Who is Amma, the Hugging Saint?
Mata Amritanadamayi, known as Amma the Hugging Saint, is a woman of Indian birth who has amassed a huge worldwide spiritual following. Though her practice and religion is Hindu, she is a strong advocate for peace between religions, and her principal means of communicating this is through hugging people who visit her, which she feels expresses a divine motherly connection between herself and others. Her ministry, begun in 1981, emphasizes charity to the poor and ill, addressing disease, and promoting an end to suffering through the mother’s love of a hug. It is her hope that her hugs, sometimes as many as 20,000 a day without break, give to people a sense of the divine nature in their hearts. Amma is not only known to people of India, but is known by much of the world. She’s embarked on several foreign hugging tours, and has been instrumental in raising money to assist victims of disasters like Hurricane Katrina, for which she donated over a million US dollars (USD). She’s addressed the
