A guru ‘clinically dead’ for 12 years in Punjab, and a dera enjoying perennial life

As volunteers guide devotees towards designated prayer areas inside the complex, spread over nearly 100 acres, about 30 km from Jalandhar city, Simran Batra from Ludhiana says she and her family have not missed a single samadhi day in 12 years. “Being here gives us peace and strength.”

The Divya Jyoti Jagriti Sansthan’s Nurmahal dera is spread over nearly 100 acres (Express Photo).

Punjab Police personnel deployed at entry points keep a watch, with barricades, surveillance cameras and metal detectors regulating visitors, who must sign a register and deposit mobile phones before entering sensitive areas.

The most sensitive ground is the sealed chamber where Ashutosh Maharaj lies in “meditation” – its temperature maintained at a constant -22 degrees Celsius. Only a core group of 10 disciples and those selected by them, apart from medical professionals, are allowed in. The others pay obeisance from a distance.

Every six months, a team of doctors inspects the body and submits a report to the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

The court got involved after a Darbhanga resident, Dalip Jha, claiming to be Ashutosh Maharaj’s son, along with an associate approached it, seeking custody of the guru’s body and permission to perform the last rites.

The court cleared the cremation at first, but then another Bench of the High Court allowed the dera to retain the body under medical supervision.

The last check-up was done by doctors on November 25, and their report to the court was that all was well with Ashutosh Maharaj’s body, as per Swami Vishwanand, the DJJS regional coordinator.

To those sceptical about claims of Ashutosh Maharaj’s “return”, senior dera functionaries say he would go into deep meditation earlier too “for days”, going without food and meeting no one. Says a functionary, refusing to be identified: “This time, he had indicated that the meditation might be much longer. He had prepared us for it.”

“We do not know when he will return,” the functionary adds.

There has been no pause in the dera’s spiritual and administrative life, as per the functionaries. “Ashutosh Maharaj still guides us. We feel his presence during daily meditation,” they say, pointing to the DJJS’s growth in the past 12 years as proof.

The DJJS claims a following of 40-50 lakh in Punjab alone, with hundreds abroad, including the US, Europe and Australia. On occasions like Guru Purnima, lakhs are known to visit the Nurmahal dera.

Apart from a grand meditation hall and a structure marking where Ashutosh Maharaj meditated, the sprawling Nurmahal complex, which functions like a self-styled township and is registered as a ‘Divya Gram’ by the Punjab government, houses four theme-based spiritual parks and an eight-acre sarovar (pool) where nearly 5,000 devotees can take a dip at one time. Most of the structures have come up since Ashutosh Maharaj took “samadhi”.

Born Mahesh Jha in 1946 in Bihar’s Darbhanga, Ashutosh Maharaj is believed to have come to Punjab sometime in the 1970s and spent time with a religious leader before venturing into spiritualism. He set up a dera first in the early 1980s, and laid the foundation for the current one in May 1995 on a small piece of land.

The DJJS growth is particularly remarkable for there being no second-in-command to Ashutosh Maharaj, or an appointed successor, or any obvious struggle for power. Administrative decisions are taken by a core team of around 10 senior functionaries, with strict discipline governing life inside the dera, including two-hour morning meditation sessions and assigned duties. Most residents are bachelors, many of them highly educated.

Swami Vishwanand says it’s not a surprise that the DJJS has continued without friction. “Ashutosh Maharaj is the founder, the only guru, and for us, divine… There is no idleness here. Everyone is busy, and everyone knows there is no contest for authority.”

Also keeping the functionaries busy is one of the region’s largest gaushalas that functions from the complex, with 900-1,000 indigenous cows, and organic farming over nearly 300 acres, with crops such as dragon fruit. Growing apples and coconuts, not native to Punjab, is also on the cards.

A restaurant, an in-house pharmacy producing around 250 products—some with patented formulations—along with auto and iron workshops, also function from the compound.

Swami Vishwanand says their goal is to fulfill the larger mission of Ashutosh Maharaj: “self- awakening to world peace… and guiding people to a better life”.