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I check my watch — 71 seconds. In hugging time, an eternity.

Now we talk. Amma doesn't break for interviews. We speak through her swami-interpreter as she hugs and kisses the next in line.

I ask her where she gets her energy. "It takes no energy to love," she says. "It is easy."

Her spokesman Sidon compares her energy to that of a parent caring for a newborn. "A new mother or father will stay up all night," he says. "The love for the child is more powerful than the fatigue."

This seems too nice. I wonder if I am getting suckered. I look around.

Amma accepts donations. Her people sell books, videos, T-shirts and souvenirs. You can buy an Amma Beanie Baby-type doll for $180, and she will bless it. That's a little pricey — even in the Big Apple.

But Sidon assures me that the blessings are always free. He couldn't say how much money they raise. But he gave me literature that indicates the proceeds go to several charities begun in Amma's name. They include four hospitals, 33 schools, 12 temples, 25,000 houses for the poor, an orphanage, pensions for 50,000 destitute women, a home for senior citizens, a battered women's shelter and various technical education projects.

I ask Amma if she will train others. Shouldn't there be an inspirational hugger in every city? She will not open a school, she says.

"What I do was spontaneous. I saw a need. It felt right, and I did it," she says. "You cannot teach love in a book or teach it. You can only show it."

Twenty million hugs. That's a lot. And yet Amma is still an oddity in most corners of the world, a humble proponent of the most primal form of communication. It's so simple, you could laugh at it.

Then again, who couldn't use a nice big hug?

Buck Wolf is entertainment producer at ABCNEWS.com. The Wolf Files is published Tuesdays and Thursdays. If you want to receive weekly notice when a new column is published, join the e-mail list.