I’ve found a lot of people at Harvard are unfamiliar with Amma, so here is a brief introduction. Born in Kerala, India to a fishing family, Amma has been giving darshan over the past 30 years to people in the form of hugs. It is estimated she has hugged over 30 million people worldwide. Many devotees regard her as the Mother Goddess Herself, incarnated on Earth to help ease our suffering. She has performed miracles, and often, people with bad habits (e.g. smokers, alcoholics) are so inspired after meeting her that they drop their bad habits.

Regardless of whether one believes in her divinity, Amma’s immense love and commitment to serving humanity are a true inspiration: she has initiated a tremendous array of charitable activities, from disaster relief to healthcare, education, social welfare, and nature care. She provided relief work and contributed 23 million dollars for the 2004 Asian Tsunami, contributed 1 million dollars and relief work for Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and disaster relief for the Gujarat earthquake, the Mumbai floods, Kashmir-Pakistan earthquake and Bihar floods. Amma has numerous charitable hospitals, AIDS carehomes, and state-of-the-art medical facilities such as her super-specialty hospital, AIMS, where free or reduced-fee care is provided to the poor. She has established over 60 educational institutions across India, provides employment and pensions to destitute women, and has established several orphanages.

What is unique about Amma’s charitable activities is the value-added nature of the seva (selfless service). An analogy is given, of transferring oil from container to container. The final container will receive significantly less oil than was initially poured, because oil sticks to the sides of all the intermediate containers while transferring. In various institutions, when someone contributes 1 dollar, the amount that eventually reaches the intended recipient may be significantly less because of various infrastructural and volunteer costs. But with Amma’s sevites, the seva becomes value-added — each person volunteers their time and services, thereby adding value to what was initially 1 dollar, enabling a much larger value to reach the final recipient.

Amma’s life is quite literally an offering to humanity — every moment of her life is spent hugging and consoling others, managing various charitable institutions, and instructing spiritual seekers. On occasion, she has sat for over 20 hours straight, hugging devotees. Out of her compassion, she usually ends up getting very little sleep and eating very little.

Though she was born in a Hindu family, Ammachi has devotees of all faiths — Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Jews. Her pure unconditional love and selfless nature inspire even those who don’t believe in any specific God. When asked why she receives and lovingly embraces everyone who comes to her, she replies “If you ask the river, ‘why do you flow?’ what can it say?”

Amma was visiting the U.S. over the past two months, and visited Boston from July 15-19. On the 15th, our own Diana Eck was present to say a few words, and receive darshan. During the public programs, Amma led bhajans, gave satsang, led a brief meditation and prayer for world peace, and then gave darshan. Additionally, during the retreat, Amma served food to her devotees, and answered their questions in a question-and-answer session. During this week, devotees had the chance to perform various types of selfless service, or seva. At the end of the week was the Devi Bhava program, where Amma went into the bhava of Devi herself, dressing in the attire of Devi, and giving darshan from 8pm till 9am the next morning!

This past week was truly enjoyable for me, performing seva and spending time in the presence of a realized spiritual master, my mother, Ammachi.

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