Quotes from Aghora: At the Left Hand of God
By Robert E. Svoboda
Preface
Tantra is a mental science, a meta-psychology, a method for exploring the mind and developing the range of one’s perceptions.
The cosmos possesses only a relative reality because it is not permanent and unchanging.
The cosmos Herself possesses the ultimate personality, the supreme expression of the totality of manifested existence: the Adishakti, or Adya.
Cure is the expelling of the alien and the return of the normal personality.
The stronger the self-identification, the greater the immunity to attack from another personality, which might usurp some area of the ego’s domination.
One significant area of Tantric research has always been methods for prolonging one’s life. In one sense, the added years are significant mainly because they indicate the degree of successful achievement of the rituals.
Yoga, recognizing the essential impermanence of the human personality, seeks to efface it entirely to permit one to return directly to the unlimited Absolute. Tantra aims to replace the limited personality with an unlimited, permanent one.
Immortality is a desirable goal in the context of the Indian belief in reincarnation. If one has a long list of karmic connections to be lived through, it is infinitely more convenient to live through them all in one lifetime, rather than be forced to endure rebirth again and again.
Aghoris, Tantrics who have superseded all ritual limitations.
Any good Yogi will know of his impending death six months in advance as his prana or life-force begins to flow out of his body.
Some Tantrics worship in graveyards and charnel grounds simply to catch hold of human spirits to force them to perform work.
The ultimate Siddhi is control of Adya, the personification of the entire cosmos.
Essential to the production of any Siddhi are Mantra, Yantra, and Tantra. In the journey toward Siddhi, Mantra is the energy that moves your vehicle (the Yantra) according to a fixed process (Tantra).
There are three main types of mantra: a) descriptive - usually in Sanskrit, these mantras describe either the process undergone, the desired goal, or both. b) meaningless - aggregations of sounds which have no known meaning in any human language. c) bijas - individual nasal lysed syllables
Four types of Vani or speech exist for the pronunciation of mantra: a) Vaikhari - vocal speech b) Madhyama - nasallysed speech c) Pashyanti - purely mental repetition d) Para - telepathic speech, in which only the intention, but not the sound is conveyed.
The best Yantra is said to be the human body.
Rather than seek to extirpate their emotions entirely as Yogic practitioners do, Tantrics magnify their emotions and transfer them entirely to a deity, a personified cosmic force.
There is no Mukti (freedom from delusion) without Bhukti (enjoyment).
You must love yourself to make progress.
Eventually, Tadrupata occurs in which all but a few vestiges of the devotee’s original personality are eliminated, and only the deity’s personality remains.
The Tantras say, “Shivo bhutva shivam yajet”: first become Shiva, and then you will be able to worship Shiva properly.
Tantric rituals are sacrificial right. Though herbs, minerals, and animals are used as offerings, they are secondary to the true offering, the sacrifice of one’s limited self into the sacrificial fires of penance. In the Panchamakara ritual, the female is the fire into which the male offers semen just as clarified butter is offered in Orthodox fire worship.
No Tantric texts exist which provide thoroughly accurate details of any ritual. Each text omits an essential step, or includes false information.
Most of us despise disease without realizing that we invite it to ourselves.
Tantra is the worship of Mother; it is the most advanced method for inculcating maternal feelings. It is undeniable that as you look to the world, so the world will look to you. If the world is your mother and all its inhabitants your family, there is never need for loneliness, fear, or despair.
Introduction
The word aghora can be interpreted as “deeper than deep,” or as “gentle,” or “filled with light, illumined.”
The aim of Tantra is Laya, return of the seeker to the state of undifferentiated existence.
Tantra has been divided into Right-Hand and Left-Hand paths. The Right-Hand Path involves a search for the unlimited reality via the road of external imposition of purity. The Left-Hand Path relies on its practitioners’ absolute internal purity to protect them while they practice rituals, which may involve necromancy, intoxicants, sex, or other “forbidden“ practices. There are few, though, who do dare and who successfully complete the rigorous Left-Hand training of Tantra and Aghora.
