Part 4

Once Alid Faski Natva was sitting in a shade on a small rock after finishing his work in the garden, he looked at the sky – not a cloud. He was in a peaceful and happy state. Then he looked to his right ... and saw a huge tiger. The distance between them was about twenty meters; the tiger was walking straight towards him. Alid Faski Natva froze; he did not feel any fear as if it was not happening to him. The beast was getting closer and closer. The young man could clearly see its slow movements, its eyes - which looked sad. One jump was enough for the beast to get his teeth into Alid Faski Natva. But the tiger did not do this. He slightly shook his body and turned away. Now it was obvious that the beast was weak, he was probably ill… He was approaching the house where in the doorway stood the Teacher who felt the approaching tiger. In front of the astonished student’s eyes the Teacher pet the tiger a few times. The tiger got quiet, lowered his head and started affectionately rubbing against him like a cat. The Teacher lowered his head to the tiger’s ear as if whispered something, the tiger growled quietly, made a few steps and than ran away in vigorous manner.

It was amazing! Animals were coming to the Teacher for healing! What was also surprising that the animals were finding the Teacher not only at his place, they were finding him wherever he was. Latter Alid Faski Natva realised that the Teacher was not healing all of them, sometimes he would just look at them in a special way and they would walk away.

Once in one of the villages a group of people were sitting; the Teacher and his student were amongst them. An animal which looked like a wolf appeared and stopped at a distance from them. In a while as if he had received permission it walked straight towards the Teacher, distinguishing him from other people. The Teacher got busy with him for a while, petted his head and the animal vigorously and joyfully went on his way.

It was hard for Alid Faski Natva at the beginning to comprehend all this. Even latter at home it all looked for him like magical dream.

With time he was experiencing and witnessing a lot of miracles which were verifying his Great Teacher’s powers.

Once in the afternoon he saw a group of people approaching the house. They were walking barefoot on the hot ground and caring stretches with a skinny shriveled man on them who looked pretty much like he was dead. “Poor man! Is he still alive?” – a thought went through Alid Faski Natva’s head. It looked like he was not breathing… But they would not bring a dead body there would they! Over his head there was a sort of construction which looked like an umbrella, protecting his head from the sun. Looked like those people came from far away, they probably got on their way early in the morning. The locals would not disturb the Teacher knowing that he was a holly man, but obviously the person they brought was really special to them. They put the stretchers down in front of the entrance into the house. The sweat on their faces was instantly drying out on the hot sun. ..

For three days the ill person was lying on the stretchers in the room. All those days the Teacher was healing him: he was doing special passes with his arms, was pounding something in a cup and giving it to him to drink. On the second day the man got up and walked along the room once. The Teacher told him to lie down again… On the third day he went outside two or three times, though he was still walking slowly. On the forth day his family came to get him as the Teacher asked them to do so. The stretchers were not needed any longer; the man was quite capable to make his way home even though it was quite far.

It was very difficult for Alid Faski Natva to analyze all his encounters, he was not trained in medicine, but intuitively he understood, that the illness which was eating up the man from the inside was very serious and one could assume that the damage in the body was quite significant. Looking at the positive transformation with the ill person Alid Faski Natva who could not really understand from the very beginning why exactly he was sent to India started to comprehend that he is being exposed to miracles which no one else would ever see.

Later on he realized that the Teacher started teaching him healing. For two or three month he was only observing the process of healing and only in half a year he realized that he is being trained. Every day Alid Faski Natva would do breathing exercises, first he would do it lying down, than standing, than while he was walking. But this was not the most important thing. The most important was that the Teacher was giving his student an authentic knowledge which was only understood by the two of them, so that the student of the High Teacher would go into the world being enlightened and gifted with a special power to heal people and to show them the way of truth.

During his stay with the Teacher Alid Faski Natva was visited for a few times by the teachers from his first yoga school in Bombay. They asked him if he needs to pass a message to the consulate. He thanked them but he had no message to pass. They treated Alid Faski Natva with great respect as he was a student of a Great Teacher. They were telling him what he had already witnessed himself: the Teacher is healing not everybody whether it’s people or animals, and it is not because he can not but because of some other reason only known to him, not disturbing the law of the divine…

They call the Teacher Guru. High Teacher does not mind you talking to him, but it is not acceptable to do so. One needs permission to speak to the Teacher. Whoever he looks at – talks. The teachers from Bombay gave Alid Faski Natva the name of the Highest Teacher, but no one calls him by his name, it would become known to humanity after he leaves this world…

The High Teacher was continuing acquainting his student with Indian lifestyle. They were visiting towns, villages, markets, yoga schools and just ordinary people’s houses. Wherever the Teacher would come, people without realizing that they were doing that would come up and stare at him trying to spend as much time around him as possible. Mysterious force would attract them to him. Once they came to a settlement with houses made out of clay with tilled roof, some were covered with hay or sugar canes, standing close to each other forming a street. Only central streets were pawed and had two or three storey brick houses. The entrance doors had small niches where oil lamps were lit at night. There was no electricity.

