Swami-ji Himself

Dear dedicated reader,

It is always refreshing when our few hours outside the school each day lead to new discoveries. Our latest is perhaps our most incredible yet: in an unassuming temple quite near to our home, unbeknownst to us until now, lives a 93 year old guru. We made his acquaintance over the weekend through the family of Mr. Tailor

“Even at 93,” Mr. Tailor’s brother, Jayeshbhai, told us, “his skin is still tight. He does not seem this age. He is traveling on tour in the USA two times, all over the world he travels and all places in India. He is speaking all Indian languages, so many languages.” He listed them off on his fingers, “Marathi, Telegu, Hindi, Gujarati, Kannada, Tamil…all of these he is speaking. And he has the powerful command of English,” he said, waving his hand emphatically, “So he will have no trouble in talking with you.”

We nodded and listened to all this as we walked at a double pace to keep up with Jayesh’s long legs striding purposefully along towards the temple. Weighing probably 115 pounds, Jayeshbhai is easily the tallest person in town, standing at some inches over six feet tall. His long, slightly skeletal fingers are adept at the sewing which is his profession and he seems to do most of the work that his brother arranges. While his English is less confident than his brother’s, it is no less powerful, to use the Indian turn of phrase.

The day before, we had gone to pick up some saris that Melissa had dropped off earlier in the week. Since we now wear the saris daily to teach, it was necessary for her to acquire a few more so that she would have enough variety in her teaching wardrobe to please the finicky staff room. The blouses were unready, but as usual we found ourselves in happy, friendly conversation with Mr. Tailor’s whole family who all work in some capacity in the family business.

As is common practice, they brought up the personal problem of our acne, examining Melissa’s and my faces, still unaccustomed to the heat of the climate.

“Take these pills daily!” The tailor’s father told us in Hindi, brandishing a bottle that he pulled off a top shelf above the sewing machine. “Ayurvedic! They will solve ALL health problems, and clear the skin!”

Jayeshbhai piped up. “You have met my Guru? Swami-ji?” He asked.

We shook our heads.

“You want to meet him?” He asked us in his sleepily excited manner.

“Uh well…” we looked at each other, then shrugged. “Sure, that would be cool.”

“Do you want to go now?” Jayeshbhai pressed, his eyes starting to shed a little of the characteristic sleepiness. “He can cure any body problem – you will ask him about any question of the body and he can cure it. Including,” he indicated our faces, “mosquito bites.”

“Uh…” Melissa and I, simultaneously suppressing a laugh at this common Kadod diagnosis of our acne, stalled. We hesitantly gave our regrets, saying that now was probably not the best time, but perhaps another day? Jayeshbhai suggested the next afternoon at five and was happily satisfied when we agreed.

All of which is a long way of saying that this is how we found ourselves doing double time to keep up with his leggy walk towards a temple devoted to Hanuman that we had previously never seen. The approach to the temple was a dirt path leading its way through an unassuming part of the village. It was a part we had not yet encountered though we were happy to hear the reassuringly familiar cries of “Madam!” and “Teacher!” as we passed the porches and open doors of the neighborhood’s houses.

Once inside the temple, we removed our shoes and were led by Jayesh towards a door in the building which made up the outer wall of the complex. The first sensation I felt upon entering was the twitching of my nostrils in response to the overpowering smell of unwashed hair. I took a moment to recover before my eyes adjusted to the dimmed light and noted an older Indian gentleman with a long beard and high topknot sitting in the lotus position upon a cushioned bed. It was exactly as I would have imagined a guru to be found.

Jayeshbhai went before us into the presence of the guru and put his hands together in the traditional greeting gesture and bowed low, touching his forehead to the guru’s feet. “Swami-ji,” he began, “I have brought the American teachers. They are ones who seek knowledge.”

It was a surprising phrase to hear issue from Jayesh’s mouth and immediately made me question my previous estimation of his English, all the meanwhile turning over the pleasing moniker that I had just been given. “One who seeks knowledge…” I liked the sound of it.

