Messages from Amma: In the Language of the Heart »

JANINE CANAN is a psychiatrist and the author of thirteen collections of poetry, including Changing Woman and In the Palace of Creation: Selected Works 1969–1999 as well as her translations of the poet Else Lasker-Schüler, Star in My Forehead, and the award-winning anthology She Rises Like the Sun: Invocations of the Goddess by Contemporary American Women Poets. Janine graduated from Stanford University and the New York University School of Medicine, and completed graduate study at the University of California, Berkeley. She resides in Sonoma, California.

Known to millions as Amma ("mother") or Ammachi ("beloved mother"), the Indian holy woman Mata Amritanandamayi is one of the most extraordinary forces healing our planet today. Born in 1954, Amma has spent mostof her life traveling the world, freely offering her message of love and compassion, and bestowing hugs to all who will accept her blessing. To the countless individuals she has touched, she is known lovingly as the Hugging Saint, the Mother of Compassion, and the Mother of Immortal Bliss.Psychiatrist and devotee Dr. Janine Canan was profoundly moved when she met Amma in 1990. With Amma's permission, Canan began collecting quotations from her public talks, personal dialogues, and songs, and translated them to preserve Amma's message and spread it to all. Divided into 12 sections, each accompanied by a stunning image of Amma, MESSAGES FROM AMMA presents Amma's profound insights into immortal themes such as "Love, the Cure," "Nature without Error," "Surrendering the Ego," and "Entering the Stream of Grace." In all, there are more than 125 examples of Amma's timeless teachings. MESSAGES FROM AMMA makes available the powerfully inspiring words of a modern-day saint-a woman whose very life is the incarnation of love.

Publishers Weekly

Born in India in 1953, Amma (Mara Amritanandamayi) has traveled around the globe preaching compassion and dispensing hugs-an estimated 30 million of them, in fact. In Messages from Amma: In the Language of the Heart, Janine Canan has gathered some striking quotations from Amma's talks, songs and writings. The short, pithy reflections are organized thematically around topics such as the divine mother, spiritual education, surrendering the ego and seeing the good. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.