One immutable tenet of Aghora is that death is to be personified and deified.
Aghoris crave not for physical death, but for the destruction of all their limitations, “killing” themselves by internal or external processes.
Vimalananda (an Aghori) wanted Western holier-than-thou renunciates to know that “filth and orgies in the graveyard” can be as conducive to spiritual advancement, as can asana, pranayama, and other “purer” disciplines.
Aghora is mysterious and deep–deeper than deep, in fact, and only those who can lay aside all their cultural clothing and plunge into it naked can dive into it depths.
When you, the finite, merge into infinity, what dost thou not know?
For Vimalananda, Aghora was the doctrine of no return, a personal creed which demanded relinquishing all in exchange for divine love. He wanted to warn spiritual dilettantes in the West that the frivolity with which they treat discipline and the self-delusion they attempt to pass off as enlightenment is merely a cheating of their own consciousness, which leads only to the pit.
The people who think they can buy kundalini are the fools. Westerners think they can purchase knowledge, but all they get for their money is fake teachers from India, who dish out any slop to them and get rich on their gullibility.
What sort of educational system do we have nowadays? They announce their examinations in advance so that any idiot can mug up a bunch of notes in preparation. The key to testing someone is to test them when they least expect it and are least prepared for it. Then you have an accurate idea of how much they really know.
Here in India, we believe in watching the artist at work, not in looking at the work of the artist. Artistry is not what the artist produces, but is the artist himself, producing.
Vimalananda was not conceded; he was in awe of what was within him.
Two principles guided his teaching: compassion for all beings, including the seemingly insentient, such as rocks; and perpetual awareness of rnanubandhana, the bondage of karmic debt.
Malam vidvamsayati iti vimalaha: the absolute annihilation of filth is Vimala
He held that objective reality is continuously being altered by our perceptions of it.
For the mind, reality is defined by its perceptions. Aghora is total control of perception.
He transcended the blasé factuality of objective reality and ascended to the mythic.
“To be really aware, you must be able to know simultaneously what is going on thousands of miles away today, what may have happened here centuries ago, what will happen anywhere in the world decades from now, and what is occurring, has occurred, or will occur on other planes of existence. And you must still act as if you know nothing. You must just sit and talk with other people and play the part which nature has assigned to you.“
To live any longer would be to attract new karmas.
“I will have my death my way.”
Do you know what is an Aghori’s profoundest expression of love? It is these four words: “You will cremate me.”
Psychiatrists would probably classify Vimalananda as schizophrenic.
Chapter One: Ma
To be a guru, you have to say, “I know and I can teach you.”
I am just an ordinary person. I have lived unknown and I will die unknown, except to a few.
I will never have disciples, only “children,” because that is the way a real guru should treat a disciple: as a spiritual son or daughter.
For those who believe in God, no proof of his existence is necessary; for those who do not believe in God, no proof is possible.
The guru does not need his physical body to guide you, remember. He may use other teachers, or he may work directly through nature.
He then took a black thread and did Kilana in a big circle around me. Kila means nail, and Kilana is meant to “nail off” or seal off an area to prevent any trouble-making spirit from disturbing your concentration. After the Kilana the old man told me which Mantra to recite, gave me a japamala, or rosary, to count the repetitions, and shoved a dish of raw meat and a bowl of wine in front of me. The idea was that when the Goddess appeared, in the form of an animal, I should offer the meat and wine to please her. Satisfied with my worship, she would tell me to ask for a boon, and I should reply, “Do whatever my guru says to do,” meaning Jina Chandra Suri.
