Aghori of the Left Hand Path

I was just reading about an interesting albeit grotesque tribe known as the Aghora from Varanasi, India. Aghori's are a Hindu tribe who attempt to escape the endless cycle of death and rebirth through the act of Cannibalism. Through Cannibalism they believe they bring themselves closer to immortality.

Because of this monistic doctrine, Aghoris strongly believe that there are no opposites in this world and that the conventional Hindu distinctions between purity and impurity are actually an illusion of some sort. They live on cremation grounds, smearing themselves with the ashes of corpses and eating from a cranial begging bowl. They are attributed with eating corpse flesh, which may be a once in a lifetime ritual act, and meditating seated upon a corpse and thereby gaining control over the corpse's spirit. They have also been accused of practicing human sacrifice. The Aghoris claim to perform a secret Tantric ritual involving sex with a lower caste, menstruating woman during, which the Aghori becomes Shiva and his partner Shiva's female energy or "Shakti". The purpose of embracing pollution in these practices is realization of non-duality through transcending social taboos and seeing the illusory nature of all conventional categories.

PHILTAR Link

I am curious if anyone has anymore information about this strange sect? I am also curious if anyone else knew of the practice of Cannibalism not as a source of nutrition but as a spiritual undertaking, whether to achieve immortality like the Aghori, or for other reasons. India despite some aspects, is a modern society. Are their any other countries modern or not that have religious cannibal sects such as the Aghora?

[edit on 1-5-2006 by Baphomet79]

They were featured on WildBoyz, is that where you first heard of them?

They're ascetics, the Buddha supposedly hung around with these sorts of people for a while.

Close Ripley's Believe it or not, still peaked my interest enough.

Yeah I saw it on Ripley's years ago. People set their dead on rafts down the Ganges and these guys pull 'em in and eat em up.

I love the one person "It's an acquired taste" .

Anyway I don't know if it can bring you any closer to God or anything like that though. They kinda seem like the Hindu equivalent of Satanism to me, believing the exact opposite and whatnot.

The Aghoris claim to perform a secret Tantric ritual involving sex with a lower caste, menstruating woman

Well it's not very secret any more, now is it?
Sounds like what they call "Black Tantra (/Alchemy)" to me.


[edit on 1-5-2006 by Yarcofin]

The Aghora Tantrikas started out as a sect of black magicians that grew out of primitive Vetala worship. Before Shiva/Shakti, there was ancestor worship. People believed that the restless dead came back into the world in the form of bat-wraiths, and that they required blood sacrifices to keep them from draining and plaguing the living. Some of the first Tantrics were more interested in making such creatures to perform malevolent deeds than appeasing already existing "vampires". They would hang a corpse on a tree by its feet (in imitation of a bat), and put sacrificial blood of a goat or ram in the corpse's mouth to call a bat spirit into it to ensoul the human spirit that remained trapped within the corpse; the resulting symbiote being was a Vetala ("vampire"), who could then be sent to drain and plague the Tantrik's enemies, or manipulate social events by possessing people. The Vetala Panchavimsati (translated into English as "King Vikram and the Vampire") is a preservation of the knowledge of this earlier practice. Sometimes, they would kill a person in order to turn them into a vampire by this method. You can find a free copy of King Vikram and the Vampire at the Sacred Texts Archive, online. KVV is translated from the Baital Pachisi (a later hindu retelling of the Vetala Panchavimsati), but it's essentially the same as the original story, which was first put into writing circa 1,500 B.C.

Later, as Tantricism became a more mythological religion with universal conceptions of deity (Shiva/Shakti, Kali, etc.), they held onto the earlier bat fertility/death lore and lore about the dwelling places of the soul within the body to contruct their current spiritual infrastructure that uses chakras, manipulation of sexual energy, etc. Corpse sitting and cannibalism are holdovers of the earlier black magic cult that created Vetalas. The undead beliefs of India are the forerunner of all later European vampire folkore.

Thats fascinating. So its from teh period of ancestor worship?

