217 Guru Doings

My guru is himself a highly respected leader or he would not have such a responsible job as judge. I think he is not just a “knee-jerk” believer either, but a deep thinker, believer and practitioner of his faith: the “Sufi” movement in the Moslem religion. His example, seems to me to emphasize a more personal and dedicated spiritual development..


So, to me he is more Yogi than Sheikh.


An example: when he is deep in prayer his upper body throbs—and not with a heartbeat rhythm, but with a very peculiar rapid pulsing movement. I have never seen anything like it. It definitely sets him apart—in a class by himself.


Another example: he forbade me to take his photograph but I slyly did one evening when I thought he was not noticing. Later when I had the film developed, his image was not there! When I mentioned this bizarre effect to him he just laughed merrily.


Later, when he gave me his permission to take a photo of him, the image was where it should be!


Since then I have learned that this “trick” is one sometimes performed by advanced yogis.


Again, once when we were about to have lunch and I was very eager to drink a glass of hot sweet tea with him, a glass of tea in front of him slid  across the glass-topped table to my place without being touched. When this happened, he was watching me with narrowed eyes. I did not react to this unexpected event with surprise, but merely picked up the glass and drank as if nothing unusual had happened, which I thought pleased him.

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