This is a really interesting interview with Aghoris. I saw the reference to mistaking the rope for a snake, and figured, hey, take it as a sign, should post this. Plus good stuff on death and fear and other things:
AghorisMembers of the Aghori sect in India haunt cremation grounds and practice extreme rituals believing that by breaking religious taboos they overcome dualistic thinking that is a barrier to becoming one with God.
Yellow Baba (translated): I've taken human flesh at the burning ghats. I did not feel it's flesh. I feel it's very tasty so I take it and eat. It's the order of my guru so I do that.
Lesley Branagan: You're listening to Encounter on ABC Radio National. I'm Lesley Branagan, and today, we're heading to India.
In many cultures throughout the world, death is a confronting process. People distance themselves from anything that involves decay, and rituals are often sanitised.
But in India, even though death is regarded as ritually polluting, bodies are burnt openly on funeral pyres, with families looking on. Some religious traditions believe that contact with death and decay is a powerful opportunity for spiritual development.
Both Hinduism and Buddhism have given rise to paths, where followers are encouraged to spend time in cremation grounds and cemeteries, and the practices are sometimes extreme.
LANGUAGE
Lalli Baba (reader): There is a spiritual practice of meditating on the dead body. If you are doing this in the cemetery or at the cremation ground, you need to take the protection of the ghosts. When a ghost comes and tries to disturb your practice, you control it. If you take the power of the mantra, nobody disturbs you.
MUSIC/POETRY
Ron Barrett: Their reputation for living on the cremation grounds and ingesting forbidden substances like faeces and human flesh, and consuming intoxicating substances, and having this sort of very fierce persona, and doing these very wild practices.
Lesley Branagan: A radical tradition with Hindu elements arose in India many centuries ago that likes to get close to everything that's considered dirty to do with death and decay. The Aghoris are a little-known community in north India who consume substances believed to be polluting to orthodox Hindus. Traditional Aghori practices include: drinking wine and urine from human skulls; smearing themselves with cremation ash, and the practice that has most coloured their image - the eating of human flesh.
Amitabh: Because I've seen people doing that.
Lesley Branagan: You've seen them eating flesh?
Amitabh: Yeah. Immediately it started haunting my mind.
Lesley Branagan: Gor means terrible, and Aghor means non-terrible. Aghoris do these practices to overcome their aversion and terror of death and its substances. They believe that dualistic thinking, such as good-bad, pure-impure distinctions are only in the mind - and that by transcending such conditioning, they'll achieve spiritual enlightenment.
Ron Barrett: The idea is that really overcoming one's socialisation - if you've been socialised into these ideas of aversion, ideas of caste, and ideas that certain substances and certain things and certain practices are somehow forbidden - by going beyond that, is a way of re-socialising people so that they can embrace all of humanity. It's very much a kind of liberation theology for Hinduism.
Lesley Branagan: The most visible Aghoris share much in common with Hindu sadhus, the wandering ascetics that worship the god Shiva. In emulation of Lord Shiva, sadhus usually sport dreadlocks, wear loincloths, smoke marijuana, and sometimes try to cultivate magical powers. In addition to these practices, the Aghoris embrace the extremities, all that's taboo in Hinduism.
Aghori practices aren't confined to radical ascetics. There is now a form of the tradition that is practised by middle-class house-holders. As we'll hear, a lineage of the Aghor tradition has reformed, gaining legitimacy, and attracting high flying devotees such as politicians. But the underlying philosophy of the Aghor tradition is still the same.
Baba Harihar Ram: Whatever is limiting you. Maybe you are disgusted by something, or you hate someone or you are angry with somebody. So, there is so much investment in that. So, that Aghori who is practising those things, is trying to free that energy that's invested in that particular mindset that he or she may be holding. So Aghoris are the best alchemists. Alchemy is not only changing gold to diamond or silver, alchemy is the change that you bring about in a person's inner consciousness, in their inner being.
Lesley Branagan: The most well-known place where Aghoris live is the city of Varanasi or Banaras in northern India. Banaras is regarded as the cradle of Hinduism and the city of Shiva, the god of destruction, who's said to wander here daily. Situated on the banks of the sacred Ganges river, known as the Ganga, pious Hindus try to make at least one pilgrimage here in their lifetime, believing it will give them great spiritual merit.
The ancient name for Banaras is Kashi, city of light, a brilliant jewel that illuminates liberation. To die and be cremated here is the most auspicious death a Hindu can have, and will ensure liberation from samsara - the cycle of birth and rebirth.
