Shri Aghoreshwar in Hariharpur

 

Siddhapeeth Avadhut Bhagwan Ram Adi (Primordial) Ashram is located in the village of Hariharpur, near Sakaldiha Bazar, Chandouli district, Varanasi. Not far from the ashram, on the river bank, there is Maharora Devi cremation ground, used by surrounding villages to surrender dead people to fire and regarded as ideal also to give to the river the mortal remains of kids, who are not cremated. Here, in this shmashan, Shri Aghoreshwar used to live for some time in a hut doing his sadhana. After a while through his practice he was absorbed in complete ecstasy for three days. When he left this state inexplicable events started to happen through and near the young Master.

 

Some inhabitants of the area wanted to give him a small piece of land where to live. Shri Aghoreshwar settled here for many years, and here he came back from his several journeys to the places of pilgrimage or from where he performed his sadhana for a time, like in Vindyachal Mountains or in the jungles of Madhya Pradesh.

 

Local people consider the ashram a place of great spiritual power while popular superstition depicts its mysterious atmosphere describing it as a place where many ghosts would roam, especially during the night. Aghoris believe that great Masters’ souls are attracted by places like this and that sadhaks could have darshan with them (meeting) and get deep inspiration.

 

Inside there is Devi temple, Shri Aghoreshwar’s Samadhi built in 1993, small temples of different deities in the garden and in the Pandal (veranda for public meetings), an underground room where Shri Aghoreshwar used to meditate during hot seasons and a room with a small veranda called Aghor Nivas (Room of the Aghor).

 

The fame surrounding the young Master attracted many people and several anecdotes have been handed down about the events happened at the time. Kedar Singh, a fervent devotee of Baba, wrote what he experienced in the company of the young Aghor at that time.

What follows is an excerpt of Kedar Singh’s memories:

“At the beginning of 1953 I was paying a visit to a friend of mine in Sakaldiha. In my friend’s house there were some people and they were speaking about this young Aughar from Hariharpur, whose character was a strange mix of sweetness and seriousness. Some times they had seen him running in circle and other times sitting still and quiet. He accepted any thing they offered to him but without speaking much. When he spoke, what he said was very clear and trust-worthy. Nobody was able to define him.

Before, because of their unusual appearance and their unorthodox ways of being in touch with people, I was not interested in Aughars. I arrived in Hariharpur at about one in the afternoon. I set off for the hut, but I didn’t see anyone.

 

I peeped inside the hut and I saw the young ascetic sitting completely still. Without disturbing him, I sat down on the mat outside that shelter. A combination of tiredness, quietness you could feel in the air and the  great heat of the sun, made me fall asleep. After about an hour, I was woken up by the murmuring of the people who were arriving there.

 

I heard coming from inside the hut a very sweet voice saying: ‘He is Thakur from Ishwargangi.’ After this introduction I hurriedly got up. From inside that simple shelter I heard again the voice saying: ‘Hallo! How is Baba Cheddi from Ishwargangi?’ I couldn’t understand how he knew about me or about my caste. I was thinking about the possibility that he might have seen me in that place while visiting Cheddi Baba. As he had been speaking about Cheddi Baba, I was not convinced of his divine intuition, anyway I bowed down at his feet only as a matter of form. As soon as I bowed down, his big eyes met with mine and I felt enraptured, I was completely drunk.

 

A few seconds later I asked if I could take my leave of Him. He asked me: ‘Don’t you want to stay?’ ‘No Baba, now I have to leave.’ ‘You’ll come back again, won’t you?’ was his sweet spur. As soon as I left the hut, his last words were resounding inside me all the way back home. The next three days I kept thinking about the simplicity and sweetness of this young Aughar. I decided to see him again and I mounted on my bike to go to Hariharpur, about 16 kilometres far from my house.

 

I reached Baba’s hut at about nine in the morning. There were seven or eight people around Him. I bowed and touched his feet out of respect for him. With his open and reddened big eyes, and with a very sweet voice He said: ‘Hallo Kedar! Did you come back?’ ‘Yes Baba, I left early this morning.’ ‘Did you get washed?’ ‘Yes Baba, I left early in the morning.’ ‘You’ll stay here today, won’t you?’ ‘Yes Baba, I think so.’ I answered, hardly knowing what I was saying.

After a while I got up and left to reach the house of a friend of mine. At about seven in the evening I showed myself again around young Baba’s hut. Around Him there was a group but, after a few seconds, only the two of us, Baba and me, remained sitting there. We stayed sitting there without saying a word for hours. The silence of the night got thick. Sounds of nature became more perceivable. Finally at about midnight Baba asked me: ‘When are you going home?’ ‘When You will wake up in the morning,’ was my answer. ‘I don’t sleep’ He whispered.

 

His last words were like a lullaby for me and very quietly I settled into my folding bed. When I woke up early in the morning, I found him still sitting near his dhuni. I paid homage to him touching his feet and I got ready to leave. He asked: ‘When are you coming back?’. ‘Soon Baba, as soon as I can,  I will come.’ ‘Come back soon.’ His eyes smiled to me with these words. Immediately I left for home. The long journey by bike, in the dust and on bumpy roads, seemed to be as smooth as oil, just like his last words that were resounding inside me. This was the beginning of my addiction to his company.

