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by Niraj Kumar

Aghoris, the word causes shivers in spine. There are stories about aghoris in each & every hamlet of India & Nepal. It is said that they possess unlimited powers over nature, can conquer death, materialize objects, eat human flesh, faeces & live in extreme impurity, sometimes totally naked. Spiritual practioners associate aghoris with the five Ms sadhna that involves getting to a non-dual state of mind through impurity like meat, wine, fish, women. Robert E. Svoboda's trilogy on Aghori Vimalananda in Aghora, popularized the sect in the West. Indic spiritual tradition bifurcates into two main arteries-Vedas & Agamas. While Vedas are the path of purity towards the Absolute, Agamas involve the path of Tantra. In Vedas, mind & fire are the way to reach God. Therfore, sacrifices, oblations and idea of Atman burning like a a lamp predominates. Knowledge descends through Samadhi and thence one can self-realize. Agamas make 'body' as the path to self-realization. In tantras, 'body' is not inferior to mind rather ladder to achieve Higher Consciousness. Extreme obsession with body caused the development of multiple bodily techniques, energy point & energy flow system within body.Hathyoga and concept of coiled energy in the form of a subtle serpent underlies tantric path. Buddhism & Hinduism as well as Taoist quest for immortality and God-like state within human life led to refinement in development of chakra theories, qi-kong, tai-chi, reiki & many more practices. All three philosophies had strongly supported, exchanged & influenced each other in developing the science of subtle energies. While Nagarjuna is credited with making Nalanda the centre of excellence in teaching tantra, other Mahasiddhas like Macchendranath, Gorakhnath strongly influenced the growth of Kashmir Saiva tantras, Bengal's Shakta tantras ,Oriya tantra as well as Tibetan Vajrayana that now hold sway over the Himalayas & across it. Within tantras, there is another level of differentiation-dakshinmarg & Vammarga. While Dakshinmargi uses mantra & mudras for worshipping various form of Shakti, the extreme left-handed path of Vammarga uses dreaded five Ms like meat, wine & sexual act in their path of achieving non-duality. Aghoris are on the extreme left of this spectrum and they even indulge in macabre practises like cannibalism , drinking urine, copulation with corpse(necrophilia), in their urge to obliterate any duality even between pure & impure & to achieve non-dual state of mind. This sect is an offshoot of the famous Kapaliks of Kashmir Saivism who carried human skull as a symbol of sect . Baba Kinaram of Varanasi reformed & revived the sect during 17th century. For Dakshinmargis, Purnananda's Sata-Cakra-Nirupam, a 16th century text of Bengal can be termed classic. For Vammargis including Aghor sect, Abhinavagupta's Tantraloka, a 10th century text of Kashmir can be considered classic. But, there is so much of misinterpretation & abuse by Vammargis that most of them fall prey to delirium and psychosis by obsessive indulgence in ugly, impure & social taboos in their self-discovery.

