Human beings are nothing but sheep. I used to be in the flock of sheep, but I ran away, so it’s no surprise that everyone else, all the so-called normal people, thinks I’m insane or, at the least, abnormal. And I think the same about them. Only one of us can be right.
GIRNAR
I’ve always believed that when you do a thing you should forget everything else and do that one thing with heart and soul. When I was interested in mundane pursuits I was a perfect materialist. You would never in your life have imagined that I could be interested in spiritual subjects. And when I was doing sadhana, I forgot everything else and I did it. For example, for ten months in Girnar I lived in an Arka (Calotropis gigantea) tree in an old cemetery, eating only Arka leaves, doing a ritual to please Anjaneya. Arka leaves cause violent purging and vomiting. Do you know how “hot” Arka is? Arka means “sun” and after two or three days of eating those leaves my mouth and tongue had swollen to twice their normal size. But that didn’t stop me; I continued with the ritual. Aghoris always overdo a thing.
To become an Aghori you must first renounce the world completely, and that is not easy, mind you. Becoming a sadhu in the real way is no joke. Before you can become a sadhu you must do rituals for yourself just as if you had died. You have died — to the world. Then you offer your body, your senses, and your mind into the fire. Only then are you eligible to put on the ochre robes of renunciation which a sadhu wears.
After that your teacher will initiate you into the sadhu’s mantra, “Om namo Narayanaya.” Whenever you see any creature, even the smallest ant, you must remember that Vishnu in the form of Narayana lives in that creature, and you must mentally bow to Him. And when you sit for meditation you must forget the world around you and remember only your deity.
When I was a naked sadhu, or Naga, sometimes my ego would be hurt. I had been a wrestler so I was very heavy, and people would say, “Why isn’t this fellow working somewhere instead of begging?” or they would say, “He looks like this,” or “His cock is like this,” but I couldn’t say anything. I could only repeat to myself, “Narayana.” It hurt, but it worked; I learned to endure all the taunts.
The main reason for becoming a Naga is to remove once and for all every thought for the body. When you are naked you can’t hide anything, and before long you don’t bother to try. However, most people harbor some shameful thoughts within and would not dare to disrobe before anyone else. Why else would sadhus wear ochre robes? Once one of my “children” who has done a lot of sadhana during his life was sitting with me and suddenly I took off my clothes and told him, “You do the same thing; we must sit naked.” He didn’t say a word, but took off all his clothes. It was a good test, and he passed it with flying colors. Of course he still found it a little awkward mentally, but that is to be expected in the beginning.
I used to play around like that a lot. Sometimes I would wear a lungi (a sarong-like garment) to go out for a drive with one of my friends. When I got fed up with the lungi I would shout at my friend, “I can’t take this restriction any longer,” and I would rip it from my body and drive naked. The fellow would try to pacify me: “What are you doing? Think of your prestige.” I’d tell him, “What prestige? Does an Aghori have any prestige?” Eventually he would calm me down and I’d put it on again. I am not as wild now as I was then, but I still hate to wear clothes.
And don’t forget, if Nagas are shameless, Nagis, their female counterparts, are equally shameless or even more so. They love to play about together. Nagas and Nagis know a few mantras and can achieve some minor Siddhis. And, as you know, whenever anyone becomes powerful there is always a tendency to let the power go to the head. Then they go around trying to show off.
Suppose a group of Nagas and Nagis are sitting in the smashan. One Naga may become intoxicated with his power and elongate his penis. A Naga can elongate his penis fifteen feet or more; it is a simple Siddhi. One Naga I knew, Mangalgiriji, in fact, used to coil his penis up like a cobra, and after sucking up water through it and filling his bladder, would spray out the water like a fountain for the amusement of the children who would follow him around.
Anyway, one Naga would look at a female Nagi and would elongate his penis and then he would say, “Ha, look at this. Can you do anything like this? Is not mine a fine Siddhi?” And she would sneer at him and say, “Wah, wah. Why should you crow over such a minor achievement? Bring that thing over here.” And the moment the head of his penis would touch her vaginal lips he would get a shock, like an electrical shock but far more intense, like a thousand scorpions stinging him all at once. And you know how sensitive the tip of the penis is. So he would learn his lesson well and proper.
When they talk about being naked, or Digarnbara (Sky-clad), which is one of the epithets of Dattatreya, the first Aghori, they are not talking about external clothes; they are talking about the three sheaths — Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas — which cover the Atma. These are the clothes which have to be removed. And once they are gone it doesn’t matter what you wear on the external body; you wear whatever is appropriate. Once you get used to being naked in this way you are not affected by anything.
I used to wear one article of apparel: my jata (matted locks). I know a method to make hair grow ten times faster than normal, and my jata used to reach down to my ankles. A sadhu’s jata is his most precious possession. Why? Each hair is an antenna, an aerial to accumulate knowledge from everywhere. No true sadhu ever cuts his jata; he breaks it or it breaks by itself. Then he takes it to the Ganges and offers it to Ma, because the Ganges always remains in the jata of Lord Shiva; that is why He is called Durjati, because His jata is so formidable.
But I did not come to this stage immediately. For the first six months I was in Girnar I cried every night. I was asking myself, “What am I doing here? Why am I not enjoying my life back in Bombay?” But I was very stubborn. I wouldn’t go back because I knew what people would say. This has always been my principle; if you want to do a thing, do it right, do it thoroughly — or don’t do it at all.
