Aghora (literally, "non-terrifying") is the
spiritual that seeks to negate all that is ghora("terrible, terrifying") in life. The ghora encompasses all those experiences
that most people find intolerable, for almost everyone is as ready to enjoy life's pleasures as they are to avoid misery.Most
spiritual advisers admonish their devotees to shy away from the ghora, but aghoris (practitioners of Aghora) embrace the ghora
fervidly, for what mostterrifies an aghori is the prospect of becoming mired in duality. Aghoris go so far into the ghora
that the ghora becomes tolerable to them; diving deeply into darkness, an aghori finally surfaces into light. No means to
awakening is too disgusting or frightening for an aghori, for Aghora is the Path of the Shadow of Death, the path that forcibly
separates an individual from attachment to every ordinary self-descriptor. Aghora's temple is the smashan (cremation ground),where
aghoris worship death, the Great Transformer,with a savage, all-consuming love. Those who are enslaved by their cravings think
aghoris mad for displaying such ferocity in their quest for knowing. They condemn Aghora's outwardly repugnant practices because
they cannot see beneath their ritual skin. If they could but peep into an aghori's heart they would find there an ache for
Reality so fierce that no means could be too extreme to achieve it. This ache drives the divine fury, the passionately unrestrained
non-attachment to absolutely everything, that is Aghora's hallmark. Aghoris earn their illumination by incinerating themselves
moment by moment in their own internal fires, laughingly consuming any substance and performing any activity that might further
enkindle their awareness. They seize every moment of life that God offers to them, even a trip to the toilet, as a fresh opportunity
to surrender to the One. Good aghoris takes their temples with them as they wander the world, ceaselessly amazed to witness
the universe consuming itself in the fires of an ongoing cosmic cremation.Aghora like alchemy substitutes for a set recipe
of Self-development an outline whose details differ for each practitioner. Each aghori and his customs are unique, and in
truth all one aghori has in common with another is their degree of intensity and determination. Aghoris become so desperate
in their quests that they channel their every thought and feeling into a super-obsession, a single-minded quest to achieve
the Beloved. They endeavor eternally to dismember their restricted selves fully, that God may have a free hand to re-member
them completely. They die day by day while they are still alive, that by dying to their limitations they can be reborn into
the eternal life of Reality.Aghoris achieve laser-like focus by learning to awakened cultivate that evolutionary power that
the Tantras call Kundalini. Vimalananda comments, "Ahamkara, your'I-creating' faculty, continuously remembers you by self-identifying
with all the cells in your body and all the facets of your personality. Ahamkara is your personal shakti (power); she integrates
the many parts of you into the individual that you are. You develop spiritually when you can cause ahamkara to realize,little
by little, that she is actually She: the Kundalini Shakti. This growing realization gradually awakens Kundalini, and as She
awakens She forgets to self-identify with your limited human personality. Then She is ready to recollect something new."
