One of my friends once asked me, “Is there ever one moment of the day when you are not doing Avishkara?” What could I tell him? Does he know the wonderful joy of Avishkara? He can’t imagine it because he does not really know how to love.
AVISHKARA
When I say that spirits can be helpful, I am sure you cannot imagine all the ramifications of such a statement. Let me explain it in this way. Why do we Hindus worship stone or metal or wooden images of our deities? We are not worshipping the image; we are requesting the deity to come in His or Her ethereal form and take possession of the image, where we then concentrate our worship. We treat the image as a living being, because a ritual called Prana Pratishtha is performed in which prana, the life force, is actually transmitted into the image.
You don’t just take any image and try to add prana to it. The first thing you must do when you want to perform a Prana Pratishtha is Bhuta Shuddhi. That is, you must clear out all the filthy, troublesome spirits. I don’t say “evil” spirits because no spirit is really evil. But some are so miserable they will try to harm you without any reason just as a mad dog bites whoever crosses its path. After Bhuta Shuddhi is done, then Bhu Shuddhi, purification of the ground where the image is to be located, is indicated. Only when everything is purified should the Prana Pratishtha be performed. However, it will take years and years for a stone image to respond to you, because even after prana is added the deity must be called repeatedly, and only if the worship is continuous for some time will He or She become fixed there. True, if an image has been worshipped before by a Siddha or a Mahapurusha or some other high-ranking immortal being you will get all the benefit of that previous worship; but where will you locate such an image?
To avoid this problem, you can worship mentally with your subtle body. By long worship your subtle body will actually take the form of the deity you are worshipping, and you can achieve. This is much better because there are no external images to be broken or defiled; there is only your inner self which is impervious to all exterior pollution.
So, you can worship an image which has been made to live or you can use your subtle body, which is already living. And there is a third way also, which I am sure you have never even imagined. The deity can enter into someone’s body, and you can worship Him or Her in that way. Your sadhana is very easily accomplished; the deity is pleased; and the person into whose body the deity enters plays with his Beloved and is purified in the bargain. Besides deities, you can call the spirit of some saint or fakir, who can do many mundane works for you. Isn’t this useful? We call this Avishkara in Sanskrit, and baithak or hazri in Hindi or Urdu.
It is handy if the body into which the deity or spirit enters is well prepared for it through long sadhanas, but it is certainly not essential. In Brindavan, the Ras-Lila, the story of Krishna’s dalliance with the milkmaids, is performed by many troupes of players. Krishna is played by the most beautiful ten- or twelve-year-old boy who can be found. Daily he self-identifies with Krishna. If you were to worship him ritually as if he were Krishna, before long he would start to get Krishna within his body, and then you would be worshipping Krishna directly. Unfortunately, no one ever thinks of doing this; they are all too busy worshipping stones. And besides, these troupes have to play for big merchants in order to survive. While the play is going on the merchant worships the boy as if he were Krishna; after the performance is over, he goes to the manager of the troupe and says, “Take this money and give me the boy who played Krishna. I want to fire his ass.” How can such a thought enter anyone’s mind?
You don’t even need a human for Avishkara. On the day when Ganesha is to be worshipped, I go to the zoo and feed the elephants with my own hand. I give them the things they like, especially sugarcane. By reciting a certain mantra I cause Ganesha to enter the body of the elephant, and by worshipping the elephant I worship Ganesha. Isn’t this better than worshipping a rock? Not only will Ganesha be pleased, the elephant will appreciate being fed and will bless me himself in his own way. I am doubly fortunate. Roshni learned to do this from me. She even climbs the fence to get inside the elephant pens to feed them if necessary!
If you want to do Avishkara yourself, you have to create a spiritual vacuum within; otherwise how will the other personality be able to come in and take control? You must “get lost” in order to get the result, because the spirit or the deity can enter you only if you are empty. The superpowers are busy creating political vacuums that they can fill; you must do the same thing on the spiritual level.
Next, you must self-identify with the spirit or deity who is being called. In the beginning when you do Avishkara, you must put on all the outer garments and accessories characteristic of the desired personality. If your imagination is not strong, these props are necessary. For instance, when someone I know wants to do Avishkara of Kalaji Rathod, one of the Rajput generals, he dresses just like a Hindu prince of 400 years ago and carries a cavalry saber. He wears a Rajput-style turban and offers everyone present opium diluted in water, the warrior’s favorite drink.
This is the lowest form of Avishkara. The intermediate stage is when you can self-identify mentally, directly, with no thought for the physical details. If you are really sensitive, the right music should be sufficient to induce Avishkara. The ultimate is to be so attuned that the spirit or deity comes at the merest thought.
At first you have no control over who comes or when; they come and go as they please. As you get better at it, you request certain ones to enter you at certain times. When you are really expert, the ethereal beings themselves will beg you to permit them to enter, because they love to play about. That’s the beauty of it. Finally, you enter the state in which there is no need of even the formality of Avishkara: The spirits and deities are always with you, coming in and going out as required.
During the Avishkara the subject has no idea of his earthly existence. Afterward, his body feels terrible because Avishkara is a tremendous strain on the nerves, but he doesn’t care. If he does Avishkara of a deity, he is in a state of total bliss; no iota of ego separates him from his beloved deity. After the Avishkara is over he feels blank, empty for several hours, until the old personality becomes firmly fixed in the body again. Ramakrishna Paramahamsa loved to go into Mahabhava Samadhi, emotional highlights, and play about with the Divine Mother Bhavatarini, but at the end of his life his disciples actually prevented him from doing so as much as they could to save his body. He never cared for his body, though.
