Amritanandamayi

Mata Amritanandamayi (2010)

Amma or Mata Amritanandamayi ( Malayalam : മാതാ അമൃതാനന്ദമയി; Sanskrit : माता अमृतानन्‍दमयी, Mātā Amṛtānandamayī; * as Sudhamani Idamannel on September 27, 1953 in Parayakadavu , Kerala ) is an Indian spiritual leader with worldwide following. By their followers will Amma or Ammachi (Malayalam / Tamil called "Mother") and as an Avatar - guru revered.

Life

Amma was born Sudhamani Idamannel into a poor fishing family. Of the 13 children their mother gave birth, five died in childbirth or infancy. Of the eight surviving children, four girls and four boys, Sudhamani was the third oldest. She left school when she was nine and began helping her family household and looking after her younger siblings. She later trained as a seamstress in a Christian mission station for three years.

In September 1975 she is said to have experienced her first Krishna - Bhava (embodiment or merging with the deity). This caused considerable unrest in their environment. Many people wanted to see her and began to worship her. However, her behavior met with incomprehension and rejection from her family and part of her surroundings. In March 1977, she went through a period of fasting and intense religious devotion during which she had visions. During this phase she could hardly support herself, which is why women from the village took care of her. In 1977 Devi -Bhavas were added. However, she gave up the Krishna Bhavas after a few years.

At the end of 1979, the core of an unofficial ashram was formed around Amma. It consisted of a group of four young Indians who had grown up together in the city of Harippad , as well as the American Neal Rosner, who later came to be known as Swami Paramatmananda , and the then 18-year-old Australian Gail Tredwell. On May 6, 1981, an ashram was established under the official name of Mata Amritanandamayi Math .

Hugs

Mata Amritanandamayi (2009)

Mata Amritanandamayi's trademark are darshans in which she hugs anyone who so wishes . In English she is therefore known as the hugging saint , in Dutch as knuffelgoeroe . In the beginning she did this three days a week, today she gives these hugs for many hours almost every day. Numbers are given for the hugs and Amma hugs until everyone with a number has received the hug, which often lasts until late at night, sometimes even until sunrise. Due to the rush, the hugs got shorter and shorter, especially in India, where the rush is very high.

Amma's embrace also means that she gives everyone a sweet as prasadam , usually an Indian candy and vibhuti . She also travels regularly to western countries to hold these encounters, which are often attended by thousands of people. By 2014, she claims to have carried out 33 million hugs. She also answers questions that are translated into Malayalam for her . In contrast to other masters, Amma makes herself easily accessible to everyone.

Teaching

Amma's teaching is based on Sanatana Dharma , the "Eternal, Universal Law", the basis of the Vedas and Hinduism . The core idea of ​​the Sanatana Dharma is panentheistic monotheism - the simultaneous transcendence and immanence of God in creation. Amma teaches the way of Bhakti-Yoga and at the same time emphasizes the non- dualistic approach of Advaita-Vedanta . It stands in the Vaishnava tradition, but without having had a spiritual teacher or belonging to a specific tradition. In addition to bhakti, karma yoga , the path of good deed, is important for Amma.

The really new thing about Amma are the hugs, which are without a role model or forerunner. “Saints do not obey conventional rules of conduct; their behavior is often puzzling. There are saints who are always silent; and there is this woman, Mata Amritanandamayi, called Amma ("mother"), who hugs and caresses all people indiscriminately as if they were small children. Their behavior would appear unusual anywhere in the world - in the Indian caste society with its purity and avoidance rules, its pronounced fear of contact, it seems revolutionary. "

Followers of Amma are not encouraged to leave their ancestral religion. However, the role of a spiritual master, a guru , is emphasized. Amma gives her teachings orally; Students record them and publish them. Amma believes that practice is more important than theory. Study of the scriptures of Hinduism is not given undue emphasis.

