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In Manhattan, religious communities abound, as evidenced by the multitude of churches and synagogues which line the city’s streets. These obvious beacons of religion may lead tourists to believe that New York is a city made up of Christians and Jews, but many other religious communities exist just under the radar. One such community meets every Tuesday night in an airshaft apartment located on the Upper West Side. With its hardwood floors and stark white walls, this Central Park West apartment does not feel like a traditional setting for organized religion. Yet on Tuesday from 7-9 pm, a group of people meet to repeat the same ritual every week. Upon entering this Central Park West apartment, devotees and guests see a waist high wooden bureau set with a large framed photograph of a smiling Indian woman dressed all in white. Selva Raj, in his essay on Ammachi, introduces the subject of this picture: “Mata Amritanandamayi (Mother of Immortal Bliss)—affectionately called Amma or Ammachi (Mother)—is a forty-nine-year old woman of modest socioeconomic background from rural Kerala in south India” (Raj 204). Hung with flower garlands, this photograph is the focus of the spiritual gathering. Before the picture is set a pair of leather sandals with roses on them, a small gold oil lamp, a glass bowl of Hershey’s kisses, an incense burner, and a gold platter covered with rose petals. This simple altar is devoted to Ammachi, whose name means “mother.” Ammachi is popularly known as the “hugging saint,” but participants in this Tuesday night gathering refer to her as the ery embodiment of love. Archana, Bhajans and Meditation are the three main parts of Ammachi’s Central Park West Satsang. Archana, or the chanting of Amma’s divine names, opens the satsang at 7 pm. Bhajans, or the singing of devotional songs, immediately follows and fills the majority of the rest of the two hours. The satsang ends with silent meditation and the performance of arati, or the offering of light to Amma. The devotees always receive prashad in the form of a Hershey’s Kiss wrapped in a rose petal and everyone heads out the door by 9 pm. This ritual repeats itself every Tuesday night without varying anything more than which devotional songs are sung. The term “ritual” is appropriate in this instance because of the nature of satsang. Catherine Bell characterizes ritual as follows: “Traditionally, ritual has been distinguished from other modes of action by virtue of its supposed non-utilitarian and non-rational qualities” (Bell RPD 46). This satsang is not unique. In New York City, there are many more Ammachi satsangs in different times and locations, as well as other guru-worshipping groups. Sathya Sai Baba has a large following in New York and his satsangs are structured similarly to Ammachi’s. In the following passage Lawrence A. Babb could be describing one of Ammachi’s satsangs. He writes about devotees of Sathya Sai Baba living in Delhi, but his description could apply equally to Ammachi devotees in New York: Attendees tend to be well dressed and obviously affluent, and I suspect that in some circles these events carry a certain social cachet. The main event is the singing of devotional songs, most of which are overtly addressed to Sathya Sai Baba himself. A book containing suitable bhajans is owned by many devotees. The singing is followed by a period of silent meditation, and then arati is performed in the usual fashion before the altar. Devotees receive prashad as they leave (Babb 170). The repetition of archana, bhajans and meditation every Tuesday night for two hours seems like a large sacrifice to make particularly in a city that never stops moving. Yet, on any given Tuesday there are around 30 devotees at Ammachi’s Central Park West satsang. In trying to make sense of this ritual, I turn again to Catherine Bell, who has made a career of analyzing ritual theory. She says, “The problems we face in analyzing ritual, as well as the impetus for engaging these particular problems, have less to do with interpreting the raw data and more to do with the manner in which we theoretically constitute ritual as the object of a cultural method of interpretation”(Bell RTRP 17). Thus understanding what the satsang ritual consists of is much easier than explaining how that ritual fits into an understanding of religious culture. Many theorists have written on ritual, some commending it and some condemning it. Bell explains:
Whether it is defined in terms of features of enthusiasm (fostering groupism) or formalism (fostering the repetition of the traditional), ritual is consistently depicted as a mechanistically discrete and paradigmatic means of socio-cultural integration, appropriation, or transformation. Given the variety of theoretical objectives and methods, such consistency is surprising and interesting (Bell RTRP 16).
