interesting article

[Guest guest]

Jai Gurudev,

 

i have come across this person thru mukund, vimalananda is from

gyangunj/siddhashram and he was the mentor to robert svaboda while he

was in india for 10-15 years where he studied ayurveda(BAMS) in poona

and came across vimalananda and later was mentored by him, this is a

very useful and informative article.

robert svaboda agohra series1,2,3 (books) is amazing and very

informational with lot of interesting facts and knowledge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Divine Fury: Recollections of a Renegade Guru

 

Robert E. Svoboda

 

 

 

"Life is just a memory," the Aghori Vimalananda liked to

muse. "Bitter or sweet, it is nothing but memory."

 

I can still hear Vimalananda, the man who became my mentor,

underscoring for me the need to be able both to remember and to

forget. To remember with gratitude the good done to me, and forget

the slights I am shown. To reinforce by remembering them the noble

sentiments that uplift my humanity, and to weaken by forgetting them

my personal human debilities, born of selfishness and insecurity.

When Vimalananda thought of remembering he remembered Jean Valjean,

the protagonist of Victor Hugo's novel Les Miserables, the man who

never forgot that when he was caught stealing the bishop's

candlesticks the bishop protected him from the police instead of

denouncing him. Jean Valjean carried the memory of that single

incident with him for the rest of his life; it changed him

permanently.

 

Vimalananda taught those who came to him to transform their lives by

remembering the single certainty that life offers each of us: the

sureness of our eventual death. The more you become aware of death's

certitude, he would say, the more urgently you will strive to live an

impeccable life, to seek a healthy relationship with that infinite

and permanent reality that lies beyond our world of the temporary and

the mundane.

 

Vimalananda, who remembered his own impending death every morning of

his eventful life, believed that forgetting to merge one's awareness

with external things is the very first step in spirituality, for we

can remember the Infinite only to the extent that we have forgotten

everything else. Vimalananda dedicated his life to a one-pointed

pursuit of the Absolute by offering up all his externals on the altar

of Aghora.

 

Aghora (literally, "non-terrifying") is the spiritual path that seeks

to negate all that is ghora ("terrible, terrifying") in life. The

ghora encompasses all those experiences that most people find

intolerable, for almost everyone is as ready to enjoy life's

pleasures as they are to avoid misery. Most spiritual advisers

admonish their devotees to shy away from the ghora, but aghoris

(practitioners of Aghora) embrace the ghora fervidly, for what most

terrifies an aghori is the prospect of becoming mired in duality.

Aghoris go so far into the ghora that the ghora becomes tolerable to

them; diving deeply into darkness, an aghori finally surfaces into

light. No means to awakening is too disgusting or frightening for an

aghori, for Aghora is the Path of the Shadow of Death, the path that

forcibly separates an individual from attachment to every ordinary

self-descriptor.

 

Aghora's temple is the smashan (cremation ground), where aghoris

worship death, the Great Transformer, with a savage, all-consuming

love. Those who are enslaved by their cravings think aghoris mad for

displaying such ferocity in their quest for knowing. They condemn

Aghora's outwardly repugnant practices because they cannot see

beneath their ritual skin. If they could but peep into an aghori's

heart they would find there an ache for Reality so fierce that no

means could be too extreme to achieve it. This ache drives the divine

fury, the passionately unrestrained non-attachment to absolutely

everything, that is Aghora's hallmark. Aghoris earn their

illumination by incinerating themselves moment by moment in their own

internal fires, laughingly consuming any substance and performing any

activity that might further enkindle their awareness. They seize

every moment of life that God offers to them, even a trip to the

toilet, as a fresh opportunity to surrender to the One. Good aghoris

takes their temples with them as they wander the world, ceaselessly

amazed to witness the universe consuming itself in the fires of an

ongoing cosmic cremation.

