Body begins to decay...

[~E~]

Bursting the hope of devotees for a miraculous regeneration and reanimation, the body of Franklin Jones has begun to decay and so will be interred immediately in the mausoleum Franklin built on Naitauba to honor his mortal remains, called "The Outshining Brightness". Followers will be able to watch the ceremonies via live online video.

Since Daists have put great store in the expectation of no-decay, this moment of reality ought to help them get past their mythological involvement with the apparent individual who was Mr. Jones. Unfortunately, one suspects it won't -- rather the process of rationalizing and enforcing the projection of the archetypal myth will continue within them individually and as a group.

I am not sure if this burial place is the same building that was written about in one of their magazines over a decade ago. As I recall that site had a plate glass window so future devotees could view the guru's corpse sitting upright in his darshan chair...for eternity, I guess.

The idea of a rotted corpse being worshiped as "the form of the Avatar" is a pretty ghoulish idea. Whatever happened to 'dust in the wind''? Hmmm...

I close my eyes
only for a moment and the moment's gone
All my dreams
pass before my eyes with curiosity

Dust in the wind,
all they are is dust in the wind

Same old song
just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do
crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see

Dust in the wind,
All we are is dust in the wind

Don't hang on,
nothin' lasts forever but the earth and sky
It slips away
all your money won't another minute buy

Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind

Dust in the wind
Everything is dust in the wind

(from the song by Kansas)


~E

[Broken Yogi]

I'm not sure what the current process is, but when I was involved the Mahasamadhi procedure that was to be followed involved putting Adi Da's body in a large metal vault filled with salt. He would be placed in the vault in a sitting meditative posture, then salt would be filled in all around him. The salt would preserve his body indefinitely, but I am unaware of any window or viewing procedure being involved. The vault was to be lowered into a chamber in the base of the mausoleum-building constructed on Naitauba called "The Outshining Brightness", which would then become the central holy site in Adidam.

[RandomStu]

I'm not sure what the current process is, but when I was involved the Mahasamadhi procedure that was to be followed involved putting Adi Da's body in a large metal vault filled with salt. He would be placed in the vault in a sitting meditative posture, then salt would be filled in all around him.

Wow, that gives me another flashback. When Muktananda died, I was in the Ganeshpuri India ashram, and they woke me up in the middle of the night with the news. I went back to sleep. (My laziness is monumental. I was once woken by a massive earthquake in San Francisco; I considered for a moment running for safety, but opted instead to roll over and snooze.)

A bit later I was woken again and told I was needed to help with the preparations. I groggily left my room. It's not that I held any high position in the org, far from it. But I happened to be in charge of the ice cream freezer for the ashram snack bar, so I was the most experienced person there in dealing with large amounts of ice. They'd dragged in some 100 kg blocks of ice, and wanted me to supervise chopping it up. After doing so for a couple of hours, it suddenly dawned on me what all the ice was for.

They sat Muktananda's corpse up in his bed in meditation posture. Then they packed the ice around it, and covered the whole affair with blankets so the ice wasn't visible. For a couple days, legions of devotees filed past the corpse to pay final respects. I'd suppose that many of the mourners thought that the guru had died in meditation, or that the lack of immediate bodily decay was a sign of his yogic powers.

Stuart
http://stuart-randomthoughts.blogspot.c ... di-da.html

[Raimundo]

Wow, thanks for that Stuart - what an interesting bit of history!

Salt? Adi Salty Da?

By the way, I hadn't seen the recent additions to the Name (i.e., Sapta Na or whatever).

At least all of this answers the biggest question I've ever had about Adi Da - what will we come up with next?

[etphon ehome]

They sat Muktananda's corpse up in his bed in meditation posture. Then they packed the ice around it, and covered the whole affair with blankets so the ice wasn't visible. For a couple days, legions of devotees filed past the corpse to pay final respects. I'd suppose that many of the mourners thought that the guru had died in meditation, or that the lack of immediate bodily decay was a sign of his yogic powers.

Truly revealing of religious belief system phoniness and the self-interested intentions of leaders behind that sort of baloney. Thanks for that.