You can’t afford to care for your body if you really want to do a good Avishkara. When the Avishkara is going on, the subject’s body can do and endure things it would never be able to do otherwise. There is a certain fellow many of my “children” know. We call him Das Bapa. When he does Avishkara of Mahakali he slashes his arms, neck, and tongue, and blood pours from the wounds, but he doesn’t feel a thing, until afterward. Even then there is no problem, because the wounds close automatically and heal quickly. When Anjaneya enters him, he can drink a bucket full of mustard oil with a pound of oxide of mercury stirred into it, and nothing will happen to him. That is the power of Anjaneya.
Once some townspeople tried to test Das Bapa. They told him they were going to build a bonfire into which he would have to jump. If Anjaneya really entered his body he would remain unburned, and only then would everyone believe his claims. The fire was built, and as soon as Anjaneya entered him, Das Bapa jumped directly into the flames and stayed in there about an hour. And who got burned? The people who forced him to jump in and stood there to watch. They got their demonstration, all right.
When this Das Bapa does Avishkara of a certain spirit named Bhima Bapa, his body is tied into a shroud, just like a corpse. When the Avishkara begins, the body jumps into the air, despite the fact that the arms and legs are tied. This particular spirit likes cigarettes and smokes fifteen at a time, in a big bunch. Once a fellow watching this demonstration tried to be funny and challenged Bhima Bapa to do some of the work immediately. The spirit said, “OK, if you think I can’t do anything, try to get up from where you are sitting.” He couldn’t.
Three or four people were unable to lift him. After some time the spirit told this fellow, “Well, now we are all going to leave. If you are interested, why don’t you come along with us?” Tears came into the man’s eyes, and he was finally allowed to get up. But this was a good sign that Bhima Bapa was able to do work. You must always test these things thoroughly. If you are requesting a deity to come, you must make sure that it is really a deity which has come and not a tiny spirit of a lower order who may masquerade as a deity and fool you.
Take the example of Das Bapa again. When he wanted to do Avishkara of Gorakh Nath he had to dress up just like a Nath: black handkerchief, ash on the forehead, strings wound round the waist, jingle bells on his feet, and a fire tongs with bells on it. He smoked quite a lot of ganja and then started to shout, “Aa-o, aa-o, aa-lek, aa-lek,” just as a Nath would, waving the fire tongs over his head and bashing himself with it over his shoulders, neck, and head. All this was necessary for him to self-identify with Gorakh Nath sufficiently to permit Gorakh to enter him.
During the Avishkara he had to cross a water channel in the floor of the cave in which we were seated. Some people got up to help him over it, thinking that he might trip, but I told them to sit down. If Gorakh was there, he would never lose his footing — he is a Nath, after all — but if there was only a spirit there he would have a nice fall. In this case, Gorakh was there, but only for a few minutes. Then a little spirit came and started playing about. I knew about it because I knew the signs. For instance, he gave his fire tongs to someone else to shake while he was talking: Would Gorakh ever give his fire tongs to a human being? Never! Then he was talking about himself (Das Bapa). Would Gorakh Nath ever bother about anyone as mediocre as that? And there were some subtle changes in the eyes also. Besides, he was answering so many questions wrong. Gorakh could never be wrong.
I love to do Avishkara, because I get an opportunity to play with my beloved deities: Anjaneya, Ma, Gorakh Nath. But I never bother about the external formalities; I don’t believe in using crutches when you can walk on your own two feet. Still, if there is music I appreciate it, and incense is essential since deities “eat” through the sense of smell. The music can be anything appropriate; for Anjaneya I prefer devotional chantings, but for Ma there is a song from a certain Hindi film which always sends me into an Avishkara unless I am careful. It is dangerous to go into Avishkara when you’re driving down the road at top speed listening to the radio.
Unfortunately, I can’t do Avishkara of deities too frequently because it is too great a strain on the nerves, and it makes me want to leave this miserable existence and get on to greater things; do you think this is the only place I have to play in? But I want to finish up certain projects before I die, so I have to restrict my Avishkara. Instead, I often do Avishkara of sadhus or fakirs long since dead. It’s interesting.
Suppose I want to do Avishkara of the Mughal Emperor Akbar. Now, Akbar must already have taken birth in so many wombs and probably is embodied even now. What will happen is that when I call for the spirit of Akbar the body in which he now resides will lose consciousness. Without a personality to self-identify with how can it express itself? As long as the Avishkara goes on, that body will be inert, and as soon as Akbar leaves me he will return to the other body, which will awake without any knowledge of what has happened. Akbar in his present condition may not know he was once Akbar; that’s not necessary. But all the old records are still stored in the causal body, and that’s what I’m interested in. So I don’t bother about Akbar’s present personality; it has its own job to do.
I’m very fond of Kinaram Aghori; he’s so sweet and gentle, the ideal Aghori. But for mundane benefits, Muslim spirits are always better. Muslims live for emotion, and they are always more playful after death. Hindus, on the contrary, become steadier, and if they want to make you rich they will take their time about it so you will be able to digest your new riches before going overboard. But if a Muslim decides to make you rich he says, “At least once I’ll make you exuberant like I am, no matter what the consequences may be.” I don’t have to request them for their exuberance; it is natural to them. I often do Avishkara of Nizamuddin Aulia from Delhi, and also of Abdul Qadr Gelani, one of the most famous saints of Iraq. But I guess my favorite is Akbar; there must be some rnanubandhana there somewhere.
