My tennis coach, Ron Rebhuhn³³

I am doing something quite unusual. Usually my students introduce the persons they invite to be lifted by me. Today I have invited my dearest brother-friend Ron, and I wish to introduce him.³⁷ He was my tennis coach.

I am a man of prayers and meditations. In the spiritual life, we need compassion, concern and self-giving. These three divine qualities are of paramount importance, and Ron, my coach, blessingfully offered me all these three divine qualities. He inspired me immensely to play tennis well. I have tremendous love and admiration for him, and also I have tremendous, tremendous love for tennis.

I am very happy to share with you my experiences with some of the world-famous tennis stars. The very first one to visit us here was Ilie Nastase. I lifted him, and as usual, he was in his own way cutting jokes. He said that if I had lifted him a little higher, he would have touched the vault of the sky! All kinds of things he said. And he was very kind to play with me.

India’s then number-one player, Ramesh Krishnan, came here and played with me. Monica Seles also came, and she was kind to play with me here. Steffi Graf came. Owing to her ankle injury she could not play, but she was lifted by me. The Swedish champion Mats Wilander also came and played with me. After I was forced to give up tennis owing to my knee problems, I lifted Billie Jean King. She was very, very kind to me. India’s present number-one player, Leander Paes, has visited us a number of times. Quite recently Martina Navrátilová came, and I lifted her. I still have tremendous love and admiration for tennis!

To come back again to my dearest brother-friend Ronnie, he is a philosopher, a psychologist and the possessor of many, many divine qualities, and he is a host in himself in offering his good qualities to the world at large.

I am very happy, very delighted and very grateful to have you here, my dearest friend-coach Ronnie.