Thus all theorists see ritual as culturally significant, which comes as no surprise, particularly in the case of the Ammachi satsang where so many people are willing to give up so much time in the middle of the week. The satsang is not convenient nor does it produce any sort of tangible product. For example, the followers do not have dinner together, nor do they discuss theology. Ritual does not produce any tangible product. Ammachi’s devotees walk away with neither a full stomach nor a fuller understanding of her theology. It is easy to sit through a Tuesday night satsang and come away knowing nothing about Ammachi’s religious message. Without either of these products stemming from satsang, the “ritual is then described as particularly thoughtless action—routinized, habitual, obsessive, or mimetic—and therefore the purely formal, secondary, and mere physical expression of logically prior ideas” (Bell RTRP 19). Yet this description of the nature of ritual bettter describes its appearance to an outsider or a newcomer than it indicates the meaning of one of Ammachi’s satsangs to those who participate on a regular basis. The routine and mimetic are not necessarily the meaningless. The purpose of ritual is not necessariliy to teach. In Ammachi’s satsang, songs are not sung in English, thus even the singing—not to mention the chanting—fails to communicate a new religious message to the devotee. Rather, the devotee must already have a sense of her religious beliefs before participating in satsang. Bell explains Durkheim’s understanding of ritual, saying:
Durkheim’s important discussion of cult at the end of The Elementary Forms reintroduces ritual as the means by which collective beliefs and ideals are simultaneously generated, experienced, and affirmed as real by the community. Hence, ritual is the means by which individual perception and behavior are socially appropriated or conditioned (Bell RTRP 20).
Durkheim further elucidates how ritual is only meaningful to the community who practices it. Ammachi’s followers are not “generating” beliefs in satsang, but rather “affirming” them collectively. Satsang is not a method of teaching, but a language of devotion. Even though ritual is not an overtly educational forum, meaning it does not provide the participant with debate or a lecture on theology, there is still knowledge to be gained by observing ritual itself. Bell explains: Since ritual enacts, performs, or objectifies religious beliefs (action gives expression to thought) and in so doing actually fuses the conceptual and the dispositional aspects of religious symbols (ritual integrates thought and action), Geertz must be concluding that ritual offers a special vantage point for the theorist to observe these processes (Bell RTRP 27). Ritual does not provide the answers, but rather provides a path for the student to follow. Ritual is as necessary as the religious text in understanding the role of Ammachi in the lives of her devotees. “It is quite common for scholars to see ritual as resolving the conflict between thought and action, particularly in the guise of belief systems in conflict with the real world” (Bell RTRP 36). That is, ritual demonstrates the practice of religious thought and carves out a space for this religious group in a society that otherwise would never recognize their existence. Without the performance of ritual, religious doctrine would have no concrete existence. Not all scholars believe that ritual is performative, but Bell summarizes how “Tambiah distinguishes three ways in which ritual is performative”: (1) it involves doing things, even if the doing is saying in the Austinian sense; (2) it is staged and uses multiple media to afford participants an intense experience; and (3) it involves indexical values in the sense laid out by Pierce. The indexical features of ritual are seen in its graded scale of ostentatiousness, the choice of site, the degree of redundancy or elaboration, and so on, all of which present and validate the social hierarchy indirectly depicted by them (Bell RTRP 42). These three things all describe the Ammachi Central Park West satsang. First, there are definite actions that all participate in, such as touching their head to the floor upon first being in the presence of Ammachi’s picture or the offering of light, arati, to Ammachi whereby there is a choreographed movement by two of the devotees. Second, there are multiple media used at satsang, beginning with a video and then with the picture of Ammachi, the burning incense and the flaming oil lamps, not to mention the varying of artificial light in the room from bright for bhajans to pitch dark for meditation. Third, and finally, the indexical values are things like the devotees’ placement on the floor under the large picture of Ammachi elevated above them, the central seating of the musicians and the archana leader, and finally the fact that the hostess of the satsang sits above the living room and off to the side watching the proceedings from her motorized wheel chair. The hostess of the satsang is a European woman who has taken on a religious Indian name. She is not unique among the attendees of Tuesday night satsang. For the followers of a middle aged Indian woman who speaks little to no English, the attendees of satsang are not who you would expect. Rather than immigrants in the Diaspora who are looking to hold onto a piece of their home, these devotees are almost entirely European American with very few devotees of South