Source, Lowering the Bar: Frozen Guru Update (June 2015)
Oh I am so bad! And by “bad” I do not mean “good.”
Because here I am, reading Lowering the Bar’s update on that frozen guru and thinking, oh yeah, I want to keep you updated on this major story, so I’d better search out and grab my previous link to this major story — January, 2015, as it happens — but …
I never posted it! What on earth was wrong with me? Because it’s a great, crazy story. Which begins:
Frozen Guru Update – Lowering the Bar:
January 05, 2015
Frozen Guru Update
Just a quick update on the continuing controversy in India over the status of His Holiness Shri Ashutosh Maharaj Ji, the Hindu holy man who since January 2014 has been—well, let’s do a quiz (choose one):
(a) in a deep meditative state
(b) dead
(c) frozen solid
(d) all of the above
(e) both a and c
(f) both b and c
Feel free to consult my previous post about this before answering. See “Court to Decide Whether Guru is Dead or Just “In Deep Meditation,” (May 29, 2014).
Oh, sorry, did you actually spend time trying to answer that? Probably the answer is (f), but there’s no way to be sure and the Indian courts have not definitively settled this yet. Sorry, I guess it was kind of a trick question. No points.
Me again. I am so backward today. Here’s the Lowering the Bar update (link at the top of this page but never mind, the story is SO big and SO insane, I’m re-publishing the whole thing below. Note: I bolded my absolutely favorite passage. See if you agree. Once you pick yourselves up from the floor where you fell during helpless laughter. But don’t stay down there too long because somebody might freeze you:)
June 18, 2015
Frozen Guru Update (June 2015)
Still frozen.
Your next Frozen Guru Update will be in December, or sooner if he thaws out.
Oh, look, Mr. (or Ms.) I Don’t Remember Which Frozen Guru This Is Referring To has clicked for more details. Okay, let me get you up to speed.
This involves His Holiness Shri Ashutosh Maharaj Ji, who has since January 2014 been in an altered state of consciousness, although exactly what state he is in depends on who you ask. See “Court to Decide Whether Guru is Dead or Just “In Deep Meditation,” Lowering the Bar (May 29, 2014). There is no debate on where he is. He is in a freezer. The debate is over what if anything he is doing in there. Because the organization he founded, Divya Jyoti Jagrati Sansthan, has very significant monetary as well as spiritual assets, the debate will be resolved by a court. Or possibly by a power failure.
But not yet. At the time of our last update, the High Court of Punjab and Harayana was considering various appeals of a lower court’s ruling that the guru had in fact died, and it planned to take up the matter on February 9. See “Frozen Guru Update [1]” (Jan. 5, 2015); see also “Ashutosh Maharaj body completes year in freezer,” Indian Express (Jan. 28, 2015). Instead, it has postponed the hearing three more times, most recently on May 25. In that order, it reset the hearing for August 18. I wouldn’t get too excited, though, because the docket already shows an order dated August 1 that pre-adjourns things again until September 2. That might be in a related matter, though. I admit that my experience with the High Court of Punjab and Harayana is somewhat limited.
The organization Ashutosh Maharaj founded, meanwhile, is still describing him in the present tense. See, e.g.,”Monthly Spiritual Congregation: Devotees Encapsulate Spiritual Energy Yet Again at Nurmahal, Punjab,” Divya Jyoti Jagrati Sansthan (June 14, 2015). And so it goes.
This has been your Frozen Guru Update for June 2015.
P.S. I was wondering how to tag this story and realized it’s “the god problem.” Especially if your god is a very large popsicle.