Lessons from a Smoky Night: The Aghori Who Cursed Us

[Though this story happened around 2008, I didn’t have a camera back then, so the attached photos are from a later date, around 2010 to 2015. We have no photo of the young aghori baba from the story, nor did we ever see him again.]

Over the years I have eaten many strange things given by sadhus, and many other things I avoided eating for various reasons. Its something people won’t understand unless you live with many sadhus over a long time. You have to balance being rational with not offending the sadhus, and you have to make tough decisions sometimes, and sometimes you even have to pretend to eat the things to not offend them. All sorts of things.

For example there was a time a sadhu gave me sindhur to eat, which is poisonous. Other times various inedible things like chemical perfumed puja powders, so called sandalwood powder, vibhuti (many times, the unnatural chemically scented variety), and often rotten food has been given as “mahaprasadam”, including some covered in dead worms. Various unknown elixirs, tobacco snuff, pan leaves with tobacco, etc.

I had been warned many times by Dayalu Baba to never eat prasadam in any mathas except where I knew everyone personally, as often they perform black magic on people through food.

The following is a small story of one time I refused to eat something given by an aghori sadhu, which led to him cursing the group of us, and a miraculous saving by another sadhu.

Chakratirtha Baba preparing to give prasada to visitors. (2010)

Having observed different types of sadhus, I have seen sometimes there is a childish game among the lower realization sadhus to try to dominate the other sadhus present to show themselves as superior and create a sadhu hierarchy. One of the ways they sometimes do it is by presenting the most rotten inedible thing to you as “mahaprasadam” and put you in the difficult position to have to eat it or basically admit you are not “spiritually advanced” compared to them. It also gives them an excuse to become offended if you refuse their “hospitality”. Over the years I learned the techniques to manage such situations by pretending to put things in my mouth and chewing, while just palming them to dispose of later without offending anyone.

One such time was around 2008 when an aghori baba had come to the forest ashram we were staying in, and immediately started testing all the sadhus there to establish himself as superior. This aghori must have been only 20 years old, but he was playing these childish games with the nearly 90 year old saint (Chakratirtha Baba) who lived in that forest ashram his whole life.

Chakratirtha Baba at his dhuni. (2015)

These were the days before we had electricity in that ashram, and in the night it was a different experience. No one used to visit back then except on festival days, and it was very remote in the jungle.

This aghori sadhu showed up in the evening, and started his games by calling all the sadhus together for bhajan near the dhuni (sacred fire). On that night it was only the nearly 90 year old mahatma (Chakratirtha Baba), myself and two other devotees I had brought along (one from Odisha and one from Andhra Pradesh).

When everyone came the aghori baba took out an ektara instrument and began singing beautiful sadhu songs, some of which he composed on the spot incorporating the local names of the tirtha and sadhus as he sung and played the ektara. It was the first time I had seen a sadhu so skilled at singing that he would make up lines about those around him as he sung. It was beautiful to watch. His control over his voice was perfect and his style and rythm were equally excellent.

Bhagavat Dharma Das with Chakratirtha Baba. (2014)

In between he took out his giant chillum and began smoking ganja and forcing the elder Baba to smoke along with him, who reluctantly complied. When we refused to partake he became annoyed, but it was all just part of his game to exert dominance over everyone present. His plan was to gradually increase the use of the ganja and show the elder Baba as weaker and unable to tolerate as much ganja as the “advanced aghori”.

At some point he pulled out the most rotten piece of coconut from his pocket and declared “I have brought mahaprasadam for all of you. You must eat it or it will be an offense.” Again it was part of his game to exert dominance over everyone. He claimed it was from a yajna he had performed long back, and we should all partake of the mahaprasadam despite it being rotten. I had been through many of these type of experiences, so I knew to pretend to put it in my mouth and just palm it to dispose of later, but the other devotees with me didn’t know and they had to eat it.

The mud hut in the forest where Chakratirtha Baba kept his dhuni for the last 50 years on the order of his guru. (2010)

After the rotten coconut test, he called out the 90 year old baba for debate. He asked him what was his diksha name and lineage. Baba replied that his name was “Brahma Chaitanya Das”, at which point the aghori challenged him saying you cannot keep dhuni (sacred fire), because your name is Das and you therefore belong to a Vaishnava lineage. His argument was that the dhuni represented Shiva, and therefore in his view a Vaishnava should not be keeping a dhuni. Baba replied, “My guru told me to sit here and watch this dhuni. I don’t know anything, I just follow the orders of my guru.”

