Meeting an Aghori – Swami Rama

Aghor is a very mysterious study which is rarely mentioned in books and hardly understood even by yogis. It is esoteric path involving solar science and is used for healing. This science is devoted to understanding and mastering the finer forces of life. – finer than prana. It creates a bridge between life here and hereafter.

In 1942, I was on a journey to Badrinath. On the way, five miles from Shrinagar there is a Shakti temple. Two miles from there lived an Aghori baba. if any one approached him, He used to call villagers by names and through pebbles at them. I asked a local pandit to take me to this baba. We reached there just before dark.

Baba was seventy-five years of age, six feet five inches tall and well built. He had long hair and a beard and wore loin cloth made of jute. He had nothing in his cave except a few pieces of gunnysack. Pandit wanted to leave but, baba asked pandit to fetch a pot of water from river. Then he handed a cleaver and said, “there is a dead body floating in the river. Pull it offshore, chop-off the thigh and calf muscles and bring a few pounds of flesh to me…or I will chop you and take your flesh. Which do you prefer?” The poor pandit, out of fear, went to the dead body and started cutting it up. He accidentally cut his two fingers, which started bleeding profusely. When the pandit came near, the aghori baba touched the cuts and they were healed instantly. There was not even a scar. He ordered pandit to put them into an earthen pot and cook.

We both said, “Sir we are vegetarians”. Baba said, “Do you think I eat meat? I am pure vegetarian.” After ten minutes he ordered the pandit to serve food. When pandit began filling my bowl we were astonished to find an indian sweet – rasgula. I had been thinking of it as I was walking to baba’s cave. It was very delicious. Baba gave leftover sweet to the pandit to distribute among the villagers. This was done to prove that we were not fooled by means of hypnotic technique. After I meditated for two hours we began talking about the scriptures. He was extraordinarily intelligent and well-read and no doubt, a very learned man.

Aghor is a path which has been described in the Atharva Veda, but in none of the scriptures have I ever read that flesh should be eaten. I asked him, “Why do you live like this, eating flesh of dead bodies. He replied, “Why do you call it a ‘dead body’? It’s no longer human. It’s just matter that is not being used. You are associating it with human bodies. No one else will use that body, so I will. I’m a scientist doing experiments, trying to discover the underlying principles of matter and energy. I’m changing one form of matter to another form of matter. My teacher is Mother Nature; she makes many forms, and I am only following her law to change the form around. I did this for that pandit so that he would warn others to stay away…..I throw pebbles, but never hit anybody.”

He said he behaved that way knowingly so that no one would disturb him as he studied and so that he would not become dependent on the villagers for food and other necessities. He had the power to transform matter into different forms, like changing a rock to sugar cube. One after another he did many such things. He told me to touch sand – and the grains of sand turned into almonds and cashews.

I asked, “What is the use of doing all this. He said, “What do you mean by ‘use’? This is a science, and a scientist of this knowledge should use it for healing purposes (remember, the cuts on pandit’s hands healed instantly with no scar left), and should tell other scientists that matter can be changed into energy and energy into matter (E=mc²)^[1]. The law that governs energy and matter are one and the same. Beneath all names and forms there lies one unifying principle, which is still not known in it’s entirely by modern scientists. Vedanta and the ancient sciences described this underlying principle of life. There is only one life force, and all the forms and names in the universe are but varieties of that One. It is not difficult to understand the relationship between two forms of matter, because the source is one and the same.

When water becomes solid, it is called ice; when it starts evaporating, it is called vapour. Young children do not know that these three are forms of the same matter, and essentially there is no difference in their composition. The difference is only the form it takes. The scientists today are like children. They do not realise the unity behind all matter, nor the principles for changing it from one form to another.”

[1] an entire chapter on this can found in Autobiography of a yogi by Paramhamsa Yogananda.

Source: Extracted from Living with the Himalayan Masters - Swami Rama. p 319-324.

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