Charitable projects

Amma is known for her numerous charitable projects and foundations. The carrier in India is the Mata Amritanandamayi Math, a registered "Public Charitable Trust" (registered charitable association) with headquarters in Amritapuri . Mata Amritanandamayi Math is a non-governmental organization (NGO) and has been granted consultative status by the UN. In Germany, the non-profit association Amrita eV, headquartered in Bad Honnef, supports Mata Amritanandamayi Math, in Switzerland the Amrita Association Switzerland and in Austria Amrita Austria eV

One of the most famous activities is a house-building project that is building free accommodation for families who have been homeless. So far 56,000 houses have been built. An orphanage for almost 500 children was built in Parippally . In addition, over the past 25 years, 56 primary and secondary schools (www.amritavidyalayam.org) have been set up throughout India, in which more than 80,000 children and young people are trained with the aim of making them independent. In 1994 a university was founded and directed by it, which meanwhile has 13 faculties spread all over India and currently training more than 20,000 students. The university's credo is to dedicate all research work to the benefit of humanity and not to material profit. Worldwide cooperation and selfless efforts of all involved have made this university (www.amrita.edu) one of the fastest growing and most successful private universities in India.

A 1450 bed clinic, which has carried out several million treatments free of charge in all medical areas since 1994, treats 54,000 inpatients and 615,000 outpatients annually and is largely financed by the income of the paying patients and is connected to the medical faculty, is one of the best in the country.

The charitable works are financed through donations but also through government aid and commercial profit-making companies such as AmritaLife or Amrita TV.

There is also a project that provides poor widows and disabled people with a small pension, as well as disaster relief (tsunami, earthquake in Gujarat, Hurricane Katrina), nursing homes and a project that offers legal assistance to those in need. In addition, an environmental protection project called "GreenFriends" was founded, which aims to promote environmental awareness in India, reforest forests and seek to protect existing forests. More and more farmers are killing themselves in India because of their hopeless indebtedness. Mata Amritanandamayi Math supports the relatives: 30,000 children receive school fees / clothes / food and 5,000 women receive an education so that they can work in the cotton industry. Loans are also given for opening your own business.

pendant

Amma has been traveling every year since 1987, visiting Europe , twice a year the USA and Canada as well as Australia , Malaysia , Japan , Réunion , Mauritius , Chile and Brazil . In 1988 she visited Germany for the first time. In 2007 she celebrated her 20th annual visit to Munich, during which she hugged around 15,000 visitors. The free events are organized by numerous volunteer helpers.

Amma's following is very heterogeneous, but the majority are Indian. According to Maya Warrier, the Indian middle class is particularly well represented. There are also followers of Amma in countries with parts of the population of Indian origin such as Malaysia , Singapore , Mauritius and Réunion . Amma has many followers in Europe, North America and Japan who usually do not see themselves as Hindus, but are more or less deeply rooted in the religious traditions of these countries.

Amma's followers are organized in local Satsang groups, which usually meet between once a month and once a week. There are also a few dozen brahmacharis and sannyasis who live in communities organized by Amma and include both men and women. The rule of the order was adopted by the Ramakrishna monks, who also took on the first monastic ordination.

criticism

In 2013 Gail Tredwell, who had lived in the immediate vicinity of Amma under the name Gayatri for 20 years, from the founding of the ashram to 1999, published a book entitled Holy Hell: A Memoir of Faith, Devotion, and Pure Madness , in which she takes a critical look at the Ashram. In her autobiography, Gail Tredwell understands her life as a follower of Amma and servant in the ashram as “holy hell”. She describes Amma's authoritarian, at times aggressive leadership style and claims to have been beaten and sexually abused several times by the Ashram's highest Swami . Amma herself accuses her of having had love affairs with several Swamis, even though everyone involved pretended to be celibate. Tredwell also claims that Amma preferred major donors who gave her $ 100,000 and that their money was deposited in bank accounts instead of charitable causes. Furthermore, according to Tredwell, Amma and her family are said to have enriched themselves with money and gold jewelry.