Encountering Aghoris

While I was mere 6-7 years old, I first heard about an Aghori from father's mouth. We were living in a government bungalow in interiors of Hindi hertland in Bhagalpur district. Appearance of aghoris dressed in all-black cause awe & multiplying rumours among village folk. My father had gone for a morning walk and he was face to face with an aghori. The aghori narrated something about our family & father was sharing that secret thing with mother. I overheard & shivered with joy. An incessant thinking process started- Who are they? What do they do? How do they know everything? Should I learn to conquer fear like they do? And, I started fiddling with dangers to overcome fear. Sometimes getting hold of snakes, or hanging & moving using the dilapidated wooden beam placed on a huge well almost filled with monsoon water to reach the other end of well, jumping into river, playing with fire & visiting ruins of old buildings in evening hoping to confront ghost. Sometimes I landed in serious troubles due to this audacity. Once I decided to cross a field where hundreds od dangerous buffalos wer grazing. No one dared. I chanted newly learnt Gayatri mantra & entered this battle ground. Some stared. I controlled my throbs, perspiration all across body & suddenly a buffalo rushed , picked me on horns & put me down. That was such a scary thing. Buffalo was going to pierce me. I ran, buffalo after me. I survived. there was not much injury to spinal cord, but I mustered no further courage to confront buffalos again. But, the strong urge & my chutzpah nature to discover aghori's power grew stronger. I heard the sound of a sarangi one day. A wandering Natha sadhu was playing the music. It touched some chord in my heart. That sound still reverberates when I go silent. I went after the Yogi and took a firm decision to leave family to learn & wander playing sarangi. I took away clothes, fully naked & told mother that I was leaving home to become a sadhu. I was not even seven years. My good luck that father was not there & I escaped his anger. This fascination in early phase of childhood with aghoris & nathas impelled me on a path in my adolescence which now seems so funny, childish & mere an addiction of adolescece. Certain strong bodily processes unfolded while I just finished my 10th standard. I have narrated the story in one of my notes" Twenty Years of Inner Pilgrimage-From Resonance to Spanda-karika". By 1991, I was certain that I will be a monk and shared my dreams with my girlfriend whom I intensely loved. That was the paradox. All the boundaries between mundane & transcendental realm was collapsing. But, I was never a lonely man. Full of friends, well-wisher, guides. I am gregarious in nature. Same year, I happened to go to Varanasi. My father suggested that if I could get an opportunity, I must go & have darshan of Aghoreshwar Ram, 12th in lineage of Baba Kina Ram. His ashram, Sri Sarveshwari Samooh is situated on the other bank of the Ganga. There were various stories in media those days as one of his visitor, Chandrashekhar had become the Prime Minister of India. When I reached Varanasi, I thought of first rushing to his ashram at the earliest & then getting fresh over there itself to have his darshan at the earliest. When I reached the ashram, I was searching lavatories & bathroom to fresh myself. Must I admit, I was more unclean than many of those aghoris. Rightly or wrongly, I reached the darshan-point. Aghoreshwar's wooden khadaon, slippers were placed on a pedestal & many were paying obeisance to the pair of slippers. I couldn't tolerate. Anger was bursting forth. I was accusing the egoist mindset of the aghori. And in anger wandered into garden side. Someone called me. I was so angry that I ignored that. An attendant told Bhagwan Ram, Aghoreshwar's popular name, is calling me. I couldn't chew my anger even. What a surprise! A saint in white clothes with a white banyan unlike black-dressed aghoris, was standing before me. I touched his feet. He asked me to follow. He sat on a chabutara. Thence, asked about me & my background. He asked me to seek any boon. I thought & sought "god". He was amused. I prostrated on ground, looked towards Him & what a splendid vision I had. There was huge burst of awareness & I felt the expansion of consciousness.Aghoreshwar was a great saint & reached the pinnacle of self-realization through Aghora marg. He embedded himself with social causes. He was running an excellent hospital for lepers. IF IMPURITY IS ALSO THE PATHWAY TOWARDS GOD, WHAT BETTER THAN SERVING THE LEPERS! I really curse myself for not visiting him frequently. He left this earthly abode in 1992. I was a born rebel against every institution. Digging own path & own roots, I often succeeded in failures! Next year, I took initiation fron a Great Yogi of Ramakrishna Order. Something profound was now happening. Attachment with body had minimized after conducting dissections of human corpses/cadaver in Anatomy classes while studying Medicine.Classroom became the cremation ground for developing sense of non-discrimination! Suddenly in 1994, I was hit by another bout of resolving the riddle of death & overcoming the existential dread of death. I began to frequent Varanasi. Bhagwan Ram was not there to guide. Some sadhaks suggested me to meet Aghori Gambhira Beer at Manikarnika cremation ground in Varanasi. Whenever I went there, he was engrossed in samadhi for 4-5 hours at stretch. Then, he would get up, won't interact. I would use time visiting Saranath & meditating under the Peepul Tree. I thought perhps it was not in my destiny to meet him. One sadhak suggested me to discuss my problems with Lal Baba who ate human flesh fron burning pyre even during daytime. I found him to be more a psychotic & quite ignorant of higher dimensions of Reality. He was a mere cannibal. On the other hand, Gambhira exuded energy. Even watching him in Samadhi, one can experience the strong detachment from the world & strange feelings would engulf. I went many times & could finally talk to him in December 1994 after one year sojourn. Gambhira asked me to share lunch. He ate khichdi. I miss sharing the simple food. My sense of prejudice was still there. How could have I eaten meal served on floor( no plates, papers or evn leave-plates) in a cremation ground? He told about his own journey & suggested that since I was seeking God, I shall achieve my goal by practising at home alone. He said even he was striving to achieve same goal but promised that whenever I need to run some spiritual business, he would be happy to impart siddhis to me. He knew I didn't want that. It was in later years that journalists used to throng around him. Once a news channel aired the footage of Gambhira eaing corpse. Still, I have high regards for him. He never leaves his Dhuni at Manikarnika, practises extreme austerities. He is a full Vedantist during daytime & aghormargi during night. Balancing two extreme paths at same time is difficult and that too when you are always in the public gaze as no cave, no hut, no ashram at Manikarnika Dhuni where Gambhira lives. I am lucky to get opportunity to stay with them during night & could decipher the acausal logic these sadhaks engage with while communicating with different worlds.There are some instances to share. A sadhak, normally dressed in shirt & pant , always kept a snake which he claimed to be poisonous. Snake used to wrap around his wrists. That way, he could identify himself with Siva. While tantrik practises involves raising & controlling the serpent energy within, this sadhak actually tamed a physical snake and by homology intended to transfer the effect within. Similarly, another sadhak used to apply ash of owl bones so that he could see into extreme darkness & minimize the need to carry a torch at night. For him, reason was clear. Owls can look into darkness. By applying the ash, this power can be transferrd to him. Similarly, Gambhira talked about" bhag me ling, ling me para; jo rakhe so guru hamara"!He was pointing to mastery of vajroli, non-ejaculative orgasm while copulating with female partner as the real characteristic of a Guru! But, equating semen with mercury is again based on same acusal structural homologous logic. Now, it was clear to me that why in these sects sadhaks consumed small dose of mercury to attain immortality. Immortality is identified with preserving the semen, source of life. Mercury appears like semen..silvery, sticky, viscous glue. By consuming mercury, the life-enhancement can be effected. I would term this kind of non-causal thinking as a sort of morphological resonance of ideas through which action can be transferred. Therefore, trying to understand these marga from causal perspective mostly leads to erroneous views. I was quite fascinated but at the same time disenchanted. Very few aim to achieve God-realization.