After that first six months, though, I forgot all about my old life and started to enjoy my new life. I developed a routine. Every morning at 3 A.M. I would take a bath in one of the small lakes in the Girnar hills. Then I would coat my body with ash from my dhuni and sit for my rituals. I made friends with all the animals there. Some people think that in the forest you are completely alone, but there is always someone watching you. The forest belongs to the animals, after all, and they are very anxious to know who has come to disturb them.
One night after I began staying at my old Shiva temple I saw a pair of eyes staring at me from beyond the fire. They didn’t come any closer that night and soon disappeared. In the next few nights they came closer and closer, and pretty soon a lion appeared, and eventually he came all the way to sit beside me. We became great friends. You know, Girnar is the last place in the world where Asian lions live. We became such good friends that when I had to leave Girnar he followed me five miles, and I had the greatest difficulty in driving him away. I called him Raja (King), and I called my female monkey Rani (Queen).
She was completely devoted to me. Once she saved my life. I had a terrific fever; I was delirious, I couldn’t do anything. Rani came near me to see what was wrong. She started to talk to me, in her own way, but I was so delirious I couldn’t understand and brushed her away. She persisted and in my semiconscious condition I threatened her with a firebrand, which I would have never done normally. She backed off and then ran into the jungle.
Later when I was sleeping she came with some leaves that she had chewed into a paste. She put the paste into my mouth and as a reflex action I swallowed. Then I woke up because those were the most bitter leaves I had ever tasted. I spit most of the mass out, but I had swallowed some, enough to break the fever. That demonstrated to me that animals know these things.
When it was time for me to leave Girnar I told her gently, “Rani, I am going away and I am not coming back.” When she understood that I meant it she immediately leapt into a well and drowned herself. Even my mother wouldn’t have done that.
My animals have always loved me. The little Pekinese dog I have now will not eat or drink when I am out of town; she must be force-fed. I think my animals are better than humans. Remember, human love today is nothing but lust resulting from rnanubandhana. Human beings will always fail you, but animals have a selfless love. They don’t have any sense of “I am doing this or that”; they only do what their nature tells them to do. When they want to eat they eat, when they want to sleep they sleep, and when they want to love you they will do it wholeheartedly.
There are three important ways in which animals differ from humans. First, they can’t know their parents. In the mating season a male catches hold of any available female, even if she is his mother, sister, or daughter. Second, animals can do japa — my little doggie does wonderful japa — but since they have no hands they cannot perform rituals. Third, since an animal does not know its parents it can’t do Pitri Tarpana to placate its ancestors so there is no progression in that respect. Humans pay attention to kinship and can perform ritual worship and Pitri Tarpana. Any human who does not do these things is no better than an animal; worse, in fact, because it is a waste of a precious human rebirth which is fantastically difficult to obtain; you don’t know. And today no one bothers, which makes most humans animals. So by living with animals I’ve learned how to handle humans.
I have never feared the animals in the jungles. Animals can understand everything you think — telepathically. If they sense fear then they think you are going to attack them, and since attack is the best form of defense they will attack you first. But if you show them that you want to be friendly it’s very easy to make them love you — if you are brave enough. Animals will never harm you unless you deliberately provoke them.
In fact sometimes even if you provoke them they will not harm you. Once in Girnar I was being troubled by a bee flying near me and buzzing in my ear. Two or three times I tried to brush it away, but it came back each time. Finally I told it, “If you don’t leave me alone I’m going to have to kill you.” No response. I lifted my hand to smack it as it sat on a nearby stone. Down came my hand onto the empty stone; the bee had moved to one side. Each time I tried to hit it the bee would move to one side. It didn’t fly away, it didn’t try to sting me.
Eventually, I remembered Guru Dattatreya and his twenty-four gurus, and it began to dawn on me that this might not be an ordinary insect. I decided to inspect it a little more closely, and when I did I saw it rubbing its two front feet together. Suddenly I thought — or the thought was introduced into my mind, I don’t know which — ”you have to wash your own hands of karma in the same say.” Was that bee not a guru to me?
I learned quite a bit from that little bee. Once, some years later I had an argument with a lady on the subject of her insensitivity to pain and suffering in animals. About half an hour later she went to take a bath, and a cockroach began to trouble her. It ran up her leg to a certain secret place causing her to throw the soap up into the air; then it ran onto her leg again. She picked up her slipper to strike it and ended in striking several sharp blows to her foot, arm, and leg as the cockroach evaded her. Every so often it would drop off and run to one side and cock its antennae and stare up at her, and then the fun would start all over again. No, I’ve always gotten along well with animals. I kept a cockroach as a pet once. I called him Ramji and kept him in a matchbox. Unfortunately, he was accidentally sprayed one day and passed away.
In my own home I used to have a small menagerie, which included at various times a chimpanzee and an orangutan. I even had a crocodile there for a while. His name was Gopaldas. I had to send him to the Bombay Zoo after he chewed off the cook’s leg. It was the cook’s fault; he was trying to cause some trouble for me. I think Gopaldas must have sensed it. Anyway, it was too dangerous to keep him at home. I used to visit him often at the zoo. I’d walk over to the crocodile pen and call out, “Gopaldas!” and he would amble over to me and open his big mouth wide, and I’d put some food into it.
For the longest time, whenever I had a good day at the races and was flush with money I used to go down to Crawford Market in South Bombay and purchase all the doves, pigeons, and other fowl meant for the pot and release them — just let them fly away so they could enjoy their freedom. I had enjoyed that kind of freedom as a sadhu, and I knew what it was like to be caged up. After a while I realized I might be interfering too much in karma, and I quit. But I will never forget those years in the jungle when I had only animals for friends, and I will always love them more than I’ll love humans.