Rohit Joshi is the director of the Sankat Mochan Foundation, an NGO dedicated to cleaning up the river Ganga and he's lived in Banaras all his life. As we walk the 5km stretch of riverfront, he tells me the river's sacred because Ganga's a goddess brought down from heaven, and her fall was broken by Lord Shiva's matted locks.
Rohit Joshi: This religious bathing area as we call it, if you take a holy dip here, you're supposed to get rid of your sins. This area is considered very sacred by the people coming to the site and doing the holy prayers and their own traditions.
Lesley Branagan: Can you tell me a little bit about those traditions? Because we're just passing a whole lot of pilgrims now, men bathing in the river.
Rohit Joshi: People get up early in the morning, they come to the river, with the sunrise they take a dip, and from here they take the Ganges water to the holy temples to offer their prayers. And sixty thousand people per day, come to take bath and pray in the river.
Lesley Branagan: And is it true that a lot of pious but very ill Hindus make their final journey here, to die and be cremated?
Rohit Joshi: That we do see often. People in the final stages do come down. Their families bring them here and offer them Ganga jal, drip by drip.
Lesley Branagan: Water from the Ganga?
Rohit Joshi: Water from the Ganga - so that they are able take the final journey peacefully.
Lesley Branagan: While it's regarded as very holy, in fact, it's filthy, isn't it?
Rohit Joshi: Yeah, raw sewage is flowing from almost 29 points in Varanasi.
Lesley Branagan: Do people believe that the holy and spiritual benefits of the water will outweigh the very material, polluting aspects?
Rohit Joshi: Yeah, that is the strong belief that people have, that the mother cannot be polluted.
Lesley Branagan: Sitting by the river is an itinerant Aghori, Baba Sunder Ram, known locally as Yellow Baba, because of his flowing yellow robes and multiple garlands of orange and yellow flowers wound round his neck and into his tall, dreadlocked bun.
LANGUAGE
Yellow Baba (translated): I've searched for many gurus in my life. I went to the baba at Kina Ram ashram, and I accepted him as my guru and embraced Aghori philosophy. I became a sadhu and started wearing these robes. They make me feel like Shiva. I've been living in Kashi since the age of seven, and have always liked it. I was living like a simple person, wearing normal clothes. Before becoming an Aghori, I was already a follower of Lord Shiva. I worship Lord Shiva and I'm his disciple. I pray to him daily to bless all the people.
LANGUAGE
Yellow Baba (translated): My guru taught me to live joyfully, to serve the poor. This is my karma, the duty I have to do, so I do it, and live on the banks of the Ganga, on the ghats, which I like very much. I serve the people of the nation. Sometimes I drink wine and urine during the period of my practice. At special ritual times, we have to eat flesh, drink pee and do other practices.
I tried many times to get rid of illusion but it didn't go away. I do practices like eating flesh and drinking alcohol, but illusion is still in my mind. I've taken human flesh at the burning ghats. I take it in my hands and many people know me, so they don't oppose me. Once when I was taking flesh, the relatives opposed, and asked: 'What are you doing?' I asked them permission, and they allowed me to take it, so I did.
I don't remember, but approximately 100 times I have taken human flesh. After taking the flesh, I pray to my guru, to Lord Shiva. The person who is doing these practices without the guidance of a guru, they become crazy. My goal is to get moksha, enlightenment. The Aghor tradition is a very simple and very right way to get moksha, Shiva direct.
Lesley Branagan: It's difficult to establish the authenticity of those itinerant sadhus who claim to be Aghoris. Baba Harihar Ram is an officially recognized guru in a known Aghor lineage. At his ashram just outside Benaras, he explains the intention behind the practices, while his disciples whip themselves into a frenzy, singing devotional songs in the courtyard outside.
Baba Harihar Ram: In Aghor you do not distinguish if one is pure or impure. Embracing the neglected - that wood that is used for the cremation, nobody wants to touch it, it has some kind of taboo, people are scared of it. But just to make a statement, that wood is brought and used and consumed.
Lesley Branagan: Can you talk a little about this, overcoming fear as a path to spiritual enlightenment?
Baba Harihar Ram: What are you afraid of? What is the biggest thing one is afraid of?
Lesley Branagan: Usually death.