It was day time. The doors of small shops where they were making and selling ceramic pots, handmade shoes, pleated from ropes beads and farming tools were open. All those endless kiosks which were also selling food, women’s adornments were spreading all along the street, sometimes piles of merchandise would lay right on the pathway. It looked like it was more sellers than buyers. Everything was so strange here for Alid Faski Natva. Sometimes cows which were considered holly in India were walking along the streets. They also saw a herdsman with a heard of goats. As in any settlement the market was in the centre of it; farmers from all around the settlement on huge carriages harnessed into buffaloes; a hairdresser with his scissors and shaving utensils was sitting there. Him and his client were squatting one opposite the other. Fruit sellers were yelling out attracting their customers.

The travelers were doing long walks in the region. Alid Faski Natva was admiring the incredible sceneries: lake which was like a huge chalice with surprisingly smooth waters and a thick forest which at some places was getting quite close to the water. The nature was beautiful and wild: a herd of feral elephants was heading towards the water, a couple of tigers were lazily moving along. Alid Faski Natva was following his Teacher fearlessly.

Once after a long walk, the Teacher brought the young man to a busy place. There were a lot of tourists with their guides gathered in small groups. A dark skinny Hindu attracted Alid Faski Natva’s attention, he was sitting on the ground, with his legs crossed and his fists clenched demonstrating a very unpleasant view… Clenching his fingers for years he has achieved that his fingernails grew trough his palms and came out on the back of his hands. Some of the tourists would turn away with disgust; some were curious and were throwing some money on the ground.

- Maybe the nails were attached to the other side? – Naively thought Alid Faski Natva.

Even more unpleasant view for the tourist attraction was offered by a fake yogi. A skinny weary Hindu was inserting in-between his ribs some sharp bent object. With this hook he was attaching himself to a carriage and was offering a few tourists a ride. Alid Faski Natva turned away…

Why those people are interested to watch something like that? What do they think of it? A miracle? A trick?

Speaking in different languages groups of Japanese, Germans, English, American tourists surrounded the performer. He pulled out of his pocket a little orange seed and approached closely each one of miracle thirsty tourists and let them look at it closely, than he dug out a little hole in the ground and planted the seed covering it up with soil. Than he took a cloth and covered up the spot….In a few moments he pulled up the cloth… and the spectators could see a young sprout. The performer hurried up to cover the sprout with the cloth again and everyone could see the contour of the sprout under the cloth. Than every time the performer would lift the cloth up the plant would become bigger and bigger and than in few minutes it turned into a orange tree. Lifting up the cover for the last time the performer showed to the amazed spectators a ripe orange. He picked it of the tree cut it up in pieces and gave them to the tourists to try. The orange was nice and juicy. Meanwhile the performer covered the tree with the cloth and began the reversal process. Now each time he was covering and uncovering the plant it was getting smaller and smaller till it became a sprout which disappeared too. Then he dug up the seed put it into his pocket, collected the money and went on his way. One of the tourists rushed to dig the soil where the seed was planted the moment the magician left.… The magician stopped again somewhere fifty meters away and the performance started again.

Being with his Teacher and observing all this Alid Faski Natva understood that for his Teacher the event means no more than a child’s game, that he was able to do things like that himself but at the same time he knew why thing like that were not supposed to be done…

A bit later the Teacher explained to his student a huge difference between magicians-performers and raja-yogis. Though they do have one thing in common – a teacher; certainly each one on their own level. Yogis of a high level of their abilities consider magicians like that to be just tricksters. Even though that was not easy to be done for an ordinary person, the magicians have power of suggestion, creating a certain image in people’s minds. They implant into the spectator’s minds a certain story to their magical actions. When they come back home they tell everyone that they saw “miracles”. One of those “miracles” was described above and it was known as one of the classics amongst magicians. But there are other stories unfortunately not as harmless as this one.

The tourists have surrounded a Hindu wearing a turban and his helper – a boy about twelve years old. The old man got out of the circle and threw a rope which was about eight meters long. The rope froze in a vertical position. The magician gave the boy a sign and he began climbing up the rope. In front of the spectators eyes the boy’s head disappeared in the fog which appeared at the top first, than his body, than he disappeared completely. The old man got out a big bent sable climbed the rope and began to wave it around his head right where the boy just disappeared in the fog. Blood-spattered body parts began to fall down to the amazed spectators’ feet. Some of them turned their heads away in horror or screamed out. The old man got down, calmly gathered the body parts covered them with a cloth and in a few seconds he pulled the cloth up…. The spectators saw the boy safe and sound. The crowd gave out a sigh of relieve, applauded the pair, people were smiling and throwing money into a cup which the young helper held out to each one of them.

The art of Magic is similar to the shamanic techniques. Magicians like shamans influence the psyche of a human and make them see what he wants them to see. Through a dance shamans go into trance and take people into the world of illusions; magicians have different techniques to achieve the same result. For yogis on a high level of their spiritual development this is unacceptable by their philosophy. Creation of an illusion is violence to the human psyche. To harm someone or to do something just for fun is against yogis philosophy. Yogis are not supposed to satisfy the human thirst for miracles and to show of their abilities. There is only one exception to the rule; when it is done to save somebody’s life, to heal or to enlighten a student of yoga.