I have become very wary of humans. When you do something nice for a spirit or an animal they will never forget it. They will love you forever afterward. But do one thing good for a human being and all you will get is a request for something more to be done. There is no end to human greed.
That is why I always like to have animals near me. There are always new things to learn from them. Have you noticed what happens when you spell the word God backwards? You get dog. I would love to become just like a dog, because of all creatures dogs are the most loving and the most devoted. Is there any animal more faithful than man’s best friend? And a dog’s love is pure and unselfish. Even if you don’t feed him, still he will greet you with love. A cat would never do that. And a dog has only one master; it will never obey any other.
This is the way in which you should worship God. Select one form of God to worship and then worship only that form. No matter what happens, what difficulties you may get into, be tenacious. Never lose faith. If you behave just as if you were God’s dog then you are sure to achieve. Sometime back I read in the papers about a dog whose master left him at an airport in Russia seven years before. Every day that dog meets every plane that lands, waiting for his master to come back and retrieve him. He is fed by the workers at the airport but refuses to go home with any of them. If you can develop that sort of devotion for God then you will not have to wait long before He comes to you. If you crave to see Him, He has to come! Where will He go? He is not a heartless brute like the owner of that Russian dog. But you must have that perfect, selfless devotion if you want to drag God to you. That is why I always keep a dog around me, so that some of the dog’s personality will rub off on me. I am devoted to my doggie Lizoo, my Pekinese. I would give up everyone else in the world but her, just like Yudhisthira, who refused to go to heaven unless his dog was allowed to accompany him.
Now, I have never worried about animals when I was in the jungle. The forests are full of other dangers, though. It is great to be a sadhu — lord and master of all you survey. But you must always be wary, because solitude is the father of passion.
Once the Emperor Akbar asked his favorite courtier, Birbal, “What is the father of passion?” Emperors are like that; suddenly for no reason whatsoever they ask the most unusual questions. Birbal had no ready answer and so Akbar told him, “If you don’t find out for me what is the father of passion within three months, your head will be disconnected from your shoulders.” Birbal bowed low; what else could he do? His boss had given him an order.
After two and a half months Birbal had come nowhere near discovering the father of passion. He began to worry for his life. His daughter noticed his despondence and asked him the reason for it. When he told her she just giggled and said, “Call the Emperor for dinner.” Meanwhile, she selected one of her serving maids who bore a certain resemblance to her and made the girl into her double.
When the Emperor came for dinner, Birbal had been sent out so that there were only two present: Akbar and his courtier’s daughter. The delicious, rich food was washed down with two bottles of heavy wine, and soon the food, the low lights, and the wine went to the Emperor’s head and he indicated to the young lady that he would be pleased to have her company in bed for the night. Birbal’s daughter had of course anticipated this; it was part of her plan. She consented graciously and asked for a moment to ready herself. Leading Akbar to the bedchamber she sent in her double, the serving-girl. She enjoyed sex with the Emperor all night long and then returned to her own room after he slept.
When the Emperor awoke he was suddenly seized with remorse: “I have deflowered the daughter of my best friend. How will I ever face him again? How can I demonstrate my penitence for this lapse in my morality?” And he sent for Birbal’s daughter.
She entered, laughing, which amazed Akbar, who was sure she would be sobbing and beating her breast. She said, “Refuge of the world, it was not I that you deflowered. It was my double,” and produced the serving-maid for proof. Giggling, she continued, “I wanted to prove to you that solitude is the father of passion so that my father’s head would be spared. Are you satisfied?”
Akbar was more than satisfied. In court that day he publicly congratulated Birbal for his brilliance, and for having such a brilliant daughter, and he made a gift of a large tract of land to the girl who had lost her virginity. Of course she was thrilled that the Emperor had made love to her, so the land was just an added bonus.
This is why it is so hard to be off in some cave somewhere and maintain your balance of mind. Temptations will come to you by the dozen: celestial damsels, buxom country lasses, tribal wenches. You have to be thoroughly prepared so that you are ready for anything. But even if you are prepared you can still make grave errors which might have lasting consequences. I know.
One day in Girnar while walking about in the jungles I saw a young lady near a tree. She was really beautiful, and it looked as if she was from a good family from her looks and the way she was dressed, but I couldn’t understand what she would be doing out in the middle of a deep jungle. As I passed her she said, “Mai aaun?” (Shall I come?)
Now I didn’t know what to think. What is she doing acting like a prostitute out here in dense forest soliciting me? I decided that the best thing to do would be to walk on. She started to follow, and she kept repeating, “Mai aaun? Mai aaun?”
I told her, “Cats say ‘Meow, meow’; are you a cat?” But she said nothing at all except, “Mai aaun? Mai aaun?”
I continued to walk, and she continued to follow until I began to feel tired. I sat down and she came near me, repeating “Mai aaun? Mai aaun?”
I was tired and fed up with her, and that made me lose my temper and say, “If you are coming, come!” And immediately I was entrapped. She was a Yakshini.
You don’t know what trouble I had with her. I wouldn’t dare meet anyone, even other sadhus, because she would have finished them off, she was so possessive. Anyway when I was at the tether end of my rope my Mahapurusha freed me from her. That is only a minor one of the many reasons I have for saying that I owe everything to my Big Daddy, my Mahapurusha. If I am flayed alive for millions of births it would still be insufficient to repay him.
Maya spares no one, and She never spared me either. Once in Girnar when I had to urinate I laid my fire tongs down on a rock, and when I came back it had turned into gold: I couldn’t believe my eyes. I picked it up and marked the stone so that I could remember exactly where it was. My idea was to use it whenever I needed gold.
