Robert Svoboda - AGHORA I: At The Left Hand of God

AGHORA
BOOK I
AT THE LEFT HAND OF GOD

ALSO BY ROBERT E. SVOBODA

The Hidden Secret of Ayurveda

1st Edition Bombay 1980, 2nd Edition The Ayurvedic Press,
Albuquerque, 1994

Prakriti: Your Ayurvedic Constitution

1st Edition Geocom, Albuquerque, 1988, 2nd Edition

Sadhana Publications, 1999

Ayurveda: Life, Health and Longevity

1st Edition Penguin Books, London, 1992; reprinted by
The Ayurvedic Press, Albuquerque, 2004.

Tao and Dharma

(with coauthor Arnie Lade) Lotus Press, 1995

Ayurveda for Women,

David & Charles Publishers, Newton Abbot, 1999

Aghora II: Kundalini

Nmarpa LLC, Dublin, New Hampshire, 2019

Aghora III: The Law of Karma

Nmarpa LLC, Dublin, New Hampshire, 2019

Light on Life: An Introduction to the Astrology of India,

(with coauthor Hart de Fouw) Penguin Books, London, 1996

The Greatness of Saturn: A Therapeutic Myth

Sadhana Publications, 1997

Light on Relationships: The Synastry of Indian Astrology,

(with coauthor Hart de Fouw) Samuel Weiser Inc., 2000

The Ayurvedic Home Study Course,

The Ayurvedic Institute, Albuquerque, 1985

Vstu, Breathing Life Into Space

Nmarpa LLC, Dublin, New Hampshire, 2013

Living with Reality, Wisdom from the Aghori Vimalananda

(with Paula Crossfield, Editor and Satya Moses, Illustrator)

Nmarpa LLC, Dublin, New Hampshire, 2013

Advisor Nmarpa, Categories of Indian Thought

AGHORA

BOOK I

AT THE LEFT HAND OF GOD

ROBERT E. SVOBODA

FOREWORD BY DR. FREDERICK M. SMITH

Copyright 2019 Robert E. Svoboda

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 photocopying, recording, or by any information or retrieval system, including the Internet, without permission in writing from Nmarpa LLC. Reviewers may quote brief passages.

As this and the other two volumes of this trilogy have repeatedly been and continue to be found available for free download on the Internet, I feel obliged to state that it was Vimalanandas express wish that a substantial portion of the income from this trilogy be delivered to certain of his impecunious spiritual children to assist them to defray their living expenses. Accordingly, anyone who posts these works on the Internet and makes them available for free reading or download and anyone who avails of such postings is incurring a debt to Vimalananda that s/he is then wholly responsible for paying back. You have been warned.

NMARPA, LLC

Published by Nmarpa, LLC

P.O. Box 271, Dublin, NH 03444, USA

All rights reserved.

NMARPA, LLC Publishers

Designed and produced by

NMARPA, LLC Publishers

First printing: November 1986 by Brotherhood of Life

Second printing: October 1995 by Brotherhood of Life

Third printing: January 1999 by Brotherhood of Life, co-published with Sadhana Publishing

This printing incorporating new foreword and edits

2019 by Nmarpa, LLC

ISBN 978-0-9889169-4-4

Editor: Paula Crossfield

Assistant Editor and Proofreader: Meenakshi Moses

Cover and illustrations by Satya Moses

Book design, layout and production by Robert Moses

Printed in the United States of America

Set in Adobe Garamond Pro and Adobe Myriad Pro

The Aghora Trilogy by Robert E. Svoboda

Aghora I: At the Left Hand of God

Aghora II: Kundalini

Aghora III: The Law of Karma

CONTENTS

CHAPTERS

Original cover art by Robert Beer

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 original cover to encapsulate its contents: the breadth, the power, the majesty and the divine delirium of Aghora. He 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.

LIKE ANY MATURE INDIVIDUAL, this book and its two fellows are the product of abundant focused attention and the coordinated efforts of many individuals over many years. I would like to first thank my parents, Laura and Edwin Svoboda, who always supported my endeavors even when (as was the case with this trilogy) they found the products of those endeavors difficult to comprehend.

Thanks are due for both editions of this book to Dr. Frederick M. Smith, whose repeated meetings with Vimalananda provided invaluable perspective as I organized the first edition and who has kindly provided the Foreword to the second edition.

Kudos to Nmarpa, for whose magazine I have served as advisor since its first appearance in 2003, and which has now taken over the publication of the Aghora books.

To adopted nephew Satya Moses, whose company I have enjoyed since his infancy, a big thumbs up for creating coordinated covers, front and back, for all three volumes of this second edition.

Grateful pranams to the entire Moses family, led by Robert (who, with co-publisher Eddie Stern, publishes Nmarpa) and Meenakshi (his wife, helpmeet and co-editor), who have for more than two decades repeatedly rearranged their lives to welcome me into their home as an honorary member of the family, and whose assorted editorial contributions to my various writings have always improved them.

Profound appreciation to Paula Crossfield, who unremittingly directed the labors needed to transform a vague idea to republish into the work that you now hold in your hands, and without whose determination and prompting the second edition of these books might never have appeared.

Reverence to Jatalasadhu Sri Ram Vishvambhardas Ji, our Guru Maharaj: tasmai sri gurave namah!

Greatest thanks of all to Vimalananda, whose chronicles would never have been compiled without his unstinting cooperation and blessing.