When I do Avishkara of Akbar I always wear a turban. I tie it myself; none of these modern pre-tied turbans for me, thank you. I don’t require the turban for my concentration, to be sure, but Akbar was Emperor of India, and if I want to play about with him I have to respect him in that way. So I am actually offering him what one offers an emperor. Those who come to witness the Avishkara must also behave as if they are actually in the presence of Shahanshah Mohammed Jalal-ud-din Akbar, Jahanpanah, Alamparah, Khudavan, Mere Dil-e-subahni, Mahabali.
Pretend you had come to visit me, and we decided to have an Avishkara. Once Akbar came, you would first know it by my eyes: They change color slightly and become fixed, staring directly ahead into yours. As long as Akbar is within my body they will never blink. Also, my foot will begin to shake as long as Akbar is there. Then you must play your part. Imagine yourself as a courtier in the hall of audience of His Majesty; how would you act? Reverently. You have to, because insolence in front of a king is equivalent to inviting death to approach you. Remember, my body is still present, but I, Vimalananda, am not; I have gone elsewhere, to play about in another way. Your work is with Akbar, so you forget my body and concentrate on him.
First, bend low to salute him. If he is pleased he will offer you his hand; kiss it. Then, to please him all the more, apply attar to his hand. Hina attar is the best; all Muslims love hina. When you speak to him, use Urdu if at all possible; it was his court language. I also love to speak in Urdu, but you’ll notice that when Akbar is within me, my vocabulary and style of speech change drastically. He was an emperor, after all, and emperors are always fond of flowery speech.
They are also fond of flattery, if it is not too obsequious, so when the Emperor asks you to admire his turban describe its beauty to him in glowing terms. Offer him a cigarette if you like. Hookahs were in vogue at that time, but he has no choice if he wants to play about in today’s world, does he? Hookahs are outdated according to so-called modern people. Akbar loved wine, so you can offer him drinks also. His wine was much different than is ours, much sweeter and tastier, but if you offer it with respect he’ll accept it.
Offer him music. Don’t make the mistake of expecting him to appreciate modern music; it is just so much noise to him. Offer him classical Hindustani music, especially Raga Darbari or Raga Miya ke Malhar. These two Ragas were specially composed just for Akbar by his court musician, the famous Tansen. If you can’t sing or play an instrument yourself, a recording will do just as well.
Once he is feeling intoxicated from the attar, the tobacco, the alcohol, and the music he will begin to talk about any subject which seems fit to him. Keep quiet and listen to him, speaking when he expects you to. Don’t be argumentative; it will just sour his mood and he won’t be willing to do any work for you. Roshni used to wrangle with him, and for so long he would never come when she was around. Can an emperor permit any insubordination? Never!
He may speak about anything; he may even tell jokes. Here’s a sample: Do you know the main difference between the days of the Mughals and these days? Back then, before you started on a journey, you would take your horse or elephant aside and permit it to remove the liquid element from its bladder. Today, before you start you must take your mount (motor vehicle) and put the liquid element into its bladder. Whether you think his jokes are funny or not, though they usually are, you must laugh a little to be polite.
When he is finally satisfied and feeling expansive, he will ask you what you want. Don’t hesitate; he is an emperor, and emperors know only how to give. They are famous for giving, because it builds up their reputation. Does anyone dare to give a better present than the Emperor? So be bold. Tell him what you want, preferably material, from life. You can ask him about the spiritual also, because he became very spiritual in his later days, but he is better with the mundane, because he was Shahanshah, the King of Kings, and Jahanpanah, the Refuge of the World.
There is no use for me to speak: Dozens of people have attended Akbar’s Avishkaras, and they have had their work done. Any sort of work: passing exams, getting new jobs, removing thorns in the office, finding a runaway child, curing diseases, anything. He will ask each person present in the room what he or she desires and will spend time with each discussing it before he moves on to the next, just as if he were still seated on his throne, dispensing favors. That is why he is valuable, because he was installed on the throne: It is the throne which gives him his authority. “Takht ki tasir” is the Hindi phrase: The authority or power lies in the throne itself. Even his son Salim, who got away with murder otherwise, had to tremble once in his august presence. So as long as you play along with the situation, your work will be done along with everyone else’s.
Finally, when everyone has been attended to and all problems have been dealt with, he will ask again two or three times, “Is there anyone left to ask anything?” When no one replies, then he’ll say, “Now I’m going to return to Sikandra,” which is where he was buried, and he may say something like, “When I was alive I had authority over the whole of India, but now I am reduced to an ethereal form; all my worldly authority has disappeared. That is the way it always is with the world; seek that which is beyond the world.” Then you should salute him in the Mughal way: head bent low from the neck, palm raised to the lips. He will then return to his own place.
Each personality has his or her own peculiarity, of course; you don’t treat Ganesha the same way you would Akbar. You have to be clever enough to know how to satisfy each personality and what sort of work to take from each. Asking about money to Smashan Tara is useless, but She might be willing to cure disease. It takes experience to know all about it, but some of my “children” have sufficient experience and get all their work done this way. I’m very happy, since it’s that much less for me to do.