 

After I came back from Hariharpur, I had to mind family business, our mill. The third or fourth day, while I was repairing the mill, I heard knocking at the door. My Mother opened the door and she found in front of her a young ascetic with a shaven head, wrapped up in a worn-out sheet and wearing wood-sandals. He was carrying a bowl under his armpit. He asked to my mother: ‘Is Kedar at home?’.

Giving him a nod, my mother went about calling me. When He saw me, He came inside. Completely astonished, I realized what was happening and I touched his feet. I introduced Him to my mother: ‘Mother, this is Hariharpur’s Baba’. With reverence, my mother stooped down to touch his feet.

The young ascetic looked at my mother and spoke the following words to her: ‘Please let me borrow Kedar!’ I noticed a hint of hesitation in my mother’s eyes, then she understood and said: ‘Baba, this is my only son, the only support of my old age. Anyway if that is what you want…’ Looking kindly at her He said: ‘Don’t worry Mother. Kedar will always be under my protection and You will never be short of the help you need.’ His reassurance comforted my mother.

That night He stayed in my house. Early in the morning, at about four o’clock, I heard him calling me. As soon as I finished dressing I heard, coming from outside my house, the soft trampling of his wood sandals. I followed him down to the river where He took a bath and I started washing his loincloth that he had left on the river bank. To dry the loincloth I lit a fire with some dried leaves and some small branches. He was just ten metres far from me, naked. Suddenly He raised his right hand up in the air. I couldn’t believe what my eyes were seeing. A beautiful garland of calendulas (flowers) appeared in his raised hands. He threw the garland on me and made it fall right around my neck. Spellbound, I kept looking at the garland. It was very fresh, brimful with that fragrance of just cut flowers.

 

For a few seconds I was not able to think straight but, when I came round, I saw Him swinging, hanging by the aerial roots of a banyan tree that was about ten metres far from me. At that moment he looked like a young happy boy, rather than a sadhu at the height of his realization. I went to Him and said: ‘Please don’t swing on those roots, they can break and You could get hurt.’ He smiled and stopped swinging. He came back with my to my home and had breakfast. Now he was ready to go to Hariharpur and asked me to go with him. The vehicle we used for our journeys was my bicycle.

 

Baba was seated on the rear carrier. After about three kilometres I found it difficult to keep on pedalling. The bicycle seemed to have become heavy. I couldn’t understand. The more I pushed down on the pedals the heavier I felt them. I got off my bicycle and I began to have a look at the wheels. Everything was in order. Suddenly one thing occurred to me: ‘Maybe it is a trick of this young Baba.’ I said: ‘Now look here Baba, this is not fair.’ He said smiling: ‘What do you think, that I am just a child? It’s you who is not even able to turn the pedals of the bicycle. You didn’t push so hard. Why are you so irritated?’ I bowed to Him, grabbed his feet and said: ‘Till now I have been thinking of you only as a young boy, but now I realize who You are.’ After this trick, my bicycle was running easily while Baba kept on staying on the rear carrier. We travelled  some kilometres more when we got a flat tyre. Luckily in that area there was a place where bicycle were repaired, I went there and got my tyre fixed. In the meantime Baba had disappeared. Taking a shortcut across the fields, He reached his hut on foot, a few kilometres far from where I was.

 

When I reached his hut, He was already surrounded by many visitors from the village. Completely upset, I was going to heap some words on Him. I was a forty-one years old man and He just a sixteen years old boy!

But Baba in the meantime had been planning something else. As soon as I appeared there, He had brought from the village a very comfortable cotton mat He placed over a folding bed. Smiling as a scamp  He invited me to sit on that mat. I was still upset with Him because He had abandoned me. Seriously He ordered me: ‘Don’t be upset, sit over there: I got it brought it for you.’ The crowd standing there was watching astonished this game. He spoke to the crowd in this way: ‘He is my guest, even if he is foul-tempered.’

At that point I couldn’t stand the situation overmuch. On the pretext of going to visit a friend of mine in a village around there, I went straight towards home. I reached home very tired and had a good sleep that night in my bed. I got up early in the morning but his bitter-sweet memory was still vivid inside me. Even if I wanted to go back to Him, I couldn’t because I had to oversee my housework. After I dealt with those duties, I took a long walk, then I took a bath. Suddenly a thought come to my mind. I lit an incense and started to move it circularly thinking of Him. This little gesture brought a lot of peace into my restless mind. In the afternoon the mill forthe flour started to work again for the customers who were bringing the seeds to be ground. I weighed their seed sand once they had been ground I gave them back with the same weight in exchange for a little part for the grinding. A few hours had passed when suddenly I heard the familiar voice saying: ‘You are looking the seeds, look at the scale pan!’ My eyes fell on Him. I ran to welcome Him and I touched his feet. ‘Why did you call me?’ He said with a serious voice. I was speechless. He explained to me: ‘Making circles with the incense is very meaningful. It is not right to call without a reason.’ My eyes were filled with tears and I started to ask for his forgiveness. However, my prayer had been heard. My own God, paying attention to my invocation, showed up in front of my door. Even if my faith was firmly strong, my stupidity for having disturbed my God made me feel very small.”