 

Aghora like alchemy substitutes for a set recipe of self-development

an outline whose details differ for each practitioner. Each aghori

and his customs are unique, and in truth all one aghori has in common

with another is their degree of intensity and determination. Aghoris

become so desperate in their quests that they channel their every

thought and feeling into a super-obsession, a single-minded quest to

achieve the Beloved. They endeavor eternally to dismember their

restricted selves fully, that God may have a free hand to re-member

them completely. They die day by day while they are still alive, that

by dying to their limitations they can be reborn into the eternal

life of Reality.

 

Aghoris achieve laser-like focus by learning to awaken and cultivate

that evolutionary power that the Tantras call Kundalini. Vimalananda

comments, "Ahamkara, your 'I-creating' faculty, continuously

remembers you by self-identifying with all the cells in your body and

all the facets of your personality. Ahamkara is your personal shakti

(power); she integrates the many parts of you into the individual

that you are. You develop spiritually when you can cause ahamkara to

realize, little by little, that she is actually She: the Kundalini

Shakti. This growing realization gradually awakens Kundalini, and as

She awakens She forgets to self-identify with your limited human

personality. Then She is ready to recollect something new."

 

After his Kundalini was awakened during a midnight ritual performed

atop a human corpse, the Aghori Vimalananda developed a wonderfully

fresh and vital recollection of reality. Kundalini took for him the

form of Smashan Tara ("The Savioress of the Cemetery"), the Tantric

goddess Who causes the living to cross the frontier that separates

them from the reality of death. After incarnating within him as

Smashan Tara Vimalananda's Kundalini traversed the boundaries of his

ordinary human awareness, and created within him a multidimensional

personality.

 

Ever the iconoclast, Vimalananda never permitted himself to be

pigeonholed, even as an aghori. A stereotypical aghori is an wild-

eyed madman skulking about the cremation ground, cooking his food in

a human skull, flinging filth at anyone who might dare to disturb

him. Vimalananda, who spent part of his life playing that role,

eventually became so conversant with the aghori frame of mind that he

came to be able to drag it along wherever he went. While ordinary

aghoris define themselves by the external smashan, superior aghoris

like Vimalananda create a smashan wherever they sit, that they may

maintain simultaneous awareness of all versions of reality. After

choosing who to be at a given moment, Vimalananada would portray that

self with consummate skill, transforming all the while his every act

into a sadhana, a spiritual discipline.

 

Vimalananda's peers acknowledged him as an expert in astrology,

medicine, cookery, horseflesh, dance, vocal and instrumental music,

and wrestling. Beneath the mundane accomplishments of his versatile

erudition, visible only to a select view, simmered his striking

spiritual attainments. Genuine aghoris crave only to fill their

hearts with tears for the Beloved, and count external appearance as

nothing more than "the dressing up of a corpse." To some this means

swathing themselves in human ashes; to Vimalananda it meant wearing

whatever costume a situation called for without ever becoming fixated

on that dress. Whether leading his brave troops as a gung-ho army

officer, toiling next to his workers as a hard-working quarry owner

and dairy farmer, playing the equine game as an avid owner of

thoroughbred race horses or roving the countryside as a naked

ascetic, Vimalananda donned the right skin for the job. He threw

himself wholeheartedly into each role, becoming "as hard as diamond

and as soft as wax" as required, the yearning within augmenting all

the while. ,.,.Aghoris live to overdo, and the events of

Vimalananda's life document again and again how readily he overdid in

his search for his Beloved. He really overdid things on the day he

lost his temper with his penis for disturbing his sleep with its

regular erections, and read it the riot act with the help of a thick

layer of green chili paste. What a fiery lesson that was! Most people

would think him as insane for trying such a stunt as he thought them

insane for obsessing over everything except the One Thing in life

that is worth obsessing over.

 

Vimalananda found divinity's highest expression in the Motherhood of

God. Kundalini was to him his Ma, his Beloved Mother Who consented to

protect and preserve Her child from all dangers, no matter what

errors he might commit, so long as he remained safe within Her lap.

That his sex organ healed scarless after its chili massage is tribute

to how cockeyed Mother Nature was to him. Like a good aghori he

always followed his spontaneous ardor, and like an indulgent mother

She always protected him from his own fervor.