Someone once asked me, “Why should these people who lived so long ago bother to come back and play with you? What do they get out of it?” I can’t tell you what they get out of it, but they must get something; otherwise they wouldn’t do it. Here in the world, no one does anything without some self-interest, not even spirits. But then that’s between them and me.
The best kind of Avishkara is the one in which no one has any idea of what is going on. Once I decided to teach a lesson to a friend of mine who refused to believe in such things. I never told him what I intended to do; I just suggested that there was no limit to the power of the human mind. When he challenged me to prove the truth of my statement, I told him I would perform a keratoplasty operation with my own hands. He was an eye surgeon, and he knew I had never been trained in surgery, though I had qualified in Ayurveda.
He thought I was just gasbagging, so I outlined the operation in detail. He was taken aback, but to test me he took a tray of instruments and asked me to pick out the trephine I would use. When I immediately selected the right instrument he was impressed, and he agreed to permit me to perform the operation. A suitable patient was located, and I operated a few days later. It was all over in a matter of minutes, and the patient recovered much sooner than expected. My poor friend could never understand how it might be possible.
It was not me, of course, doing the operation; it was an expert surgeon. I had been able to locate one, and he was willing to perform the surgery using my body in return for a certain favor which I was happy to do for him. A fair exchange is no robbery.
Maybe the ultimate in this sort of thing is to cause Avishkara in someone else, without either that individual or those around him having any suspicion that something is unusual. I recall a very sad case which fortunately turned out happily. There was an Australian lady who had come to India with her small son in hopes of procuring enlightenment from one of the local “holy” men in Poona. She and the boy, who must have been five or six, had been reduced to living in a small hut in a smashan, of all places, because she had donated all her money to her guru and there had been nothing left to live on.
A smashan is a fine place for an Aghori, his home in fact, but it is no place for the unwary, like this tiny Western tot. He developed typhoid, and after it seemed he might recover, suddenly he turned up with all the signs and symptoms of acute peritonitis. One of the typhoid ulcers in his intestine must have perforated.
The mother went to her guru for help, but she might as well have approached a stone for all the good it did her. One of the disciples told her, “We can’t help it if your child is sick. All humans have to die sometime; be prepared.” A fine attitude from a guru! None of her fellow foreigners were inclined to help her; the only person who was in the least interested in her plight was Dr. Lad, the chief medical officer in the hospital into which her son was admitted. He provided him free medicines and donated a pint of his own blood for the operation. But the surgeon who was to operate was convinced of the likelihood of failure and was leaning in favor of cancelling the operation.
Dr. Lad, who has known me for some time, came to me and explained the entire situation. I sat and smoked over it for a short while, when suddenly I heard the tinkling of bells outside: an elephant! The sight of an elephant is always auspicious, or so we Indians believe, and I rushed outside and fed it some apples, the only fruit we had handy. “Well,” I said to myself, “this is a good sign! It seems that what I have planned will succeed!” And I turned to Dr. Lad and told him, “Go and tell your surgeon to operate without any fear; the child will pull through.’’
I had to return to Bombay that day, so it was only the next day that I learned over the telephone the outcome of the operation. First, it had been almost bloodless; there had been no need of administering any blood. Second, well, let the surgeon speak for himself: “Until now my hands always used to shake when I would operate,” he told Dr. Lad after emerging from the operating theater, “but I don’t know what happened this time. It seemed to me as if something had taken over my hands, that they had a life of their own, and they moved so quickly and accurately that I was myself surprised.”
“Not only that,” he continued, “but as soon as I opened the abdomen the intestine leapt out at me, and it was child’s play to repair it. I have never operated like this before; I just can’t understand it, but I think God must have been helping me.” He can never know what was helping him; but why should he bother about it? The little boy made an uneventful recovery, and after he was strong enough his mother’s sister sent them plane tickets from Australia and they returned there. I am sorry to say, however, that after leaving her son in the care of her sister, the lady came right back to India and resumed her place at the feet of her guru. I don’t care for her at all. If she is so heartless and cruel as to expose her son to such dangers in the first place, then desert him, and run back to her playmates, she is no mother. But I am glad the little boy could be saved; Mahakala always likes to avoid taking children. And I was happy to see the honor of India preserved. Supposing he had died here; forever afterward the mother, her relatives, and their friends would have cursed India for killing him, forgetting their own complicity in it. So, everyone’s work was done, and no one was stained by karma.
I have never hesitated to do anything when I thought someone could be helped by it. A good illustration of the use of a long-term Avishkara comes from my own family.
I have never scolded my children. I’ve always tried to understand their problems and sympathize with them. When my son said he wanted to marry a certain girl, I said, “Go ahead.” When he told me he wanted 50,000 rupees to celebrate the wedding on a grand scale, he didn’t bother to ask whether I had that kind of money or not. Anyway, I got it from somewhere and gave it to him. A few days later I was sitting early in the morning, as is my habit, checking on what was going on with the people I love, when I saw my mother dying. My visions have a habit of proving true unless something is done about them. The first thing I did was call my son and tell him to get married as soon as possible; otherwise, according to the customs of our community, he would have to wait a year. I don’t bother about such things, but all my relatives would. I told him not to bother about the lavish ceremony but just to go to the marriage registry and tie the knot without further delay.
While we were busy with that procedure a message came: My mother had suffered a severe heart attack, massive. All the doctors, including my brother-in-law, advised us to put her into intensive cardiac care immediately, but they, with my son who is also a physician, were of the opinion that she was going.