I went down to Junagadh town and sold the fire tongs to a goldsmith after breaking it into pieces; a gold fire tongs is of no use to a sadhu. Then I bought a new iron fire tongs and distributed the money I realized from the sale of the gold.
When I got back to the place where the stone had been there was no mark, no sign I had ever been there, nothing. I tried several of the stones, but to no avail. I had tried to capitalize on it and had lost it as a punishment for forgetting to rely on Nature to provide for me.
How many people really rely on Nature? Once when I was in Girnar I decided to make a test. I went without food and water to see when God would come and feed me.
The first two days were awful; my head was splitting. On the third day I decided, “If God does not come before sunset I am going to eat anyway and I will believe from then on that God is a real phony.”
As the day wore on I was becoming more and more desperate for sunset, the hunger was so great and my head so painful.
Suddenly about fifteen minutes before sunset a young girl whom I had never seen before came up to me and said, “Why are you making yourself starve like this? I have brought milk for you.”
At first I wanted to grab the milk and drink it all at once, I was so hungry. But I had my position to consider. I had to continue with my arrogance so I said, “Go, go on, get out of here.” But I wondered how she knew I was hungry. When I asked her she said, “I can see it on your face.” Then I felt ashamed; my facade was not as perfect as I had hoped.
She insisted I take the milk. Still I pretended to refuse it, and then she grabbed my matted locks and poured the milk down my throat. It was like nectar after not eating or drinking for three days, and then without my mentioning anything about my vow she said, “Now, has God fed you or not?” And then she disappeared. And from that day onward I know that God looks after everyone. I have been blessed by my mentor so that wherever I go I will always get my food and even cigarettes. Even if I go to the jungle the monkeys bring me fruits. Am I not fortunate? My mentors were very good, really good, excellent.
Thanks to them I was able to perform sadhana in the Cave of the Sixty-Four Yoginis which was the high point of my stay in Girnar. You might try to visit this cave without an invitation. As you approach it, suddenly a giant cobra will rear toward you, standing bolt upright on his tail. If you know the proper mantra you can immobilize him, no doubt, but then as you move on you will start to hear the sounds of wild spirits. Suppose you are successful at immobilizing all the spirits, which is highly unlikely. Then, as you proceed, suddenly you will fall for no apparent reason and break your leg. Out on a mountain with a broken leg near a cave with a well-deserved reputation for preventing the curious from visiting it, who will come to rescue you? So there is no use in trying to enter this cave unless you have a good friend to pull strings on your behalf.
I was lucky; my Mahapurusha wanted me to perform this sadhana. Even so I had to be purified first. I was given a small leaf, and I began to vomit and purge to remove all the worldly elements from my body. For the next two days I was not allowed to drink even water, and by the third day I was really almost unable to go on. Then I was invited into the cave, and a panel of beings — I can’t explain what sort of beings — welcomed me as one of their own.
I am forbidden to discuss the nature of my sadhana there but I can tell you this; the Yoginis are the companions of the Great Goddesses. This is a two-fold advantage: They can introduce you to the Great Goddesses, and they can teach you what they have been taught. Actually Shakti is the same in any form; only the details of the manifestation differ. In the case of the Great Goddess the entire range of possibilities of Shakti are divided into nine or ten aspects. For the Sixty-Four Yoginis there are sixty-four aspects which when taken as a unified whole represent the totality of Shakti in the universe. To succeed at the sadhana of one or two is feasible; to succeed at all sixty-four is nigh unto impossible, but the benefits if you do succeed are unimaginable.
Eventually I was ordered to leave Girnar and return to the world. I never wanted to come back to civilization, but orders are orders. When I finally got back to Bombay after being in Girnar and then wandering about as a sadhu, I used to sit in a room where everything was black: walls, ceiling, furniture, floor, everything. I used to wear a black lungi and would smoke ganja all day long and drink imported whiskey straight from the bottle. I was in my own mood all day long and never slept; to rest I would lie down for a half hour or so. The more intoxicants I would take, the more alert and silent would I become. Visitors would bring mad persons to me — stark raving, violently insane—and I would put them in my garden, and when I felt like it I would go out and give them one slap. Immediately they would become all right.
I used to experiment with new ways of curing diseases also. Sometimes I would dispense the ashes from the pipes I had been smoking, and they would do the job. Sometimes I would blow a whistle and the disease would go away instantaneously. I enjoyed having fun like that. Everyone wondered how I did it, and no one could ever understand.
When too many people would start to come to me and I would become tired of all the rush I would say, “I’m sorry, I’ve made a mistake. I’ve slipped up in my sadhana, so now all my power is finished,” and this would drive most of the people away. I have done that many times, because I love more than anything else to be alone.
DEVOTION
If I live for anything I live for my sadhana. And I cannot emphasize too strongly that to succeed at sadhana you must do whatever you set out to do with heart and soul. Never be like a prostitute, going from guru to guru, deity to deity, never selecting one as a true lover. Be like the Cataka bird, that drinks water only when the Swati asterism is in the sky. Never be happy anywhere but where your beloved is, whatever you may choose to love. Then you can get Siddhi — not otherwise.
Even when I was engaged to my wife, I would invariably get up at 10 P.M. no matter what I was doing, and would go to the smashan. She would ask me, “What do you do when you leave here?” One day I decided to take her along with me; why keep secrets from anyone? I drove to the smashan and parked the car. “Listen, while I am doing my sadhana I will not be able to come and help you out. You’ll have to wait until dawn. Think it over.” She said, “I’ll wait in the car until you finish.” I shrugged my shoulders over her stupidity, walked over to a blazing pyre, sat down, and began my rituals.
