Sadguru Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi is a saint like no other. For the past 36 years Amma has dedicated Her life to the upliftment of suffering humanity through the simplest of gestures- an embrace.

Amma says, "My sole mission is to love and serve one and all. Amma's only wish is that her hands should always be on someone's shoulder, consoling and caressing them and wiping their tears, even while breathing her last."

The greatest miracle that takes place in her presence occurs in the hearts of those who come to her-the gentle, gradual awaking of love, compassion and selflessness, an awakening of one's own inherent divinity.

She says, "Mother is just an offiering to the world and wants to be available to everyone." Anyone who watches Amma on a day-today basis will understand the significance of this statement.

Amma has never sought to convert anyone. Her's is not sectarian mission. But Amma has always stressed that along with a new home, a pension, an operation or a meal, the beneficiaries of her humanitarian activities receive a compassionate smile and a kind word from those who serve them. In this way those who give, those who receive, and those who look on, all are transformed by the selfless love and sense of universal kinship, blossoming in an experience of essential unity-the oneness in the Self.

Amma has time and again emphasized that the duty of every human being is to realize his true Self, or in other words, ‘know who we really are.' She does not favor any particular religion. When asked to which religion she belongs, she says, “My religion is love and service.”

"Love is the foundation of a happy life. Knowingly or unknowingly we are forgetting this truth," she says. Amma on several occasions has said that it is important not only to feel love but also to express it. "After all, love is our true nature. When we do not express love in our words and actions it is like honey hidden in a rock." she says, "It is of no use to anyone. This mutual sharing and expressing of loves should begin at home between married couples and between parents and children. Only then will there be peace and harmony at home and in the society."

Once when someone asked Amma as to whom she would term as a true disciple, Amma said that, "One whose legs rush to offer help, whose lips utter comforting words of love and whose eyes shed tears of compassion on hearing the cry of the distressed, such a person I would call a true disciple."