That year itself(1994), I got an opportunity to visit Ujjain & Omkareshwar in Central India. Both are the centre of major Jyotirlingas that signify Siva. I was accompanying my father. We reached Omkareshwar on the bank of NARMADA, late in the evening. The famous Jyotirlinga temple is located in Om-shaped island. Here, great saints like Samkaracarya received knowledge. When we crossed the footbridge above Narmada, I asked a passer-by the way to the main temple. He showed the way & suggested to even visit the ashram of Baba Krishna Das. We rushed to the temple and attended the full evening aarti. When, the door was shut, we thought of just roaming the other floors of the temple. We had not taken any decision to visit Baba's ashram.When we were on 2nd floor, it was almost dark. Near a pillar, both of us had a sudden physical shock. It was as if I had touched a 220 Volt naked electric wire. We were thrown few feet behind. I shuddered. Whole air was electrically charged. My heart beat was so fast & feet still. There was a kind of stambhan. An old sadhu was lying. He sits back & lit a match-stick to smoke bidi. My father immediately fell on his feet. I couldn't. I was into another dimension of consciousness. We immediately left the place and in bazaar made an arrangement for night stay. I meditated, tried to know, who he could be. I was swooning. I had a horrific dream as well as a shabby discharge. I got up, felt so guilty but couldnt make out anything. I had seen my father in dream meeting serious accident & lying injured in the bushes. Thence, I saw him in a hospital's 2nd floor. It was vivid, very powerful & I knew it was going to be true. I went into silence. I prayed Siva to save him from untoward incidence. We again went to the temple . We tried to find out the old sadhu. He was nowhere. Within a year, my father met with a serious train accident. That time, I had pemonition of his road accident . He had come to meet us. I along with younger brother were living in the city. I forced him to go back to ancestral home 30 km away so that he could be safe. And the train journey ended with this accident. He was lying in bushes. An old widow & her sons rescued him & took to nearby Hospital. Hereceived injury exactly at same point which I had dreamt. He was saved. When he was shifted to 2nd floor of hospital & he was walking while recuperating from wounds, both of us could relate the manifeastation of dream & grateful for saving from certain death due to the grace of electrifying unknown saint. I was always eager to know who that unknown saint was and told people many a times that the unknown saint was emblem of genuinity. He preferred anonymity & worked in the world unlike our own hundreds of corporate spiritualists. My fascination with cremation ground & practises grew stronger. I left studies of medicine and bacame an ardent follower of Marxism during daytime & practioner of secret energy during nights, This was another paradox settling its own course inside.I started visiting cremation grounds without any guide in the field at late nights and used to practise sadhna near burning pyre. Peace & emptiness of mind was overwhelming. Many a times, other tantriks abused me, threatened me. But, often when I sat, black dogs would rush & sit around me. They were merely responding in Pavlovial way. Other practioners must be feeding meat & fishes to them, so dogs expected same from me. Now, tantriksstopped threatening. For them, dogs are the carrier of Kala Bhairav, the form of Siva that rules smashan, the cremation ground.One of my friends, a well known tantrik suggested me tio use some wine during sadhna. He narrated how he was supposed to perform puja and upon instruction of his Guru based in Datiya, Madhya Pradesh, he was completing chanting of 125 thousand times mantra. He finished arduous sadhna. Nothing happened. He kept on doing. Three lakh, four lakh..ten lakh. Ultimately, he decided to offer branded whiskey to Kala Bhairav. He narrated happily that this bore fruit. Divine Mother appeared in his dreams & blessed him. Such are the anecdotes from night-life oif dreaded cremation ground. I found that in Ujjain, where popular siddhi temple of Kal Bhairav is situated & statue of Bhairav drinks wine when same is offered, people offer best wine to appease God. Human nature & frailty is sometimes so funny to watch. I have fond memories of association with another aghori during this time. He could create atmosphere of cremation ground wheresoever he willed. Burning smell of human flesh would irritate the senses. He roamed many years in Tibet & Himalayas & came back to social life to get his daughter married & fulfill his family obligation. I got married in 2000. My fascination with this esoteric cult ebbed

