Mātā Amritānandamayī Devī (born Sudhamani Idamannel; 27 September 1953), better known simply as Amma (“Mother”), is an Indian Hindu spiritual leader, guru and humanitarian, who is revered as a hugging saint by her followers.
Amṛtānandamayī's form of giving darshana is hugging people.
In the book The Timeless Path, Swami Ramakrishnananda Puri, one of Amṛtānandamayī's senior disciples, wrote: “The [spiritual] path inculcated by Amma is the same as the one presented in the Vedas and recapitulated in subsequent traditional scriptures such as the Bhagavad Gita.”
Amṛtānandamayī herself says, “karma [action], jñana [knowledge] and bhakti [devotion] are all essential. If the two wings of a bird are devotion and action, knowledge is its tail. Only with the help of all three can the bird soar into the heights.”
