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.
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