Smashan Tara (The Goddess) is very tall, and her skin is a beautiful, deep midnight-blue color. Her eyes are beautiful; that’s the only way I know to describe them. She has a long red tongue lolling from her mouth. Blood, the blood she is eternally drinking, drips slowly from the tip… around her neck, there is a garland of freshly severed human heads, which are freshly bleeding. She wears wristlets and armlets of bones, and anklets of snakes. Her four hands grasp a pair of scissors, a sword, a noose, and a skull. She wears a skirt of human arms, and to me she is one of the loveliest beings in the universe, because she is my mother.
The second time I did Shava Sadhana (Corpse Practice) I did it on the corpse of a man instead of a woman, and the third time I did it on the corpse of a woman who had died while pregnant.
It is a fine thing to collect great spiritual power, but you are headed for trouble if you ever lose control over it.
A real Aghori never speaks a mantra aloud.
Chapter Two: Shakti
Ma is the source of all knowledge, the source of both delusion and release from delusion.
Though she is without beginning and without end, she may exist in either the manifested or the unmanifested state.
Energy is equally energetic whether it is kinetic or potential; only its form differs.
Ma, Shakti, Maya: these three words describe her. Maya is her delusive aspect, her capacity to bind one to limited forms. Shakti is her aspect of power and energy. And Ma? Ma indicates her maternal aspect, the motherhood of God.
Swami means “owner” or “master.” A real swami is the owner or master of himself, and if you are really master of yourself, Maya cannot have any effect on you and you would have no reason to fear or hate her.
Maya can exist only where there is duality.
A spiritual aspirant must be fearless because then, no harm can come to him; all danger arises from his own fear.
Shakti is energy. It emanates spontaneously and is then controlled. Shakti must always be controlled; otherwise, it is worthless or dangerous, just like uncontrolled electricity.
Ma wants you to learn your lesson.
Experience is the best teacher, and a fool will learn from no other.
All these deities are our own projections, and our existences are our own projections.
She will offer you the entire cosmos to make sure you have no desires left. But when you arrive at the stage where you can pass up all temptations, when you succeed, and she accepts you as her own child, then you never again have anything to worry about.
If you had not lost your position, you would never have renounced life, so it was essential for you to be ruined.
Grace is Hers to give, according to Her own sweet will. You can’t get it on your own. Ask for compassion, learning, Jnana, and when you get Jnana you will know how to obtain grace.
Sarvavidya, the knowledge of each and every aspect of Shakti.
There is nothing higher than the worship of the Mother, because only the Mother can show the child the face of its Father.
The worship of the Mother has been perfected only in India, because India is herself a mother.
The cow is the perfect mother. She has four teats: one for her calf, one for guests, including birds and animals, one for use in rituals, and one for her master.
The buffalo is the symbol of Tamas, stupidity, dullness; the cow is pure Sattva, mental brightness.
The greatness in our Indian cows is that they give milk only out of an outpouring of love…So, how are we wrong to worship cows? We are not worshiping the hide, hugs, and tail; we worship the essence.
Gopala literally means “protector of cows.”
Always sit in the Mother’s lap. When you get out of Her lap and try to protect yourself, she says, “All right, go on. Go ruin yourself.” The law of karma is too big for anyone to tackle alone.
As long as you are quietly enjoying your life as a human, Ma thinks, “Well, he is satisfied. Let him be. What use does he have for me?” …You have to desire Her much more than anything else – and there are so many obstacles to that in this dark age, in this Kali Yuga.
As Kipling said, “East is east, and west is west, and never the twain shall meet.” In a way, he was right. We Easterners have value only for emotion. You Westerners like your cows, are basically materialistic.
Kali can’t understand why everyone is afraid of Her.
When She cuts off your head, your mind becomes firm, unwavering in its concentration, which enables you to succeed at Aghora Sadhanas.
She is lambodari or “big bellied” because She consumes and digests all beings in the universe.
Most people clothe themselves in their Karmas, and she wants to cut them off, remove them from you completely.
The basis of all fears is the fear of death.
