What in the name of Brahman?

A Catholic woman wrote to me recently to tell me that she had embraced the spirituality of Mātā Amritanandamayī Devi, an Indian spiritual leader named otherwise known as "the hugging saint," or "Amma," which means "Mother." People come from miles, even from other continents, to wait in line for hours to be hugged by Amma in a practice called "Darshan." She has been known to individually hug over 50,000 people a day. This, they tell us, is profoundly "healing." It is one of the ironies of metaphysical monism, which regards individuality as illusiory, that in its diverse religious forms it continues to compromise itself by attachments to individuals, whether as in the chosen ishtas of Bhakti Hinduism or as in the embrace of this singular "Amma." Whereas Christianity tells us to love our neighbor, Hinduism tells us that we are our neighbor. But even if I am you and you are me and he is she and we are ultimately all Brahman, it is as if there is something in the most forlorn Hindu souls (or the most jaded lapsed Catholics who have turned to the East as an alternative to "Western institutional religions"), which longs for the loving and embrace of an individual person (human or divine), almost as if they weren't really illusiory. (Click on the image of Amma, above left, for a video documentary on Amma and her "hugging ministry.")