Robert E. Svoboda - AGHORA: At the Left Hand of God

Printing History / ISBN Page

AGHORA, At the Left Hand of God

1986 Robert E. Svoboda

Cover art: Smashan Tara 1986 Robert Beer

First Printing November, 1986

Second Printing October, 1995

Third Printing January, 1999 (Co-Published with Sadhana Publishing)

Fourth Printing December, 2003

Fifth Printing January, 2006

Sixth Printing April, 2007

Seventh Printing June, 2010

Digital Edition September, 2011

Published by Brotherhood of Life, Inc.

www.brotherhoodoflife.com

ISBN-10: 0-914732-21-8

ISBN-13: 978-0-914732-21-1

Digital ISBN for ePub 978-0-914732-45-7

The Printed Book contains 328 pages.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication including illustrations may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, scanning, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system including the Internet or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. Brief quotations not to exceed 250 words may be embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Also by Robert E. Svoboda in the AGHORA series:

AGHORA II: Kundalini, published 1993

AGHORA III: The Law of Karma, published 1998

Other books by Robert E. Svoboda

Ayurveda: Life, Health and Longevity

Ayurveda for Women

The Greatness of Saturn: A Therapeutic Myth

The Hidden Secret of Ayurveda

Light on Life: An Introduction to the Astrology of India

Light on Relationships: The Synastry of Indian Astrology

Prakriti: Your Ayurvedic Constitution

Tao and Dharma

Varanasi The City of Light: An unprecedented audio guide to spiritual India

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

VIMALANANDAS DEDICATION FOR THIS BOOK

Dedicated to One who is the source of life

The Dynamic Cosmic Energy which pervades

the entire universe perennially

The fountainhead of supreme joy, divinity, and magnanimity:

My Mother Tara

Vimalananda, the subject of this book, designed the cover and dictated to the author the following regarding its symbolic meaning:

Ghora is darkness, the darkness of ignorance. Aghora means light, the absence of darkness. Under the Tree of Knowledge is an Aghori, a follower of the path of Aghora. He has gone beyond ignorance thanks to the Flame of Knowledge which billows from the funeral pyre. The funeral pyre is the ultimate reality, a continual reminder that everyone has to die. Knowledge of the ultimate reality of Death has taken the Aghori beyond the Eight Snares of Existence: lust, anger, greed, delusion, envy, shame, disgust and fear which bind all beings. The Aghori plays with a human skull, astonished by the uselessness of limited existence, knowing the whole world to be within him though he is not in the world. His spiritual practices have awakened within him the power of Kundalini, which takes the form of the goddess dancing on the funeral pyre: Smashan Tara. He is bewildered to think that all is within him, not external to him; that he sees it not with the physical eyes but with the sense of perception. The Flame of Knowledge is that which preserves life, the Eternal Flame, the Supreme Ego, the Motherhood of God which creates the whole Maya of the universe and thanks only to Whose grace the Aghori has become immortal.

The contents of this book have been encapsulated on its cover: the breadth, the power, the majesty and the divine delirium of Aghora.

Further descriptions may be found within the book in Chapter 2, SHAKTI , The Vision of the Goddess. A larger view of the panoramic cover including expanded interpretations of the symbolism may be found at http://www.brotherhoodoflife.com/.

The beautiful, faithful and symbolic wrap-around cover art was created by renowned artist and humanitarian Robert Beer. For further information please visit http://www.tibetanart.com/

Full Cover Art

PREFACE

My teacher, the Aghori Vimalananda, spent many years perfecting his knowledge of Tantra and its advanced discipline Aghora. He distilled his experiences and presented me with the essence. My comprehension of Tantra is due entirely to his instruction and is redolent of the influence of his personality.

Tantra is the science of personality. Just as Ayurveda was promulgated by the ancient sages of India as a truly holistic way to maintain the physical body, and just as Ashtanga Yoga is meant to optimize ones spiritual nature, Tantra is a mental science, a meta-psychology, a method for exploring the mind and developing the range of ones perceptions.

It is said that the state of undifferentiated unity is the only absolute reality, and that the cosmos possesses only a relative reality because it is not permanent and unchanging. The universe possesses all possible qualities and attributes, and each being within the universe possesses a limited number of qualities and attributes. Personality is the self-identification of the ego with a set of attributes. All beings possess egos and therefore all beings have personalities. The cosmos Herself possesses the ultimate personality, the supreme expression of the totality of manifested existence: the Adishakti, or Adya.

To state that humans, animals, trees and flowers possess their own individualities and idiosyncrasies is less apt to induce controversy than to assert that even beings which are disembodied or which are embodied, but are less individualized than we, also possess personality. The issue of disease is a good example. Diseases are beings with parasitical intentions. Some have collective bodies, like worms, bacteria or viruses, just as bees and ants show signs of collective consciousness. Other diseases, bereft of their own bodies, arise within organ systems of some animal or plant due to metabolic malfunctions.

When the intruding personality differs significantly in sophistication of organization from its host, physical disease is likely for then the attackers ego will be insufficiently developed to assume control of all essential physiological functions. Conversely when the spirit of a dead human enters the body of a living human it will feel right at home and the disease will display predominantly mental symptoms such as altered values and habit patterns.

Whatever the intruder, cure is the expelling of the alien and the return of the normal personality. An individuals immunity exists on the physical levels in white blood cells and in antibodies, and on the mental level in the degree of personality integration; the cause of immunity is the egos power of self-identifying with body and mind. The word ego is used here not in a Freudian sense but as an indicator for the force of individual identity in the organism. The stronger the self-identification the greater the immunity to attack from another personality which might usurp some area of the egos domination. Every cell is ceaselessly remembered by the ego as being part of its organism. When the organism dies the cells are free, in the absence of the egos grip, to go their separate ways. If a cell rebels against the egos domination and seeks to proliferate itself into a new personality, the result is a cancer. Be the predator external or internal, disease is its onslaught on ones personality.

According to Tantra everyone is ill who is doomed to live with a limited personality. Only those who go beyond time, space and causation to become immortal can be said to be truly in harmony with the cosmos and therefore truly healthy, since health is derived both from internal balance and from harmony with the environment. Hence one significant area of Tantric research has always been methods for prolonging ones life. In one sense the added years are significant mainly because they indicate the degree of successful achievement of the rituals.