How compassionate she was! In the ambulance on the way to the hospital she told me, “I hope I don’t die. Not because I’m afraid of death, but my poor daughter-in-law will be blamed for it. All the gossips in our family will say, ‘Ha, look what sort of luck she has brought us! On the day of her marriage her mother-in-law passed away.’ ”
Isn’t that unusual, at least nowadays, for a person to be more concerned about someone else’s welfare rather than their own when they are near death?
“Kuputro’bhijayate kvacidapi, kumata na bhavati.” (A bad son is sometimes born; there is no such thing as a bad mother.) Unfortunately, Shankaracharya, the author, was wrong when he composed that line. In Kali Yuga most physical mothers are bad mothers, especially in the West. Here at least we still have strong family ties, but in America when the child comes of age the parents tell him, “Now go out and take care of yourself. We are finished supporting you.’’ How could any child not become bad with parents like that?
And in the case of boys like my Ravi who have good parents but have gone astray, it is only because of the loving kindness and forgiveness of the parents that they have been saved at critical moments. Had it not been for parental teachings protecting the mind from complete degradation, where would such prodigal children end up?
A good mother can make all the difference in a person’s life. Motherly love is the finest, highest form of love. Our Vedas say that the mother is the first guru. The Muslims say that paradise lies at the feet of the mother. A bad mother, though, is the gate to hell. Why? What sort of mother will tell her child, “Get out, earn money, enjoy your life, and forget about everything else,’’ if not one who is uninterested in the child’s ultimate fate? This is not motherhood, it is mere rnanubandhana. Very rarely do you find a saint who had a bad mother, and he or she could become a saint only by guru’s grace. Today a real mother, Sumata, is very rare, so the lack of love in the world is not surprising. Motherhood is inherent in a woman’s body, but it must become conscious for the emotion to manifest itself. There is a big difference in physical and emotional motherhood.
I have been lucky in so many ways, but I was really lucky in having a mother such as I had. She was a Jnani, a woman of true knowledge. She was worshipped by half a million people as a goddess. She never claimed to be a goddess, of course, but people treated her that way. She had ashrams in Secunderabad and in twenty-two other cities. But besides that, what a wonderful woman she was. When she was dying she was fingering her rosary, repeating her mantra, in spite of being in great pain. The day she died she fixed food for my father. They lived together for sixty-seven years, and he never took any food not prepared by her hand.
Just as she was dying my father was sobbing. She asked him to come over to where she was lying and told him, “What are you doing? Haven’t you always told me that suffering is only elimination of karmas? So what is there to cry about? You should be happy instead.” Imagine, remembering that at the moment of death, when most people can’t remember anything.
My mother always had good advice for me. Once I was feeling low because a friend had let me down quite badly. I went to see my mother and told her, “Give me some paan.” I always loved to take paan from her hands.
She said to me, “Why are you so miserable?”
I told her, “Please put down your rosary for a few minutes and listen to what I have to say. Once a man found a little doll in the street. It was very dirty and broken in several places. He took it home and washed and mended it, put nice clothes on it, and kept it with him. He and the doll enjoyed each other’s company for several years. But one day the doll found some other man and ran away, and now the first man, the one who retrieved and took care of the doll, is very sad.’’
My mother just smiled at me and said, “That man should realize that a doll from the street belongs to the street; it is not possible to change its nature. That man should forget all about external dolls. Instead, he should seek and play with the little doll that is here in everyone’s heart, because that doll will never fail him or be untrue to him as long as he lives. Other dolls will break or run away, but this one is always there.” How beautifully she put it! She was right. There are two words to describe the world: wretched and thankless. That’s all there is.
Anyway, at the hospital, the doctors were telling me she couldn’t last long. I lost my temper. Fortunately, a friend was with me, and he cooperated; everyone else was busy otherwise. I made him go down and buy me a bottle of whisky. I broke the bottle open at the neck by smashing it against a table and drank it down neat. Then my mind became a little clearer.
Suddenly, I started hearing music. I realized when I went over to the window that it was a qawwali (a variety of Sufi devotional music), sung by Shankar and Shambhu. “Ohhh,” I said to myself, “now there is nothing to worry about.” I located my friend and told him to drive me to the cemetery. My elder sister looked at me strangely and said, “But we’ll all be going there within a few hours after Mummy dies. Why should you go there now?” “You keep quiet,” I told her, “I’m going.”
When I got to the cemetery, I told my friend to drive off, but he suggested I might need the car later on, so he slept in the car while I did my work. It was the burning ground at Banganga, where all the members of my family, including my son Ranu, have been cremated. After I was finished and I knew my work would be done, I woke up my friend and we went home. When I got there my foster daughter, Roshni, inquired as to my whereabouts: “Don’t you know Ma must be dead by now? Twice, people have called from the hospital to get in touch with you, but you were out somewhere.”
I told her, “Don’t be ridiculous, Ma is perfectly fine.” After a cup of tea and a brief rest, we went to the hospital. There was my mother, sitting up, talking with everyone. The oscilloscope, on which her heartbeats were being displayed, showed perfectly normal. The first thing she told me was, “What is this thing in my arm?” She meant the pacemaker they had implanted the day before. “Take it out immediately.” She was OK, so they removed it. “Now, I’m hungry. Give me tea and biscuits.” They gave her tea and biscuits, and they even allowed her to go home. Can you believe it? One day on the threshold of death; the next day fit as a fiddle.
