One of the ways Aiya deflects the Guru-wonderworker limelight is to extol the powerful capabilities of his own guru, Guruji. I have heard Aiya on a number of occasions remark that Guruji, who appears to have accumulated extraordinary siddhis through his extensive Śrī Vidyā practice, has no need for the elaborate rituals Aiya promotes and performs. Guruji’s powers are such, according to Aiya, that “all he has to do is touch you” for your desires to be realized.
The only time Aiya asked me to turn off the tape recorder during an interview session was when he described in detail one of the more spectacular feats he witnessed Guruji perform. Guruji himself does not want people to know the extent of his abilities, and Aiya is trying to be a good disciple. Spending most of his time and energy developing programs for women and low-income housing in Āndhra Pradesh, South India, Guruji, like Aiya, downplays his role as a guru-wonderworker.
But people, Aiya included, do talk freely about the “lesser” miracles Guruji performs. Barbara, a devotee in her late thirties with wavy graying hair and vivid green eyes, told me of such an instance.
During the 1999 Guru-pūrṇimā in late July, an annual festival for honoring one’s guru and guru lineage, Guruji and his wife were in the United States and came to Rush for the festivities. They arrived ceremoniously in a devotee’s van and were greeted by a large group who waited, barefoot, on the parking lot in front of the temple. Barbara was among them:
“So I was out here with this whole crowd of people and standing on this pavement, lifting one foot at a time, trying to cool them off because it was terribly hot. And he comes up in the van and gets out, and it feels like the pavement got cold, or like it cooled down and was tolerable. And I turned to the lady next to me and—she said it first, she said, ‘Is it my imagination, or did the ground just cool?’ I said, ‘It’s not your imagination, because I was about to ask you.’”
Barbara then described how she met Guruji face to face that evening. He had just finished a talk and was handing out CDs of his temple in Āndhra Pradesh. Devotees lined up to receive the CD and to receive his blessings by touching his feet.
Barbara:
That’s the time when my eyes were getting bad, really bad. And my doctor told me he couldn’t operate on them. I had had both retinas reattached, then slowly got cataracts over the years. And then they accelerated within a six-month period. It just got worse and worse.
I went up [to Guruji] and thought, “Somebody who could step on that hot pavement and make it cool has got to have something. Something different.” Like I told you before, I just wanted one of those kind of miracle things.
And I touched his feet and felt this kind of energy going through them, and I looked up at his face and his eyes were blue. I mean blue, blue like yours are. But I knew they weren’t. There was this kind of glow to them.
And I said, “Could you heal me?” And he put his thumbs over my eyes. I didn’t even tell him what was wrong. He just put his thumbs on my eyelids and said something, I don’t know what it was... and he touched my head and then he said, “You’re cured.”
And I thought, “Oh cool.” [Barbara chuckles.] And he gave me a CD, and I almost said, “I don’t have a computer,” and handed it back to give to someone else, but I still have it. And then I went outside and said, “Hey, I got cured!”
Corinne:
And could you see as soon as he’d done that?
Barbara:
No, I couldn’t. But the thing was, a couple days later I went to see my doctor and he said, “I don’t see the uveitis. It’s not active.” I asked if I could have the operation, and he said, “Yes, as long as the disease remains inactive.”
So I told him about the guru. And Dr. Chawla usually laughs at whatever I come up with, but he sat and intently listened.
Barbara explained that after the disease was in remission long enough, she was able to have surgery that completely restored her sight. She owes her ability to see to Guruji’s touch.
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