Asian decent. Selva Raj explains what is true of almost all Ammachi’s devotees, “As for gender distribution, although Amma attracts a good number of male devotees, the vast majority are women who exercise prominent leadership roles and functions” (Raj 209). Karen Pechilis explains that this predominately female following of Ammachi is not unique to her, but that: In the United States, by far the largest group of followers of current female gurus are affluent, educated Euro-American women. A number of factors pertain to this group’s dominant presence including their value and validation of a woman leader; the fact that women traditionally participate in religion in higher numbers than men; and the chance to participate meaningfully in a welcoming spiritual path, based on the female gurus’ tendency to avoid calling their paths ‘Hinduism’ in favor of a path of spirituality open to all (Pechilis 35). In the case of Ammachi her followers don’t give gender specific reasons for why they are drawn to her, rather men and women alike told me that they were drawn by her motherly love. They consider themselves her children. The hostess of the satsang, Sujata, a heavy set white woman, sits on her motorized wheel chair in the entryway to her Central Park West apartment. When approached she looks slightly uncomfortable or discontent, with a wide frown on her face, and she greets me with, “I have not seen you before.” I introduce myself as a Columbia student who hopes to sit in on her weekly satsang, or spiritual gathering, devoted to the international female guru Ammachi. She beckons me to come in and tells me that “all of Amma’s children are welcome.” I must have looked at her quizzically because she immediately asks: “Have you met mother?” With this question, posed to me on numerous occasions by every individual I have approached after satsang, I was introduced to one of the essential beliefs held by followers of Amma. The group’s website describes it a follows: “So, who is Ammachi? There are as many answers to that question as there are people asking. Indeed, she is almost impossible to describe—she needs to be experienced.”[1] The experience that both the website and the satsang participants refer to centers around the non-verbal communication that Ammachi shares with her “children.” During her international tours, Ammachi spends hours hugging each individual who comes to see her. Raj explains, “Evidently, darshan is the most intimate, direct, and personal mode of interaction between Ammachi and her devotees. Given that Ammachi does not deliver many formal spiritual discourses in the United States, as she has limited fluency in the English language, it also functions as her principal spiritual discourse to her American devotees” (Raj 213). This hugging, which rarely gets to be experienced by her followers, is the center of her devotees focus when speaking of Ammachi. Never once at satsang was the term guru brought up, but according to all the literature surrounding Ammachi she is a female guru. In a biography lent to me by the hostess of the satsang, Judith Cornell writes that in 1953, Amma was born to a devout “low caste” Hindu family (Cornell 11). According to this biography Amma and her family were fixated on the Lord Krishna. Before Amma was born her mother, Damayanti, is said to have dreamt that she was giving birth to Lord Krishna and that by the time Amma was two years old she prayed and sang to Krishna (Cornell 25). A turning point in Amma’s development was in 1977, when she had a psychic vision that she merged with the “Divine Mother” and “saw the limitless divinity of the feminine aspect of God reflected in everything—the countless stars in the night sky, the radiant sun, the earth and all its life-forms” (Cornell 57). Cornell states that many Indians now accept Amma as a genuine mystic. Pechilis explains further: “The contemporary female guru Ammachi was self-enlightened; she initiates devotees en masse demonstratively and individually, by physically hugging each one and whispering a mantra in his or her ear, and her teachings are primarily verbally rendered at gatherings, although there are some books for her teachings available” (Pechilis 5). This self-initiation is rare in the history of guru worship. Generally gurus have a lineage and initiate a successor, but in Ammachi’s case her followers do not believe in her based on another’s reputation, but purely on her own merit. Even among female gurus she is unique in this aspect: “Many of the female gurus…participate in the classical guru tradition by taking instruction and initiation from a male guru. Other female gurus challenge the traditional male guru lineage mode by taking initiation from a woman” (Pechilis 5). Ammachi has done neither of these things. Recently there has been much talk of her “Summer Tour” where she will visit New York City and hug all her followers. At the beginning of each satsang, while waiting for everyone to come in and find a seat on the hard wood floor, the group watches footage from Amma’s past tours. In these videos Amma is shown hugging people dressed all in white. With each hug she focuses on the individual right in front of her and often kisses their forehead or in some cases stuffs flowers in their ears. Always with a large smile, she seems to take great pleasure from giving out all these hugs. As mentioned in Cornell’s book, the video shows her handing out some sort of sweet to each person she hugs. With children she is often shown