A message!

May be it was lurking inside a silent corner waiting an opportube time to strile my normalcy again.Facebook became the messanger. On the eve of Diwali, a Faceboog friend, Aghori Govind Das sent me a video of Baba Krishna Das of Omkareshwar. Generally , I dont watch videos and more engrossed with phonetic world. I was impelled to watch. This video I posted many a times. I was totally blown away. I identified the Sadhu who gave me darshan at Omkareshwar in 1994. I immediately contacted Brother Govind . He said, he was there in Omkareshwar in 1994 and eschewed that Baba never left his Dhuni, the sacred fire which is considered manifestation of Siva Himself. Who was He then? Was He an astral projection of Baba Krishna Das? Could Baba exist in multiple bodies simultaneously? Did His blessings saved my father? Various personal encounters in Assam & Jammu/Kashmir with practioners have made me to conclude that sadhaks posing for dramatic visuals eating corpses, living naked in cremation ground, practising macabre & bizarre are mere the scum of this pure marg. Pure Aghoris are pure in mind without any discriminationor fear and do not indulga in voyeurism. Logic based on structural resonance through which transference of merit or consciousness is expected leads the ignorant sadhaks of Vammarg to fulfill their desires of transgression & sexual fetishism under the garb of five Ms; without properly understanding the marg.Five Ms are subtle in meaning. Orgasm occurs when polarity within collapses into non-dual state. I vouchsafe sexual orgasm is not the instat experience of this Pure Consciousness. Lot of foolish teachings have been bombarded by corporate spiritualists who give false hope of delivering superconsciousness through sex! Aghoris practise pure, non-discriminatory path of using Body to conquer fear & prejudices and to ahieve the state of non-duality. Pure Aghoris are innocent, lovely, ever kind , merciful & bless you whenever you seek them out. They are apparently bundle of contradictions as for them non-duality is the only aspect of existence. Who can be better example than ShambhuSiva? Om namah Sivaya!

Se si, hai probabilmente conosciuto anche Milk Baba, il mio Guru, che nel 1994, vedendomi poco motivata, mi chiese di dipingere sui muri del Ram Mandir.

E' stata un'esperienza indimenticabile, ora sospesa per motivi "tecnici", ma che spero di ricominciare per finire il lavoro cui sto lavorando nella foto.

Dipingere gli dei a Pashupatinath non e' solo un grande onore, e' un'esperienza che arricchisce e insegna, in quanto ho lavorato sotto il controllo costante di altri Baba, bramini, turisti, pellegrini.....tutti ne sanno più di me e tutti mi danno consigli o vogliono più rispetto per l'iconografia tradizionale.

Milk Baba ha una conoscenza della letteratura religiosa che lo rende un maestro inflessibile, ma anche e' molto aperto e mai rigido nelle sue posizioni: se la mia interpretazione di un soggetto non ne disturba il significato profondo la accetta volentieri.

Ha un senso estetico molto sensibile e i suoi suggerimenti sono sempre formulati con la massima gentilezza , ma senza possibilità di appello.

Quando ho dipinto il Kailash e il Manasarowar, nel 1994, non avevo mai visto altro che foto della montagna, mai quelle del lago.

Milk Baba ha costantemente descritto il posto nei minimi particolari, correggendomi nei più piccoli dettagli.

Dopo almeno 10 anni un poster mi ha dato la possibilità di confrontare la realtà col mio dipinto e ho visto che la descrizione del Baba era stata esattissima.

Ho cominciato poi a dipingere gli dei (ma lavoro costantemente anche altri soggetti) seguendo i miei stati d'animo, cercando di metterli nel lavoro per analizzare me stessa e per aiutarmi a capire meglio quello che ho dentro.

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