In 1986 Asahara claimed another transcendent religious experience, a “final enlightenment,” achieved while meditating in the Himalayas—perhaps the world’s ideal place for such visions. A New Delhi holy man whom Asahara sometimes referred to as his master and a “great saint” later told a Japanese reporter that he referred a supplicant Asahara to monks in the Himalayas and was “surprised” when he reappeared four or five days later with a claim to enlightenment, as the master had always assumed that such spiritual achievement required a lifetime. Yet Asahara seems to have been convinced, in at least a part of his mind, that he had indeed become enlightened and that his spiritual achievement entitled—even required—him to be a great guru or perhaps a deity.
Asahara would soon combine such spiritual grandiosity and his organizational and financial skills with endless self-promotion. He would make a point of meeting with prominent Buddhist figures in various parts of the world—most notably the Dalai Lama in India—and of having photographs taken with them, which would then be displayed in Aum publications together with his hosts’ lavish expressions of praise for him and his spiritual quest. Here the emerging guru undoubtedly took liberties in converting spiritual hospitality into self-advertisement.
