American Firewalking Master leads walk at Temple in India

Hypnotic tv Guru and Hindu Gods in Outerspace…

loook into my eyes…..

hahahaha….psychedelic religious programs…

Standing Babas…sadhus who never sit

(Bajrang Das, a ‘standing’ baba, who never sits down, day and night.He sleeps standing too, hanging over this swing. A metal chastity belt covers his genitals.

A ‘standing’ Baba, who is called khareshwari, has taken the vow not to sit or lie down for twelve years. He may rest one leg by hanging it in the sling under his swing. It is a painful austerity: the swollen legs and feet tend to develop persistent ulcers. Khareshwaris may walk about, but usually just hang in their swing in their corner — and stand.

Some, at a mela for instance, may turn this austerity into quite a performance. The lay pilgrims are always much awed by khareshwaris and consequently very generous with their donations, in money or in kind.

A tree is the traditional place for the austerity of standing, not only because the swing can be attached to one of the branches, but also because of the baba’s identification with a tree, for it is also termed vrik-asana (or vrikshasana), meaning ‘tree-posture’.
And indeed, the khareshwari starts resembling a tree, his swollen feet look like roots, with a firm grip on the ground.

The austerity of ‘standing’ is performed by Ramanandis, Nagas, Naths and Udasin. Text and images from link

Travel Channel’s “Culture Shock” clip on Standing Babas…

Holy Rat feces: disgusting or spiritual delicacy?

Rats- Do you like them? Do you like them enough to eat their spit? Check out the clip and check out some people who do at the Karni Mata temple near Bikaner.

image from horizon

So the story goes like this:

How The Rats Became Holy

The story goes that Karni Mata once tried to restore the dead child of a storyteller back to life but failed because Yama, the god of death, had already accepted his soul and re-incarnated him in human form. Karni Mata, famed for her legendary temper, was so inflamed by her failure that she announced that no one from her tribe would fall into Yama’s hands again. Instead, when they died, all of them would temporarily inhabit the body of a rat before being reborn into the tribe. Therefore, the rats are considered to be incarnations of storytellers and are much revered.The image below shows the special holes around the courtyard that facilitate the rats’ movements throughout the temple. It is said that if you spot a white rat, you will have good luck.

info and image from link

A clip on the Rat temple from the travel channel’s Culture Shock series

Sadhu gets buzzed “om” ishtyle

Trippy tunes the Beatles made during their India travels

image from veda

“Within You Without You” was written on a harmonium at the house of long-time Beatles friend, Klaus Voormann, while “there were lots of joints being smoked”. It was written by George Harrison and recorded with a group of Indian musicians, without any input from his fellow Beatles. It was the second of Harrison’s songs to be explicitly influenced by Indian classical music, after “Love You To”. It was released in 1967 on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the last song to be completed for the album.Harrison wrote this as a 30-minute piece. He trimmed it down into a mini-version for the album. The laughter at the end was Harrison’s idea to lighten the mood and follow the theme of the album. Sped up to C#, an instrumental version at the original speed and key appears on the Anthology 2 album.

info from wiki

Harrison took his Hindu teachings most seriously, of all the Beatles. On the evening of 30 December 1999, Michael Abram broke into the Harrisons’ Friar Park home in Henley-on-Thames and stabbed George multiple times, ultimately puncturing his lung. Harrison and his wife, Olivia, fought the intruder and detained him for the police. Severely injured, it is said that George went out into his back garden and chanted “Hari Krishna.” till he received medical assistance.

image from vedicbooks

The song is basically about the Hindu and Buddhist idea of maya, the illusions which can prevent us from self actualizing, and of course the idea of love as an emotion to be cultivated and practiced as a spiritual path.

Within you Without you lyrics:

“We were talking – about the space between us all
And the people – who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion
Never glimpse the truth – then it’s far too late – when they pass away.”

“We were talking – about the love we all could share – when we find it
To try our best to hold it there – with our love.
With our love – We could save the world – if they only knew…
Try to realise it’s all within yourself, no one else can make you change.”

“And to see you’re really only very small
and life flows on within you and without you.”

“We were talking – about the love that’s gone so cold and the people,
Who gain the world and lose their soul.
They don’t know. They can’t see. Are you one of them?
When you see beyond yourself then you may find,
peace of mind, is waiting there.”

“And the time will come when you see we’re all one,
and life flows on within you and without you.”

And this is a pretty trippy video to go along with the psychedelic rock

Across the Universe:

One night in 1967, the phrase “words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup” came to Lennon, after hearing his then-wife Cynthia talking. Intrigued, he rushed to grab a paper and pencil. He began to write the rest of the lyrics, and when he was done, he went to bed and forgot about them.

In the morning, Lennon found the paper on which he had written the lyrics and brought them down to his piano, where he began to play chords, and find pitches to match the words. The flavor of the song was heavily influenced by Lennon’s and The Beatles’ short-lived interest in Transcendental Meditation in late 1967–early 1968, when the song was composed. Based on this he added the mantra (Jai Guru Deva Om) to the piece, which served as a link between the bridge and verse.