It seems like the religions of that early era often involve cannibalism, such as the Immolated King Ritual (king offeres self as sacrifice after serving for a year, corpse is buried, rots for a year, dug up, eaten, cycle continues).


Fascincating.

Yes, from the period of ancestor worship. The Malaysians and Australian Aboriginees also have tales of undead manbats who eat people or suck their blood, the Malaysian penanggal being a classic example (a witch whose head separates from the body trailing the intestines, with ears turning into bat wings to enable flight). The Aboriginal bat lore goes back more than 60,000 years, during the time that they were island-hopping down from the Asian mainland (Aboriginees are descended from the Proto-Dravidians who were the indigenous people of India before the caucasians came). There are still people in the Chuuk islands off the coast of Guam who believe that the restless dead come back in the form of fox bat wraiths to bite their living relations and cause madness/death; that in itself shows that the original beliefs of their mainland ancestors were widespread, with no racial cultural barriers. Even the Mesoamerican and South American Indians had bat-god and bat-totem cults stemming back to their Asian Proto-Mongolian ancestors.

It's bizarre how much ancestral malevolence was tied into prehistoric rabies epidemics. Even Europe had it's cycles, which is where we get the European folklore about vampires creeping into bed with people at night to suck their blood--rabid bats used to come into people's homes at night and crawl into bed with them (or bite the family pets), and since people already had a long-held belief in the soul taking the form of a bat, they naturally assumed that rabies was the curse of their ancestors who had come to suck their blood.

But anyways, that's the kind of belief system Tantra partially grew out of. The sexual symbolism was heavily tied into notions of benevolent ancestors ensuring the growth of crops, vitality of game animals, vitality of livestock, etc. Tantra just turns it all inwards to symbolize inner processes of spiritual development. Vetala became Pashupati, who became Shiva/Shakti; the external bat/ancestor and the moon became the Kundalini serpent and trident associated with Shiva/Shakti. Some of the cannibalism to commune with death/internalize ancestral blessings survives in Aghora Tantra, but the emphasis has changed from ancestor veneration to freedom from the bondage of hindu morality. What used to be the religion of everyone became sublimated in the left-hand path antithesis of mainstream "right-hand path" religion. Of course, Tantra has it's own right, left and middle paths (Aghora being the most leftist), but in contrast to hinduism as a whole, it's all left-hand path.

Tantra in itself is almost as diverse as Hinduism, with a wide variety of practices and beliefs centering around a main pantheon of deities which are all just aspects of a single divinity. Many consider it to be a sect of Hinduism, but the reality is that Hinduism grew out of Tantra and then influenced it's mythology and symbolism. One could say that ancestor veneration was a hunter-gatherer culture, Tantra/chthonicism an agrarian culture, and Hinduism/other scriptural religions/classical mythologies examples of pastoral culture, each one growing from the previous culture in order to repress it. The ancestral gods of yesterday became the devils and vampires of today...

With Tantra, we see that in the three Outer Tantric rituals(Tantra of Kriya-Yoga, Tantra of Charya or Upa(ya)-Yoga, and Tantra of Yoga-Tantra) the two sets of three Pure Foods(Milk, Butter, and Curd; and Molasses, Honey and Sugar) are taken as part of the ritual.

Now in the three Inner Tantric rituals(Tantra of Anuttara-Yoga: Tantra of Maha-Yoga(Father Tantra) and Tantra of Anu-Yoga(Mother Tantra), and Tantra of Ati-Yoga(Union of Father and Mother Tantra) the Five Foods that are taken are: Human flesh, Cow flesh, Dog flesh, Horse flesh, and Elephant flesh. And the following Five: Excrement, Semen, Brains, Menstrual Blood, and Urine.


Now in the Outer Tantras, the foods are taken literally.

With the Inner Tantras however, they are completely symbolic(at least in the Right Hand and Middle Paths).