There was one small problem: She had been in the habit of speaking Gujarati all throughout her life; and now suddenly she was speaking in Hindi and Urdu, which she had never known fluently before. What you can understand from this, assuming your mind is subtle enough, is that my mother was no longer in her body. She had died at the time appointed by Mahakala; and someone else had been forcibly placed inside. That someone else, who happened to be a male, a spirit of a very high caliber, was made to self-identify with her so perfectly that she continued to live.
When we reached our house, my father came to the door and greeted her in Gujarati. She replied in Hindi. He asked her in Gujarati, “Vimu” — that was his pet name for her —”Vimu, when have you started speaking Hindi?” She replied to him in Hindi, “I know Hindi perfectly. Why shouldn’t I speak it?” I took her, or rather, him, aside and said, “Look, talk in Gujarati if you don’t want to cause a big brouhaha.”
After that, she was absolutely fine for four to five months. My son had his glittering reception; everyone was happy. Only my elder sister, who has always been a troublemaker, tried to ruin things by insisting that a pacemaker be implanted in my mother’s chest. “To forestall any further deterioration” was the explanation or some stupidity like that. When she is fine, why torture her with an operation? But they operated, and she died on the table. The surgeon was saying, “Oh, please don’t die, it’ll be a stigma for me.” He began to massage the heart. Fortunately I was there. I rushed into the operating theater and gave the heart a good solid blow from my fist, and it started beating again. This was not a medical procedure, really; it was a way to remind my friend to do his work properly.
Many of my friends met my mother during this period, and they were most amazed at the conversations she would have with them. She would discuss how metals are formed deep down within the earth or how the conditions are on other planets, things she couldn’t possibly have known. Of course, she wasn’t talking, don’t forget that.
Finally, the spirit that was within her came to me one day and said, “Now look, enough is enough. I’ve done your work for you; what is your idea? You think you can make me stay here permanently?” Strictly speaking I could have, but it would have ruined our friendship, so I agreed. I selected a good day for my mother’s death: the day on which Kapila Muni gave Jnana to his mother. As the auspicious moment approached, the spirit left the body of mother, and my mother returned to her body. She had been kept in a safe place during those months, reviewing her life, removing all delusions. That is why, when she was gasping out her last few breaths, she could remember the name of her guru, Haranath Thakur, and repeat it: “Hara, Hara, Hara.” Now, as I’ve told you before, Hara is one of the names of Mahakala. How many people have ever died with the name of the Destroyer on their lips? Too few to mention. So I think she was very lucky.
Interestingly enough, when we took her for cremation the next day, she was looking rosy, absolutely healthy, and rigor mortis had not set in. My son, who is a doctor, became bewildered about the whole thing and asked me, “Papa, is she really dead?” I told him, “Yes, this time she’s really dead.” And we burned her.
I had warned her long before she would have to suffer at the time of death; that’s just the way things were written in her destiny. But as her son I felt my duty to my mother was to help her with all means available to ensure a higher rebirth, and, God willing, I think it may succeed. If she has given me good teachings I must pay her back adequately.
Very few Aghoris are really terrible. Most are soft as foam, because they know all about suffering. Take Kinaram Aghori, for instance. He used to live on Asi Ghat in Benaras, and his sect of Aghoris can still be found there. People used to say about him, “What Rama can’t do, Kinaram can do,” so he must have been quite something.
Once there was a dancer in the court of the King of Benaras. One day when she stretched her leg up higher than usual, everyone noticed a white patch on her thigh. At that time leprosy was the disease most feared by all, so she was immediately driven from the palace. She had decided to drown herself in the Ganges when Kinaram came across her and heard her sad story. He told her, “Go to my well in the middle of the night every night for seven nights. Bathe, then change your clothes, and throw the old ones away.” She did so, and by the sixth night she was completely cured and was in fact much better than she had been before: more beautiful, more talented, and healthier.
Kinaram invited everyone in Benaras for a dance program. He was very fond of music himself and played the sitar. When the girl danced at this program, everyone was enraptured by her performance and wanted to know who she was. The king was especially interested. Kinaram told the king, “Don’t you know who she is? You should. Look closely; she is the dancer you threw out of your palace.” And Kinaram got the two of them married also. That was Kinaram — unique.
Don’t be deluded by the ease with which Kinaram cured the girl. He knew exactly the burden of her karma he would have to bear, and he was willing to bear it. You can get yourself into a lot of trouble if you perform penances, develop good spiritual powers, and then use them without any regard for the consequences.
You have to be just like a snail walking on a razor blade if you want to do Aghora sadhanas. Any other beast than the snail would be cut, but the snail moves very slowly and never deviates from its path. If it ever veers, well, that’s it for the snail. If you want an example, here’s a story:
Once upon a time there was a guru who was traveling about with one of his disciples. Having reached a certain town, the guru stopped beneath a shady tree and sent his disciple to beg the day’s dinner.
As the boy cried, “Give alms! Give alms!” here and there, he was invited into the house of a certain lady, who prepared food and served it to him. The boy said, “I can’t eat food before my Guru Maharaj does.” But the woman replied, “Don’t worry about it. I am packing his lunch, and as soon as you have finished yours it will be ready for you to take to him.” The boy gobbled down a delicious dinner and then said, “Well, I am satisfied. Now, is there anything I can do for you?”
“There is just one little thing that you might do for me,” said the woman.