playing games with them whereby they try to snatch the sweet from her, but she holds it just out of their reach. The satsang attendees generally react emotionally to the video, either chuckling when children are taunted or tearing up when followers are shown sobbing while Amma hugs them. Writing about the Sikh tradition of Radhasoami, Mark Juergensmeyer explains what the term guru means. He says: The word guru literally means “heavy,” and suggests someone burgeoning with knowledge, a spiritual heavyweight. It is less a title than a term of respect that is thrust upon one person by others. The term arises out of a relationship, and the designation for the half of the bond—chela (disciple)—is often used together with it to describe a linkage of learning and devotion (Juergensmeyer 67). There are many popular gurus in America with larger followings than Ammachi, but who share many of the same characteristics with her group. Sathya Sai Baba is one such guru. Lawrence A. Babb says, “One of the most remarkable features of Sathya Sai Baba’s cult is that he has managed to preserve the imagery and atmosphere of a purely personal constituency, despite the fact that many of his devotees see him rarely, and then often only from a distance” (Babb 167). Yet this is exactly what the Ammachi group does also. The way in which Ammachi’s followers manage to maintain a feeling of intimacy with her at satsang stems from the material objects they use to represent her. There are a variety of Ammachi souvenirs that adorn the apartment. Aside from her pictures, which are set around the living room, there are small dolls made from Ammachi’s old saris, a pair of leather sandals said to represent her sandals, and paintings of either Ammachi herself or representing her teachings. Selva Raj explains the power of these items: These physical objects not only are believed to contain Amma’s spiritual power and energy but also function as effective mechanisms for staying connected to Ammachi. Most popular among these items are the Amma dolls that are believed to be charged with extra spiritual power, since they are reportedly made from the saris and petticoats worn by Ammachi. To her devotees, the dolls are emblems of her spiritual power and presence (Raj 215). Ammachi’s followers also have a pair of her sandals on their altar, which they worship. During arati two women circle rose petals over a flame and then set them on these leather sandals. It is these rose petals that are then used to wrap each Hershey’s Kiss handed out to the devotees. In this way participants are symbolically eating food that has touched Ammachi’s feet, thus honoring her. In a Sikh context, but applicable to Ammachi, Juergensmeyer explains: The most common representation of a departed master is his sandals, often placed prominently on the throne where he once sat…. The logic of this foot-worship—common throughout the Hindu and Buddhist world—is straightforward: the lowest level of an exalted figure, such as a deity, is the point at which the less exalted can make contact (Juergensmeyer 68). Yet Juergensmeyer’s explanation for foot worship does not fully explain Ammachi’s followers’ interaction with her because she does not only let people touch her feet, rather she is much more physical than that. Two women, who both chose to remain anonymous, spoke to me of the life changing experience of meeting “mother.” One woman describes the reception of a hug from Amma as “what this is all about. She is Love and when she hugs you- - you just feel- - sublime.” Upon telling satsang participants that I am a student at Columbia University, I was urged that I must meet Amma. Interestingly enough, this sort of evangelizing defines every conversation I have shared with participants after satsang. Yet it’s not easy to meet Amma. She is rarely in the United States and even her satsang is not led by any sort of official Swami. Raj explains, “Currently Ammachi’s congregations in the United States are administered by lay volunteers and enthusiasts…. Monthly satsangs (prayer/meditation sessions), bhajans, and rituals are conducted by uninitiated and un-ordained lay local leaders in the living rooms of lay devotees” (Raj 210). The most gregarious of the satsang participants has proved to be John Suggs, who presents himself as an authority on Amma’s teachings and the rituals performed during satsang, but is not a trained Swami. John has proudly told me on numerous occasions that he was in India at Amma’s center when the tsunami hit. What he didn’t mention to me (but I discovered on my own) is that the New York Amma website has published his diary of his experience. Expressing himself in flowery language and tracing out a number of psychic visions, John positions himself as a full believer in the power of spirituality. Calling himself a Buddhist near the end of his article, John reflects on his belief in Amma: I used to think I might have made a mistake asking a Hindu holy woman if she would be guru to me, a Buddhist practitioner, when it was unlikely that I would ever have any conversation with her longer than the smile she directed at me, standing in a crowd, the first time I saw her. No longer. Never underestimate the power of an enlightened being! I feel her hand reaching in to touch my heart in the intimate way I have grown accustomed to. Then I feel like a baby nestled in her arms. Then I become a child dressed in white with an overflowing heart sitting with her on a hillside of light, the music of flutes and tambourines in the air.