Baba Harihar Ram:
So whatever you are afraid of, the very nature of fear is that it's not really that real. The analogy is given like a rope in the darkness. So you look at a rope coiled up, and you think it is a snake. And until you come closer to it, examine it, put a little light on it, even touch it with a stick, then you know it is a snake. So if you're afraid of death, you go to the cremation grounds, where the death is constantly being celebrated. And as you begin to spend a little more time around there, you begin to see this is the reality, this is the truth, rich, poor, young, old, youth, pretty, ugly, everyone comes there. That's one truth we cannot escape, so I think going to the cremation grounds and spending a little time there, brings you to that realisation of your own inhibition about the fear of death.Lesley Branagan: The cremation grounds in Benaras are on the ghats, the wide stone steps that line the river banks, and they're the centre of religious and social life in the city.
Mark Twain described the riverfront in the 19th century as ...
Reader: the supreme showplace of Benaras. Its tall bluffs stretch three miles, with a splendid jumble of massive and picturesque masonry, a bewildering and beautiful confusion of stone platforms, sculptured temples, majestic palaces. And there is movement, motion, human life everywhere, brilliantly costumed - streaming in rainbows up and down the lofty stairways, and massed on the miles of great crammed platforms at the rivers edge.
Lesley Branagan: It seems little has changed on the ghats since Twain's time. As I continue my walk with Rohit Joshi, we pass pilgrims taking ritual dips, priests chanting in tiny temples, and sacred cows meandering around hawkers and wedding parades.
Lesley Branagan: So we're walking now to what looks like a cremation ghat.
Rohit Joshi: Yes, this is Harishchandra ghat, one of the two cremation ghats in Varanasi.
Lesley Branagan: So I can see about three fires? It looks like -
Rohit Joshi: There are almost five fires at this time.
Lesley Branagan: And it looks like they're towards the end of burning the bodies.
Rohit Joshi: Yes, on an average it takes about three hours to complete the cremation proceedings. They're towards the end now.
Lesley Branagan: So we can see about five bodies burning, and yet it's business as usual, boats are rowing past, there's a bunch of men barely a few feet away from the fires, bathing themselves and getting dressed.
Rohit Joshi: Yes, this is life of Benaras, where you see the fact, and people come to see this. This is the reality that whoever comes here has to go. So the more you really are closer to the fact, the less [you are] troubled by the materialist things.
Lesley Branagan: And can you tell me a little about the caste of people that deal with bodies, making the fires, burning the bodies?
Rohit Joshi: They're from a particular community called the Doms, who by inheritance are owners of this burning area and it is their families who do it, and sell the wood and do the burning.
Lesley Branagan: And they're regarded as quite low caste people?
Rohit Joshi: Yes, they are low caste people, and definitely people do not want to touch them also since they're doing this cremation work. Earlier the people who were doing, used to wear bells, so when they were moving in small narrow lanes, people would -
Lesley Branagan: So people would know they were coming and move out of their way?
Rohit Joshi: Yes.
Lesley Branagan: Weaving through the maze of narrow laneways, I head off to meet one of the Doms, the caste of people who burn the bodies on the cremation ghats.
I come to the ancient riverfront house of the Dom Raja - the king of the Doms. In a room off his courtyard, with cows and children sticking their heads through the door, he outlines how the Doms co-exist with the Aghoris.
LANGUAGE
Jagdish Chowdury (translated): My name is Jagdish Chowdury. I work on the cremation ghat, making the fire that's used for cremation. I was born into the Dom King's family, and for generations, we've been donating the fire for the dead bodies, according to Hinduism.
In Aghori philosophy the cremation ghat is very important. Many Aghoris come to the place and pray to God. So they come here, do their own rituals, and I do my duty of making fires. There's no difference, no dispute. Aghoris never take the meat off bodies in front of people. They steal the flesh when the family of the deceased is distracted, sitting on the steps, taking tea. The whole body doesn't always burn and turn to ash, some flesh remains and it floats in the river, so they take this and eat it. Some Aghoris want to take the skull to use for different kinds of rituals and to drink out of. There's never a dispute. I don't give them the skull, but I don't try to stop them taking it because they are doing prayers and having magical powers, I cannot oppose them.
Sometimes I've seen them taking the body parts in the nighttime, but the families don't see. Taking the flesh is part of getting magical powers. So people seeing them taking flesh don't oppose them because they know they're doing their practice, and for fear of being cursed. The Aghori is Hindu and the family is Hindu, so morally, the family supports the practice.
Lesley Branagan: Are the Aghoris ever drunk or crazy when they do come and try and take the flesh?
Jagdish Chowdury (translated): Yes, it's true; they eat flesh and drink pee also, like they are crazy. They do many activities. We watch them and think they are dirty, but they don't think they are.