Shivoham, Shivoham: I am Shiva, I am Shiva.
When the projection of the Shakti occurs, Shiva sleeps because he has lost the part of him which was aware of himself.
Do you know why Smashan Tara is always depicted in the smashan near a roaring funeral pyre?… She cremates all the billions of karmas filled in the storehouse, which is your causal body, thereby freeing you from further obligation of being born in the world.
Chapter 3: Shiva
The world considers You inauspicious, O Destroyer of lust, who plays in the smashan smeared with the ass from funeral, Pyers, wearing a necklace of human skulls, with ghouls for comrades. But for those who remember You with devotion, O Bestower of Boons, You are supremely auspicious. - Shiva Mahimna Strotra, 24
I now know what that is, and when it comes to me, I will embrace it, because it is my own beloved deity Mahakala.
All duality exists in the manifested universe, and Shiva is beyond all that.
Lord Shiva is not absolutely absolute because out of compassion, He has taken on an attribute or two to enable us to comprehend him.
Mahakala has no limitation of any kind whatsoever, at least in the universe we know. He has no form at all, none. At least Shiva manifests a form we can concentrate on.
He is Satya Sri Akala: True, Auspicious, Beyond Time
On the one hand, there is the Saguna Brahman, the samsara, which is the infinity of forms, endless. On the other hand, the Nirguna Brahman, which is formless, infinite, absolute, no form, zero as far as form is concerned. Between these two, connecting them together is Mahakala.
If you stay in the smashan long enough, Mahakala will cause you to forget the world permanently… All you will be able to remember is that you are going to die. This is true renunciation, which lord Shiva alone can give you, no one else.
After so many experiences of death, you forget all about life; your renunciation is complete.
The smashan is called Shahr-e-khamosh, the city of silence.
Everyone cries - except the corpses.
Death is not to be feared; birth is to be feared.
The disciple is expected only to be sincere.
It is very uncommon to die aware like a Yogi does.
Every dead person hovers about the body, wondering what to do next. Why do you think the Hindus cremate their dead only a few hours after death? Because the spirit may have some hope of returning to the body as long as the body exists. When that body has been reduced to ashes, though, the spirit has to find its own path.
Five minutes before he dies, a man’s wife hugs him, kisses him, and cries over him. Five minutes after he dies, she is afraid to touch the dead body; that peculiar feeling is there.
Any form you worship is only a form, and your worship is worship of the absoluteness behind it.
Where there is no heat, there is no mental turmoil.
Life is only a memory. It may be a sweet memory or a bitter memory, but it is only a memory.
When you forget-when your karmic debts have been paid and your warehouse of karmas is empty - you can no longer self-identify with anything… In Sanskrit, the word for memory, in the word, for the god of lust is the same: Smara… Lord Shiva is called Smarahara (meaning destroyer of lust, as well as destroyer of memory).
During life, the body is sustained by the ego.
Your ego is nothing but your Kundalini Shakti, your own personal fragment of Adya.
As soon as the ego forgets to self, identify with the body, the individual dies.
Mahakala is a Rudra; he makes everyone cry.
Lord Shiva is Bholenath, the Lord of compassion. He has not one atom of cruelty in his person.
The site of Mahakala is so terrible that even God incarnate quails before him. Even Jesus had a moment on the cross when his faith almost failed him.
People think death is to be feared. It just isn’t so. Birth is to be feared.
Hanuman should be read as Anuman because he is the atomic force.
The word Hara comes from the root “Hr,” which means to snatch. Mahakala is He who snatches your life away. He has also been described as Lord of Thieves because he robs you of your most precious possession: your life.
Tigers make a jungle exciting.
“Atithi devo bhava,” (treat your guest as God).
Anyone who develops Durbuddhi, perverted intellect, should be destroyed.
My father, just before he died, no one could tell the difference between him and his guru; he had concentrated on the form of his guru for so long that his own form has changed.
