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Meeting Emahmn - My First Spiritual Teacher by Emam
A year had passed since I had arrived in the US in the summer of 1974. My parents had just arrived in Lincoln, Nebraska, where my brother and I were attending the University. They had come to visit the US for the first time. We traveled all together, five of us including my younger sister, in a large Chevy from Lincoln through Colorado, Wyoming (Yellowstone), Nevada, Northern California, and arrived in San Francisco to visit my uncle (my father's brother). I had never met him before. He left Iran right after I was born and never returned. At this point he had been living in the US for about twenty years.

He seemed quite strange to me at the time. A small man with long grayish hair, who gave me a big hug and was all smiles. He talked with a funny accent. He had an accent in both English and Farsi! He was vegetarian and was listening to some very strange music (devotional Indian Music). He also showed us some very strange Yoga postures which seemed quite difficult at the time. He had changed the spelling of his last name: Emahmn instead of Emam. He said the new spelling was more harmonious for him from a numerological point of view. Another strange concept I had never heard of!

There was a part of me that was quite curious about him. He seemed quite happy and relaxed with himself. This was somewhat unusual for me. In my life I was not used to people like that. A part of me really wanted to know what he was about and what made him tick.

As we were all walking in the Golden Gate Park, I asked him:
"What do you do?"
He looked at me and laughed. Then he said:
"If you really want to know, come back by yourself and give me a few days so I can show you.”
Then he asked me when I had free time from school.
I said Christmas vacation would be the best time.
"Why don't you come for your vacation then?" He asked me.
"Oh, I'm not sure. I don't know if I can make it." I said.
His response, I never forget: "Well you either know now, or you will never know!”
“So, will you come or not?" he asked again after a few minutes.
"Yes." I replied this time with certainty.
This time, somewhere in me, I knew that I would come back to see him again.


The following Christmas, my girlfriend and I spent three days and nights with him. We almost did not sleep the whole time. He took us through three days of intense initiations, processes, philosophical introductions, and meditations. Those three days completely changed my life forever. After that, I stopped smoking, drinking, and eating meat. I started meditating and reading spiritual books, practicing Yoga and Pranayama. From then on, until the Spring of 1979, which was the end of my apprenticeship with him, I visited him on every school holiday and participated in as many of his workshops as I could.

In 1978, Emahmn took me to India on our first visit there and introduced me to Maha Avatar Babaji who was to be my Sat Guru (True Teacher).