Lesley Branagan: While Jagdish is disparaging about the dirty practices of the Aghoris, his own caste, the Doms are not highly regarded by most Hindus. My translator's a Brahmin, the priestly caste at the top of the hierarchy. As we'd approached the Dom's house, he told me I'd have to send for another translator, as the Doms are 'dirty people' and he feared the religious contamination from entering their house.
The concept of ritual pollution associated with caste informs the daily lives of Hindus. Ron Barrett is assistant professor in medical anthropology at Stanford University, and over the course of his fieldwork with the Aghoris, he became a disciple in the Aghor tradition. He explains how Hindu notions of purity and pollution are the background against which Aghori philosophy plays out.
Ron Barrett: So in Hindu religious traditions, there's a common set of practices involving restrictions regarding ritual pollution and purity. There's this notion that certain substances and perhaps certain people contain characteristics that should be avoided. So these notions of ritual pollution and purity intersect with those of biological purity, but not entirely.
For example, the idea that someone of a particular untouchable caste, or untouchable group of people would be somebody you want to avoid, has no connection whatsoever to anything having to do with biology, or having to do with contagion, having to do with disease, but are nevertheless treated that sort of way, and the purpose of Aghor is to go beyond those kinds of restrictions, so that people no longer have aversions toward one another. In many ways it's a kind of Gandhian philosophy, it's a kind of an egalitarian philosophy that tries to get at this state of non-discrimination and put it into practice in a way that people are no longer creating social hierarchies against one another.
Lesley Branagan: When I asked the Dom king how he felt about his social status, he told this story about the origins of his caste.
LANGUAGE
Jagdish Chowdury (translated): Originally, we Doms belonged to the caste of scholarly Brahmin priests, and there is an interesting tale about this. A long time ago, the goddess Parvati wanted to come to Varanasi, so she came with her husband Shiva. At that time the Ganges river was not there, and they were sitting at Manikarna ghat, where there was a small pond with many Brahmins sitting around. Parvati got into the pond to bathe, and not realising she was a goddess, a one-eyed brahmin called Kalu got into the pond as well. This offended Shiva who said to him: "You are now a chandal, a low-caste person." Kalu then realised Shiva and Parvati were gods, and apologised profusely, saying: "Now I am a low-caste chandal, what can I do to earn my living?" And Shiva said: "Sit on the ghat and provide the fire for cremations, and you will make a living from people's donations." So we became Chowdurys, which means Dom Kings. I inherited this job, so I do it and feel proud I was born into this caste and family.
Lesley Branagan: Many low castes in the Hindu system have origin myths in which they were once higher caste and were tricked into assuming their present status. But although many Hindus fear Aghoris because of their polluting habits, Aghoris see themselves as being outside the caste system altogether. A person from any caste can become an Aghori, as can non-Hindus and foreigners and there are also some women Aghoris. Although there's sometimes tension between the Aghoris and Doms, some Doms take part in Aghori practices.
MUSIC
Lesley Branagan: You're listening to Encounter on ABC Radio National. And today, we're with the little-known tradition of the Aghoris, in Benaras, northern India.
The Aghoris share much of the same philosophical framework with mainstream Hindus who worship Shiva. The mainstream approach, or the Right Hand path, avoids taboo substances, whereas historically the Aghoris generally took the 'left hand' or tantric path, which embraces these substances. For example, in mainstream Hinduism, menstruating women are banned from the inner areas of temples, and if they're orthodox Brahmins, they can't enter their own kitchens. But the left hand path has practices that involve the use of menstrual blood. The end goal of both paths is to overcome dualistic thinking, in order to perceive oneness with the divine, and attain enlightenment - moksha. But, according to Ron Barrett, the Aghori goal has a subtle difference.
Ron Barrett: The idea is certainly is to achieve liberation, but with Aghor, it's liberation in this world. So there's a slight difference there from the notion of moksha, going beyond an eternal cycle of rebirth. That is part of Aghor, but Aghor's more about jivanmukti or liberation in this life, the idea that you can realise your own liberation within your lifetime - you don't have to die to do it.
Lesley Branagan: I'm told of a popular Aghori called Lalli Baba, who lives in a little hut high above one of the ghats. He's brought to my attention by the crowd of tourists staring at him from the riverside, as he sits almost naked, on a bench in his garden, with skulls mounted on sticks either side. After climbing the steps to his hut, he tells me he's about to set off on his long evening walk to arati, the fire ceremony on the main ghat. Chanting mantras as he wraps 112 malas, wooden bead necklaces, around his ash-smeared torso and into his topknot, he invites me to accompany him, but warns he won't wait if I fall behind.
