Mumbai: Spiritual leader, Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, popularly known as ‘Amma’, will be addressing Mumbaikars at her discourse on March 4 and 5, 2019.

During the two-day Brahmasthanam Festival at her Ashram in Nerul, Navi Mumbai, Amma will sing bhajans, conduct satsang and guide people in mediation and world-peace prayers. She will also bestow everyone with her darshan—a loving, motherly embrace through which she has blessed people throughout the world more than 3.9-crore times.

The inaugural function on March 4 will be attended by Mayor of Navi Mumbai Shri Jaywant Sutar, Navi Mumbai Commissioner of Police Shri Sanjay Kumar, Members of Legislative Assembly Shri Prashant Thakur and Smt Manda Mhatre.

Over the two days, thousands of Mumbaikars are expected to make the trip to the Mata Amritanandamayi Math in Nerul. While many will be those who have come for decades, many first-time devotees are expected as well. The programmes are part of the renowned humanitarian and spiritual leader’s Bharata Yatra, which she has undertaken annually since 1988.

“Our lives are meant to be born in love, to be lived in love, and to eventually end in love,” says Amma. “Tragically, even though most of us spend our lives in search of love, the majority die without ever finding it. In truth, love has no end; it is eternal and connects every aspect of creation—human beings with each other, with Nature, and with God. Thus, its effulgence is forever within us as our very essence. We just need to awaken to this truth.”

A devotee who regularly sees Amma when she comes to Mumbai is renowned actor Vidya Balan. She says, “Amma’s religion is the religion of love, and it is around this philosophy I am trying to lead my life. To me, Amma is Love Incarnate, the Universal Mother who cradles the world in her all-encompassing embrace.”

“I wouldn’t miss Amma’s programmes for the world,” says Jayesh Bhate from Mumbai, who met Amma in 1997. “Her embrace fills me with a deep sense of divine love, and her satsang uplifts me and inspires me to be the best version of myself that I can be—professionally, socially and as a family man.”

 For the past 20 years, the Nerul ashram has been holding a programme that feeds 500 poor people every Sunday and provides free medical care to those who require it. There is also a free hospice and medicine dispensary for the poor and terminally ill in Badlapur that the ashram has run since 1995. And since 2014, Amma has taken the hamlet of Ransai (near Panvel) under her wing, as part of the Amrita SeRVe programme to make 101 villages throughout India role models of empowerment and sustainability. Her ashram also provided shelter, free medicine and free healthcare in the wake of the 2005 Mumbai floods. Amma also offers its Vidyamritam Scholarships—an initiative to help curb farmer suicide—in Maharashtra as well.

Amma has spent the last 45 years sharing her message of peace, compassion and selflessness service to the world. She has spoken at the Vatican, the United Nations, the Parliament of World’s Religions and has been bestowed with honours such as the Gandhi-King Nonviolence Award, the James Parks Morton Interfaith Award, and an award from Prime Minister Modi for the biggest contribution to the Swacch Bharat Clean India Campaign. In November, she was invited by the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, His Highness Sheikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, to be the keynote speaker at an interfaith forum in the UAE on protecting children from various forms of Internet abuse.

The charitable humanitarian programmes run by Amma’s ashram include the construction of more than 47,000 homes for the homeless throughout India, scholarships for more than 50,000 impoverished children and the provision of totally free medical care to more than 47 lakh people since 1998. The Mata Amritanandamayi Math has also contributed more than Rs. 475 crores in disaster relief since 2001, most recently giving Rs. 5 lakh in financial aid to each of the families of the more than 40 CRPF soldiers killed in the Feb 14^th Pulwama terrorist attack.