Chapter 4: Rnanubandhana
What is the purpose of being born? To recognize yourself, to realize that you are neither the body nor the mind but rather the eternal soul, which is the ultimate unity - call it Atma.
The Law of Karma is nothing else but Newton’s Law of Motion: each action causes an equal but opposite reaction.
Cause is effect concealed, and effect is caused revealed.
If you know the egg, you know the bird.
All karma is due to rna (debt). Karma can occur between two individuals only if there is some bondage of debt between them.
Self-identification with one’s actions converts them into karmas.
The moment I object in anyway, even mentally, then karma has begun.
Life is only memory. It is the memory of all one’s rnanubandhanas of countless births.
The job of Shakti is to irritate, pride, awaken Her Shiva.
Shakti provides the energy for the sublime cosmic dance, Shiva provides the control and rhythm.
Convert your own self into your deity, so your ego self identifies with the deity’s form and not your own, and then your deity can carry you across to the Ultimate.
The idea of form is nothing but the idea of a limit. Shakti is the force of limitation.
The moment anything is created, it’s lifespan is determined.
The seeds of destruction are planted at the instant of creation, and grow at a fixed rate… The moment of death is fixed at the moment of birth.
In India, it is a tradition that when you take initiation from a guru, you give up one food for the rest of your life; you dedicate that food to your guru.
It is a real blessing from nature that when we are born, we forget our rnanubandhanas; otherwise, most people would not be able to endure the misery of existence. Only those who need to know are finally permitted to know, so that they can go beyond rnanubandhana.
The shark filled ocean of the material world.
Kita Bhramari Nyaya, the law of Caterpillar and Butterfly: Whatever you concentrate on, you will eventually become.
As an Aghori I cannot afford to distinguish between the funeral pyre of my mother, or my father, and that of anyone else. How can I? No; sadhana means sadhana, however, you look at it. You must be ready to forget everything to become an Aghori.
My father has succeeded at his sadhana and had a fine death.
When you become a sadhu, you must be able to know who is genuine and who is not. And the best way to do that is with a chillum of charas or ganja, because most sadhus are forbidden to drink.
“Ask me for something that is of some use to you.”
If you look in my Junior Guru Maharaj’s mouth, you will see 24 sets of teeth, one row right behind the other. They say you grow a new tooth after every 100 years.
I will never ask money from a spirit.
Gambling is one of the three karmas which cannot be obliterated in the same lifetime. The other two are murder of the guru and rape.
“Become just like a Shiva Linga.” What he means is, don’t let anything affect you. No happiness, no sorrow, nothing: absolutely firm.
No one wants to accept responsibility. They want to enjoy all their good karmas and avoid all the bad ones.
After you meet Guru Maharaj, everything will start going wrong in your life.
What is the use of an ashram? The whole world should be your ashram.
Nowadays, only those people who can’t be successful at anything else turn to God: “Asamartho bhavet sadhuh” (a man fit for nothing else becomes a sadhu.)
The Mahapurusha will take his pipe -an elephant’s tusk - and fill it full of ganja. He would light it and finish the whole pipe-full in one puff, throw the pipe high into the air, shout “Jai Girnari!” and vanish.
The Mahapurusha’s method of teaching is something else also; something quite different. First, he makes you sit down, tells you to close your eyes, and then gives you a good slap with his left hand. You go into a trance, and when you wake up, after a few hours or a few days, he is gone, but you have learned everything about the subject he was teaching you.
Most knowledge you can pick up from somewhere, but until you put it into practice, it remains as a mere intellectual understanding. The guru forces you to learn it, he rubs your face into the ground until you learn it, if he is a real guru. That is why I say that none of the people you have in America can be classified as gurus.
Dattatreya himself had twenty-four gurus: birds, animals, beings who didn’t know they were teaching him.
It is much easier to have a human guru.