Swami-ji motioned that we should sit and after an embarrassed ‘namaste’ of our own (that did not involve bowing or foot touching), we took a cross legged seat on a tarp on the floor in front of his bed. He asked us the usual regimen of questions: where are you from, what are you doing here, etc. I was grateful that at this moment Melissa took on the larger responsibility for communicating with this man: I, usually impetuously gregarious, for some reason found myself completely tongue-tied. I was also still a little disturbed by the smell of the room, which I was trying desperately to hide until my sensitive nose became accustomed to it. I remembered reading somewhere that your nose can become accustomed to any smell after being continuously exposed to it for three minutes and I was counting the seconds and hoping that it was true.

He and Melissa began to discuss the proper practice of yoga and he offered to let borrow his English language book, the title of which I couldn’t help but notice was “Yoga Sadhana and Magneto Therapy.” Inquiries yielded elaboration: Magneto Therapy is apparently the utilization of the body’s magnetic properties to create harmony within the body and mind. Of course.

Swami-ji elaborated. “You see, the body itself is a magnet,” he said thoughtfully. “The top of the body, or the head, is the North Side. And the bottom of the body, or the feet, is the South side.” I took this new information in skeptically as he continued. “You see, I had a woman once who came to me and said she has spent thousands of dollars on headaches. Her son was in a hostel and during the week, he was fine; but when he came home on the weekends, he was getting too many terrible headaches. The first question that I ask that woman was: in which direction does the boy sleep at night? And she tells me that he sleeps with his head facing North. You see, this will not do, because, as you know about magnets when you have to of the same pole facing each other: they repel! And it creates all sorts of problems for those who sleep and rest in that direction. So I told that woman to get her son to sleep with his head facing South or East. And he did, and he was cured. It’s a very powerful thing, the magnet of the body.”

Swami-ji continued and told us a story about a man who had come to him with recovering from a heart attack. Swami-ji instructed the man to rub an industrial sized magnet on the area just above his heart three times a day for 10 minutes to remagnetize this part of the body and increase its power. The man was fully recovered in no time at all!

I pondered these success stories as a man from the temple handed us a refreshing drink of milk mixed with 32 herbs that are, apparently, potent for the body. As I sipped at it absently, I noted that I share many a Westerner’s general skepticism for alternative therapies, but I couldn’t help but feel that it didn’t seem right to doubt them in the presence of the man who had been practicing them on satisfied patients for many years. I thought about the headaches that I sometimes get at night: was I sleeping in the wrong direction?

My thoughts were interrupted by the finishing up of the conversation between the guru and Melissa on the subject of daily yoga practice. She was thanking him for the book and it seemed that we might leave. The same awkward greeting process was once again gone through as we said our goodbyes. My shy ‘namaste’ didn’t seem to do the encounter justice: I somehow felt that we should back out of the room, heads bowed with our hands clutched in a praying gesture at our chests as a sign of respect for a man who clearly leads a life of contemplation. Jayeshbhai once again touched his head to the guru’s feet, and then we were on our way.

On the way home, Jayeshbhai asked if we wanted to borrow his ‘magneto belt.’

“Uh, come again?” was my reply.

He described it as a belt that fits snugly around his head and is filled with industrial strength magnets. “I wear it for one or two hours a day while I work,” he said confidently.

We said we’d think about it.

After we parted ways with Jayeshbhai, Melissa and I discussed candidly our spiritual encounter. We both agreed that we wanted to read the book and give it a fair trial. I was relieved to see that she felt as conflicted as I did about the power of ‘Magneto Therapy’ and both of us laughed good naturedly at the idea of wearing a ‘magneto belt’ while we went about our daily routine. The idea, along with the whole idea of the magnetized body, seemed too absurd.

However, I also noticed that we both switched the directions we were sleeping in that night…just in case.

Best,
Cat