 

He knew well, however, that he was protected by the intensity of his

devotion to Her, and that few others who tried to imitate his actions

would escape unscathed. Year after year of sitting in the Divine Lap

taught him to love every plant, animal and rock in the universe as

his own child, and to wish for all beings only what was in their best

interests. No matter how fanatical Vimalananda the aghori became

about his sadhana, Vimalananda the maternal mentor never permitted

anyone to slavishly emulate his practices.

 

He punctuated this message by flaunting his unconventionality. Open

indulgence in alcohol and other intoxicants and frank acknowledgment

of his enthusiastic sex life served to drive all but the most

persistent postulants from his unmarked door. He followed in this the

ancient example of Guru Dattatreya, the first aghori, who in order to

weed out through disgust those of his disciples who could not look

beyond their guru's outer 'clothes' took to drinking wine while a

beautiful naked female sat atop his lap. The world's skin, the

superficial image of reality that we call in Sanskrit maya, is a

barrier that few people find easy to dismantle. Vimalananda wanted to

be remembered solely by those people who would remember the "him"

beneath his skin, the him of a heart that was as big as all outdoors.

 

A man of action who cared little for the opinions of others on what

Aghora might or might not be, Vimalananda resisted all attempts to

paint him as a 'classical' aghori. He ignored all recognized Aghora

sects as assiduously as he disdained all organized religion. When

asked his creed he would reply, "None! I believe in sampradaha

(incineration), not sampradaya (sect). All sects have limitations,

and what is really necessary is to cremate all your limitations, to

burn down everything that stands in the way of your perception of

Reality." He valued practice over theory, and instruction from a guru

over textual injunction. He accepted approved Hindu doctrine whenever

it pleased him to do so, or he would cheerfully remix it until it

did, even when such experiments (such as performing devotional

worship after consuming intoxicants) dismayed the puritanical.

 

Wherever he looked Vimalananda saw both God's imminence in every

morsel of the universe (the One-in-All) and God's transcendence

beyond every material concretion (the All-in-One). He knew that,

there being but one Reality, any distinction between the mundane and

the spiritual can only be one of degree. When the orthodox questioned

his purity and sincerity he would tell them in response, "Show me

where God, and thus purity, is not!" Aghoris know how to worship in

the ways that conventional priests worship, but they also learn how

to go beyond convention. They learn to make "gutter water into Ganges

water," transforming even human brain or feces into a sacrament by so

consecrating it with their devotion that it too becomes redolent with

the fragrance of God.

 

But Vimalananda refused even to limit himself to this sort of

definition, and turned all his energies into a quest for the holy

grail of continuous, God-fired self-redefinition. Never did any ego-

promontory resist within him for long being eroded by his devotion,

for he counted no aghori successful until he or she had gone so far

into sadhana that nothing remained but love, the devotion (bhakti)

that was the source of all his power. Vimalananda followed even the

most grotesque of sadhanas to its bitter end, and donated whatever

shakti he obtained from them to the Great Shakti Who sheltered and

nourished him. He climbed to the apex of aghoridom and stood there,

dissolving and recoagulating himself moment by moment, his motto an

eternal shout of navinam navinam, kshane kshane ("Newness, newness,

at every moment!").

 

Genuine aghoris have always been far fewer than their imitators,

people who blacken Aghora's name by performing garish ceremonies in

public to attract the attention of the gullible public. Vimalananda

never sought to capitalize on his capabilities by soliciting public

recognition. Instead he so successfully promoted his anonymity that

many of his oldest compadres never even suspected that he had any

interest in spirituality.

 

I entered Vimalananda's life in 1975 when I tried to interview him in

Poona. I requested him to take a questionnaire, and was impressed

when after refusing it he answered all my questions anyway without my

ever having to ask them. One thing led to another, and soon I was one

of his bacchas, his 'spiritual children.' Vimalananda, who insisted

that a real guru always treats a disciple as a spiritual son or

daughter, both refused to call his devotees 'disciples' and refused

to call himself a guru. He believed that a guru's attitude of

claiming to know something shuts him or her off from anything new.

