What To Do After A Dead Guru

File under: Backroom Gurudom and Final Satsang

There's a nice article in the Village Voice about the sizable community of devotees that Sri Chinmoy left behind. We were especially entertained by the author's initial experience covering the guru most famous for showing off:

Two decades ago, when I was writing for USA Today, I was dispatched to the Aspiration Ground to watch Chinmoy lift a house. Instead, I saw what looked like a garden shed connected to a calf-raising machine. To add to the domestic aura, there was a flickering television inside, among other items. With his followers gleefully chanting, the guru scrunched his shoulders under the mechanism's padded arms and stood on his toes, tipping the structure slightly.

With the all-powerful guru gone, an ad-hoc committee of senior disciples is going to take over:

"There will not be a successor to Sri Chinmoy," said the spokesperson, "because no one has the same spiritual height, the same realization."

Ultimately making Sri Chinmoy an utter failure as a guru.