A super-specialty hospital with 1,100 beds in Kochi, Kerala. Another, located 2,500 km away in Faridabad, Haryana, with 2,600 beds, in a massive 3.6 million square feet structure. Free medical care, heart and brain surgeries for more than 4 million people who wouldn’t afford it. And for others, for what they can afford to pay.
A government project or corporate charity? No.
A pension scheme for widows and destitutes now benefitting 1,00,000 families and counting. A state welfare scheme? No. A free meal scheme for 10 million annually. A public welfare scheme? No. Over 47,000 houses built and given to the homeless, and racing towards a target of 1,00,000 houses. A housing scheme of any government, state, or Union? No.
Over 80 schools, colleges, and institutions of excellence with 4,100 teachers and 86,000 students, with a scholarship scheme benefitting 50,000 students across India. A big corporate CSR project? No.
An aggregate of $75 million for disaster relief for 2001 Gujarat Earth Quake, 2004 Tsunami, Katrina Hurricane, 2005 Gujarat Flood, 2005 Maharashtra Flood, 2008 Bihar Flood, 2009 Cyclone Ala, 2010 Haiti Earth Quake, 2011 Tohoku Earth Quake, Tsunami, 2013 North India floods, 2013 Typhoon Haiyan, 2014 Pakistan India floods, 2015 Nepal Earth Quake 2015 South Indian floods 2016 the Puttingal Temple fire 2017 Hurricane Maria 2017
Cyclone Ockhi 2018 Kerala floods, 2019 Kerala floods. Any multilateral agency relief programme? No.
A Rs 100 crore donation to the Swachh Bharat Mission of the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. Any billionaire’s philanthropy? No.
This massive work is only the headline of the humanitarian services of Mata Amritanandamayi Math, whose body and soul is “Amma”, as Mata Amritanandamayi is reverently called by millions.
The postal address of the international headquarters of the Math is not in any posh building in any metropolis. It is in Vallikkavu, a small hamlet in Kerala. An island of just 80 acres surrounded by the sea and backwaters. How come a village is the international headquarters of massive humanitarian services worldwide, spanning the Americas, Africa, Europe, Asia, and Australia?
That is the birthplace of Sudhamani, a simple, smiling girl from the fishing community in that small patch of land disconnected from modernity, who emerged, through decades of penance and boundless love for humanity, as the Hugging Saint and as a global spiritual light. It is she who powers this monumental movement of spirituality and service.
Vallikkavu was where the little-known Sudhamani was born and now lives as the famous Amma. She never shifted out to any more accessible, comfortable, or famous place. Living where she was born, where she crawled, played, and also suffered ill-treatment because the ignorant around her could not understand the mystic in her, her life has been an open book from birth until now.
The size of her massive humanitarian services pales into insignificance compared to the magnitude of the alienated, suffering, and depressed humanity needing love that she has hugged and reconnected to their spiritual roots. Artificial Intelligence estimates she has hugged and comforted over 40 million people. Her divinity has transformed the lives of millions of people of all races, countries, and religions. Her love, rooted in ancient Bharat’s Sanatana Dharma, transcends all divides and harmonises all humans she touches.
Thanks to Swargiya P Parameshswaranji, one of the tallest intellectuals of Kerala and the President of Vivekananda Kendra, I had my first darshan of Amma almost three decades ago. After that, I had her unfailing grace and guidance. She immensely supported my effort to bring all Hindu spiritual and service organisations together to showcase their services and promote the environment, respect for parents, elders, and women through samskaras inherent in the Hindu way of life.
As my interactions with Amma became increasingly intense, I realised, to my shock, that she was a spiritual master and more. I had heard that her understanding of structural engineering would awe the architects and engineers building her massive hospitals and centres of excellence, and her intricate knowledge of science would floor the researchers in her nanoscience laboratories.
However, personally, I was stunned when she explained to me one night, till late hours, the entire gamut of the finances of the organisation, its income and expenditure, depreciation, cash surplus, current and future plans, and its budget with numbers at her fingertips! The vastness of knowledge is neither acquired nor acquirable. It is beyond human. It is cosmic.
Amma is a divine mystic. A phenomenon beyond comprehension. A question came to mind. Does she sleep at all? If she does, when? I asked a Sanyasi disciple close to her. He told me, “I don’t know. One day, I got up at midnight. I saw her moving around the Ashram. Another day, I got up at 2 am. I saw her walking around. Another day at 4 am. She was around.” She is the sentinel of the Ashram and the society – always awake within and outside.
Sri Krishna said in the Bhagwat Gita:
या निशा सर्वभूतानां तस्यां जागर्ति संयमी |
यस्यां जाग्रति भूतानि सा निशा पश्यतो मुने:
It means: That which is, night to all beings, in it the sage is awake; where all beings are awake, that is the night for the sage who sees. That is what Amma is.
S Gurumurthy
Editor, Thuglak Tamil Magazine. Chairman, Vivekananda International Foundation Strategic Think Tank.