The Hindu ``hugging saint,'' Mata Amritanandamayi, began four days of meetings with the public at her Castro Valley ashram Tuesday, administering hugs to hundreds of white-garbed devotees from the Bay Area and as far away as Sacramento and Hawaii.
Amritanandamayi sat quietly on the floor of the ashram's worship hall, smiling and embracing one after another of the young, the middle-aged, the children and the elderly who queued up for her signature blessing. Organizers of the event said more than 1,000 people came to the morning session to meet ``Amma'' (Mother), as she is popularly known. They expected thousands more in the evening event.
``I feel very good, very calm and peaceful,'' said Matthew Nadler, 36, from Mill Valley, as he walked away from his first experience in the arms of the guru. ``This is a room full of love and acceptance. I'm a jaded New Yorker, but this is like a John Lennon concert.''
Speaking through an interpreter in a brief interview, Amritanandamayi delivered a message of peace and non-violence, and said she welcomed skeptics as well as devotees. Raising people out of poverty is our duty, the widely acclaimed humanitarian said. ``We all have the responsibility to help eliminate poverty,'' she said. ``Even the working class should put in a half-hour of overtime each day and donate the extra money to the poor.''
Asked about a controversial legal case in which a resident of her main ashram in Kollam, India, had filed a defamation lawsuit seeking criminal prosecution of a longtime critic of the sect, the guru said she had tried to dissuade the plaintiff. But she added that the critic had gone too far, making false claims that there had been seven suspicious deaths at the Kollam ashram -- which houses more than 2,000 people -- outraging residents and bereaved families.
``This has been very painful,'' Amritanandamayi said. The case has not gone to trial. While she did not say whether she planned to intervene, she said the critic, author Sreeni Pattathanam, ``won't go to jail'' if he's convicted. (Pattathanam says the threat of criminal prosecution violates his right to free speech.)
The guru's message of unconditional love has won her followers in the United States since she made her first visit in 1987. April Gezunterman, a devotee for 17 years, came all the way from Hawaii.
``Mother is just pure love and light,'' said Gezunterman, 50. ``She's the real thing.''
Cynthia Nightingale, 43, from San Anselmo, received a hug from the guru with her toddler, Miles. ``Life can be tense. Yesterday, Miles threw the phone in the pool and then he threw up in my car,'' she said. ``But feeling Amma's love helps me manage. My life sparkles by her love for all of us.''