From My Inner Library
Reflections and excerpts from a lived yogic and human path
Meeting Amma: When Spiritual Guidance Enters Your Life
Munich, November 2025
Dear reader,
One of the biggest highlights of my year 2025 was seeing Mata Amritanandamayi Devi (Amma) again in Munich this November — together with a close friend of over twenty years, the very friend who originally introduced me to Amma all those years ago.
Amma had not been traveling since 2019, when the Covid pandemic began. The last time I saw her before this year was also in Munich, in 2019 — together with my husband and our two boys. It was the first time I introduced my family to Amma, and it became a memory my children will never forget.
They were allowed to stay up all night during Devi Bhava. And when the program finally ended in the morning, it happened to be Halloween. For them, it was magic: devotion, exhaustion, sweetness, and celebration all woven into one unforgettable night.
So when my husband mentioned earlier this year that Amma would be visiting Europe again — for the first time since 2019 — and that she would be coming to Munich once more, there was no doubt in my mind that I had to be there.
Almost spontaneously, I booked a hotel. A few weeks later, a flight. And just as spontaneously, I asked my friend Heleen if she wanted to join me. She said yes immediately — “because it just felt right.”
The days we spent together with Amma in Munich were among the most beautiful I have ever experienced with Amma and with her.
And that is saying a lot.
Twenty Years of Spiritual Practice, Presence, and Distance
Over the past twenty years, I have seen Amma many times — at her San Ramón ashram in California, at her Indian ashram, on a South Indian tour, and in cities such as London, Los Angeles, Pune, Bangalore, and Munich. I have been close, and I have also had long periods of distance — years when I did not see her, think of her much, or feel consciously connected.
Yet this recent meeting felt different.
It marked my twenty-year anniversary of first meeting Amma — and I was able to celebrate it with the very friend who had originally brought her into my life, a friend Amma herself had, in her own mysterious way, guided back into my life after a long pause in our friendship.
It is hard to put into words what those days in Munich did to me.
If I had to say it simply, I would say this:
Peace and love entered my spiritual heart with such certainty that my inner compass quietly, unmistakably reoriented itself.
What follows is the story of my first meeting with Amma — the beginning of a relationship with a saint and yogic teacher that goes far beyond name, form, space, time, or worldly definition.
It is a connection that has deepened in ways I could never have imagined — even through years of distance.
Because once a connection like this exists, it is never truly lost.
The First Encounter That Changed Everything
From My Inner Library
Gayatri’s First Meeting with Amma
San Ramón, California — November 2005
Gayatri would later return to this place many times, but this was her first encounter with Amma — during a Devi Bhava evening in November 2005 at the San Ramón ashram in California.
She hadn’t planned to meet Amma then. It was one of those moments life arranges quietly, almost accidentally — especially when everything else seems to be falling apart.
Before that evening, Gayatri had only heard of Amma in passing. Her Italian dark sister Elisa had met Amma years earlier in London, and Gayatri imagined an old Indian woman sitting in a small room, giving hugs to people who stood in line outside, waiting to be cuddled.
Since Gayatri wasn’t particularly fond of being hugged by strangers, she probably wouldn’t have gone out of her way to meet what she perceived as a newly emerging Indian saint. At that time, all she really knew was that Amma hugged people.
But life intervened.
That November, Gayatri was going through one of the hardest periods of her life — a deeply emotional breakup of her first marriage.
It was a separation that had been a long time coming, yet the way it unfolded was, like many things in her life, dramatic — almost absurd in its timing. The breakup took place while Gayatri was moving between London and Vienna.
Originally, they had planned to meet in Switzerland in mid-November, where he was scheduled to teach. Instead, Gayatri flew earlier than planned back to the United States to move out of the house they had shared for four years — before he returned from Europe.
Exhausted, heartbroken, and still in motion, Gayatri asked her close friend Heleen — a Dutch Ashtanga yogini — to pick her up from the airport in San Francisco.
Heleen agreed, but with a condition: she and her husband were already on their way that same day to Amma’s San Ramón ashram for a special Devi Bhava program. Gayatri was welcome to join them — but it would mean staying awake after nearly twenty-four hours of travel, followed by a long night and morning ahead.
Without much hesitation, Gayatri said yes.
In the midst of heartbreak, she took it as a strange kind of adventure — meeting this hugging Indian saint at a time when she could use love, comfort, and encouragement more than ever.
Her flight arrived late at SFO. Heleen and her husband were already waiting anxiously. They knew something Gayatri did not yet understand: the traffic chaos that always surrounded Amma’s events.
They picked her up in their green van — a vehicle that served simultaneously as car, living room, and bedroom. Inside lay a futon mattress, which could later become a place to collapse if one of them surrendered to exhaustion during the long night ahead.
