Satsang Report: Mata Amritanandamayi in Albuquerque, New Mexico, June 2005

We are happy to report that we seem to have retained our relativematurity (approximately 23 years old) after a direct encounter with that lactescent heaven-on-Earth, the bosom of Amma.

We arrive at the hotel conference room after an hour’s drive and find a seat next to a woman dressed in orange. We notice this mainly because a majority of people are dressed in white or light cream colors, including the people serving as ushers, referred to as “helpers” here. They all have an added dash of color in the form of a red or green scarf. We surmise this to be some kind of Ammabot color-coding. We ask one of the helpers for a token, and he asks if we’ve already received darshan today. We haven’t, and so we end up in group 301–400.

Back at our seat, we begin to notice some things. First off, the female to male ratio is at least 3 to 1. Wheels start to turn, but because we’ve got a job to do, [Ed.note: And being the total losers we are.] those wheels quickly come to a grinding halt. But it’s a pleasant way to pass the time — watching the pretty shaktis flitter about as they socialize. We also notice that the vibe is equally pleasant. It’s quite mellow for the most part, with a just a touch of a shrill crust around the edges where the helpers are hovering and the commerce is occurring. At a rave we’d call it a ‘good’ crowd.

People begin to gather at the forward entrance of the room where Amma will appear. As they cluster they begin to chant, slowly and softly. A few minutes of this brings an entrained befuddlement to the mind. The psych ops have begun.

This goes on for an effective 10–15 minutes, and some of the Ammabots are swaying in unison by the time another party of chanters is heard in the entryway, some of them blowing conches. The waiting devotees kick their chant up to match.

With people standing on chairs in front of us, it’s hard to see what’s going on. But when priests start chanting the arati mantras and people start to laugh, we know Amma has entered the room and is already working the crowd. She and her retinue proceed to the dais as video cameras record the procession, where they all settle in for the evening’s program along with the crowd.

A 20-something American male who lives at an Amma ashram in India begins to speak. Right away he tells us that Amma is the complete embodiment of all love, peace and beauty in the world. All the Ammabots nod their heads.

Self-effacing and self-important at the same time, the speaker is getting folks to laugh at his ignorant ways, before he met Amma. Now it’s all peace, love and beauty, of course. He then proceeds to associate the Atman with beauty. As Shankara rolls in his grave, the devotees lap it up like kittens at a dish of milk, unaware of the occluding nonsense that has begun to infect their minds.

When Amma begins to speak, it’s in her native tongue. She goes on for about 10 minutes. We watch as people who don’t understand a single thing she is saying listen in rapture. When she stops, an Indian swami picks up with a “translation.” This goes for 3 rounds, Amma occasionally interrupting her swami with a clarification.

It starts out very psychological. The number one cause of our problems? Stress and tension. 80% of all disease is caused by tension. Tension is what makes you miserable. The solution? Unburden yourself in Amma.

This is brilliant psych ops and the primary reason people get something from an Amma hug. They believe they’ll get something, so they get something. It’s just like Benny Hinn. This isn’t to say there isn’t something good that comes out of a cathartic release of pain and sorrow. But it’s not by way of Amma’s magic shakti, it’s by way of the expectations of the devotee, conveniently set up by the swami just a moment ago. The “magic” is all in the suggestion.

What follows is essentially Hinduism Lite. Meditation will reduce your tension, but you need to make an effort to be successful. In other words, keep coming to usfor instruction. He throws in an all-is-God’s-will and explains that grace completes effort, and that humility brings grace. Humility to the guru, of course.

Amma speaks a second time. The swami continues with a light critique of the modern world. Science is incomplete. We need spirituality in the world. Mental illness is caused by the lack of spirituality, neuro-psychology be damned.

He throws in a few digs at the world being the source of distraction from spirituality, and then the hard guru sell commences. It’s no different than any other hard guru sell we’ve heard. You can’t do it without the grace of a guru. The perfect master is necessary. The sat guru is like a booster rocket, etc.

The swami then insists that a true master makes us childlike, and that we mustbecome children to come to spiritual understanding. Her children… We brace for the blast of astral breast milk we expect to pummel us any moment, but it doesn’t come! Kali has cut her off. We have saved North America from the loss of all adult maturity! Cool.