At dawn I returned to the car to find she had fainted. Foam was coming from her mouth, and her skin was cold. A nice slap brought her to her senses, and she started mumbling deliriously, “No, no, don’t come near me. Take me home.” I took her home, and she was in bed for a month with high fever from the fright of it. What did she see there? No one knows. And still she married me. This is rnanubandhana.
My wife says I’m a fool. Hundreds come to me to be treated and get their work done, and she says I’m a fool. I don’t cash in on my abilities! It doesn’t matter. Although we can’t get along together, still I refer to her and respect her as my first guru, because if it hadn’t been for her nagging I would never have rushed up things like I did; a blitzkrieg, if you like. She wanted me to become completely materialistic because she married me for my money; but it was not possible. If it had happened we would not be talking together here today. Therefore I thank her for making me realize the futility of life. You see, I have an Aghori’s frame of mind: challenge and response. Either I die or I succeed; either I kill you or you kill me. I picked this up in the jungle as a sadhu, and also when I was a wrestler. That competitiveness has always been there.
Once when I had gone to see my Junior Guru Maharaj after a long interval, I went to the cave I kept nearby and found some other Aghori sitting in it. I got wild. The beauty of that cave is that no one ever sits there when I am gone, but inside it is always spotless as if it were being regularly cleaned. It is full of whitened skulls, and snakes drip off the ceiling. Many of my friends have seen it, and they have all become frightened. There is a tree outside which gives a different type of fruit in each month of the year. You can obtain one fruit from it each day, and with the cool water from the spring within the cave you can live splendidly.
I told the other Aghori, whose name was Bhuta Nath, “Look, this is my cave. If you want to remain alive you had better pack up and leave immediately.”
He started to bluster: “This may have been your cave but now it belongs to me. If you don’t like it I don’t care. Get out!” What arrogance! This was serious. I told him, “I am warning you for the last time. I have nothing against you, but I can’t be responsible for what my friends will do to you if you stay here any longer.”
He just continued to blather, “Do you want to see what I can do? If you don’t leave now I will kill you.”
Unfortunately the moment he spoke these words he vomited blood and died. I buried his body; who will waste money for wood to cremate him? About some things it is necessary to be very strict.
But you can’t punish just anyone who makes fun of you; only those who should know better like Bhuta Nath. Besides, to punish someone is also to create a new karma, even if that someone deserved it like Bhuta Nath did. Every action produces an equal and opposite reaction: Newton’s Law of Motion. Eventually you will have to pay for each and every karma you create unless you find someone who is willing to take some of your karmas away from you and endure them himself, which is quite unlikely.
A sadhu has his own karmas to worry about, and rarely will he take anyone else’s karmas to reduce that person’s sufferings. I have tried it, and I have suffered for overstepping my limits. I took the karmas of one fellow suffering from throat cancer just to spare his children from being fatherless. For forty days I couldn’t even drink water. I survived on sips of lime juice mixed in a glass of soda.
Now I know what cancer is like. You see, if the patient will have to suffer for six years, you can suffer yourself for six months or six days, depending on the strength of your penance, because the austerities make the reaction easier to bear. But suffer you must.
Usually, however, a sadhu will say, “You have performed the action and enjoyed the fruit at the time. Now you are enjoying the reaction. Please learn a good lesson from it and don’t make any mistakes again.” You may find fakirs to help you, because they are more emotional, but only a few sadhus are exceptions to this rule.
I know the truth of this story personally. There was once a girl who married and was happily living in Bombay when she developed leprosy. Her husband and his family threw her out of the house, and her own family refused to take her in. In despair she went to Girnar. In the jungle she found a sadhu sitting on his dhuni. When he saw her he grunted at her several times, but she still refused to move. Finally, he had to say, “Ma, please do leave here. The sun is about to go down, and it is very dangerous to be out in the jungle at night.”
She replied, “I have come to Girnar to find some Baba who will cure me. Until now all the sadhus and fakirs I have met could do nothing, and if you also can’t do anything I have decided to kill myself because I cannot stand it any longer.”
The Baba didn’t say anything after that, and he continued to sit by his dhuni, she sitting nearby. Night fell and the cold set in and she started to shiver, but she didn’t move. At about 3 A.M. the Baba got up to have his bath. When he came back he smeared himself with ash from his dhuni, sat on the ground, and called the girl over to him, and motioned to her to sit on his lap. Then he embraced her — and she became free of the disease instantaneously. I can take you to her today; she is a grandmother now. Her husband and everyone else had to admit that she was cured.
And the Baba? Well, he had to suffer terribly for forty days, agony. That sort of compassion you find in only one out of thousands of sadhus and fakirs. A householder Aghori cannot afford to be so cruel. He has his own obligations, his people to protect and provide for, and he must be compassionate. To wear ochre robes is really a terrible responsibility and that is why I don’t wear them. While I don’t, I am a normal human being and I can play around as I like. I can enjoy my life and make mistakes. But when I put that on, I can’t afford to make even a single mistake.
