In Defence of Aghor

In India we try to romanticize everything. On the other hand if we fail to understand anything, we over react and blame it squarely. May be, this is because, we Hindus, are supposed to be the ultimate abode of knowledge and still if something is beyond our comprehension, it must be ‘avidya’ or illusion and not knowledge. Likewise, Hinduism is supposed to be all encompassing and still if some order does not conform; it can’t be accepted and must be shunned.
We, the aghories are the target of such vilification. It is true that the aghories live at the outer fringe of the Hindu religion. You ask anybody about the aghories, he will make you sick with tales of flesh eating half mads; people who will kill anybody in a fit of rage, who cause harm to society rather help it and many other stories.
A-ghore literally means simple or not difficult. It derives it lineage from Shiva himself. Then came Aghor Bhairavacharya .Baba Kinaram was initiated in to the order when he got the darshan of Bhagwan Dattatrey in Girnar Mountain. The other shishya of Bhagwan Dattatrey was Baba Gorakhnath. Presently the followers of these two great saints form two sects of aghoris. For quite some time, both the sects were lying in a sleepy stage. Then came Baba Bhagwan Ramji ( 1937-1992) who passed on the gaddi to Baba Gurupad Sambhav Ram.
The Hindu saints follow broadly 2 paths. Some of them go in to hibernation in search of truth. For them the only goal in life is to attain unity with the God. After attaining God, they don’t come back to the society. In fact, they consider society as a hindrance to attaining truth. The other group of saints also seeks unity of with God. The difference is that after attaining truth, they come back to the society to spread the message of God and to alleviate the sufferings. The society repays by giving food etc. to the sadhu. Because of this tradition, whenever a sadhu comes to the village, people flock to him with tales of their real or perceived sufferings, little realizing that the sufferings may be due to their past karma and that it is also a cleansing process so that their soul may evolve to a higher self. Each birth for us is an opportunity to learn a lesson. We go on getting birth in to the same situation and circumstances until we have mastered the lesson. Then we move on to a different situation and circumstance. In the process, the soul goes on evolving to a higher plane until we have mastered all the lessons. After this stage rebirth is not compulsory. It is optional. The role of a sadhu in a society is not to show miracle. His role is to help in evolution of your spirit so that the process is accelerated. In that way he alleviates the sufferings. Since the time of Baba Kinaram, the Aghories have come back to the society for this.
All the sadhus need loneliness at some point of time in their tapashya. At this period, they avoid all contact with society so that there is no disturbance. They retire to seclusion, may be with a few faithfuls. Some go to Himalaya, some go to dense forest, some other go to shmasans. Normally Hindus consider Shmasan as untouchable(because of obsession with body purity) and believe that it is peopled by spirits. So they don’t go there. As a natural corollary, anybody who stays in the smasan is an abhorable creature. On the other hand, the aghories don’t consider anything as untouchable. Each and every matter has a latent life form in it and this represents the Aghoreswar, Lord Shiva Himself. Sri Aurobindo also supports this view. He says that the latent life form in so-called inanimate object evolves into life form in animate object in their progression. So there is no better place to do sadhana than the shmasan. Because of the secrecy of the Aghor order, I will not be able to narrate the details here. However for all people it may not be necessary to stay in a shmasan for the sadhak can perform most of the rites on the bed of a prostitute or in case of a married man, on the same bed he sleeps with his wife. This is not a new concept. You will find prostitute settlement near most of the ancient Shaivite sites. Baba Bhagwan Ramji further declared that most of these rites can also be performed by living among the leprosy patients. In fact the Ashram in Benaras established by him has cured more than 2.5 lakh patients and it finds an entry in the Guinness Book.
Of late the media has pulled the matter out of context and has placed it before the audience in a skewed manner in a fit of sensational journalism.
(The Author can be reached at hotaoriental@yahoo.com also)