Hugging a Saint
This past weekend I went to meet, Amma, a humanitarian and spiritual leader. She has incredible energy and has done so much good around the world, particularly around supporting people through disaster relief. Her and her people wave the flag of interconnected love very strongly and openly.
Essentially, she travels around the world holding events where she hugs. She leads a meditation with a Swami chanting mantras and she hugs people. Everyone. All night. It started at 7 pm and I had to leave at 5 am, they were close to being done, but not yet.
So, the week prior to this experience I was connecting with her energy through the Divine Mother during my meditations and I had several very powerful experiences of Grace. It was really beautiful and healing.
I was thinking as I drove up to the event that maybe she would look at me with kind eyes, hug, and we’d laugh or something.
After a few hours of waiting (it’s a token system, so in the beginning of the evening you get a token then they show your letter on the screen and you go up with the rest of the people with that same letter to get and give a hug.)
I go up to have an exchange of a hug, she looks at me, draws me in, I’m repeating a mantra in my head, she starts talking with someone as she holds me, then she chants something powerfully in my ear many times, my mind goes completely blank. I can’t continue the mantra I was repeating. Silence.
She holds me a bit longer and then pushes me up and away and gazes at me with strong eyes.
Almost needless to say, it was very powerful.
After the exchange, I thought about how different the experience was from how I was anticipating it. I was expecting softness and what I received did not feel that way.
I had thoughts like, “damn, maybe she saw into my energy and saw all my crap.” And although probably true to some degree, what I realized as I have been integrating the experience is fierceness and intensity are only expressions of love.
We don’t need to create a thought storm around something that happened that was different from our preferences. It just is and what is is love.
There are many expressions of the Divine Mother, some are soft and gentle, some sensual and beautiful, some cold and old, and some are raw, fierce and intense. It’s all expressions of the same Love.
It was quite an experience. I recommend going if you can. I was hearing things like she might not being travelling much more as she’s 72 years old. But who knows. She’s in New York on Monday!
So that’s part of my experience with Amma, the Hugging Saint.
So back to the retreat, it’s on early bird pricing until August 19, 2024, so if you feel a hit of inspiration to explore this, please check out this link for more info or reach out to either me or Dana through her website https://www.danahersh.com
From personal experiences, I know that when I have a hit of excitement and insight to take an action on something like a retreat, it always works out, in all ways. I mean this very sincerely.
With Love and Light,
Andrew
