The show’s inaugural episode was filmed in Varanasi, and half of it is devoted to Iranian-American religious scholar Reza Aslan being immersed with a group of Aghors engaging in various shocking acts, including eating cooked human brains and ingesting faeces. Given all this, I was not surprised at the outrage from sections of the Hindu-American community (and their self-appointed representatives) following the debut of Believer, a CNN mini-series on the fringe and fascinating religious sects around the world. On attaining this state one does not view the world in dualistic terms of good and evil, sacred and profane, pure and impure-instead relating to all of manifested reality as attributes of the Great Mother, MA. They seek to cultivate a state of consciousness, known as Aghor, in which one transmutes and ultimately transcends base sensations like fear, hatred, disgust or discrimination. The Aghors I fell in with emphatically rejected Vedic notions of ritual purity, scriptural dogma, and priestly mediation between the world of the mundane, the so-called impure and the divine. Aghors are the only ones willing to please Kali, by “ripping the veil off reality and jumping straight into the abyss,” with no thought to self-preservation or the laws that govern polite society. In Tolaram’s view, most Hindus worshipped Shiva and Kali as a cultivated social requirement, but what the deities actually demand from their followers is not acceptable to the vast majority. All of us laughed uproariously at the spectacle. The bunch scurried away-never to be seen again. The other sadhus scooped handfuls of red-hot coal and flung them at the tourists. Tolaram, a tall sadhu clad in black with red-rimmed eyes and a mop of wild dreadlocks, rose up and let loose a stream of invectives in Hindi which effectively meant this: Get lost or I’ll stuff a chillum up a very painful place. The threat did not go down well with the holy men. On seeing the intoxicated revelry, one of them, in a fit of moral outrage, ordered us to put our chillums away or he would call the police. One evening, a group of tourists from Delhi passing by, stopped and walked toward us. It was a radical and refreshing departure from the austere and sedate environs of the Buddhist monastery and most of the ashrams I had stayed at over the course of my extended pilgrimage. Over the next few weeks I attended a number of similar gatherings at locations around Varanasi. Soon I was singing and jumping animatedly around the fire along with a couple of clapping sadhus. Each took a swig and passed it on-it was out after one round of the circle. I pulled out a bottle of whiskey from my backpack and offered it to my companions. The smoking, singing, and drumming under the stars made for a heady brew. They sang a folk tune, accompanied by percussive tapping on a tabla. They were passing around a chillum, a clay pipe, packed with a potent mixture of charas (hand-rubbed hashish) and tobacco. One of the sadhus beckoned me to join them, patting the spot beside him.
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