• This piece has a video of  Robin Hoffman chat with an Aghori Swami in Kashi. It also has a brief introduction to the conversation.

To hear video (1 hour three minutes) For transcript that is an introduction to video.

Right now so much conflict and war is happening all over the world. You are not what you are thinking. I think we're just afraid of wasting time. Nothing is worth losing my peace. People used to go and live in cremation ground to overcome their biggest fear death. And I also heard that they take intoxicants and that they eat flesh and that they eat feces to the idea of Aghori is more about embrace the neglected. Mhm. 

I heard that an Aghori dies while being alive. Can you explain this?

Hello and welcome to another episode. We are today in Varanasi in India in the Aida ashram and my name is Robin Leo Hoffman. I'm a filmmaker and actor and today I'm speaking with Sadhu Ji who is from Varanasi. You were born here, raised here. You studied ethnic culture and yoga and then you got your renunciation to a syas in with the lineage of Babaam around four or five years ago and now you are an Aghori. That is what I understood, right? 

Yes. Thank you for taking the time and thank you for making this possible. I guess most of the people in the western world don't know what an Aghori is and I found many definitions but in your words how would you describe an Aghori in one or two sentences. 

First of all, with great love and respect in my heart, I welcome you to our ashram. Before we start, let's take a moment to arrive. Close your eyes. Lose your facial muscles. Feel cooling and calm sensation in your eyes. Loosen your neck, shoulders. Soften the belly and get grounded. Focus on your breath. Each and every single breath. Feel you are inhaling through your navel to the heart. Exhaling from heart to the naval. From the next breath while you inhaling say the mantra so in your mind while exhaling say the mantra Amen. This is the seed mantra of breath. This mantra goes on all our life through our breaths. So means that the creator H means self. So H means you are not separate from that. Inhale. Say soul. Exhale. Say h. Slowly open your Eyes. 

As my guru says, Aghor is not a tradition or. It is the state of mind, a state of inner being. Non-discrimination whoever is practicing this they are non-duality. All the sculptures, great sands Gods have said, I am present in every single particle of this universe. At the next moment we start discriminating. This is good. This is bad. This is sin. This is virtue.

If a person starts seeing all these opposites are manifestation of the same divine nature you enter the state of non-discrimination. Whoever have attained this state of mind, they are Aghori. Anyone can be Aghori.  

And how come that there are certain myths about the Aghori. When I speak to people on the street in Varanasi sometimes I could see that there's also some fear or insecurity related to the word Aghori. If you googles it you usually see people with skulls or with ashes all over now you're dressed white Um. The Aghori at the ghats are also very black and they look, if I would judge it, dangerous in some way. 

See for me it's very hard to speak about those people who call themselves Aghori.  I can speak about my roots, our practices. My family was the follower of great saint of lineage of Babakinam who was born in 1937. At the age of seven he left home, came to Varanasi started wandering in the bank of the river. 

At 14 he was completely self-realized. He realized that that any kind of spiritual attainment should be shared with the society so it benefits. Otherwise moksha means little. How can you engage with society if you are living in a cremation ground. You need to come closer to society otherwise you will frighten them.

Kinaram Ashram Kashi, also called Aghori Baba Ashram. 2013.

Also read

1. Who are Aghoris