{"id":263,"date":"2007-07-06T16:46:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-06T11:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/media\/archives\/263"},"modified":"2014-12-29T23:31:53","modified_gmt":"2014-12-29T18:01:53","slug":"need-a-hug","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/media\/archives\/263","title":{"rendered":"Need a hug?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Need a hug? Spiritual leader has one for you<\/strong>
By Michael Wamble
mwamble@dailyherald.com
Posted Friday, July 06, 2007
Sharyn and Steve Galindo Thursday drove from their Northfield home to the Marriott Oak Brook Hills Resort for a hug.<\/p>\n

As their moment drew near after more than a hour of waiting, the Galindos walked into the pool of people surrounding humanitarian and Hindu spiritual leader Mata Amritanandamayi.<\/p>\n

They knelt.<\/p>\n

Then it was their turn to feel the 53-year-old South Indian woman wrap her arms around them.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very loving embrace,\u201d Steve Galindo said. \u201cThere is this \u2026 energy for lack of a better word.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amritanandamayi called it \u201ctransmitting pure vibrations of love and compassion\u201d during the first six hours of her two-day marathon of hugging strangers. Her appearance continues today with two sessions \u2014 one at 10 a.m. and another at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n

Organizers of the 10-city U.S. tour said they expected 10,000 people to travel to Oak Brook to see, hear and \u2014 most importantly \u2014 hug her.<\/p>\n

As a humanitarian, Amritanandamayi already has raised more than $1 million in aid for Hurricane Katrina victims, in addition to pledging $23 million toward relief work in regions in India ravaged by the 2005 tsunami.<\/p>\n

Her latest project is to create social and economic programs to reduce suicides among farmers in central India.<\/p>\n

Promoting healing through personal embrace and social programs, Amritanandamayi said, are essential to serving humanity.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am trying to create a balance between the spiritual and the material,\u201d Amritanandamayi said as she hugged the Galindos.<\/p>\n

Finding balance is part of what people said they seek from Amritanandamayi.<\/p>\n

In 2005, Dinesh Agarwal, of Naperville, suddenly was laid off from his IT job, his wife, Sangeeta, said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe almost broke down,\u201d Sangeeta Agarwal said. \u201cWe just got a new house.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, a week after the family went to see and be hugged by Amritanandamayi, Agarwal said, her husband got a new job.<\/p>\n

Thursday was the family\u2019s fifth visit to see \u201cmother,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Yet, most people including Balan Nair of Oak Brook, who first met Amritanandamayi in 1987, said she doesn\u2019t profess supernatural powers.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce someone feels good,\u201d Nair said, \u201cthey attribute things to the hug.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Tom Szabo of Lisle, a research technician, said he\u2019s heard similar stories at work.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe in coincidence,\u201d Szabo said.<\/p>\n

Szabo, who describes himself as spiritual rather than religious, said his first-ever hug \u201cfelt like ecstasy.\u201d<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.dailyherald.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Need a hug? Spiritual leader has one for youBy Michael Wamblemwamble@dailyherald.comPosted Friday, July 06, 2007 Sharyn and Steve Galindo Thursday drove from their Northfield home to the Marriott Oak Brook Hills Resort for a hug. As their moment drew near after more than a hour of waiting, the Galindos walked into the pool of people … Continue reading Need a hug?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}