Tripti Nath

New Delhi

Mata Amritanandamayi Devi made headlines on Wednesday when Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated her hospital in Faridabad. While Amma’s 2,600 bed Hospital has attracted much attention, her life journey has been also very inspiring.

The 68-year-old Hindu spiritual Guru originally named Sudhamani Idamannel, is revered as a hugging saint by her followers. In the words of her biographer Swami Amritaswarupananda Puri, Amma as she is popularly known, “ has counselled, wiped the tears and removed the burdens of thousands of people from all walks of life.’’

“At the age of 21, she outwardly manifested her state of God-Realisation at 22, she began to initiate seekers of Truth into spiritual life. By the age of 27, the Holy Mother has established the spiritual headquarters of her international mission in the house of her birth. Five years later, there were nearly 20 branch Ashrams throughout India and abroad. At the age of 33, she made her first world tour in response to the invitation of her devotees in America and Europe,’’ the biography titled ‘ Amma mata amritanadamayi devi’ reads.

Not many would know that behind Amma’s calm and composed demeanor has been a life full of suffering and struggle. Amma was always diligent, disciplined and generous to a fault. She braved abuses, curses and severe beatings from her mother but called Damayanti Amma her Guru.

She grew up in Parayakadavu, a remote coastal village in Kerala’s Kollam district and had a difficult childhood.  The village is now even known as Amritapuri. Even as a child, Sudhamani spent many hours in deep meditation.

Over a period of time, her family began noticing unusual signs as her ability to stand up and walk straight across the verandah and speak her mother tongue Malayalam, when she was all of six months.

She was a precocious child who began saying prayers by the age of two without any instruction from anyone. When she was enrolled at the age of five in a school in a nearby village, she exhibited extraordinary intelligence and memory.

Born to Damayanti and Sugunandan, Amma was named Sudahamani which means Ambrosial Jewel. Her father who hailed from Parayakadavu village in Alappad Panchayat, was engaged in marketing fish and her mother came from a devout family of Bhandaraturuttu village.

Of the 13 children born to Damyananti and Sugunandan, eight children survived. Amma’s mother was a pious lady. Born on September 27, 1953 in a humble hut of woven palm leaves to the sound of the ocean waves, Sudahamani’s dark complexion and the fact that she lay in padmasana, holding her fingers in chinmudra, was a cause of concern for her parents who were advised not to bathe her for six months. Her biography says, “ Six months passed and still the baby girl retained the dark blue hue reminiscent of Lord Krishna and Divine Mother Kali.”

It may come as a surprise to readers that Mata Amritanadamayi Devi, who commands a huge following around the world, was looked upon with great disdain by her family members, because of her blue-black complexion. “Their aversion for the dark child eventually led them to treat her as the thankless servant of the family and relatives, '' according to her biographer.

Sudhamani was saddled with domestic responsibilities at a tender age as her mother’s health was deteriorating. By the time she reached the fifth grade, she was forced to abandon schooling as she could not cope with the twin burden of domestic chores and studies.

Her work began pre drawn and if she overslept from exhaustion, her mother would pour cold water over her. Her first chore was to beat coconut husks with a pestle and then move to tidying the house, fetching water, washing dishes, cooking meals and getting her younger siblings ready for school. The next round involved bathing cows, feeding them fodder and then washing cooking vessels after serving lunch, washing clothes and collecting grass for the cows. Thus, the household chores went on till evening.

“Sudhamani’s only friend was Krishna. When everyone was asleep, she would sit in the family shrine room pouring her heart out to Lord Krishna in devotional songs,’’ Swami Amritaswarupananda Puri says in the biography.

She would bear beatings from her mother for stealing dairy products to feed starving families. She would even take raw foodstuffs from her own family’s meagre storeroom and give them to the family in need.

When she was entrusted the task of working in the house of her maternal uncle, Anandan in the town of Karungappally, ten km from her village, she found many poor Muslim families in the neighbourhood. She would carefully pocket various articles from her uncle’s house and secretly pass them on to the needy families.

The unputdownable biography also narrates how Sudhamani managed to decline three marriage proposals. Sudghamani chose solitude and often got lost in devotion for hours on end. It also describes how she began to show Krishna bhava where she would instruct people to light a camphor and place it on her protruding tongue. There was not a trace of burn on her tongue.

As news of this practice spread, people from Kerala and other parts of India began flocking to Parayakadavu. This marked the beginning of a pilgrimage to this holy place which has continued with ever increasing number of seekers to this day.’’

By 1978, people from all parts of India began flocking to Parayakadavu for her auspicious Darshan

The 269-page book gives a peep into her spiritual life, her extraordinary experiences, how her relations abandoned her and her inspiring resilience. Truly inspiring!