Extreme Devotion -the cult of Shiva 1

Incredible India: on the one hand you have these ascetics who represent the highest and most revered forms of spirituality, and on the other you have a peculiar Hindu narrow, middle class, out-dated British slave mentality of 'shame' when it comes to outlook on sex, sexuality and the human body.

"When the ghosts read the writing on the skulls Shiva wears around his neck, they know, 'This one is Brahma, this one isVishnu, this one is Indra, this is death,' as they play happilywith them, Shiva smiles, he laughs, our god--Basava, vacana no.537 translated in A.K. Ramanujan.

The Aghora sub-sect of Shaivites represents one of the most extreme and demanding paths among sadhus.

Aghora is another name for the god Shiva and literally means "Not Terrible."

By challenging all sense of dark and light, good and bad, proper and improper, aghori sadhus believe the inherent Divine nature of the universe will be revealed.

Therefore, these sadhus put themselves through many tests; spend most of their time around the cremation grounds, drink and eat from a human skull, demonstrate their transcendence of pain and non-attachment by hoisting bricks by their penis and sometimes, consume decomposed human flesh or their own excrement.

This picture shows an Ahgori sadhu drinking from a skull.

Aghora

At the Left Hand of GodGhora is darkness, the darkness of ignorance.

Aghora means light, the absence of darkness.

Under the Tree of Knowledge is an Aghori,

a follower of the path of Aghora.

He has gone beyond ignorance

thanks to the Flame of Knowledge

which billows from the funeral pyre.

The funeral pyre is the ultimate reality, a continual reminder that everyone has to die.

Knowledge of the ultimate reality of Death has taken the Aghori beyond the Eight Snares of Existence: lust, anger, greed, delusion, envy, shame, disgust and fear which bind all beings.

The Aghori plays with a human skull,

astonished by the uselessness of limited existence,

knowing the whole world to be within him though he is not in the world.

His spiritual practices have awakened within him the power of Kundalini, which takes the form of the goddess dancing on the funeral pyre: Smashan Tara.

He is bewildered to think that all is within him, not external to him; that he sees it not with the physical eyes but with the sense of perception. The Flame of Knowledge is that which preserves life, the Eternal Flame, the Supreme Ego, the Motherhood of God which creates the whole Maya of the universe and thanks only to Whose grace the Aghori has become immortal.

[Come back tomorrow for more]