WALKING SOUNDS
Lesley Branagan: Lalli Baba sets a cracking pace, thwacking his huge trishul - Shiva trident - into the ground with each step. When pilgrims and passers-by catch sight of him, they shout out Mahadev! - one of Shiva's names - and Lalli Baba responds in kind.
He pauses for a few seconds in some of the ornate, tiny temples along the ghats, to ring the bells, and then continues with his pacy daily pilgrimage, his sandals slapping into his heels as he waits for no one. As he turns off into crowded narrow laneways, I lose sight of him and have to weave my way back to the main ghat for the arati ceremony. I find him taking pride of place on an elevated platform, where he invites me to join him, with the crowd singing devotional songs as they wait for the ceremony to begin.
LANGUAGE
Lalli Baba (translated): Before I became a sadhu, I was a big business man in Calcutta - a transport contractor and video business operator. I come from a big rich family, and my father didn't want his son to become a sadhu, so I waited for him to die. I've been one for 17 years now. I decided to take this path after an old sadhu touched my feet and said he'd seen me in a past life as a sadhu. My workers also told me I should do it. I thought: "If you put your two feet in two boats, then you fall down." So I gave up business and decided to follow the spiritual path.
I had a couple of gurus. My spiritual path is tantra, and I've been doing it for a long time, and most of it is secret. I have powers. I can control you. I can touch a woman and she can become pregnant. A woman came to me who wanted a child and I took her hand, and I told her: "You'll have one son and one daughter." I also smeared ash on her from the burning fire, and soon after, she was pregnant.
Lesley Branagan: And this is powers you've learnt from your guru?
Lalli Baba (translated): Yes, I use the power of mantra, and I recite my mantra all the time. When you have pain, I recite the mantra and draw your pain into my head. I do the same if you have a heart problem.
SINGING
Lesley Branagan: Arati, the evening fire ceremony, is particularly auspicious to a Hindu when it is conducted on the banks of the sacred Ganga river. As darkness falls, Kashi, the city of light, becomes illuminated with hundreds of tiny candles floating in the river. The young Brahmin priests circle their fire lanterns in perfect synchronicity with their hypnotically slow dance steps, chanting and blowing their conch shells.
At ceremony's end, Lalli Baba is mobbed by hundreds of people, who touch his feet and offer their foreheads to be smeared with ash from a skull he's carrying.
CROWD NOISE
Lesley Branagan: When the crowd clears, he hands me his business card, telling me he's a favourite with BBC and French film crews. He then punches my number into both his mobile phones and invites me for lunch the next day, strictly vegetarian.
COOKING SOUNDS
Lesley Branagan: Tell me about these skulls, Because you're sitting on the bench with skulls mounted on a stick on either side of you. Where did the skulls come from?
LANGUAGE
Lalli Baba (translated): This skull is from a lady, this one is a man. Somebody collected them from corpses in the river, and brought them to me, and I paid money for them. The skull has power. When people come and disturb me, I throw the skull at them. I don't want to be disturbed, but if people have problems, I want to fix them and do good things.
Lesley Branagan: Are some people scared of you, because yesterday I saw many people down the bottom staring at you, while you sit up here with your skulls on either side. Are they scared of you?
Lalli Baba (translated): When I put the dust on people's foreheads, their mind is becoming shanti, shanti, peaceful.
Lesley Branagan: So do you see yourself as an Aghori? Are you an Aghori?
Lalli Baba (translated): I don't want to be defined as an Aghori or not. I don't eat human flesh, I don't drink alcohol because it affects the mind. I take tea, nothing more. I drink honey from my skull. I am vegetarian. My way of living out the Aghori philosophy is different from other Aghoris.
Lalli Baba: I am also a little bit kapalik. You have fever, I take mantra, and your fever is coming in my body...
Lesley Branagan: Lalli Baba describes himself as a little bit kapalik. The original Aghoris are believed to have come from the 11th century Kapalikas, loosely part of the tantra tradition.
Ron Barrett: The kapalika tradition isn't really one tradition, it's really a large collection of different kinds of traditions that came under this name of Kapalika - one who carries the skull. There were these many different sects, and groups of people, who were known to have roamed the cremation grounds, and engaged in these kinds of antinomian practices, and antinomianism is about going against stated and unstated social norms and social rules.
As for tantra, well, tantra is one term for a lot of different kinds of aspects of Hinduism. Tantra is perhaps the most misconceived and misused term in the Western religious studies canon. It certainly has a lot of connotations with respect to sexual practices and antinomian practices and these sort of things. You could say in general terms, tantra is closely related to a particular genre of texts, a means of communicating spiritual information, and that a lot of those do engage in unorthodox or antinomian practices.
