AGHORA, At the Left Hand of God by Robert E. Svoboda

Author:Robert E. Svoboda
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Robert Beer, Robert E. Svoboda, yoga, Tantra, Aghora, Brotherhood of Life
Publisher: Brotherhood of Life, Inc.
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

RESTRICTIONS

If you want to die while you are still alive you have to restrict the three things which most bind us down to the body: food, sleep, and sex. The Naths (a tribe of immortal Aghoris) have a prescription for spiritual advancement: “Break up your sleep, and cut down your food.” No matter how far your mind may soar into the astral regions while you are awake, once you go to sleep you erase all the benefit. Sleep is very much like death, just less permanent. It is the overcoming of the mind by a blanket of dullness.

Food makes you sleepy by filling you up; sex exhausts you, it makes you sleepy by draining you. Aghoris cannot afford the luxury of relaxation; they have to be sharp at all times. They work all night long in the smashan, where drowsiness makes them much more susceptible to attack from spirits.

Food and sex also both make you more conscious of your bodily processes. In fact, in the case of all three — food, sleep, and sex — the more you get of them the more you want. Other desires can be eliminated by gratifying them, but these three desires have to be carefully regulated. If you eat an entire chicken today does that mean you won’t be hungry tomorrow? No, you’ll be hungrier. If you sleep nine hours today you’re likely to sleep ten hours tomorrow. And it is the same way with sex: The more you get of it, the more you want of it. Until you begin to at least curb these desires you will never make any permanent spiritual progress. Write it down; it is impossible. All your gains will be continuously wiped out by your indulgences. And worse, if you ever permit yourself to be tempted in the smashan, you’ve had it.

Consider this indulgence: Sadhus and other spiritual aspirants are forbidden to drink alcohol; some are not even allowed to take medicine which contains alcohol. Aghoris, however, drink; but only because they can master the intoxication. You must drink the drink; you must not let the drink drink you, lest you become its slave and be lost. You must always retain your control.

What is the use of drinking and becoming drunk? You slobber all over yourself while you run off at the mouth to whoever will listen, buying them drinks if necessary so they’ll listen. Then you gorge yourself on a big meal, and probably vomit it back up. Eventually you get into a fight, make a pass at somebody else’s wife, or pass out.

Alcohol makes you extroverted, but this extroversion must be firmly controlled. Most people permit the drink to drink them: They allow their conscious minds to be overcome by all the little yeast cells crushed after the fermentation process is completed. Yeast cells undergo such agony during the crushing operations that a great current of Tamas is created by their unvoiced screams in the resultant alcohol.

When I want to drink I always allow a drop of the drink to fall on the ground before I begin, as an offering to Mother Earth.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.