This is a forum for ex-devotees and questioning devotees of Amma (also called Mata Amritanandamayi, Ammachi and popularly known as "the hugging saint"). It is a place to safely and anonymously share your stories, thoughts, healing, struggles and concern or disappointment over your experiences.

Devotee harassment and attempts to infiltrate the forum and re-convert ex-devotees back to Amma is constantly attempted but never tolerated. This group is tightly moderated to maintain a nurturing environment for expression and discussion by people who regard themselves as healing from involvement with a cult.

We invite you to join this group if you are:

1. An ex-devotee

2. A questioning devotee

3. Friend or family of a devotee, concerned about their involvement

4. Someone interested in Amma who wants to hear the other side (a more unbiased view)

This group was started as an alternative to other online Amma forums that do not welcome free-flowing criticism and observation of the discrepancies around Amma and her organization.

We want to hear people's experiences and the reasons why they left. We do not want to hear propaganda, Advaitan "up-is-down" philosophy, "why Amma is God," or "why Amma is not that bad." If you subscribe to such ideas, feel free to join and read but not to post. Posts which do not follow these guidelines will be deleted and the poster's membership terminated.

When requesting admission to this group, you must state your reason. "Just curious" or "because it is a group" are typical responses of hecklers trying to infiltrate, so you have to do better than that if you genuinely belong here. The moderators don't have time to question each prospective new member.

The members list is private (accessible to moderators only) and cannot be viewed by others, even group members. When signing up, you can elect to hide your e-mail address, but if you do that, you'll need to come directly to the board to make posts.

Best regards,
The Examma Moderators