Related
Translate
Previous entry: Hare Krishna Community Survives Struggle, Scandal
Next entry: Koreshan appeal heats up for summer
Get RNB via RSS
 |
RNB's RSS feed What is this? |
Get RNB via Email
 |
 Subscribe by Email What is this? |
Follow: Twitter
Most Popular
This Week:
- Guyana’s Jonestown suicide site gets plaque
- Scientology practices ‘putting people at risk’
- Recession: Muslim schools in UK under threat of closure
- Australian senator tells Parliament of widespread criminal conduct within the Church of Scientology
- World’s oldest ocean-going passenger ship, ministry ship Doulos, to stop sailing
- When a child dies, faith is no defense
- Israel Charges Extremist With Attempted Murder Of Messianic Family
- Scientology’s feet held to the fire in Australia: Struggle between a church and the state
- 1-year prison term for man who participated in cyber attack on Church of Scientology Web sites
- Australian police take up complaints about Scientology
Buried Indian mystic suffocates
More articles on this topic: HinduismAn Indian mystic who undertook to be buried for the weekend as a penance to bring world peace has suffocated in his pit, police say.
Ananda Swami, in his early 20s, had his followers bury him in a deep pit near Madras, saying he would come back at the appointed hour to bless them all.
He apparently went underground in the hamlet of Vadipatti last Friday evening.
The pit was covered with five wooden planks and then fires, which play a key role in all Hindu rituals, were lit close by.
Ananda Swami’s followers were so convinced their swami, or godman, would come out with redoubled spiritual vigour, that they arranged to feed over 1,000 poor people to mark his emergence from the samadhi, or underground trance.
Post-mortem
The mystic was scheduled to come out on Sunday morning.
A large number of people from the surrounding area gathered at the site.
It was not clear whether he had promised to break through the wooden planks on his own.
The crowd waited and waited, and finally the anxious disciples removed the planks to wake Ananda Swami from his trance.
However, the swami was found dead. Police removed the body for a post-mortem.
People in the hamlet said Ananda Swami had undergone similar samadhis in the past, though for a much shorter time.
It was thought he might have been suffocated by the smoke that seeped in from the fires lit by his followers.
Some reports said that his face bore scars, indicating he may have tried to push through the wooden planks on top of him as he ran out of air.
Ananda Swami’s followers did not seem to find anything amiss with either what they had done or his failure to return alive.
“It’s all god’s will,” one devotee said.
“Perhaps his mission on earth had come to an end. We still revere him as god’s own representative on earth.”
Indian swamis are reputed to be adept in breath-control exercises and can remain underground for hours before emerging unharmed.
What You Can Do From Here
|
Read More Articles On These Topics
Share, Blog About, Bookmark, or Email This Article
Subscribe
Read Another Article
Previous entry: Hare Krishna Community Survives Struggle, Scandal Next entry: Koreshan appeal heats up for summer
RNB Homepage with latest headlinesFind Related Information
Find Related Books
|
Share This Article
To share this page simply copy and paste one of these URL's:
