Gurus in America

6. PASSAGE TO AMERICA: Ammachi on American Soil

SIX P A S S A G E T O A M E R I C A Ammachi on Amer ican Soil S E LVA J. R A J FOR NEARLY THREE DECADES, a tiny dark-skinned Indian holy woman has comforted, blessed, and—many believe—healed millions of devotees of all ages, races, religions, and walks of life, simply by her gentle, loving spiritual embraces. Mata Amritanandamayi, the Mother of Immortal Bliss—affectionately called Amma or Ammachi (Mother)—has emerged as one of the most prominent female spiritual leaders in the world, commanding a large following of devotees both in her native country and beyond. Likened to Mother Teresa by some and revered as a great mystic by many, this woman from rural south India is regarded by her devotees as the embodiment of the Divine Mother. In recognition of her contributions to the global religious community, Ammachi was invited to address the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1993 at which she was named “President of Hinduism.”1 In October 2002 she was awarded the Gandhi-King Award for Non-Violence at the United Nations General Assembly Hall in Geneva, Switzerland, in recognition of her lifelong work in furthering the principles of nonviolence.2 In this essay, I examine the career, charisma, and authority of Ammachi, noting in particular how in her hands tradition is at once defied, redefined, and transcended. Based on field research at two of her congregations in the United States (San Ramon, California, and Chicago, Illinois), I reflect on the careful, selective application of traditional strategies and creative innovations introduced by Ammachi and her American devotees to help facilitate the acculturation of Ammachi’s movement in the United States. 1 2 3 D E V O T I O N A L A C C O U N T S O F T H E C A R E E R A N D C H A R I S M A O F A M M A C H I Ammachi’s meteoric rise to spiritual fame since the early 1990s has spawned several accounts of her spiritual career, new contributions to the genre of hagiographical literature that commonly mushrooms when a spiritual leader gains fame and recognition.3 In hagiographic texts, historical facts are lavishly embellished to render the story and text appealing to devotees and to provide a theological frame for followers to understand their object of devotion. To date, no objective historical account of Ammachi’s life is available to the critical reader. Among the various devotional biographies, the oldest account was penned by one of Ammachi’s senior disciples, Swami Amritaswarupananda, and in many respects it remains the most useful, for it is still recognized by Ammachi organizations as her authoritative biography. In one sense, Amritaswarupananda ’s biography functions as the ur hagiography by one of Ammachi’s most esteemed followers. In a second sense, his work serves as an informed and reliable barometer to gauge the Ammachi Movement’s understanding of itself and their guru, the Divine Mother.Accordingly, I provide the reader here with a deeper insight into how Ammachi is understood by drawing and commenting on this important disciple’s account of her career and charisma. In 1978, a young man named Balu, who had been born in a wealthy family of Kerala, India, committed his life to following Ammachi’s spiritual teachings and became one of her first disciples. Now known as Swami Amritaswarupananda Puri, he drew on his long discipleship with the Divine Mother to trace the religious career of Ammachi from a humble and impoverished childhood of abuse and ill treatment by her family to the greatest heights of God-realization and spirituality. Swami Amritaswarupananda Puri continues to offer many books and speeches, giving voice to the true meaning of Ammachi, the Divine Mother. Sudhamani—as Ammachi was known before her apotheosis—was born on September 27, 1953, as the fourth child to Sugunanandan and Damayanti in a poor, low-caste family in the rural fishing village of Parayakadavu in Kerala, south India. Amritaswarupananda described in detail the miraculous events surrounding Ammachi’s birth.“During her fourth pregnancy,” he writes, “Damayanti [Ammachi’s mother] began having strange visions. Sometimes she had wonderful dreams of Lord Krishna; at others she beheld the divine play of Lord Siva and Devi, the Divine Mother. One night Damayanti dreamt that a mysterious figure came to entrust her with an idol of Shri Krishna which was cast...