This is another reason why I continuously test the people who come to me to learn something of spirituality. Some of them think they are ready to go out into the jungle without any preparation whatsoever. But do they realize what it means to divorce yourself from all your comforts and live like a sadhu? Once I met a sadhu in a North Indian forest. He was an Englishman, actually, but he had spent twenty years in India already when I met him. Some of our bigoted Brahmins claim smugly that Westerners will never be able to succeed at our sadhanas perfectly; but that is all bull. Actually Westerners have some qualities which are rare in Indians nowadays. For example, they are thorough in whatever it is they do. This sadhu, named Must Ram (literally “Intoxicated with Rama”), was as perfect a sadhu as you will ever find. When I met him he had injured his leg and the wound was full of pus — and termites. Yes, termites. I felt sorry for him; I was sure he must be suffering some disturbance in his meditation on that account. So I volunteered to cure him.
“Oh, no, no, don’t bother,” he told me in elegant English, “why disturb them? Let them eat, let them eat.” Can you imagine? Would you be able to say the same thing if it were your leg which was being devoured by insects? I doubt it; not in the beginning, at least. Which is why I tell the people who come to me, “If you cannot concentrate properly in Bombay where you have all the facilities, food whenever you want it, a comfortable bed, and so on, how could you possibly concentrate out in the jungle with mosquitoes swooping down at you at odd hours, with a rock for a bed, and whatever you can beg for your dinner?’’
I never wanted to leave Girnar, but I can see now it was the right thing to do. I’ve learned so much about the world and the people who live in it. I can understand how they can be miserable, and I try to help them out of their misery, physical or mental, so that they can, maybe, remember God occasionally.
I love to play about with my “children,” to teach them new things, and to help them overcome their bad habits. One day one of them may even develop sufficiently to be fit to become a disciple. One of my American “children” told me once, very sweetly and sincerely, “I am really proud to be able to say I know you, and I am so glad that I can love you and that you reciprocate my love, that it is mutual. I just hope my love is not a burden to you.” Wasn’t that a nice thing to say? But very naive.
I told him, “Your love is no burden to me because it is a very inconstant love. You love me some of the time, your wife some of the time, your other friends part of the time, and some of the time you are overcome by self-doubt and are not sure who you love or even if you do love. If your love ever becomes real love then it will definitely be a burden to me, because then I will have to work hard to live up to it.”
The purpose of sadhana is to develop real love. But nowadays it is so difficult to do proper sadhana because of all the obstacles. The secret is to be sincere about whatever it is you take as your sadhana, no matter how insignificant or unimportant it may seem to you. God is not interested in big sadhus or saints; God is interested only in sincerity. That is why Krishna cannot do without Radha. She can remember nothing else except Krishna, and Her remembrance drags Him to Her.
When Khinaram Aghori cured that dancer of leprosy, or when the Baba in Girnar cured that Bombay girl of leprosy, the love that Khinaram and the Baba showed was infinitely greater than any love you have ever experienced in your life. Why? Because first of all, it was done knowing full well that the opposite party would never be able to repay such a gift. Normally lovers work on the principle that “a fair exchange is no robbery.” A lover loves his or her partner only because he or she is confident that the partner will return that love. How many people love without any expectation of return? Secondly, it was a love which was so great that Khinaramji and the Baba were willing to suffer for the opposite party. It is one thing to love without any expectation of return; it is a very different thing to love with the intention of suffering in the other’s stead. Sometimes you will find mothers who can do it, especially animal mothers protecting their young. This is why I am always desirous of sitting in the lap of the Mother, so that I can always be learning how to love. This is real love, and this love is a real burden.
Where did this love come from? Did Kinaramji want to enjoy sex with the dancer? Did the Baba look at the young lady’s body before agreeing to cure her? No. Ordinary love for the flesh can never go so deep because of the instinct of self-preservation. This was love directed inward to the Atma, the fragment of the Universal Soul which dwells in everyone. Overwhelming love for God made these things happen. That Baba, and Khinaramji likewise, thought, “Wah, Lord, are you suffering? Let me relieve you!” Real love changes things.
Generally, people say the aim of life is Moksha, or salvation, by which they mean freedom from being obliged to take birth again on Earth. But I believe in a personal God and I say to Him, ‘’Lord, let me be born over and over again thousands of times, but don’t take your face away from me. Make me a blind leper for centuries but never desert me. Always keep me in your heart and in your eyes.” My Beloved loves to play about with me and I love to play about with Him, and the result is emotional highlights: Mahabhava Samadhi! Can you prevent two lovers from meeting? No, even if they have to meet in the road or in some public area where everyone can see what they are up to. Do they have any sense of time or place? No! “Kamaturanam na bhayam na lajja”: Fear and shame do not exist for those afflicted with the disease of desire. And Bhakti is far more intense than physical love. Two souls merge into one another; can anyone describe it? To achieve it you must forget the external completely and go deeper and deeper within.
So go on with your sadhana, longer and longer until you can’t live without your deity, and He or She can’t live without you. Then go further; go so deep that you forget even the deity. The deity then will feel so miserable without your love and remembrance that He or She will run after you and demand worship. This becomes such a bondage of love that you can’t escape it. You become lost, absolutely lost, useless to the world, lost within yourself playing with your Beloved.
And when that happens your perspective on life will undergo a radical change. You’ll see things completely differently, because you are no longer part of the usual current of worldly events, so your priorities will be determined by your Bhakti. Here is an example.
Once in the South there was a king of the Chola dynasty who was a great devotee of Rama. One day while the court bard was reciting the Ramayana (the epic of Rama’s life and adventures) aloud to him, the narrative reached the point where Sita was taken to Lanka. The king suddenly jumped up and said, “Immediately prepare the forces for an attack on Lanka. Why should Lord Rama worry when I am here to serve him? I will see that Sita is returned!”
