Hindu Woman Opens Arms to Followers : Faith: About 2,000 seek hugs, counsel and blessing at Brentwood college from an Indian visitor whose name means ‘the mother of immortal bliss.’ Says one supplicant: ‘It’s a sweet feeling.’

She reaches out through hugs, drawing thousands into the embrace of the Hindu faith.

One by one, Hindu holy woman Mata Amritanandamayi draws them into her lap as they kneel in front of her, and rocks them back and forth in her arms.

She rubs their backs, drops rose petals onto their heads, presses chocolate kisses into their palms and kisses their fingers.

And in her presence, the fears and worries of her followers, gathered in a tent on the grounds of Mt. St. Mary’s College in Brentwood, seem to dissolve.

“It’s a very sweet feeling,” said Karen Jones, who came from Santa Ana with her husband, Richard--as they do each year--to visit the Indian woman whose name means “the mother of immortal bliss.”

They joined 2,000 others who turned out this week to seek counsel from the Hindu holy woman. Some carried handwritten notes seeking guidance; an attendant translated her response from her native Malayalam language. Others brought pictures of loved ones to be blessed with a kiss. One woman brought a photo of her cat.

Around them, bearded, orange-robed swamis chanted to the accompaniment of drums, tambourines, harmoniums and tiny cymbals while devotees sang along. Incense wafted through the air.

And Amritanandamayi, robed in white, sat in the middle of it all, hugging from morning until afternoon, then again from twilight until well after midnight.

It is, her followers say, a spiritual experience, an embrace that opens up the soul.

In India, she has taken as many as 50,000 people in her arms on a single day.

The crowd was smaller in Los Angeles, but the feelings were intense. Some were smiling when they left her embrace; others cried. One woman went into a moaning fit, stiffening and rising, her eyes pressed shut.

Although there were a few Indians in the crowd, most of those attending were not born into Hinduism.

Instead, many said they learned of the woman they call Mother, or Amma, through yoga and meditation circles. Hundreds more of her followers are expected to attend a retreat this weekend at Cal Poly Pomona.

Born with the name Sudhamani, which means “pure jewel,” in Kerala state at the southern tip of India, Amritanandamayi showed a mystic bent at an early age.

This alienated her family but attracted a circle of spiritual seekers, her followers said.

Eventually her parents changed their minds and let her meet with followers at the family home.

Word spread, and hundreds, then thousands sought her message of love, compassion and motherly acceptance. She is one of several Hindu women who have emerged in recent years as sources for blessings from a manifestation of godliness that devotees call the Divine Mother.

“When the blossom opens, the bees come flying--no?” said Neil Rosner, a Chicago native who moved to India seeking enlightenment in 1968 and found his way to her 12 years ago. Now he heads her U.S. base of operations in San Ramon, Calif.

“She has said, ‘Krishna and the Divine Mother are in this crazy girl,’ ” Rosner said. “She has a strange way of expressing herself.”

Amritanandamayi, 41, channels contributions she receives to support an orphanage, clinics, hospitals and schools in various parts of her native country.

She tours India regularly and makes a yearly tour through Japan, America and Europe.

In India, people tend to ask for help with questions of survival--finding a job, healing disease, marrying off their children.

In the West and in Japan, the questions tend to be more spiritual--a request for a mantra or advice on how to make meditation work.

Despite her unorthodox devotion to hugging, her religion is mainstream Hinduism, her followers say. She does not seek converts; she only wants, they say, to help people find their oneness with the Divine.

“We cannot change situations in life, but we can change our attitude toward them,” she says. “The awakened human being solves all his own problems and then becomes a blessing to society.”

At Thursday’s session, her message reached three generations of one family.

“My mom has been trying to get me here for 10 years,” said Misha Brank, 23, an Amtrak clerk from Glendale. “I had fears I would have to put aside my life as I knew it, but it’s not true. I felt so accepted, so much love.”

Her brother, Joe Nelson, 17, was encouraged by a “yes” to his question of whether he should join the military, while their mother, Rami Nelson, 45, of Escondido, spoke of following not the person, but “the energy she embodies.” And her husband, Eric, praised Amritanandamayi’s “faith that bad things will work out.”

“It was very touching,” said Eric’s mother, Maxine Nelson, a retired librarian from Anaheim. She is a Christian, she said, but she found much that was familiar in Amritanandamayi’s teaching.

The embrace, she said, “brought a tear to my eye.”