Lock Down : Aghora, Portal to new world and loss in times of Covid

Week from 25-04 to 1-05

The response to the last post was overwhelming, the Narcissus in me is happy with the reading count on admin panel of the blog. I have a long way before I get over these small pleasures of life, hopefully they will not consume me. Gratitude to every one who made comments and reverted with observations privately.

2020 continues to take its toll on our finest and wisest people, I lost someone dear to cancer and before it ends, we have lost two excellent actors and human beings.

Irrfan rankles more for number of reasons one he was from my home town Jaipur and more so from the walled city where I also belong to. There is something about people from walled city that is missing in other part of metropolis (maybe earthiness) and it showed up in him every time he performed, second Irrfan success is a living proof that Indian films are not all about nonsensical muscles & skin show. His screen presence gave one confidence that one can be ordinary and still be a great actor. The characters he played have been played in past and will be done by others in future but he will stand out for his interpretation of these characters. My advice is to watch “Qarib Qarib Single” amongst his last movies, by the end of which one would like to hold the time and people dear to one close to oneself. If you want to really discover this giant, watch him in “The Warrior” and of course him as the modern Macbeth in Maqbool.

For Rishi Kapoor my favorite sequence is from the movie Coolie (amongst the most useless of AB’s movies) where during the song he Walks on stilts up to side of an elephant on which Amitabh Bachchan is riding with some aplomb. I always interpreted the scene as an ordinary person making the effort to rise to challenges life throws up and face them in best possible way. For some one who had every thing not required for a long run in Indian cinema (was bubbly, chocolaty, portly and not tall) his career went on till health stopped him from working a year back. The longevity in career allowed him to play a variety of roles from most hemmed, hammed to very polished and real ones.

 Both of them are an inspiration for all us ordinary folk, to overcome the limitations the societal norms impose on us and keep plodding to our objectives.

As committed, I start with introduction on Aghora and in turn its practitioners Aghoris. The popular conception of them being uncouth and Shamshan (cremation ground) dwellers, Yes, but this is right and wrong at same time. Reason why Aghori is associated with the cremation ground is quite deep “An Aghori has to see the absolute truth and is there a better one then death?”. At the end we all reach their, however fancy our titles & wealth may be, all it means is in the end is we go alone into the Astral world.

Aghora is the advanced discipline of tantra, it is a science of personality. While Ayurveda was developed for holistic ways to maintain the body, forms of Yoga were developed to optimize the spiritual nature, Tantra was developed as mental science, a meta phycology, a method of exploring the mind and developing the range of one’s perception. The belief in undiffertiated unity is the one absolute reality for Aghori’s.

It is said that the undifferentiated unity is the only absolute reality and cosmos only possess relative reality as it is not permanent and unchanging. The universe possesses all possible qualities & attributes and each being within the universe possesses limited number of these processes and attributes. The personality then is a combination of these processes & attributes which also provides the format or more common word Ego. All beings possess Ego and therefore all being have personalities. The cosmos herself possesses the ultimate personality, the supreme expression of the totality of manifested existence: The Adishakti, Or Adya.

 Obsession with longevity is also part of the overall frame work of Tantra, defining a body, the cells within it and how one can achieve longevity by going beyond the limited personality one possesses. To deal with this aspect would require a more detailed post (maybe in future). For any student of tantra this would be an important aspect to study and dwell into.

Tantric traditions in turn the Aghori’s have been viewed from jaundiced eyes of clinical West and monochromatic traditions in our country also. Remember all the movies where the practitioner of Tantra is considered to be working outside all societal norms and usually branded as evil. To understand it better the right-hand and left-hand explanation works best for our modern sensibilities trained brains.

The right-hand path involves the search for unlimited reality via the road of external imposition of purity. Some of the practices here are strange but get the path still gets wider acceptance as its emphasis on personal purity (quite familiar to west and westernized Indians as Bhakti yoga, Karma yoga and Raja yoga with observable discipline as central theme)

The left-hand path is controversial due to action of some of its practitioner who have sought quick and easy spiritual development without any preliminary effort to rise above the sensory gratification. This has damaged the reputation of path (hence the movies depicting the Tantric as evil men). The left-hand path relies in internal purity of the practitioner. The rituals and practices prescribed are quite complicated and let us say not easily understandable (underplaying here). As without internal purity prescribed for this path the disaster/ accidents are sure to happen. This is like walking on the swords edge most of the time.

I can go on and on about my experiences around the philosophy, in beginning without knowing anything about the philosophy and now knowing some basics about it. Maybe I will start writing a separate track on this in some time.

For now, my focus with Aghora can be encapsulated in the quote from Part I of Aghora

“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."

From here on where it goes is in hands unknown and all possibilities exist in future.

In the week we continued to muddle our way out of pandemic (still way out I hope for all of us), competing statistics and narration are screaming for attention. So Manthan continues for a decision post 3^rd May, the day we were promised, we would emerge out in new portal of post lock out world. Nothing like this is expected now, as majority is resigned to be locked up again for a fortnight and then another fortnight. Maybe more imagination and execution effort are required as compared to current direction and effort.

Also, in this week thunderous clapping and banging thalis have given way to serious political play all around, valid & imagined disagreements and failures are being aired with some seriousness all around and knives are out from all sides. It feels good to be back to normal at least in these things.

Net week we cover Digital cruelty, meekness and callous behavior. What a mess we are creating with a combination of all this online. Sample : We actually had people going ga ga over Irrfan’s death. How on earth can this even be possible in this society is something we all should contemplate. Tragedy is that these folks believe they are “ सच का सिपाही” (soldier of truth)  for our times. Does this remind you of something in history. Do look up.

Namaskar, wishing you a happy weekend