{"id":738,"date":"2011-05-26T17:23:06","date_gmt":"2011-05-26T21:23:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/?p=738"},"modified":"2011-05-26T17:31:30","modified_gmt":"2011-05-26T21:31:30","slug":"need-a-hug-or-some-answers-from-the-hugging-saint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/05\/need-a-hug-or-some-answers-from-the-hugging-saint.html","title":{"rendered":"Need a Hug, or Some Answers, From Amma the Hugging Saint?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m meeting\u00a0Mata Amritanandamayi — aka Amma, “the hugging saint” — at the start of her new U.S. tour tomorrow. (It’s nice when national religion news comes to the Seattle area!)<\/p>\n

Cathy Lynn Grossman at USA Today wrote about her during a 2006 tour stop,<\/a> explaining that she was born to a traditional Hindu family in Kerala, but now embraces crowds of devotees from Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism and other faiths, all over the world. (Here are some photos of her blessing people in India <\/a>earlier this month.)<\/p>\n

She’s also active in fundraising and providing interfaith counseling for natural disaster relief, which — given the recent tornado in Joplin, Mo., the this year’s catastrophes in Japan, and the other calamities I’ve covered from a faith-related perspective here<\/a> — is probably what I’ll focus on during our interview.<\/p>\n

Got anything else you’d like me to ask her? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.<\/p>\n

\n

Click here to\u00a0subscribe to Belief Beat <\/strong><\/a>and\u00a0click here to <\/a>follow Belief Beat on Twitter<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m meeting\u00a0Mata Amritanandamayi — aka Amma, “the hugging saint” — at the start of her new U.S. tour tomorrow. (It’s nice when national religion news comes to the Seattle area!) 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