Now I'm no expert on all the specific details of Tantric practice, but I'm quite sure that those two sets of apparently impure five substances are symbolic of the Transmutation of the Five Aggregates and the Five Elements into their inherent Purity as expressions of the Clear Light.


Now we see the danger in regard to the profane getting a hold of recorded Esoteric Teachings.

Likewise with Initiates of the Left-Hand getting a hold of them.


So obviously those such as the Aghora cults, and Aleister Crowley, have taken symbolic things literally, which is a grave mistake.



For a truly positive Transformative Tantric Ritual, see the Pancatattva Ritual:

Pancatattwa

A Pure teaching on Transmutation related to Death, is explained in the following:




snowlionpub.com...


MACHIG LABDRON AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF CHOD

MACHIK'S COMPLETE EXPLANATION: Clarifying the Meaning of Chod

CHOD IN THE GANDEN TRADITION: The Oral Instructions of Kyabje Zong Rinpoche

CHOD PRACTICE MANUAL AND COMMENTARY





See as well:



www.dharmafellowship.org...


www.dharmafellowship.org...

Also, we have to be careful, as there are indeed many Left-Hand Adepts of Kali and/or Shiva cults from the East, who are deceiving many naive people here in the West and destroying their Souls through these Black Tantric rituals.

Samael Aun Weor mentioned in particular, "The Order of Kula".


Shiva is the Holy Spirit; however, Shiva inverted is Satan.




On Kali:

Kali

(Sanskrit, "the black one") In the sacred Vedas, this name refers to one of the seven tongues of Agni, the god of fire. The meaning has since changed to refer to the goddess Kali, the consort of Shiva.

"In India, Kali the Divine Mother Kundalini is adored, but Kali in her black, fatal aspect is also adored.

These are the two Marys, the White and the Black.

The two Serpents, the Serpent of Brass which healed the Israelites in the wilderness and the Tempting Serpent of Eden." - The Perfect Matrimony


"The Kula order and their goddess Kali come from the black magic of the Atlanteans." - The Major Mysteries


"In the human being, the Cosmic Mother assumes the form of the serpent. There are two serpents, the tempting serpent of Eden, which is the Goddess Kali, the abominable Kundabuffer Organ; and there is the Bronze Serpent that healed the Israelites in the wilderness, the Kundalini Serpent.

These are the two Feminine principles of the universe, the Virgin and the Harlot...


The Divine Mother or White Moon...:

www.tf.uio.no..." target='_blank' class='tabOff'/>

...and Astaroth, Kali, or Black Moon, which refers to its tenebrous aspect:

www.2dayblog.com..." target='_blank' class='tabOff'/>

"In synthesis, two great fires exist: the Sacred Fire of Kundalini which ascends through the dorsal spine, and the Kundabuffer which descends, precipitating downwards towards the Infernos.

"Kundalini is the serpent of Bronze which healed the Israelites in the wilderness, the serpent which Moses rose upon the Staff. The Kundabuffer Fire is the Tempting serpent of Eden, which descends

downwards towards the Atomic Infernos of the human being. In Egyptian wisdom, this tempting serpent receives the name of Apep. In the Rituals of ancient Egypt, Apep was portrayed in wax and with its head aiming downwards. Thus, they exorcised it and conjured it.

"The Initiate must fight against this tempting serpent of sexual passion, against this horrible Apep. The Initiate must fight to the death.

"This negative fire of Apep is the negative aspect of Prakriti, in other words Kali. Kali assumes the aspect of a horrible Viper which is writhing in the mud (see the life of Krishna). If we want to defeat this Viper in the Cosmos, we must first defeat it within ourselves.

"We most not forget that we have a very terrible legion of devils, which is “Kali,” the abominable Kundabuffer Organ, the frightful “Apopi” serpent. People are victims of Kali, the Tempting Serpent of which the Hindus speak." - Tarot and Kabbalah

[edit on 30-4-2007 by Tamahu]

I have been in interested in spirituality and in Tantrism for a long time. It is not easy finding a guide, most of the self-advertised experts are fraudulent.