Most of the time I spent in organized religion was backstage and behind the scenes.

Serving food, disposing of the trash, directing traffic, digging ditches, cleaning, running cables for the audio/video. And some other fun jobs.

I forget the specific event, they all blend together. But there was one time when we had finished building the outdoor stage. After which the uncles dispersed.

Only for an aunty to come out and tell us that we need another chair because Swami Chidanand Saraswatiji of the Parmarth Niketan Ashram was attending and would be seated next to Dr. Pranav Pandya or whichever senior member from Shantikunj was there for the event. I forget if Sadhviji was in attendance.

Which chair we got became a whole ordeal. It couldn’t be too fancy to signal that he is seated higher than the representative for Gurudev at the event. But also not so simple that it would offend Swamiji’s disciples.

Finally an aunty made the decision, told us which chair to get, and three of us were off.

Interesting conversation on the way there. I was already aware of who Swamiji was, I’d had many meetings with him over the years at HMEC and in Rishikesh. Looking back at it, I was a bit of an outlier, most folks in the organization aren’t aware of other sampradayas outside the usual Gujju ones like Swaminarayan and Swadhyay.

So my other two chair-fetchers got into an argument over whether Dr. Pandya or Swamiji was “more powerful”.

By this time in our lives, every person in our group was an adult, albeit at the early end of adulthood: our late teens or mid twenties.

But I’ve also heard the uncles have similar ranking or tier list conversations about various religious teachers and leaders, mostly those from Dharmic lineages.

Imma just say it, this is by far the most boring fantasy sport.

Not gonna touch the can of worms that’s the Charlie Day conspiracy board meme of parijans trying to figure out which leaders were whom in past lives.