Instead he daily prayed that Ma would keep a student throughout his

life, to keep him eternally open to learning new things. He advised

his spiritual 'children' to do the same.

 

"Never take what I say as gospel truth," he would say. "I am human,

which means that I make mistakes. Always first try out what I say,

experience it yourself, and then you will know whether or not it

actually is the truth. Because you are human you too make mistakes;

that is inevitable. Just always make sure that you make different

mistakes each time. Then you will never cease to progress."

 

Making mistakes is usually easier than coping with their

consequences, particularly in a world in which Tantric information

which once remained unspoken because of its potential for

misinterpretation is being freely published, often wholly shorn of

context. To grab such lore and seek to wield it indiscriminately is

to invite calamity into your life. "If you give a monkey a razor,"

Vimalananda would ask, "do you think he will shave himself or chop

his neck?" To preserve your neck while performing Tantric sadhana a

good guru is indispensable. Such a mentor will evaluate your personal

temperament and capacity to comprehend before tailoring a program

specific to you. A compassionate Tantric guru never speaks knowledge

that can be misused to people who are not truly qualified to manage

that wisdom well. A good guru rather dedicates himself to task of

extricating his disciples from bondage to the Ashta Pasha ("Eight

Snares"). These are the "nooses" that bind us to the world of karma:

lust, anger, greed, delusion, envy, shame, fear and disgust. Free

yourself from these snares and you will find yourself well down the

path to union with the infinite.

 

It was because he knew human nature so well that Vimalananda

excoriated most "gurus" for failing to acknowledge their own

limitations. He insisted on pointing out to his own gurus, whom he

loved with a limitless love, their own occasional oversights. He

flayed yet more resolutely those spiritual dilettantes who assert

that gurus have become unnecessary, maintaining that only the

personal ministrations of a powerful guru can insure that you will

survive the awakening of Kundalini in Her full glory. A good guru

destroys her disciple right down to the ground before re-creating him

from the ground up. This process of dying and being born again truly

turns the disciple into the guru's child, in every way. "You will

only learn how to love God," said Vimalananda over and over, "after

you have learned how to love your guru."

 

The guru comes only when the disciple is ripe enough to love him or

her without any limits or preconditions, and Vimalananda spent much

of his time preparing his 'children' by experimenting with ways to

remove their personal limitations. It was impossible not to respect

the sincerity with which he played about with us, fed us, and loved

us, turning each incident in his life into an excuse to move

someone's mind a little closer toward God. Working tirelessly to

author his own reality, Vimalananda created within those of us who

succeeded in reaching him the memory of the version of him that he

wanted us to retain. Though he was unafraid to tread on toes if he

thought that such a step might arouse someone from their slumber, he

taught all his lessons with love. He loved people for their future

value, for what they had the potential to become, not what they

happened to be, and he never confused what they preferred in sadhana

with what they required. He insisted that "the real purpose of yoga

is to make every home a happy home," and inevitably exhorted

his 'children' to clean up their personal lives before they set out

to practice yoga, perform rituals or proceed on pilgrimage.

 

When he did become inspired to elucidate spiritual philosophy or

practice he was a marvel of a teacher, his discourses ramifying

effortlessly into often unexpected but always engaging insights and

affiliations. While the two salient principles of his teaching were

eternal compassion for all beings and eternal awareness of

rnanubandhana, the bondage of karmic debt, he never devised any

system of spiritual practices. "Carve out your own niche" was the

message he preached to all those who asked his spiritual advice.

 

Vimalananda combined an outstanding ability to convey wisdom to

people when they least expected it with an unshakable determination

to be true to himself and to his vision of reality. Everyone who was

interested in hearing him was free to come, and anyone who couldn't

stand his heat was free to leave his smashan. Those who stayed

enjoyed the privilege of having him remember them not as they were

but as they could be, to re-member them with every fiber of his being

as they would someday be, awake to the sun of the Self.

