Today is Guru Poornima. On this day, I would like to post a brief summary about her. Amma was born in Kerala in 1953 as a daughter of a fisherman.In India she has been known to individually hug over 50,000 people in one day, sitting sometimes for over 20 hours. I admire her teachings and unconditional love for the people and I respect her a lot. I call her 'my Guru' though I am not perfect in discipline. When invited to speak at the United Nations, she is recognized as a "preeminent religious leader". The news media have dubbed her "the Mother of Compassion" because of the extensive humanitarian charities she has launched. The press have also nicknamed her "the Hugging Saint", because of the loving embraces she has given tirelessly to thousands everyday for the last 35 years. It is estimated that Amma has already hugged over 25 million people! Around the world she is identified as "a living Saint". Wherever she goes the crowds that flock to her only seem to grow as people experience something unique in her presence. To observe what Amma does, it becomes obvious that she exhibits nothing of what we would call "a personal life". Sleeping less than two hours per day, she is the untiring servant of all people, dedicated to removing human suffering.
Amma lives at the Amritapuri ashram in India along with two thousand residents who come from all over the world. The ashram serves as a spiritual center. These centers provide an ideal environment to meditate, perform selfless-service supporting Amma's innumerable humanitarian activities and gives the inner peace.
HUMANITARIAN ACTIVITIES
The humanitarian activities goes a long list. In brief, it includes feeding the poor, housing, orphanage, monthly pension, old age homes, speech and hearing improvement school, free legal aid (1008 lawyers) to the poor and disadvantaged in India, disaster relief, charitable hospital, hospice, medical outreach programs and Green friends program for the preservation and protection of the environment. Apart from these are the schools, institutes and university that teaches most up-to-date technologies as well as classes on yoga and meditation.
I would like to mention some of the services in detail:
- Feeding the poor: feeding over 2 million poor people through various centers each year.
- Housing for the poor: As of January 2007, successfully completed 30,000 homes and has further expanded the new goal to 125,000 homes for the poor.
- Charitable hospital: Not-for-profit 1,300-bed hospital provides free care to the poor. From 1998 to 2006, 751,098 patients received free treatment.
- December 26th 2004 Asia tsunami relief: Amma pledged 23 million USD for tsunami relief efforts. By the end of 2006 the estimated amount spent on tsunami relief work by the M.A.Math has doubled from $23 million to $46 million.
- It was the first NGO in India to complete tsunami homes (handed over its first batch of 18 houses on 13th April, 2005).
- As of February 2007, has completed the construction of 4500 tsunami homes in Tamilnadu and Kerala and 100 homes in Sri Lanka.
- Additionally, has served > 7.5 million meals throughout Tamil Nadu and Kerala; clothing for 90,000 people; cash for 16,000 families; 700 fishing boats, motors, fishing nets; provisions for 10,000 families; job camps for 2,000 adolescents and vacation camps for 10,000 children.
- October 8th 2005 Kashmir earthquake relief: has adopted and rebuilding 3 worst hit villages in the area.
- August 23rd 2005 US hurricane Katrina relief: donated $1 million to Bush-Clinton Katrina fund.
- July 26th 2005 Mumbai flood: medical care for 50,000 survivors and $1 million worth of medicines were distributed.
- January 26th 2001 Gujarat earthquake: within one year, three entire villages had been completely rebuilt, including 1,200 earthquake-proof homes. Plus, medical aid, food, and clothing.
INTERNATIONAL FORUM
Amma has been regularly invited by the international organizations to address the issues of religious differences, environmental issues and for establishing peace.
- Parliament of Religions, Chicago, 1993 (Swami Vivekananda spoke in 1893)
- UN 50, New York,1995
- UN World Peace Summit, New York, 2000
- UN World Peace summit, Geneva 2002 (received the Gandhi & Luther King Award for Non-violence)
- Parliament of the World's Religions, Barcelona, 2004
- Interfaith Center of New York, 2006 (received the James Parks Morton Interfaith Award)
I would like to quote the following from her speech,
"Contentment and happiness depend solely on the mind, not on external objects or circumstances. Happiness really depends on self-control. Both heaven and hell are created by the mind. Even the highest heaven turns into hell if the mind is agitated; whereas, even the lowest hell will become a blissful abode for a man endowed with a peaceful and relaxed mind..."
Peace is not just the absence of war and conflict; it goes well beyond that. Peace must be fostered within the individual, within the family and within society. Simply transferring the world's nuclear weapons to a museum will not in itself bring about world peace. The nuclear weapons of the mind must first be eliminated..."
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