During Amma’s US tour this summer, Amma emphasized the importance of training more Amrita Yoga instructors for the international community as well as for Amritapuri and across India. Born of Amma’s divine resolve, this transformative practice is expanding worldwide, touching countless lives with its focus on awareness, heart-centered intention, love, devotion, and inner peace.
In a special message, Pujya Swami Amritaswarupananda Puri — Vice-Chairman of the Mata Amritanandamayi Math, President of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, and Amma’s senior-most disciple — highlighted the ability of Amrita Yoga to harmonize body, mind, and soul, offering a path of joy and transformation for all.
Amrita Yoga intertwines yoga and meditation as a single discipline. As Amma says:
Children, yoga and meditation are inextricably linked; they function as a unified whole. If one’s practice of yoga fails to enhance meditation and foster awareness, it is merely a form of physical exercise, devoid of deeper significance.
— Amma
The practice forms part of “Amrita Darshanam,” the spiritual and cultural curriculum at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham. It complements the three meditation techniques Amma has previously given — MA-OM, IAM (Integrated Amrita Meditation), and White Flower — which have helped millions rediscover peace and serenity. While guiding seekers along the paths of karma, bhakti, jnana, or raja yoga according to each person’s disposition, Amma emphasizes the primacy of bhakti, or devotion:
Love is the most profound and familiar sentiment accessible to all. Love is the bridge uniting heaven and earth, humanity and nature, and humanity and the Divine. The essential tenet of bhakti is love.
— Amma
Amrita Yoga’s foremost gift is to guide individuals along the path of bhakti, establishing a deep connection to the heart where one discovers the true Self. Its Director, Brahmacharini Shobha (Shobana) — one of Amma’s senior female disciples and a distinguished yoga researcher and instructor — teaches under Amma’s direct guidance, supported by a dedicated team of Western and Indian disciples spreading the practice to a global audience.
