Travel Day 935 – Amritapuri Ashram, Kerala, INDIA
After a good night of rest while skipping the entire morning program, the world looked different again and I decided to give this Ashram a real chance…
Amma, the Hugging-Mother in Amritapuri
For me personally giving the ashram a chance meant staying for a little while longer, getting involved in the community and seeing what was actually happening around the Hugging-Amma. This decision came on the big Darshan day and as Amma had just recently returned from her North India tour, the ashram was packed with people who wanted to get a hug from her, locals and foreigners alike…
So I started off my busy day in a long line to get a Darshan token with a number, which was basically the permission to receive my hug on stage from the Amma. My number suggested that it would probably be my turn at around 8 or 9pm, but as I also found out, there was additionally a list with names of people who could sit on stage for 30 minutes with the Hugging-Amma and my name was listed for 2.30pm today…
Not quite knowing what to make out the Darshan, the hugging event and the sage seating, I ended up spending the rest of my morning in the information center and the volunteering office. Every person staying for more than one day was strongly encouraged to help the ashram community by doing a Seva, a volunteering duty, and since I had decided to get involved, I was told to report to the compost department at 10am tomorrow morning. But luckily I also managed to sign up for meditation, yoga and even Tabla classes…
By the time the afternoon came, it was my turn to first sit on stage by Amma for 30 minutes to watch her give Darshan to local people and later in the evening it was my turn to receive my very own hug from her. But it wasn’t until I waited for hours and hours in various lines, that I was actually finally pushed and shoved in front of Amma by about 10pm at night, only to be pulled away and pushed off the stage just seconds later…
The whole Darshan event was a bit of a mystery for me. The Hugging-Amma was sitting on stage from 11am to about 2am and during this time she was hugging one person after the other. She must have hugged thousands and thousands of people during the day, but most remarkably she never took a break. Well, at least I never saw her drink, eat or use the toilet, all she did was hugging people, one after the other for some 15 hours straight, It was almost a bit spooky…
By the time I got my hug at night, she must have felt tired, hungry and completely bored. So while I was being pushed in front of her in the never-ending string of people, I couldn’t help but feel bad for her. My hug then felt obviously completely mechanical and staged and when I was pulled away seconds later by the many helpers, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed. I had come all the way for this? This seemed like a complete circus to me. But could all these people be wrong? I was quite unsure, but as I had decided earlier, even if the Darshan wasn’t this enlightening experience that it was supposed to be, I still wanted to stick it out for a while before I would pass my final judgment…
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