In this world there are very strange, unusual, and bizarre people who commit inhuman acts. One of them is a cult known as the Aghori. This cult lives a different and far from ordinary lifestyle to say the least. Their beliefs and practices are horrendous and nauseating. They do not get recognition as some other cults have gotten, such as the Ku Klux Wan, but they definitely can be classified as bizarre and unstable people. The Aghori is a Hindu sect, which came into order in the 14th century off the Kaplika.
They indulge in all forms of extreme ritual worship practices such as cannibalism, consumption of alcohol and opium, black magic, as well as worshipping in haunted places. They also reside in cremation grounds. The Aghori go in search of the powers and try to gain it by all means. They also are known for ritual worship using a corpse at an altar to invoke the mother goddess known as Smashan Tara. They believe in liberation from the cycle of reincarnation. Aghoris go in search of powers through which they can avoid the, punarjanma or rebirth in this life.
An Aghori believes in getting into total darkness by all means, and then getting into light or self-realizing. Though this is a different approach from other Hindu sects, they believe it to be effective. Aghoris worship Shiva, the destroyer, or its female manifestation, Kali, the goddess of death. Each deity in Hinduism is just one manifestation of the same God. There are Different orders of worship and different deities, thus satisfying all manifestations of God. What Shiva and Kali demand from the followers, most people will not find acceptable or normal. Therefore the Aghoris are the only ones willing to please them.
The Aghori practice is a tanlnc dimension of Hinduism. Tanlra is a science of personality, methods of exploring the mind and the development of perception. According to Tantra, “ill are those who are condemned to live with limited personality, only those who step out of time, sp5ace, and causality, can live in harmony with the universe and achieve immortality”. An individual that practices Tantra may not succeed in achieving immortality, but can gain enough energy to gain special powers. ” The Aghori are notorious for their alcoholic and cannibalistic rituals.
The corpses pulled from a river or obtained from cremation grounds, are consumed both raw and cooked on open flame, as the Aghori believe that what others consider a dead man is in fact, nothing but a natural matter of the life force it once contained. For Aghoris, nothing is separate from God. In fact, a burial ground or a haunted house is a preferred place of “sadhana” or worship for an Aghori tantric. They are attributed with eating corpse flesh, which may be a once in a lifetime ritual act, and meditating on 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 woman during her menstruation. The reason for embracing pollution in these practices, is to experience a reality that is deeper and more meaningful, through social taboos. Their way of living can be seen as harsh because it demands the greatest challenges of physical endurance and the most importantly, complicated psychological tests. They believe their way to reach god is the “left” way, while the average Hindu follows the ‘right’, or conventional way.
Through devotion to God, everyday rituals, nonviolence and vegetarianism, they slowly make their way toward the final enlightenment or moksha. Those wishing to speed up that process are followers of the left way. There are hundreds of left ways, for example saddhus differ by the way they have renounced the world and in the vows they undertake. The Aghoris, however are the difficult and challenging ones. They would eat the remains of the deceased, because they believed that they are saving the soul from just wandering, therefore leading it into new reincarnation.
Besides living by ritual burning areas, Aghoris also live in remote places far from the public. They reside in the cold caves in the Himalayas, the jungles of Bengal, or in the empty deserts of Gujarat. One of the reasons they are able to live in such places is because they can eat anything. They try and gain awareness and eliminate discrimination by eating everything. Therefore they consume feces, human fluids and human flesh. In addition, Aghoris also consume intoxicants such as alcohol. In a few Shiva temples, believers that are not allowed to drink alcohol, bring offerings of whiskey to Shiva.
That whiskey is later given to Aghoris’. Although Aghoris live in celibacy the majority of their life, when the goddess Kali demands sex, they have to find an appropriate corpse to have sexual intercourse with. If an Aghori manages to remain focused on God even during sex with a corpse or while eating a human brain, then he is on the right path. Some of the Aghoris main goals are to find purity in the filthiest, and to remain sane after all of the perversions they have experienced. In doing this they hope to speed up their spiritual development. Unfortunately, there are very few real Aghoris.
With time, most of them become sick or go crazy. They are twisted individuals that cannot succeed any other way. The positive aspects attract them at first, but then the challenge makes them think twice. There are very few Aghoris that pass all exams Those who succeed are considered real Aghoris. The Aghori ascetic is a symbol of the God Shiva, in Shiva’s form as Bhajrava. The main symbol that makes him distinct from other sadhus’ is the skull cup he uses. He goes naked or wears the shroud of a corpse, covers himself in the ashes of the cremation ground and always has his hair in dreadlocks.
The corpse that an Aghori mediates with and uses as part of his ritual worship is a symbol of his own body and the corpse-devouring ritual is a symbol of the transcendence of his lower self and a realization of the greater. This is why the Aghori is a bizarre cult that even though they are religious their beliefs re flat-out grotesque. Their rituals and practices are just disgusting and sickly. They are not the Ku Klux Klan in the way that then do not intentionally go out and look to hurt and kill people but I would say they’re the most disgusting clan out there.
Although at the end of the day that is what they believe in. even though what they do is just disgusting and gross they aren’t hurting anyone. Julio Arroyo Professor Tannu ENG 201-139 Outline for Topic 3 The bizarre, horrific practices of the Aghori 1 Who are the Aghori? How did they and their beliefs come about? A. The Aghori is a Hindu cult that is considered to have split off from the Kapalika order in the fourteenth century AD, known for their cannibalism 1. The Aghoris trace their origin to Kina Ram. an ascetic who is said to have lived 150 years, dying during the second half of the eighteenth century 2.
Aghori ascetics, while being devotees of the Hindu God Shiva in his form as Lord Bhairava. are monists who adhere to the common Hindu belief in liberation from the cycle of reincarnation B. Aghoris maintain that all opposites are ultimately illusory. C. Aghoris base their beliefs on two principles, that Shiva is perfect and that Shiva is responsible for everything II. Practices, ritual, and beliefs of the Aghori A. The Aghori cult dwells on cremation grounds, daubing themselves with the ashes of the corpses and eating from a cranial begging bowl or a kapala 1..
Many Aghori opt to roam around baring all. B. A strong belief which surrounds them is that by doing so they are above and beyond the normal worldly emotions of human beings. C. Hindu ascetics who eat corpses in the belief that ingesting dead flesh will make them ageless and give them supernatural powers. III. What makes the practices of the Aghori so bizarre? A. Many Hindus condemn the Aghorias non-Hindu due to their cannibalistic rituals 1. The streets of northern Indian cities are littered with followers of this cult carrying a kapala, which is a cup made from a skull 2.
These bizarre people will eat anything from rotten food to animal feces B. In order to achieve the highest citadel of enlightenment, the Aghori wall perform horrendously crude rituals C. The finality of their rituals is attained from eating the decaying flesh of a human. IV . In depth cannibalism of the aghori A. The corpses, which may be either pulled from a river or obtained from cremation grounds, are consumed both raw and cooked on open flame Bibliography The Truth. N. p. , 28 Feb. 2008. Web. 12 Apr. 2012. Porten, Mariya. Tusker Geogrqfica. N. p. , 1 June 2011. Web. 12 Apr. 2012.