“Speak it and it shall be done,” said the boy.
“I have no child to rear and love. Give me a child.”
“Saubhagyavati bhava! Have a child! Your wish is granted.”
Having dispensed this royal favor, the disciple picked up his guru’s lunch and set out to deliver it. When he arrived his guru asked him about his adventures in town. The boy said, “Oh Maharaj, a beautiful lady called to me and provided us food. I ate my portion there and have brought the rest for you.”
“All right,” said the guru, “and although you forgot that you are to eat after I do, it’s all right, I forgive you. What else happened?”
“The lady, after giving me my food, asked one little boon, which I granted. She wanted a child.”
“Mm-hmm!” said the guru, “so you have developed the Siddhi of having all that you say come true, I suppose. Did you grant her this on the strength of your own power?”
“No, no, of course not, Maharaj. I guaranteed it on the strength of your power, so that she could know what a great guru you are,” said the boy, who was really more interested in his own fame than in anything else. “Well, well, well,” said the guru, who had understood the boy’s intentions, “you leave me no choice. Someone has to be found to go into that woman’s womb. You will die and be reborn as her son.”
And that is the way it happened. Watch out! Don’t fool around with things you can’t handle. The boy in this story was a fool. He couldn’t spot a dangerous situation and avoid it. Of course, there are times when even if you see the danger coming, you can’t avoid it and you shouldn’t try, because you have to endure some privations because of your past karmas. Listen to the story of Shams al-Tabriz.
Shams al-Tabriz (“sun” of Tabriz) was a fakir who received that name because of his great spiritual power. He became known in Tabriz as a man who could work miracles, and naturally he developed some enemies, who were jealous of his position. To test him, the chief religious magistrate called him one day and said, “We hear that you are able to do many impossible things. Will you please bring this man back to life?” pointing to a nearby corpse, that of the king’s only son.
Shams agreed to do so, and asked the boy to rise in the name of Allah. He requested him thus twice or thrice, and then he got wild and shouted, “All right, then, in my name get up!” The boy was restored to life.
Naturally everyone thought Shams al-Tabriz would be rewarded for bringing the king’s son back to life, but the magistrate said, “No, because he has raised the boy in his own name, he is an infidel and must be skinned alive.”
Shams had to raise the boy in his own name because it was his own Shakti that was doing the job. He was skinned alive, but as they did it he remarked, “It doesn’t matter. Do they think they are injuring me when they torture this body?”
Now there was a good reason that Shams had to be skinned alive. Years before, when he had been wandering about near what is now Abbottabad in Pakistan, he had become intoxicated with his own power. When he came to a certain river one day he was hungry and said to the fish in the river, “Get up here!” and they jumped out onto the bank. Then he looked up to the sun and said, “Shams (sun), cook these!” and the sun cooked the fish for him. But he didn’t bother about the other creatures and plants in the area, which were roasted by the sun. For exceeding his limits he had to pay, later in his life. Even today, Abbottabad is the hottest place in Asia.
Most sadhus become proud of their achievements, and that makes them miserly; they aren’t willing to use the fruits of their austerities to help out anyone else. But then what is the use in doing the austerities at all if you mean to use them only for yourself? You will get the results, no doubt, but that is all. Compassionate love, which God’s devotees have, you will never get, because for that you must forget all penances, all karmas, everything, except your beloved. And that intoxication of love is worth all the penances you can do in your lifetime.
One day King Janaka was taken to heaven by a messenger of the gods. While there, he asked to see hell, which he had not seen before. A demon was summoned, and Janaka was taken to hell.
When they arrived Janaka was surprised to see that everyone there was happy and smiling, but the demon was even more surprised, because everyone in hell is supposed to be in agony, miserable. When the demon asked for an explanation one of the inhabitants of hell replied, “When we look at him (meaning Janaka), we feel that he is bearing our karmas for us, so that soon all our evil karmas will be finished and we will also be able to go to heaven.”
The demon was stunned and asked Janaka to return to heaven. The spirits of the dead said, “No, don’t go, please stay with us.” Janaka said to the demon, “No, I don’t want to go. I would rather stay here, for tens of millions of years if necessary, until all these people are freed from their bondages.”
When Vishnu heard this, he was amazed and said to himself, “Even though I am the preserver of the worlds, still I haven’t done as this man has.” Then Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva performed Abhisheka on Janaka and blessed him, and one of the results of the blessing was the birth of Sita (Rama’s wife).
This is the way a real Aghori feels. Because he has endured so much suffering himself he knows how miserable other people are who don’t have the spiritual advantages he has, and because of his compassion he tries to help them face their problems fearlessly whether or not he does anything else concrete to relieve their sufferings. To overcome fear is a great thing, because Maya is not really dangerous; She has no teeth. She tries to scare everyone, and usually She succeeds. But if you refuse to be scared then She has no power over you.
An Aghori always seems a little ghoulish to the ordinary observer, but inside he is never ghoulish; he is simply acting according to his inherent nature, without hindering it in any way. Besides, since his friends and colleagues are spirits and other ethereal beings, shouldn’t he seem ghoulish?
The whole idea of Tantra and Aghora is transmutation. Whether you make use of the Shaktis of spirits or deities or magical plants or whatever, transmutation is the goal. That is why some Tantrikas practice alchemy and learn to transmute one metal into another, in preparation for transforming themselves.