The dissemination of these allegations by the press led to violent reactions from the Ashram administration, who took legal action in 2014 against a television station in Kerala that had broadcast an interview with Tredwell. The legal reactions were also directed against other media outlets in Kerala that reported on the book. A Swiss esoteric magazine also had to withdraw an article after a threat of legal action. Amma denied all allegations.

The journalist Sreeni Pattathanam had previously criticized Amma in a similar way in a book published in Malayalam in 1985. Pattathanam, the general secretary of the Association of Indian Rationalists in Kerala, also reports in it about strange deaths in the ashram and doubts the miracles allegedly performed by Amma. The book was censored on charges of "blasphemy". In 2004 he was charged with publishing the book following a complaint from a member of the Ashram.

Awards

• 2002: Gandhi-King Award for Nonviolence
• 2006: James Parks Morton Interfaith Award (it is given to personalities who strive for interreligious understanding)
• 2007: Cinéma Vérité Award for her efforts to achieve peace and harmony in the world

Filmography

• 1997: Amma's Ashram , documentary, Germany
• 2005: Darshan, the Divine Embrace , documentary, France
• 2016 Science of Compassion by Shekhar Kapur, documentary, India

literature

• Maya Warrier: Hindu Selves In A Modern World: Guru Faith In The Mata Amritanandamayi Mission . Routledge, 2005, ISBN 0-415-33988-X (scientific monograph)
• Judith Cornell: Amma - embrace life . Theseus, 2002, ISBN 3-89620-190-5 (popular life story)
• Selva J. Raj: Passage to America: Ammachi on American Soil . In: Thomas A. Forsthoefl and Cynthia Ann Humes (Eds.): Gurus in America . State University of New York Press 2005, ISBN 0-7914-6574-8
• Amritatma Chaitanya (Editor): Mata Amritanandamayi. Mother of Immortal Bliss. Life and teaching of a young Indian sage of our time . Mata Amritanandamayi Mission Trust 1989
• MA Math (Editor): My first Darshan. A Collection of Stories From Around the World (collection of personal experiences with Amma)

Web links

Commons : Mata Amritanandamayi  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Amritanandamayi in the catalog of the German National Library
• Amma's web presence
• Joerg van Hooven, münchen.tv editor-in-chief, in conversation with Amma, Mata Amritanandamayi
• Information about Amma from relinfo

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Serious allegations against the hugger Amma. Tagesanzeiger Zurich, February 3, 2014
2. ↑ Amma.de - Information about Amma - Amma's teachings - Which religion does Amma represent?
3. ↑ Introduction to Dharma ( Memento of the original dated December 7, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Dharmacentral: Understanding Sanatana Dharma 
4. ↑ YOGA NEWS ( Memento of November 14, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Heike Neder: Amma - lovingly embracing life.
5. ↑ Amma on advaita-vedanta and bhakti are not different
6. ↑ From seeing to hugging. Neue Zürcher Zeitung, December 9, 2005
7. ↑ Serious allegations against the hugger Amma. Tagesanzeiger, Zurich, February 3, 2014
8. ^ Book on Amma: Petition against media organizations, others. The Hindu, March 5, 2014
9. ↑ CPM-backed Kairali TV airs interview of author who alleged sex abuse at Amritanandamayi ashram. The Indian Express, March 8, 2014
10. ↑ Amritanandamayi mutt row: Gail Tredwell, five news organizations booked. India Today, March 12, 2014
11. ↑ The Amma Controversy. traces
12. ↑ Mata Amritanandamayi says the institution was an 'open book', dismisses allegations. News 18, February 22, 2014
13. ^ Jean-Baptiste Malet: The big hug. Le Monde diplomatique, 10 November 2016
14. ↑ Move to prosecute rationalist leader criticized. The Hindu, January 29, 2004