Chakratirtha Baba with Bhagavat Dharma Das. (2014)

Then the aghori picked up his chillum and dumped the ash in front of Baba on the ground, and said, “Baba, look at this ash. What do you see?”

Baba replied, “It’s ash.”

The aghori waved his hand around and slapped the ash, and showed Baba the ash had become a rudraksha bead. He picked up the bead and handed it to Baba as a blessing. Baba laughed and said, “Oh, you are also a magician? My guru was also a magician and could do all these things. I have no interest in magic. My guru wanted to teach me this magic, but I told him I have no interest in your magic.”

Chakratirtha Baba on the dirt path leading to the ashram. (2010)

The aghori went back to singing bhajans for everyone, interspersed with heavy smoking of ganja from his chillum. Baba had already begun refusing to smoke more, and in the eyes of the aghori it indicated he had proven himself to be superior. Around this time the aghori played another of his games and pulled out a piece of black cake from his pocket and handed it to all of us again as “mahaprasadam” demanding we eat it. Since cake back then always had eggs in it I did my usual trick and pretended to eat it and kept it in my palm to dispose of later. I whispered to the devotee next to me, not to eat it because it will have egg in it, but rather than being discreet about it, the devotee blurted out to the aghori, “Baba, are there eggs in this cake?”

That made the aghori furious, and he was already extremely high from smoking ganja the whole night and on edge. He began shouting at the devotee, saying, “How dare you insult me and the mahaprasadam I have brought for you as a blessing”. To make the situation worse, the second devotee next to me, a brahmachari in saffron, took his piece of the cake, and placed it on the ground in front of a cat to eat right in view of all of us. That made the aghori more angry, and he began cursing all of us saying we had offended the mahaprasadam he had brought us.

Chakratirtha Baba at his dhuni. (2012)

It was not possible to cool the aghori down, so Baba asked the devotee who fed the cat to leave the dhuni for some time so things could cool down. It was quite a scene, in the middle of a remote forest surrounded by darkness except for the kerosene lanterns we had burning. After some time the aghori told Baba he had come here for doing a special sadhana tonight, and would stay alone in the distant garden. It was already late, probably around midnight, when the aghori left to the garden for performing his special sadhana.

In all of this bizarre interaction, Baba remained completely calm and tolerant, allowing the young aghori sadhu to “dominate” him with his various games, showing the least concern with being labeled inferior in the sadhu hierarchy.

The earliest photo I took of Chakratirtha Baba in 2004.

The next morning, things were tense, but the aghori had cooled down and we were all back to speaking terms. At one point the brahmachari devotee was standing with me by the river, and he gave some negative comment about the aghori to me. At that moment I saw the aghori walking up in the distance. As he got closer to me he was furious and began shouting, “How dare you insult me. I heard what he said about me.” And he preceded to once again curse all of us. There was nothing I could do to pacify him. He didn’t even understand English, but from far away he understood that this devotee had insulted him. If I recall right, the insulting comment was something along the lines of, “If this young guy tried to pull these games in ISKCON we would tie him up and slap him around till he understood his actual position.” He said it in English and was far enough away, but the aghori sadhu came straight to us to let us know he was displeased with what was being spoken.

The aghori went to the dhuni where the senior Baba was and complained to him saying, “I am leaving right now because that brahmachari has insulted me.”

I had tried my best to pacify him, but he was not interested in changing his mind, and had firmly decided to leave the place. After 10 minutes of him talking to the elder Baba, the aghori took his musical instrument and began walking out of the ashram. I was standing in the path, and as he came I offered obeisances to him and apologized with folded hands for the devotee’s actions. He raised his hands up in the air, looked me in the eyes without saying anything, and tears began falling from his eyes. He just stared at me like that silently for around 10 or 15 seconds with his hands raised in the sky, and then turned and left without saying a thing.

The brahmachari in the story, Srikant Sena Das at Chakratirtha ashram. My close friend from 30 years. He helped to install solar power at Chakratirtha ashram 15 years ago when there was no electricity available.

That was the last time we saw that aghori baba. The effects of his curse was almost instant, and by the evening we were in a life and death fight with a group of machete wielding drunkards who were intent on killing all of us. By the miraculous appearance and intervention of another sadhu, Nityananda Baba, we survived that confrontation, but that is another story that needs to be written separately.