No one at the court had the courage to tell him that all this had happened long before. So, he sailed at the head of his fleet and duly conquered Lanka. Then he ordered his generals, “Find Sita!” Since they were aware that to refuse a royal order meant death, they made a show of searching and reported that no Sita was present. This mystified the king, who was on the point of losing his temper, until it came out in the course of a conversation that the Ramayana had happened thousands of years ago. Then he realized, “Oh, no! What have I done? I have unnecessarily conquered Lanka!” He gave the kingdom of Lanka to one of his sons, his own kingdom to the other, and went out into the forest to live the life of an ascetic. He became a great saint. Devotion like that will always pay dividends.
When you have Bhakti your attitude becomes quite different. Once Narada (an immortal devotee of Vishnu) asked Lord Vishnu to explain to him the difference in state between a Yogi and a devotee, a follower of Bhakti. Vishnu told Narada to follow him down to Earth. On Earth as they strolled along they came upon a Yogi hanging upside down from the branch of a large tree. The Yogi asked Vishnu, “How many more births will I have to take to be free of the cycle of birth and death? My penance is so terrific that I should achieve very soon.’’
Vishnu said, “In spite of all your penance there is still a little left for you to do. You will have to take two more births yet.”
On hearing this the Yogi got down out of the tree and walked off in disgust, saying, “In spite of all my strenuous efforts and austerities I will still have to take two more births? What sort of justice is that? Forget it; there is no use in continuing with it.”
Narada and Vishnu walked silently on a little farther and saw a devotee singing and dancing by himself under a spreading banyan tree. Seeing Lord Vishnu the devotee prostrated himself fully on the ground and said, “Oh, my blessed Lord, how kind of you to come and visit me! How wonderful that I have been permitted to see you! Would you be kind enough to tell me how many more times I will have to take birth before I can be free of the wheel of existence?”
Vishnu replied, “I am sorry to have to tell you this but you will have to take birth again as many times as there are leaves on this tree.’’
The devotee shouted for joy, “Only so many times? And I feared there might be no limit. The time will pass almost unnoticed.” And he began to sing and dance again.
Vishnu smiled and said, “Oh, is that the way you feel about it? Then come with me right now.”
Then Vishnu asked Narada, “Do you see the difference between a Yogi and a devotee? The Yogis still try to hold on to their egos, and what do they get? The devotee accomplishes great things by offering up the ego to the Beloved.”
There is a cliff in Girnar. When a sadhu has done penances for years and years and has finally despaired of life and can no longer stand to live without his deity, he will walk to that cliff and throw himself off in a frenzy of anguish — and nothing will happen to him. He will have passed his test and becomes eligible to be taught further. False sadhus have tried it, to attract attention to themselves, and all of them died. True devotion is the only force which can go beyond death.
When you get close to your Beloved there comes a time when you cannot continue to exist separately, and your own personality is lost in that of the deity. Each deity has unique characteristics which give a wonderful flavor to the play. When you embrace Anjaneya, it is as if electricity had been given to all parts of your body. All the cells begin to jump and sing. And what is so marvelous is that in the blood, for instance, if the white blood cells are too many and red blood cells too few, or vice versa, they will automatically go back to their proper levels. In the brain every cell is dilated, every blood vessel is dilated. And that is why they call it Supreme Bliss.
Anyone who follows the path of devotion wants to get the vision of his deity because he is dying to catch a glimpse of his Beloved. He longs for his deity so much that the form of the deity is actually created in the astral body, and then it projects and plays with him. All through this process he experiences the joys of intense emotional highlights. This is why Aghoris are always the best devotees, because they forget everything else when they remember the Beloved. Their longing is so intense that they cry, wail, tear their flesh, starve themselves, anything to lose their physical consciousness and attract the deity. An ordinary devotee can never be so intense as an Aghori.
Once an Aghori told his disciple, “Take this pot and fill it with water, but don’t go near any lake or river.”
The disciple thought to himself as hard as he could, and then he wandered around awhile before returning with an empty pot. The guru looked up at him and said, “There is only one way to fill this pot — with your tears. When you love your deity so much that you cannot bear to be without Him, that you cannot exist unless you have a glimpse of Him, that you are ready to kill yourself unless He shows Himself to you, and when you cry continuously until the pot is full, then only are you fit to do Aghora sadhanas; not until then.”
Another day the guru told the same disciple, “Build me a fire without wood.” The disciple made an effort, but to no avail. When he confessed his failure to the guru, the latter shook his head and said, “Until your heart catches fire with the intense longing for your deity; until you bum yourself to ashes and continue to bum even then; until you become flame yourself, you can never succeed at Aghora.”
The scriptures describe the stages through which one passes when overcome by Shakti. First, you must forget your body. If you worry about your body how will you concentrate on your Beloved? When you can no longer remember your body you are on the way. Then you begin to sweat as the emotion builds up. Next you cry. First you cry because of the separation; and later you cry because of anticipation, out of joy when you feel the deity is really going to come to you. When the deity enters your body and embraces you, you begin to tremble and shake because of the overwhelming bliss of the embrace. And then you lose yourself in the fusion of the two personalities into one. If you are a super-Aghori you maintain this state permanently; if not, you can develop the emotion whenever you please and play with your Beloved at any time. Then you are beyond all the limitations of your physical body, and therefore of karma and fate also.
Once the great Hindi poet-saint Tulsidas, during his period as a wandering sadhu, came to a certain town, where a lady offered him food. In India we always believe in feeding sadhus, birds, animals, all living things, because you never know when God is going to come to you. God may come in any form, and we feel that if we feed everyone, eventually we will feed God and our work will be done. After eating, Tulsidas told the lady, “Please ask for anything, and I will do it for you.”