As if the late arrival weren’t enough, they also struggled to find their way to the ashram. Directions became unclear. Tempers flared. Husband and wife began to argue.
Gayatri watched the scene with quiet amusement.
Her friends explained that this always happened when they were on their way to see Amma — that some obstacle or challenge inevitably appeared before, during, or after meeting her. Gayatri listened politely, without yet grasping how prophetic this observation would later become in her own life.
Eventually, after unfolding road maps and navigating tension, they wound their way through the hills toward the ashram. As always, the stress about time and direction proved unnecessary. It felt as though Amma’s guiding hand was already present — offering both protection and challenge at the same time.
At last, the three found a parking spot high up the hill near the ashram.
Jet-lagged and emotionally raw, Gayatri felt both drawn in and overwhelmed by the mass of people streaming in from all directions. She clung to her friends the way a child clings to her parents when visiting a fair for the first time. Everything felt like a spiritual funfair.
Night had fallen. Tiny lights glowed everywhere. Indian-sounding music poured from enormous loudspeakers. Tents and cafés lined the path. Portable toilets stood ready for the thousands of bodies that would need relief during the long night ahead.
The entire setting felt unreal — almost dreamlike.
Somehow, the three of them were lucky enough to receive darshan tokens and secure places inside the huge meditation hall. There, the evening would begin with meditation, ritual blessings, and the distribution of holy water — before the “mass hugging” continued through the night and into the following morning.
Just before entering the hall, vast and warmly lit, something memorable occurred.
As Gayatri bent down to remove her shoes, her mobile phone rang.
“Hi, are you back in California?”
It was the voice of outer reason — or perhaps better described as the catalyst for the breakup of her marriage. The conversation was brief. They arranged to see each other again in a few days.
Then Gayatri was gently ushered into the hall and guided to sit down on the floor. In front of her lay a small piece of paper and the plastic lid of a dish that had not yet been filled.
Despite the density of bodies and noise, Gayatri felt calm. Quiet. Like an innocent child about to experience something unknown.
A video about Amma’s life and her selfless humanitarian work began to play.
Living Spiritual Guidance Beyond Form
A strange sensation arose — a mixture of cold and heat moving through her body at once, like a lightning bolt striking straight through her core.
Tears filled her eyes.
She knew:
God, I am in the right place at the right time.
This is a moment my soul has been waiting for — for a very long time.
The full impact of that first Devi Bhava night — her first meeting with Amma — would unfold only slowly in the years to come.
When a Teacher Never Really Leaves
A relationship beyond time
Reading this story again now, twenty years later, I can see something my younger self could not yet fully grasp.
Meeting a teacher like Amma is not about a single moment, a hug, or even a period of devotion. It is about a relationship that matures over time — through closeness and distance, presence and absence.
There were years when Amma was very present in my life.
And there were years when she was not.
Yet the connection never disappeared.
It simply transformed — quietly weaving itself into the deeper layers of who I am, how I live, how I practice, and how I orient myself again and again toward what is true.
Perhaps this is one of the great teachings of the yogic path:
That guidance does not always look like instruction.
That devotion does not always look like ritual.
And that love, once known, does not need to be held tightly to remain alive.
Sometimes it waits patiently — until we are ready to recognize it again.
Integrating Spiritual Practice Into Everyday Life
If this story touches something in you, you might reflect:
- Have you ever encountered a spiritual teacher, place, or experience that quietly shaped your inner compass — even across years of distance or silence?
- Where in your life do you sense a connection that never truly disappeared, but simply changed form?
- What helps you return to your own inner guidance during times of uncertainty or transition?
Sometimes the most profound relationships do not ask us to stay close forever.
They ask us to live what we have received.
A Gentle Invitation
If you feel called to explore how yoga, Ayurveda, and spiritual practice can be integrated into your everyday life — not as an escape, but as a way of living with more clarity, steadiness, and inner alignment — you can learn more about my 1:1 work and programs here:
→ Personalized 1:1 Ayurveda–Yoga Coaching
With love and presence,
Verena Gayatri Primus
Ayurveda–Yoga Coach & Teacher
You’ll find all the details of my 1:1 Coaching Path here:
→ Personalized 1:1 Ayurveda–Yoga Coaching
About the Author
Verena Gayatri Primus is an Ayurvedic specialist, yoga teacher, writer, and mentor with over three decades of lived experience on the yogic and human path. A former professional dancer, she has spent many years studying and practicing yoga, Ayurveda, and meditation, including time in ashrams and extended journeys through India.
Through her work, Verena supports people in cultivating physical health, mental clarity, emotional maturity, and spiritual depth — not as an escape from life, but as a way to live it more fully. From My Inner Library is a space where she shares lived reflections, stories, and teachings shaped by practice, love, loss, and renewal.
You can explore more writings, reflections, and resources at
www.verenaprimus.com