 

Vimalananda always tested when least expected, that he might have an

accurate idea of how we really knew, and always taught people what he

was convinced they needed to know. He advised against the slightest

complacency, and regularly reminded us all to spend each of our

moments as if it were our last. He never hesitated to teach lessons

whenever he became satisfied that they were called for. When he

worked with those who had a sincere desire to learn (including his

penis) he never hesitated either to make them suffer, or to suffer

himself on their behalf, if he felt that suffering was necessary to

embellish a valuable lesson. A good aghori never flinches when a

lesson is to be taught or learned.

 

One of his fiercest lessons to me was his dying in my arms on

December 12, 1983. That heartbreak was itself a reprise of his first

lesson, delivered within the first days of our friendship more than

eight years before, when he had predicted that I would cremate him.

He had said then, "An aghori's profoundest expression of love is the

phrase, 'You will cremate me,' and it was only after his death that I

finally understood what he meant. The wide range of unpleasant

realities into which his demise and incineration forced me at the

time have in fact proven invaluable tutorials in the University of

Life, however much I might have preferred to avoid living through

them.

 

Before his death Vimalananda had made me "Boswell to his Johnson,"

and charged me with presenting him to the world, warts and all. He

had spoken for years of writing a book himself, which he would have

called Siddha Anubhava Karo! ("Perfect Your Experience!"), but never

did so, to preserve his own peace and quiet. He did ask me, however,

to spread his views after death to anyone willing to listen, as much

to organize my own knowledge and refine my understanding as to

instruct others. He also wanted me to have something solid to

remember him by, something that would permit me to abide with him

again whenever I turned its pages.

 

It has been a real jolt to me to discover how grossly some readers

have misunderstood Vimalananda, how dismissive others have been with

their doubts that he ever even existed, and how curious yet other

readers are over whether the events that Vimalananda described

actually took place or not. Vimalananda himself always attributed to

the Great Goddess the many unusual things that I and others

experienced when in his vicinity, and never claimed that any of his

remarkable capabilities came from anywhere except Ma. His

experiences, which were real to him, can be equally real for anyone

who is open to the possibility of their being so, just as both he and

his experiences remain real for me whenever I re-collect them.

Whenever I go to the smashan I remember how Vimalananda loved the

place, and in that moment of remembrance he sits together with me

again as I envision the eventual burning of my own corpse. In the

smashan his teachings come to life for me, for there it is much more

difficult to be deluded by maya's skin. There it is far easier to

recall how all the world eventually ends up on a funeral pyre.

 

Vimalananda was in every way the most remarkable man that I've met,

and one of the most spiritual, in the true and real senses of that

term. When I have lived by his precepts I have prospered, and when I

have not I have had rueful occasion to remember these his words: "It

is always best to live with Reality, Robby, because when you do not

Reality will definitely come to live with you." The savor of the many

realities he served me as he flavored our life together with his

singing, his cooking, and his "talks" continues to satisfy my palate.

 

I remember lots of little things about him, like his earthy sense of

humor and his comic timing; like the way he would sometimes, just for

fun, adjust his eye color to match mine (for he could change his eye

color at will). But most of all I recollect his truly unparalleled

love. After sipping the essence of Aghora from all its bizarre

practices he had seen that the only way to truly live with Reality is

to melt your heart for God. He always taught that the world's best

intoxicant is free, easy to use, and available at a moment's notice;

it is, of course, the sweet name of God. I best remember Vimalananda

sitting bliss-filled with the sweet name of God spilling from his

smiling lips.

 

Perhaps his greatest gift to me was the understanding that great joy

and great misery are the two sides of life's coin, that the one

cannot exist without the other. Sincere lovers of God know that the

pleasure of the Divine Presence is intensified exponentially by the

pain of separation therefrom. From my youth I have understood this

truth intellectually, and after Vimalananda's death I came to know it

from experience. Though I am in some sense pleased that Vimalananda

is not here today to see how thoroughly Tantra is being degraded, I

miss him something terrible. My longing reminds me that it is now my

turn to "re-member" him after all the remembering he has done for me.

Like Jean Valjean's memory of the bishop, my memory of Vimalananda

continues to remind me to continue transforming my life. It is a

blessing for which I daily offer him my heartfelt thanks.

 

jai gurudev