Baba Harihar Ram: You ask me what tantra is all about. I can say it all in one sentence, that everything that we do is sacred. Starting from the way you get up early in the morning, the way you step on the earth, the way you wash your face, the way you bathe, the way you put on your clothes, the way you talk, all the way to the way you make love, it's all tantra. But in the west, only one aspect has been highlighted so much, and people get drawn to it.
Lesley Branagan: That's tantric sex?
Baba Harihar Ram: Exactly, but that is a much bigger fire to deal with. My advice would be, those who are walking on the path of tantra, first start dealing with a smaller fire, learn how to be, how to sit, how to walk, how to conduct yourself in a free way in the society. When you're mind is free, then you can practice tantra.
Lesley Branagan: Tantra also involves worship of the combination of divine female and male principles.
Ron Barrett: The Aghoris, certainly, you could certainly define them as tantric in so far as the Aghori do embrace the goddess. They see themselves as a Shaivite tradition of becoming Shiva, by worshipping Shakti. His consort is Shakti, this feminine form of the divine, so by worshipping Shakti, one becomes Shiva. In that sense the Aghori could be considered to be tantric. At least historically speaking, the Aghori engaged in these unorthodox or antinomian practices, but yes, the Aghori are very reticent to define themselves as tantric because of the other connotations involving sex, and also connotations involving witchcraft. The Aghori as healers are known to cure people of curses and witchcraft and this sort of thing, but they're not supposed to engage in these practices themselves. They're very reticent to have any kind of association with anything to do with tantra in the negative sense.
Lesley Branagan: While the Aghor tradition has been around since the 11th century, the earliest recorded lineage is that of the 18th century saint Baba Kina Ram, who was said to have lived for 150 years and been an incarnation of Shiva. While Baba Kina Ram preached the ingestion of taboo substances, his approach also became an ideology of resistance against the power of the Brahmin priests in Benaras, and their collusion with local politicians, the military and the merchant elite.
In the 1960s, many devotees got carried away with the use of intoxicating substances, forgetting the philosophical intentions of non-discrimination. The then-guru of the Baba Kina Ram lineage reformed the Aghor tradition, banning alcohol and marijuana. He decided the Aghor principles could just as easily be achieved through social service.
Baba Harihar Ram is descended from this lineage. He grew up in Benaras, and then became a successful businessman in America. He eventually gave up worldly life and became the first Aghori guru to establish himself in the West, teaching the reformed approach to Aghor philosophy.
Baba Harihar Ram: The principle is the same but the practice is a little different. When Baba, our guru came he said: "The time is different now. If you are afraid of something, instead of going to the cremation ground, embrace it, whatever it is." So he started a leprosy hospital. People are really afraid of leprosy. They're disgusted by it, they're afraid of it, fearful of it. So he embraced them. So the principle is the same, the practice is different. We embrace the orphans, we embrace that which is neglected, that which shunned, and in the process, you get the same result, and it doesn't look as fierce and unkempt.
Lesley Branagan: The leprosy clinic is in the Kina Ram ashram just outside Benaras. Long time devotee, Dr Singh, tells me the ashram is keen to distance itself from the Aghoris who eat human flesh on the ghats.
Dr Singh: These things are not intermingled with this Aghorism. That is separate thing, and separate arrangement.
Lesley Branagan: So the focus is very much on social service, on helping other people, in this ashram? Is that correct?
Dr Singh: Yes, basically this ashram is made for the service of humanity. Leprosy hospital is also there. More than six million of patients of leprosy.
Lesley Branagan: Six million patients?
Dr Singh: Yes, more than six million. It has come Guinness Book of Records.
Lesley Branagan: Guinness Book of records?
Dr Singh: Yes, Guinness Book of Records.
Lesley Branagan: The doctor in charge of the leprosy clinic takes me on a tour of the grounds, describing the use of Ayurvedic medicine, the traditional herbal healing system of India.
Doctor: She has lost her fingers and legs.
Lesley Branagan: You've lost your fingers and legs?
Doctor: Yes.
Lesley Branagan: What is your age?
Doctor: Seventeen years.
Lesley Branagan: How long have you had leprosy for?
Doctor: The last three years.
Lesley Branagan: Can you cure people? Have you cured people?
Doctor: Yes, yes, we cure the peoples, where there is no deformation in the body.
