Author: Baba Bhagwan Ram
Translator(s)/ Edito: Akinchan Ram
Publisher: Indica Books
Year: 2007
Language: English
Pages: 408
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8186569669
Description
The Aghoris believe that their tradition was started by Shiva himself, and was propounded further by Jagdguru Dattatrey. Bab Kinaram (1563-1714), a very renowned saint in Banaras, revived the tradition.
This book is a translation of the words of Aghoreshwar Mahaprabhu Baba Bhagwan Ram, as presented in the book Aghor Vachan Shastra. Baba would communicate in either Hindi or a dialect of Hindi called Bhojpuri, depending upon with whom he spoke. He would use language in its most cogent and pithy manner.
To Baba, language was not just a means of communication, to make the other person understand in the simplest, clearest, most lucid term the deep import of even the most complex concepts and ideas, but also to express love and other emotions. However, in translating those ideas from Hindi into English, the simplicity of the presentation or the lucidity of expression is sometimes lost. I apologize for that.
Also, oftentimes in translating complex ideas it requires an interpretation of the idea by the translator, and the translator thereby becomes the eye, as it were, through which the reader sees the text. That is inevitable, but I have tried to stick as close to the original meaning of Baba's words as possible.
Spoken language was only one of the means of communication used by Baba. There lived in his a much greater communication system, one based entirely on a person's being 'in tune' with him. Baba had a very subtle and refined language of proximity, of body language, of unsaid words and gestures rather than the spoken ones, a language that always spoke to a greater or lesser degree, depending upon how 'in tune' the other person was with Baba at the moment of communication.
The raising of an eye, or taking of a step, the placing of his palm on his cheek, an inquisitive look, a word mumbled in passing, a turn while walking, the raising of a random; all these may have seemed as so many eccentricities of an enlightened person to many, but to those who knew, they spoke more volumes than spoken words every could. That language added subtle meanings to all that Baba said overtly, and it made his communication both very contextual and personal.
There were numerous occasions when Baba would speak to a large gathering of people, yet his choice of words and narrative examples, together with his gestures, would be such that a single person within that large crowd could properly understanding the various levels of meaning being imparted in a single sentence, whether the spoken message was exclusively for him or not. Unfortunately, in a translated text, that complex structure of meaning is possible only with great difficulty.
Contents
Preface
Aghoreshwar Mahaprabhu
Baba Bhagwan Ram:
A Brief Biography
Aghora: A Brief History
The Mother
The Practices
The Truth
Conduct
The State of Being
Aghoreshwar
Character
Sentiment
Ritual Action
Human Beings
Inspiration
Culture
Attachment
Guru
God
The Living Being
Kapaleshwar
The Body
Mental States
Mantra
Women
Nature
The Life-force
Worship
Time
Glossary