Mata Amritanandamayi talks to civil-rights legend John Lewis during their meeting in Washington on Friday.

By Ashraf Padanna/Thiruvananthapuram


Mata Amritanandamayi, Kerala’s “hugging saint”, has met with more than a dozen members of the US Congress in the Capitol Building.
Amma, as she is fondly called by her folllowers, arrived in the US on a two-month hugging tour May 24. Estimates by her Mata Amrithanandamayi Math say she has so far hugged 32mn people around the world - almost equal to her home state’s total population.
“At all places, followers typically waited in long queues to get her “darshan” and famed embrace,” the Math said in a press release yesterday.
Taking time off blessing thousands of her followers across North America she personally met and talked with each of the Congressional delegates. The Math runs engineering and medical colleges and is engaged in charity activities with donations from her followers across the world.
The 59-year-old guru, assisted by Swami Amritaswarupananda of her Math in Kerala’s Kollam district, met the lawmakers at the invitation of the Congresswomen Lucille Roybal-Allard (California) and Betty McCollum (Minnesota).
They included House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (Maryland) and civil-rights legend John Lewis (Georgia), who is the 2011 recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She “blessed” them, hugging each of them, the release said.
Other representatives were Henry Waxman (California), Grace Napolitano (California), Mike Honda (California), Janice Hahn (California), Mark Takano (California), Jackie Speier (California), Barbara Lee (California), Ami Bera (California), Ruben Hinojosa (Texas) and Jan Schakowsky (Illinois).
Swami Amritaswarupananda, who is vice-chairman of the board of trustees of the ashram at Vallikkavu in Kollam, said many among the lawmakers were “visibly moved by the experience and by Amma’s humanitarian activities”. More than 50 Congressional staffers were present.
She is being accompanied by 275 volunteers on her tour across 10 cities.
Upon concluding the meeting on Capitol Hill, she travelled to New York City, where she also held programmes from Wednesday. She will now go to Boston, where she will hold a four-day program from today. The US tour is slated to conclude on July 21.