[2] This reflection brings to light the question of where Amma and her followers are situated within the spectrum of organized religion. Participants in the satsang I attend do not generally consider themselves Hindu. When asked, most respond that they don’t subscribe to a specific religion. Raj explains, “Another notable feature of Amma’s American devotees is their dual religious identity. While professing personal affection, faith, and loyalty to Ammachi’s spiritual message, many maintain formal ties and affiliation with their traditional religions” (Raj 209). Some participate in yoga or the soup kitchen run by Ammachi’s followers, known as “Mother’s Kitchen,” but most of the participants that I spoke with say that they use satsang as their only spiritual outlet. The central focus of satsang is the singing of devotional songs. The Ammachi satsang participants frequently sing a song about Jagadamba; it is short and repetitive, essentially just chanting the name over and over. King explains the significance of this devotional song: The Devi is also invoked as World-Mother (Jagadamba) who helps and protects her devotees by freeing them from all anguish…. The mother image is perhaps more primal and basic than the notion of the metaphysical One who is the Goddess; grounded in universal human experience, Goddess worship is often an expression of the attempt to return to a primary bond of origin (King 30). Ammachi’s followers see her as the embodiment of the great goddess. In fact she is said to take on the façade of the Goddess in certain darshans. Their repetition of Jagadamba over and over to the beat of a drum and the melody of an accordion piano sounds much like a hypnotist’s chant. The whole room sways back and forth to the beat of a drum just repeating Ammachi’s name over and over. Freud’s analysis of repetitive behavior is outlined by Catherine Bell as follows: It became clear to Freud, therefore, that taboos are inseparable from ritual practices since ritual is the acting out of the obsessional neurotics mechanism of repression…. [T]he Freudian interpretation of ritual [is that] it is an obsessive mechanism that attempts to appease repressed and tabooed desires by trying to solve the internal psychic conflicts that these desires cause (Bell RPD 14). Freud’s assessment of ritual as a response to taboo is widely known among academics and though it probably cannot be judged as the last word on ritual, it still carries some weight. It seems likely that the people who participate enthusiastically and self-consciously in the carefully scripted, almost invariant rituals we see at Ammachi’s West Side satsang would be offended by Freud’s notorious reductionism. They might also be sensitive about the ways in which outsiders could react to controversial aspects of Amma herself. Though none of her followers communicated this reticence to me directly, they might well expect to encounter in outsiders an element of hesitation in reaction to the fact that Amma is a female guru, and not only that, but an intensely physical one. Hindus themselves may find this hard to accept. As Selva Raj explains [P]hysicality, in direct contrast or defiance of Hindu ritual norms and prescriptions, is the hallmark of Ammachi darshans…. [H]er darshan defies not only traditional Hindu norms concerning purity, pollution, and bodily contact between the devotee and the embodied divine but also societal norms and rules governing gender relations (Raj 214). Ammachi’s message should not get lost in this discussion of ritual, gender and controversy. Ultimately, Ammachi, through her hugs, her literature, and even her name embodies a message of universal love. The devotees that attend Tuesday night satsang echo Amma’s language of love saying that they try to act as selflessly as possible because, “Amma says that the path of devotion and selfless-service is the safest and most conducive path for many people.”[3] Selva Raj ends his essay on Amma with an emphasis on the importance of her message of love. In the course of making his point, he says: When seen in the total context of Ammachi’s spiritual career and teaching, however, her various innovative measures and defiant steps seem to reemphasize and reiterate the simple message of love she has been preaching for over three decades (Raj 216).
Works Cited Babb, Lawrence A. Redemptive Encounters: Three Modern Styles in the Hindu Tradition. University of California Press: Berkeley, 1986. Bell, Catherine. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. Oxford University Press: New York, 1992. Bell, Catherine. Ritual Perspectives and Dimensions. Oxford University Press: New York, 1997. Cornell, Judith. Amma: Healing the Heart of the World. HarperCollins: New York, 2001. Juergensmeyer, Mark. Radhasoami Reality: The logic of a modern faith. Princeton University Press: Princeton, 1991. King, Ursula. “The Great Indian Goddess: A Source of empowerment for women?” ed. Puttick, Elizabeth and Clarke, Peter B. Women As Teachers and Disciples in Traditional And New Religions. The Edwin Mellen Press: New York, 1993. Pechilis, Karen. The Graceful Guru: Hindu Female Gurus in India and the United States. Oxford University Press: New York, 2004. Raj, Selva J. “Ammachi, the Mother of Compassion.” ed. Pechilis, Karen. The Graceful Guru: Hindu Female Gurus in India and the United States. Oxford University Press: New York, 2004. Suggs, John.
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