Lesley Branagan: So the medicines are made from traditional herbs?
Doctor: Yes, yes, traditional herbs.
Lesley Branagan: And do you mix them here on the premises?
Doctor: Yes, yes. Over here.
Lesley Branagan: Ron Barrett has closely studied the healing philosophy of the Aghoris through his fieldwork in Banaras.
Ron Barrett: The work involves the use of modified Ayurvedic medicines, modified in the sense that the babas actually make modifications to the medicines and they are very proud of the fact that it is not what's called 'pukkah' ayurved, or proper orthodox ayurvedic medicine.
Doctor: The crushing department, they make powder over there.
Lesley Branagan: Oh, they're crushing over there.
Ron Barrett: This medicine is considered to contain within it, the blessings of the baba. So the medicines themselves carry with them that spiritual connection. They're also considered to have that spiritually within them, because they are given by the babas. And so in many ways, from the patient's perspective, the identity of the medications are not as important as the ability of the medicines to transmit the healing power from the Aghori to the patient.
Doctor: Mustard seeds.
Lesley Branagan: Mustard seeds. For leprosy?
Doctor: Yes, yes.
Ron Barrett: The patients and the healers refer to the efficacy of their medicines as dawa or duwa - dawa meaning the medicine, duwa meaning blessing. And the idea of dawa and duwa is the idea of medicine and blessing combined.
Lesley Branagan: And what are some of the ingredients? Can I smell ginger? No?
Doctor: We don't want to tell you.
Lesley Branagan: Oh, I understand it's a secret! Of course, I might sell your secrets! I won't ask you any more.
Lesley Branagan: Most of the patients that seek out Aghori medicine don't subscribe to the practices or philosophy of the Aghori. They visit for the shakti, or healing power, of the Aghoris. But most of the current devotees were once patients who'd been cured, and then became curious about the Aghori philosophy. With the success of the leprosy clinic and the new interpretation of Aghor philosophy, the ashram came to wider notice in India.
Ron Barrett: Within about ten years of the establishment of this leprosy treatment clinic, and the banning of alcohol and other intoxicating substances, the tradition had gone from a marginalised sect on the cremation grounds to having over 150 ashrams with devotees from high castes, from the mainstream of Indian society as well as several prominent politicians, including the former prime minister of India and three state governors. So there really was an incredible transformation that had taken place.
Lesley Branagan: And with this newfound legitimacy of the Baba Kina Ram lineage, western devotees are now attracted to the Aghor path. Hari Baba is the first Aghori to start an ashram outside India, in northern California, and some of his western disciples accompany him on his annual visit to Benaras.
Richard Sclove: My name is Richard Sclove. I live in Amherst, Massachusetts. Pretty much I'm a full-time spiritual practitioner. I have a PhD from MIT in political science, and I did a post-doc in economics at University of California, Berkeley.
Lesley Branagan: Can you tell me about Babaji?
Richard Sclove: I just felt a heart connection to him. I mean, I find him a very warm human being with a great sense of humour, who, because he's lived in the West, relates well to Westerners. And he's also kind of a love bug. He just exudes love.
Lesley Branagan: What have you got out of following him and this tradition?
Richard Sclove: I'm one of these people who is attracted to a certain amount of drama, spiritual drama, and the spiritual pyrotechnics than can happen when you're on the spiritual paths, and I also know from my reading, that's not particularly to my advantage. And that's a hard lesson for me, in that sense that, you know, I want to see Shiva walk through the door!
Lesley Branagan: But there are much more conventional gurus and traditions. Yet you're following the Aghori tradition which has a certain reputation for involving these practices that focus on death and decay. It's very esoteric. How do you feel about those aspects?
Richard Sclove: Babaji doesn't talk about them. In his ashram those practices aren't done. I've read a little bit about them elsewhere. They neither repulse me nor interest me. If he told me it'd be to my benefit to go and sit in the cremation ground, well I'm adventurous, I'd go and do it. Actually, I don't think it would be a big deal for me. His teachings are quite simple, direct, and rather highly not esoteric.
Lesley Branagan: How do you think you're going with overcoming these distinctions between good and bad, because we're mired in dualism in the Western mind, aren't we?
Richard Sclove: Oh, I'm not doing very well. For instance, when I think about right wing republicans in my country, I really don't do well at all in terms of accepting distinctions and not seeing some things as better than other things.
Lesley Branagan: Black Bom Bom Baba is sprightly 71-year-old Aghori who frequents the ghats. He sports long dreadlocks, black robes, bone necklaces, a bag with skulls, and a menacing manner. As we head out in a rowboat on the Ganga, he says he can do 109 asanas - yoga poses, and has very dangerous karma.
