up by one of India’s few female gurus, Amrithanandamayi, who is better known as Amma (Mother) – aka “The Hugging Mother.” She is known as such because her the darshan (blessing) that she practices is to hug people.

I found out about this from an Italian traveler with whom I shared the taxi ride from the Mumbai airport to my hotel. Then while perusing the ever-handy, much loved & hated LP guide for India (which is a brick, by the way), we saw that her ashram could be incorporated into a tour of the backwaters of Kerala state – something that has been recommended to us as something to do while in India. Hoping to see Amma and get a hug from her we decided to interrupt our backwaters tour and spend the night at her ashram.

Our lodging was in a high-rise building twelve-stories tall. It was quite strange to be spending the night at an ashram in such a modern piece of architecture (but the views of the river and the ocean and the miles of palm tree jungles were spectacular! We even got to watch a fireworks show taking place miles away!) The ashram is quite large and well developed. We were told that when Amma is in residence that as many as 3000 people are housed on the ashram. (Unfortunately for me Amma was not in residence but was touring northern India. Consequently, the ashram was very quiet.) There are also about 150 Renunciates – Westerners that have renounced the world to become a permanent part of the ashram.

Although Amma and her organization has provided much in the way of humanitarian works and funding, it was a bit disconcerting and, frankly, downright eerie to see how devoted her followers are to Amma. It’s seems as if many worshipped her in place of an intangible, ethereal god/goddess – something that is really bothersome to me. It’s not as if she demands such devotion (although I do not know this for certain); it’s just that her devotees are so enamored of her that they turn so much of themselves over to her.

Anyhow, while here I realized that I actually had heard of her from some brief viewing of a television program on her and that there is an American ashram in San Ramon. Strange…

I would still like very much to meet her and receive a hug. I’ll take any kind of positive blessings available in this world that I can.