Aghoris don’t bother about such piffles. If they want gold, they’ll piss on a rock and it will become gold. Tantra is limited by time, space, and causation, but Aghora is beyond all triads, all dualities, beyond all limitations. Tantra is just the preliminary finger exercises a musician performs to train his hands; Aghora is the full flowering of the musical talent.
For example, remember Telang Swami. By the force of his austerities he had developed the ability to transmute his own excreta into purified substances. That is why he could worship in the temple with his own urine and feces. When the Veda calls for Ganges water there is no alternative but to go to the Ganges and get the water. Telang Swami did not need to bother; he could create Ganges water within himself at any time.
Telang Swami was the pride of Benaras. He was originally a Brahmin from Kanyakubja and was devoted to his mother, who always despaired of her son’s queer behavior. Finally she decided he should get married and located a good girl for him. He told his mother, “Why do you want me to bother with all these worldly formalities? Anyway, the girl is destined to die.” The wedding took place — and the bride died before the honeymoon could even begin. When his mother finally died Telang Swami sat for twelve years right there in the smashan in which she was cremated. Eventually a Brahmin guru came to him from Telengana (in what is now the state of Andhra Pradesh), which is why he came to be called Telang Swami. After meeting his guru, Telang Swami spent another twenty-five years sitting in the smashan, twenty-five years sitting inside a blazing fire, fifty years on the bottom of the river Ganges at Benaras, and finally about a century on the shore of the Ganges in Benaras, observing absolute silence.
He made it a habit to worship at the temple of Annapurna (the goddess of food) using his urine and feces as offerings. You know what happened the day he decided to do it at Kashi Vishveshvara. After the king’s dream of Shiva the king sought out Telang Swami and asked to be taught something. Telang Swami agreed to come out with the king in his boat, and as they floated down the river Telang Swami sat quietly listening until the king started to talk something out of his wits about what belonged to him.
Suddenly Telang Swami grabbed the king’s sword and threw it into the river. The king was flabbergasted and asked, “What have you done? That was my symbol of authority, and besides, it was an old family heirloom, priceless.”
Telang Swami reached into the river and pulled out two swords, one exactly like the other, and said to the king, “Pick out your sword.” Then the king understood that he could not even recognize that which he claimed as his own. Wasn’t that a good way to teach?
Telang Swami was a Siddha, after all. Ramakrishna Paramahamsa met himi then Ramakrishna’s disciple Vivekananda met him both before going to America and also after returning. Even after Vivekananda’s death Telang Swami went right on living. That’s how I was able to meet him.
Finally he did decide to take samadhi. His devotees nailed his body into a coffin and cast the coffin into the Triveni Sangam, the meeting of the Ganges, Yamuna, and Saraswati Rivers at Allahabad. As soon as the coffin entered the water someone looked up and saw Telang Swami standing unconcernedly on the opposite bank of the river. Then he disappeared, and no one has seen him since.
Yes, Telang Swami knew how to transmute; if he didn’t who would? How else could he have dared to worship Shiva with his own excreta? I remember another story about him. One day he was standing naked, minding his own business, when some English official came by and was scandalized by the sight of this nude behemoth of a holy man and ordered him to be brought to his office for questioning.
Back then when the English were ruling our country they enjoyed ridiculing our customs and sporting with us because we couldn’t fight back. This official decided to have some fun with Telang Swami, in the privacy of his office, and said to him, “Will you eat what I eat?” Telang Swami did not bother to speak, but merely nodded his head in the affirmative.
The official then uncovered a plate of roast beef and offered it to Telang Swami. Now you know that Hindus never eat beef; some would fly into a murderous rage if they were even offered beef. But Telang Swami did not bat an eyelid. He ate the beef and then he said to the official, “Now, will you eat what I eat?” When the official agreed, Telang Swami shat on the salver on which the beef had been served and covered it with the lid.
The Englishman flew into a frenzy — forgetting he was just being offered a taste of his own medicine — and shouted, “I’ll have you thrown in jail!” He turned to call a guard. As he turned around again Telang Swami told him, “Look a little more closely at that salver.” And when he did he saw there was not any shit on it at all; instead, he saw a well-roasted chicken, dripping with gravy and ready to eat.
The Englishman was quite naturally astonished and became the greatest devotee of Telang Swami. I just mention this story to give you some idea of how an Aghori can transmute. Telang Swami once pulled this trick in court also: he shat and transformed his feces into roses. He was too good.
Why Telang Swami? I can give you an example from my own life. One day I wanted to drive from Bombay to Poona but I had no money, and there was no petrol (gasoline) in my car; I had a Humber Super Snipe at that time. A naked Aghori by the name of Mangalgiriji happened to be with me, and when I explained my problem to him he said, “What, you are worried about such a trifle? Don’t worry!” Then he stuck his penis into the petrol tank and pissed into it. I was aghast: I thought the engine would be ruined. When I told him so he replied, “Don’t be silly, let’s go.” We got inside, and when I pressed the starter the car started! We drove all the way to Poona and back, almost 300 miles, without ever adding a drop of petrol. Hard to believe, isn’t it? I would never have believed it had it not happened to me.
All these external transmutations are mere trinkets, of course; it is the internal transmutation which is important. And that is where Avishkara is important; the more you bring your deity into your body, the more He or She will transform you from a limited personality, the one you possess now, into an unlimited personality — the personality of the deity you are worshipping, and, ultimately, into the Absolute personality: His personality, with a capital H.