“Guru” is not a title that is used in much Japanese religious practice. It is a Sanskrit word meaning “heavy,” suggesting a person of special weight. The guru’s authority is such that he is sometimes described as “Father-Mother.” In the original Hindu tradition he is more important to the Brahman (a member of the Hindu priestly cast) than the Brahman’s actual parents because the latter merely “bring him into existence” while “the birth of a Brahman to a Veda (sacred knowledge) lasts forever.” The Tibetan Book of the Dead describes three kinds of gurus: ordinary religious teachers who are part of the “human line”; more extraordinary human beings possessed of special spiritual powers; and “superhuman” beings of the “heavenly (or ‘divine’) line.” Asahara was to claim to be all three.
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