![\"\"id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5082743525477113250\"](\"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/media\/files\/2007\/07\/bilde.jpg\")
<\/a>Hug power:
A crowd gathers to hug Amma during the first day of a public event at the Marriott in Coralville today. Amma is known as a humanitarian and for traveling the world and blessing people by embracing them with a compassionate hug.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s almost indescribable,\u201d the 36-year-old Omaha, Neb., woman said of her first encounter with Amma. “It’s overwhelming, it’s light. It’s the embodiment of love.”<\/p>\n
Organizers estimated nearly 1,000 people were at the Coralville Marriott Hotel and Convention Center to see Amma, a world-renowned humanitarian and recipient of the 2002 Ghandi-King Award for Non-Violence.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is really the smallest crowd that we’ve seen so far,” said Randy Rutenbeck, a member of Amma’s tour team.<\/p>\n
Amma’s Coralville stop includes a spiritual talk at 7:30 p.m. tonight, meditation and individual blessings at 10 a.m. Tuesday and a Devi Bhava service at 7 p.m. Tuesday, all at the Coralville Marriott Hotel and Convention Center.<\/p>\n
After 20 minutes of meditation this morning, Amma, seated in front of a stage, received those who came for miles to see her. Each of those waiting for an individual blessing dropped to their knees and waited their turn. She greeted each person with a broad smile and outreached arms, and enveloped them in a hug while chanting blessings in their ear.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s just something about her, it’s just phenomenal,” said Betty Dahmer, who drove from St. Louis to be hugged by Amma.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The power of a hugJul 2, 2007By Molly RossiterThe Gazettehttp:\/\/gazetteonline.com\/apps\/pbcs.dll\/article?AID=\/20070702\/NEWS\/70702018molly.rossiter@gazettecommunications.comCORALVILLE – Theresa Murphy struggled to keep her emotions intact after receiving a personal blessing – in the form of a hug – from India’s hugging saint, Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, or \u201cAmma,\u201d this morning. Hug power:A crowd gathers to hug Amma during the first day … Continue reading The power of a hug<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":302,"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-270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270","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=270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e.amritapuri.org\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}