She laughed in his face and said, “Maharaj, plenty of saints have come and none of them have been able to give me what I want.”
“But I am Tulsidas/’ he said, a little offended, “and I will give you what you desire; just speak it.”
The woman sighed over his stupidity and said, “I want a son.” Tulsidas went into meditation and after a few minutes came back to earthly consciousness and said, “Ma, I’m afraid that a son is not in your destiny.”
The woman smiled and said, “That is what I told you in the first place, but you wouldn’t listen to me. However, you are always welcome for food.” Tulsidas went on his way.
After some time an Aghori came to the town, and upon learning about the lady who was unable to have a child he decided to do something about it. One day he walked down the street in front of the lady’s house, shouting, “Who will feed me? I am offering a child for every roti (flat bread tortilla) I am fed! One roti, one child! Ten rotis, ten children!” When the lady heard this she invited the Aghori inside and told him, “But Maharaj it’s not in my destiny to have children.” The Aghori replied, “I piss on destiny!” She fed him eight rotis, and in eight years she delivered eight handsome sons.
After twelve years Tulsidas again visited the town. As he walked down the same street he saw the eight boys and was immediately enamored by their beauty and intelligence. They called their mother, and she invited him inside and told him, “Do you remember that you said I had no sons in my destiny?” When Tulsidas heard that the Aghori had given them to her he went into meditation to ask Rama about it. He said, “Raghuvira, when you would not allow me to give this lady sons, how could that filthy evil-smelling Aghori do it?”
Rama smiled at him and said, “Tulsi, that Aghori is something different from you. He has gone beyond the limits of being a saint and living in Sattva.” Then Rama decided to teach Tulsidas a good lesson with the help of the Aghori, and suddenly He started to shout, “Oh, I have a terrific pain in the heart. Please, Tulsi, get me a heart from someone so that I can get some relief.”
Tulsidas got scared: If something were to happen to Lord Rama what would be his fate as Rama’s chief devotee? So he ran out into the street shouting, “A heart! Lord Rama needs a heart! Who will give his heart for Rama? ‘’
The Aghori, who was relaxing under a tree, heard him and said, “Tulsidas, come here.” When Tulsidas came the Aghori said, “Now I know how much love you have for Lord Rama. If you really loved Him, you would have given your own heart instantaneously when He asked. Here, if Lord Rama wants a heart, let Him take mine,” and so saying he ripped open his chest with his fingers, tore out his heart, and handed it to Tulsidas.
When Tulsidas went back into meditation to offer the heart to Rama, Rama smiled at him and said, “Now do you see how a real lover behaves with his Beloved?” And Tulsidas had to keep quiet and acknowledge the Aghori’s greatness.
Once when I was in Girnar I was moving about with a sadhu named Ganga Das, a great devotee of Anjaneya. He had gone to a temple of Anjaneya to worship, but the priest told us, “You naked sadhus, get out of here! The wives of some important merchants from Bombay are coming here to worship. They will be embarrassed to see you!” And he refused to let us into the temple.
Tears filled the eyes of Ganga Das, and all he said was, “Wah, Anjaneya; I could never have believed You would feel embarrassed to see me. Doesn’t matter; I am ready to go.” And we turned to leave.
As we left the temple enclosure the image of Anjaneya ripped itself from the wall and began to follow us! We walked on and on and it followed us faithfully all the while, the priest standing thunderstruck behind. I don’t know how many miles we covered but eventually Ganga Das relented and turned to worship the image. The image never returned to the original temple; the trustees arranged for a new temple to be built over it where it finally came to rest.
This is just an example of what I mean when I say that when you really get close to your deity, He or She cannot do without you and will go to any lengths not to offend you. There is a beautiful bondage of love. But only an Aghori can ever reach such heights; others are just too timid.
You can’t just go out and try to develop love like this; it takes years. But everyone can make a beginning. Every morning when I wake up I do three things. First, I remember that I’m going to die. This gives urgency to the way I will live that day. Second, I spend five minutes in thanksgiving to Nature for being permitted to live, to have this chance to experience, to learn, and to achieve. And third, I resolve not to cheat my consciousness during the day. As long as I don’t cheat my consciousness nothing I do during the day can stain me; but if I do something wrong I know I am likely to end up like the boy whose guru swallowed the fish and then regurgitated them back up, alive.
There are several little things like this I do during the day, just to keep my mind under control. I always make it a point to eat a green chili or two each morning, first thing. And you know how hot green chilies are! It is to remind me of the time when I had only chilies and water to eat all day long, because of my sadhana. That morning chili tells me, “Forget not, forget not.”
And there is a practice which I follow every night before going to sleep. It is very simple, but it has helped me immensely, and it can help anyone who uses it. It involves only three questions: Have I lived? Have I loved? Have I laughed?
Have I lived? Have I made the best use of the time provided me during that day to grow, to learn, to develop?
Have I loved? Have I reached out to everyone I met and made them aware of the love in my heart and eased their burdens of self-mistrust and self-doubt?
Have I laughed? Have I seen the humorous side of even the most painful incident?
If the answer to any one of these questions is no, then it is a matter for remorse. One more day has passed and I am another day closer to my death, and I have not exerted myself to my fullest potential. This is enough to make me work harder the next day and try to make amends, before Mahakala comes and catches me unawares. It is this intense desperation to live life to the fullest which is the hallmark, the stamp, of a true Aghori.