There is no use in running from guru to guru; you will end up falling between two stools. Don’t be like the swan, who when her pond dries up, flies off to find another one. Be like the moss, which dries up along with the stone which it covers.
The guru is trying to make you into his own guru: the one.
For a sadhu his dhuni (fire) is his TV.
I don’t want to possess Shakti, I want to learn how to create Shaktis.
The disciple started to forget the mantra he was supposed to be repeating and began to listen to the rumblings of his stomach instead.
Chapter Six: Aghora
Religions are all limited because they concentrate only on one aspect of truth.
There is no end to knowledge, so there is no use of trying to confine it to one scripture or one holy book or one experience…”I don’t believe in Sampradaya (sect), I believe in Sampradaha (incineration).” Burn down everything which is getting in the way of your perception of truth.
The scriptures talk about enlightenment, not because when you are enlightened you are supposed to see some clear white light, but because you have been “lightened” of your heavy burden of karmas and rnanubandhanas thanks to your own penances and to the grace of your guru.
Whatever is limited cannot be true. The true is that which is beyond every limit.
An Aghori never gets entangled in his Maya.
Nothing is inauspicious to an Aghori.
The ego of knowledge is the worst trap of all.
Every morning when I wake up the first thing I do is look at my body…”This will go. This will all go and only my consciousness will remain.” In this way I inoculate myself against being attached to my own existence.
If you want to die while you are still alive you have to restrict the three things which most bind us down to the body: food, sleep, and sex.
The Naths (a tribe of immortal Aghoris) have a prescription for spiritual advancement: “break up your sleep, and cut down your food.”
All your gains will be continuously wiped out by your indulgences.
You must drink the drink; you must not let the drink, drink you, lest you become its slave and be lost.
(Regarding the Tamas and karma in beer): Yeast cells undergo such agony during the crushing operations that a great current of Tamas is created by their unvoiced screams in their resultant alcohol.
(Regarding intoxicants and drugs): If you can’t control it, don’t do it.
(Regarding the bizarre behavior of Aghoris): If he covers himself with ashes, and remains naked and shouts obscenities, no one is likely to come near, and he can be in his mood all day long.
When we Aghoris use thrills, intoxicants, and sex, we use them to go beyond the body.
There are three important reasons why Aghoris love to take intoxicants. First, it is a question of challenge, and a response. It is a contest between the Aghori and the drug: who is stronger? The exhilaration of such a duel is a sublime intoxication in itself. Second, if the Aghori is able to master the intoxication, the force of the intoxicant magnifies the force of his concentration, since the mind is a chemical phenomenon. As the concentration is strengthen, the image of a deity which is been continually formed in the subtle body is made firmer and clear, and this brings success at worship all the close. Third, Aghoris always worship Shiva, who loves intoxicants.
For my marijuana and hashish, I had a special pipe… It was a chillum about a foot long.
The less the mind self identifies with the body, the better for your Sadhana, but the worst for your body; your physical health will give way to improve mental health.
Aghoris believe in reducing sleep to the absolute minimum, because during sleep, there is a possibility the mind may slip out of your control.
To die while still alive means to eliminate all involuntary stimulation of your senses. You cannot salivate when you see a nice roast. You cannot become aroused, even mentally, when a stunning woman walks by.
To be an Aghori you must become just like an earthworm, completely boneless, so that you can be tied in knots and still not suffer.
Only when the juices of desire have dried up can the real juice of life - the Amrita (nectar of immortality) - to be obtained.
You must love everything taking place in the Samsara.
A good test for an Aghori is this: when you can eat your own feces with real love for it, you have achieved a tiny bit… The Atma is feeding the Atma to the Atma… This is Sadhana, not dinner at the Ritz.
Can you fear yourself? No, you fear only the unknown; once anything is known, the fear drops away. Once you know yourself to be part and parcel of the Atma, what is there to fear?
I realized that the greatest intoxicant there is exists within me at all times… It is the name of God.