LANGUAGE
Black Bom Bom Baba (translated): I grew up in Varanasi, and was a student at Benaras Hindu University. I did a double MA and became a doctor, then I did a doctorate as a bone specialist and surgeon. I've been a sadhu since I was 13. From my guru I learnt Aghori philosophy: tantra, karma and yoga. My guruji gave me a lot of Shiva power: devi power, durga power, kali power, everything power.
Lesley Branagan: Tell me about these necklaces you're wearing.
Black Bom Bom Baba (translated): These are beads with the power of Shiva, they're cobra bones. They're for my tantric rituals. When I recite the mantra, a very dangerous snake appears. I can show you some of my practices. Anything you want to see, I can show you. I like drinking and eating. I like wine, chicken, egg, dead bodies, everything. Everyday, I feel very good after three bottles of wine. I've eaten dead bodies many times, sitting by the fire. I've been doing it for 60 years. I go alone at night to the cremation ghat after the family's gone. No problem baba. Baba 1 2 3. All India free. Bom bom bhole. Bom bom bhole.
Lesley Branagan: So that's ash you're putting on my forehead?
Black Bom Bom Baba (translated): No problem. It's Aghori. This ash gives you Aghori power.
Lesley Branagan: It's giving me the power of Shiva?
Black Bom Bom Baba (translated): Give me your hands, eat it. No problem. All your problems are gone now. Shiva god power. Many people are coming to me, problems, and I put ash here, on their foreheads, and karma is speaking, solving their problems.
Lesley Branagan: How does it work?
Black Bom Bom Baba (translated): Look, this is Aghori power, tantric power, great tantric power, sadhu life, and god power life, Shiva power life, Kali power life. Everything! Baba is speaking, underground and everything!
Lesley Branagan:Black Bom Bom Baba alluded to the curses he could put on people, before asking me for money for a bottle of scotch. While the dangerous image of the Aghori is sometimes played up for the benefit of tourists, this affects other Aghoris who are serious about their discipline and devotion.
Yellow Baba (translated): People don't like me because I'm Aghori. Society doesn't accept us because we take flesh, and drink pee and alcohol. But I like people. We pray for them, we bless them.
Richard Sclove: As a tourist in Benaras, there's a lot of hustling that goes on from people who are trying to make a living off tourist money, and I find, occasionally if I mention I'm staying in an ashram, they just hustle me harder. And if I mention it's an Aghori ashram, they look scared and walk away. So that's useful! But in America, it means nothing to people, they haven't heard of it.
Baba Harihar Ram: I think they're pretty much for cheap thrills, or just getting some high, some rush, some little siddhis.
Lesley Branagan: Siddhis being magical powers?
Baba Harihar Ram: Exactly. Good picture op, good experience. And of course, you'll sit next to someone that you think is drinking blood or something, it's a thrill. Anybody can obtain those kind of magical powers. But for us, it is said (language) - it means, when you are on a spiritual path, siddhis do come your way. But the real renunciate is one who even shuns, renounces those siddhhis. They're just the trappings. But to go deeper into the philosophy of Aghor, and to understand what non-dual is about, it requires much deeper understanding, and it requires even stillness and stability in the person who is even trying to grasp it.
Lesley Branagan: The ultimate aim of the Aghori practices is enlightenment, and followers of the 'left hand' tradition, like the Aghoris, believe their method is the most effective way to this goal. It's said to be more dangerous, with many pitfalls for the undisciplined or mentally unstable practitioner, but devotees of this path claim it's the fastest way to liberation.
Ron Barrett: The idea is that Aghor is the purest and most intense way of overcoming those barriers that would inhibit you from attaining this enlightened state, this enlightened state of non-discrimination. And the whole point of Aghor practice is to do that in the most direct way possible.
Baba Harihar Ram: It's freedom. It's the fastest path to freedom. You're not bound by anything.
MUSIC/POETRY
Lesley Branagan: You've been listening to the Aghoris, on Encounter, here on ABC Radio National. I'm Lesley Branagan. Technical production was by Steven Tilley. The readers were Andrew McLennan, Steven Turner, Scott Wales and Brent Clough. Thanks to Florence Spurling, Claudia Taranto, and to Rati Shankar and co. in Benaras for translation and assistance.
Special thanks to Ron Barrett, whose book Aghor Medicine: Pollution, Death and Healing in Northern India will be published mid-2007 by University of California Press.
Producer
