Reflections of Amma: Devotees in a Global Embrace
Published by University of California Press, 2014.
Available for purchase on Amazon HERE
Globally known as Amma, meaning “Mother,” Mata Amritanandamayi has developed a massive transnational humanitarian organization based in hugs. She is familiar to millions as the “hugging saint,” a moniker that derives from her elaborate darshan programs wherein nearly every day ten thousand people are embraced by the guru one at a time, events that routinely last ten to twenty hours without any rest for her. Although she was born in 1953 as a low-caste girl in a South Indian fishing village, today millions revere her as guru and goddess, a living embodiment of the divine on earth.
Reflections of Amma focuses on communities of Amma’s devotees in the United States, showing how they endeavor to mirror their guru’s behaviors and transform themselves to emulate the ethos of the movement. This study argues that “inheritors” and “adopters” of Hindu traditions differently interpret Hindu goddesses, Amma, and her relation to feminism and women’s empowerment because of their inherited religious, cultural, and political dispositions. In this insightful ethnographic analysis, Amanda J. Lucia discovers how the politics of American multiculturalism reifies these cultural differences in “de facto congregations,” despite the fact that Amma’s embrace attempts to erase communal boundaries in favor of global unity.
Reviewed in: The Journal of Contemporary Religion; Nova Religio; Spirituality & Practice; Choice Connect; Commonground Magazine; The Journal of Religion, The Journal of Hindu Studies, Religious Studies Review
Featured in: U.S. Religion Blogspot, http://www.usreligionblogspot.com; Asia Research Institute (ARI) Reading Group, Singapore; Spirit Matters Podcasts, Publishers Weekly, New Books Network
Awards: Emory Elliott Book Award Winner, UCR 2013-2014; Named one of “The Best Spiritual Books of 2014” (top 50), Spirituality & Practice
Reflections of Amma: Devotees in a Global Embrace was a wonderful project that carried me to cities across the United States on tour with Amma, working and living among devotees in Chicago, and in a short residency at her ashram in Kerala, India. I spent time at Amma’s public darshan programs and with devotees between 2004 and 2013, and conducted my most concentrated fieldwork between 2006-2008.
In addition to the book, I published the following related articles:
Lucia, Amanda. “Mata Amritanandamayi (Amma) as ‘Religious Genius,’” In Religious Genius, edited by Alon Goshen-Gottstein, Jerusalem, Israel: Elijah Interfaith Institute, in press.
Lucia, Amanda. 2022. “Gurus and Healing: Amma (Mata Amritanandamyi) at the Intersection of Miracles and Medicine.” pp. 244-257 in The Routledge Handbook of Religion, Medicine, and Health, edited by Dorothea Lüddeckens, Philipp Hetmanczyk, Pamela E. Klassen, and Justin B. Stein. London and New York: Routledge.
Lucia, Amanda. “Amma and Healing.” The Routledge Handbook of Religion, Medicine, and Health, edited by Pamela Klassen et al., in press.
Lucia, Amanda. 2014. “‘Give Me Sevā Overtime:’ Selfless Service and Humanitarianism in Mata Amritanandamayi’s Transnational Guru Movement.” History of Religions. 53: 4: 188-207.
Lucia, Amanda. 2014. “Who Needs a Hug(ging) Saint?” Religion in American History. September 21.
Lucia, Amanda. 2013. “Mata Amritanandamayi.” Religious Genius, edited by Alon Goshen-Gottstein, The Elijah Interfaith Institute.
Lucia, Amanda. 2013. “Mata Amritanandamayi Mission Trust/Embracing the World,” BRILL Encyclopedia of Hinduism, vol. V, edited by Knut A. Jacobsen. Leiden: BRILL (2013), 523-30.
Huffer, Amanda. 2011. “Backdoor Hinduism: A Recoding in the Language of Spirituality.” Nidan: International Journal for the Study of Hinduism. Vol. 23: 53-71.
Huffer, Amanda. 2011. “Hinduism without Religion: Amma’s Movement in America.” CrossCurrents: Special Issue: Religion in Asia Today. Vol. 61. Issue 3: 374-398.
I’ve also given the following related public talks:
2020. Book Talk and Class Discussion. Whittier College (September 30).
2018. “Reflecting on Reflections of Amma: The Perils and Profits of the Celebrity Guru,” University of California-Davis, (October 29).
2016. “Reflecting on Reflections of Amma,” Elijah Interfaith Institute, Tel Aviv, Israel.
2015. “Reflections on Reflections of Amma,” Plenary for 2014 Emory Elliott Book Award, Center for Ideas and Society, University of California-Riverside.
2014. “Reflecting on Reflections of Amma,” a conversation with Dr. Edward Blum, Religious Studies Department, University of California-Riverside.
2013. “Is Mata Amritanandamayi (Amma) a ‘Religious Genius’?” American Academy of Religion, Baltimore, MD.
2012. “Reviving the ‘Golden Age of the Vedas’: Gendered Innovations of Hindu Ritual,” American Academy of Religion, Chicago, IL.
2011. “Performing Authority: Amritanandamayi Ma’s Theater of the Goddess,” Albion College, Albion, MI.
2010. “Like Bees to Honey: Amma and her American devotees through the lens of Devī Bhāva.” Theory and Practice in South Asia (TAPSA) Seminar, University of Chicago.
2011. “Hinduism without Religion: the Rhetoric of ‘Spirituality’ in Amma’s Global Guru Movement,” American Academy of Religion, San Francisco, CA.
2011. “Spiritual, But Not Hindu: Universalism in a Global Transnational Guru Movement,” Society for the Anthropology of Religion, Santa Fe, NM.
2010. “A ‘Feminine’ and Feminist Form of Hindu Religiosity: The Goddess in Amritanandamayi Ma’s Movement,” Annual Conference on South Asia, Madison, WI.
2010. “Like Bees to Honey: Amma and her American devotees through the lens of Devī Bhāva,” Elon University.
2009. “Bounded Communities: Ammachi’s Communities of Devotees in the United States.” American Anthropological Association, Philadelphia, PA.
Photo credits: First and second row: copyright MA Center: Third row left and middle, copyright MA Center; Third row right and bottom row, photo credit: Amanda Lucia.