Amma speaks again. The swami rolls with a variation of the mind-body-spirit thing. This time it’s head, heart and hand. He continues by speaking about heart-to-heart communication. Thus begins the hippie portion of tonight’s talk. It’s all about love! People complain about their lives. What’s the problem? Not enough love. Got emotional problems? You can cure it with love! And guess what? Amma is love!

And then he says it. We didn’t get to write it down verbatim because we were utterly flabbergasted to hear it out loud. Amma’s love is just like milk! They’re completely out in the open with the conspiracy! The Ammabots just beam back at them, entirely oblivious to the machinations of their leaders!

A harmonium fires up, signaling the end of the talk. As we pull ourselves together after this jaw-dropping display of mind control prowess, we realize that Amma has omitted a huge portion of basic Indian religious hyperbole, that of the necessity of renunciation and asceticism on the spiritual path. This makes excellent marketing sense. We’re sure it comes a few lessons in if you decide to pursue your path at their center. But it’s way too off putting to tell first timers that they have to stop having sex if they aren’t married, and if they are, that they should only fuck for procreative purposes.

The strains of the harmonium are joined by the tabla and other common kirtan instruments. The bhajan has begun. It’s standard call and response kirtan singing with Amma in the lead. Not the prettiest, yet not the lousiest voice to listen to. We imagine it’s nectar to the ears of the Ammabots, but then she could croak like a toad and they’d still think it was the music of celestial spheres.

9 songs are performed, all with cheesy Western synth lines added in addition to their traditional arrangements. This embellishment is more pollution than improvement to our ears, but it does make it sound a lot more like a Bollywood movie soundtrack. It almost seems hip, but the effect is ruined by the bad pop rock ballad-quality of the synth arrangement.

As the Ammabots sing, sway and dance, we’re tired, hungry and somewhat impatient. We watch as the hippie contingent begin to dance on the sidelines. We see two young lesbians holding hands with no apparent fear of judgment. A definite three-star moment for this satsang.

Some people dance with their palms raised and facing Amma. We imagine we see some looks of confusion. The milk infusion isn’t coming. Where’s the love, Amma? We smile inside at our little imaginary victory over the supercell of occluding ideology known as an Ammachi satsang.

Three video cameras capture all the blistering action on stage, which is lit by 19 halogen lamps overhead. We wonder if there’s any significance to the number. Given Amma’s penchant for superstition, we conclude there probably is. Plus, she looks that much more divine under that intense purplish-white light in her reflective all-white garb.

We quickly sneak a photograph of it all, although by the looks we’re getting we suspect it’s a no-no.

A quickening of the music brings an amplification of the hippies’ devotional displays. This results in a thumping of the floor and the disapproving stares of those seated near where hippies dance. One dreadlocked man is doing the Krishna: hands raised, palms limp, body slowly spinning, head hanging back just a little bit behind the waist.

But the whole thing is starting to look a lot more Vegas than Vrindaban to us. The Bollywood factor has intensified over the last 3 songs, and now Amma is singing a bhajan in Spanish in a nod to the local Hispanic population. Too bad there are only about 5 of them at the satsang. Most of those folk are down with the Pope around here, and he would definitely not approve of this.

By this time we are almost bored, which is a very rare thing in our lives. We decide to meditate a bit. Suddenly, the 19 mystical halogen lights go out. Another aratito Amma is performed, complete with more cheesy Western synth music, upping the Vegas-factor yet another two notches. But it appears the music is finally over. We look around and put the attrition rate at about 20%, but we’ve stuck it out. Having performed our tapas by enduring the bhajan, we are now certainly deserving of the hug soon to come.

Next up is the meditation program, taught by the swami who “translated” the talk. This is normally the most enjoyable part of a satsang for us, but Amma’s offering is a bit on the lean side. People sit in silence for less than 5 minutes after three Oms and a few words about breath focus.

The swami begins to chant for a bit before he starts praying to Amma, sitting on the stage to his right, as if she were God. And then, finally, we hear the first reference to that other God — the one who created Amma — since we’ve been here.

That pretty much sums up our problem with this satsang. Not enough talk about God, the Self and meditation, but a lot of talk about Amma and her “children.” That pretty much makes her the mommy and drives the whole enterprise. It’s the Mahashakti packaged as a sweet little Indian lady. It’s no wonder people believe that she’s magic, she’s the mother of all creation!

The mystic halogen reignites, signaling the commencement of the hugging. Special needs folks and VIPs go first. We observe the pleasant socializing that has erupted around us. Amma’s “children” might have child-like expectations about enlightenment, but taken as a group, they seem like very decent people. Everyone seemed at ease, with the exception of a few of the helpers.

As some people socialize and others get hugged, commercials for food, chair massages, gifts and books are announced over the PA. We decide to wander around a bit and check it out, but we find ourselves most interested in the Amma dolls and accessories for sale. We’ve seen people carrying these dolls at Kali pujas, taking the concept of being a child of Amma into the realm of the ridiculous. We just happen to have our camera, so we take some pictures. A slightly tense woman wearing an honest-to-God orange roadworker’s safety vest walks up and gently reminds us that only ashram appointees are allowed to take photographs. We thank her and walk back to our seat.

After a few more commercials, a video begins playing on the two large screens that now flank the stage. It’s basically an Amma informercial, complete with network news clips to lend it some more authority. The effect is decidedly Big Motherish as the video drones around the hive of activity that is Amma giving darshan. After an indeterminate amount of time, the video ends and another begins. This one is about Amma’s tsumani relief effort. It begins with quite a bit of tsunami porn shot as it was happening at her ashram in Kerala. Miraculously, nobody was injured. Naturally. The video takes pains to mention that Amma’s org committed 22 million dollars to the effort, which is very impressively beneficent if true.

We’re more than a bit tired and quite hungry as we wait for our number to come up, but the pleasant scenery has a somewhat soothing effect. The room seems to be getting warmer as the wait drags on, and the video is endless. Finally, it’s our turn. We immediately get in line, which is a row of chairs leading toward the stage. Every 30–45 seconds we move another seat closer to Amma.

About 10 people away from Amma, the line moves to the floor, where we are asked to wipe our face with a tissue. People kneel or sit and scoot closer as the hugs are dispensed. We are identified as a “single” as we’re not with the person next to us. As we move closer still, the jostling starts, courtesy of the helpers. It’s as if there’s a bit of confusion at the point where people are thrust into Amma’s bosom.

We watch as a red-haired woman directly in front of us gets her hug. As Amma holds her in a semi-headlock, she jabbers away at the four or five Indian people standing around her. Their talk looks casual, and appears to have little or nothingto do with the hugging going on. When the woman is released, she is visibly moved. Amma continues talking to her friends.

Suddenly, we’re thrust into the ground zero of the worldwide Ammachi devotional community. Amma gets us in the same headlock, and still keeps talking to her posse. We’re held there for about 20 seconds. She then shifts our head to the other side of her bosom, and holds us for ten seconds more, all the time still talking. Then she leans toward our right ear and chants a simple mantra, “Ma, ma, ma, ma, ma…” And then we’re literally yanked away by a helper and ejected.

While in mid-hug, we did a self-survey and noted nothing additional in the way of love, shakti or consciousness. It was just being held by the arm of an Indian woman to her bosom while she babbled away about who-knows-what, although we’re rather sure it wasn’t about us. What we did notice very distinctly was that she was wearing a lot of strong-smelling perfume. It was very sweet, we imagine just like Amma’s love. So even though we didn’t really get to feel Amma’s love, we sure did get to smell it.

On the way home, we notice that we continue to smell of Amma’s perfume. Suddenly, we recall another dark goddess encounter with a beautiful and generous shakti who just happened to be working at the Crazy Horse Theatre in San Francisco. As we rode the bus home, we were overwhelmed by the sweet smell of her perfume and the lovely memories it was being associated with in that moment. Now Amma had brought us to the same recollection. The perfect bookend for the evening.

Amma is a rendering of the right-hand Kali, the always beneficent Mother of All, which is another name for spiritual bypassing if you asked us. Our Kali is left-handed — all the way. They’re both the same Kali, identical even, but Amma only sells the white sari rendition. Underneath that sari is a leather and latex-clad ultra-vixen, quite ready and capable of chopping off a head or two… or 100,000. If Amma really is Kali, she’s certainly not the whole Kali. But maybe that’s a good thing. We’re pretty sure rubber is not Amma’s fabric, anyway.