The structure of the lyrics is straightforward: three repetitions of a unit consisting of a verse, the line “Jai Guru Deva Om”, and the line “Nothing’s gonna change my world” repeated four times. The lyrics are highly image-based, with abstract concepts reified with phrases like thoughts “meandering”, words “slithering”, and undying love “shining”. The title phrase “across the universe” appears at intervals to finish lines.In his 1970 interview with Rolling Stone Magazine, Lennon referred to the song as perhaps the best, most poetic lyrics he ever wrote.

info from wiki

John and Cynthia:
image from bbc

Across the Universe lyrics:

Words are flying out like endless rain into a paper cup
They slither while they pass They slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow waves of joy are drifting thorough my open mind
Possessing and caressing me

Jai guru deva om
Nothing’s gonna change my world

Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes
That call me on and on across the universe
Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box
they tumble blindly as they make their way across the universe

Jai guru deva om
Nothing’s gonna change my world

Sounds of laughter shades of life are ringing through my open ears
exciting and inviting me Limitless undying love which
shines around me like a million suns
It calls me on and on across the universe

Jai guru deva om
Nothing’s gonna change my world

Here’s the song with footage of the Beatles at the Rishikesh Ashram:

“Sexy Sadie” is a song about the Beatles getting disillusioned by the Maharishi who had been their guru at the ashram. “Sadie” is really “sadhu”…..and so it goes “sexy sadhu….what have you done?” It was written by written by John Lennon (and Paul McCartney) in India.Originally titled “Maharishi”, the Beatles changed the title to “Sexy Sadie” to avoid the potential for litigation as the song’s lyrics portray the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in a less than favorable light. Lennon became discouraged after the Maharishi had allegedly made a pass at one of the female members of their entourage. Lennon once said of the song: “That was inspired by Maharishi. I wrote it when we had our bags packed and were leaving. It was the last piece I wrote before I left India. I just called him, ‘Sexy Sadie,’ instead of (sings) ‘Maharishi what have you done, you made a fool…’ I was just using the situation to write a song, rather calculatingly but also to express what I felt. I was leaving the Maharishi with a bad taste. You know, it seems that my partings are always not as nice as I’d like them to be.”

info from wiki

The maharishi:

Sexy Sadie lyrics:

Sexy Sadie what have you done?
You made a fool of everyone
You made a fool of everyone.
Sexy Sadie ooh what have you done?

Sexy Sadie you broke the rules
You layed it down for all to see
You layed it down for all to see
Sexy Sadie oooh you broke the rules.

One sunny day the world was waiting for a lover
She came along to turn on everyone
Sexy Sadie the greatest of them all.

Sexy Sadie how did you know
The world was waiting just for you
The world was waiting just for you
Sexy Sadie oooh how did you know.

Sexy Sadie you’ll get yours yet
However big you think you are
However big you think you are
Sexy Sadie oooh you’ll get yours yet.

We gave her everything we owned just to sit at her table
Just a smile would lighten everything
Sexy Sadie she’s the latest and the greatest of them all.

She made a fool of everyone
Sexy Sadie.

However big you think you are
Sexy Sadie.

Here’s the songs with a slideshow of the Beatles at the ashram with the Sexy Sadhu:

Aghori Sadhus…some Indian wizards…

image from link

Wizards don’t just exist in fairy tales…there are real ones…modern day Merlins who live among us as imperceptibly as the wizarding world lives among muggles in the Harry Potter Series. You may believe that what they do is magic or you may not. But from their perspective there are spirits, gods, and complex alchemical energies flowing through the world that only the trained mind can see. They are shamans that travel between the spirit worlds, using marijuana and alcohol as sacraments. Hindu wizards are known as sadhus, and among them possibly the most intriguing bunch that roam the earth these days are the Aghoris. They commune with the dead, living among them and practice rituals with corpses in order to make contact with the divine mother, Kali, to whom they pray. It all sounds very macabre till you read some of their philosophy. For them, nothing and everything is sacred. That is to say, excrement and corpses are as sacred as flowers. They see all things as a divine expression and the idea of matter as being impure, an illusion. There are some books, if you are interested in this subject,by Robert E. Svoboda, called The Aghora Trilogy. They are very readable and full of the tales of one Aghori sadhu, describing his many years of wizarding training, his many strange adventures and his visions of the terrifying and beautiful dark Goddess, Kali and her male counterpart, Shiva. By the way, I’ve always wondered why Shiva always seems to be depicted clean-shaved. He was a sadhu like the Aghoris, and would have had dreds and a beard.

I’m posting one punchy little National Geographic clip on Agori Sadhus and then a 6- part British documentary on a young Aghori sadhu in training, narrated by Art Malik. They are visually, very compelling and I enjoy watching these guys and imagining the lives they lead…living their lives in shadow, with one foot in dream and another in death. In part 4 a young Agori sadhu in training is initiated by his guru and he weeps ecstatically as he feels overwhelmed by the presence of the divine mother. You hear about this kind of spiritual ecstasy from the writings of countless mystics across the ages but here you can actually witness it. In part 5 you can witness an exorcism of evil spirits and in Part 6 he goes home to visit his family, which is forbidden to Aghori sadhus. Its really a documentary about a young man’s right of passage, as he begins upon an unusual path. Enjoy!

National Geographic clip:

Aghori Series Part 1:

Aghori Series Part 2:

Aghori Series Part 3:

Aghori Series Part 4:

Aghori Series Part 5:

Aghori Series Part 6:

Goa Gil, Monty Python, The Simpsons: some perspective on life, the universe, and everything…

Goa Gil is one of the original gang from the psychedelic revolution (friends with Timothy Leary) that started up in Height Ashbury, Sanfrancisco, and landed up in Goa, surrounded by the innovation of rave music and dance, theological experimentation and lots of drugs. Goa Gil became a DJ and sadhu who says that dancing at rave parties under the full moon is a modern form of Tantric practice and a contemporary way of becoming a community of techno shamans.

Here he shares “the secret” of life:

A trippy perspective from The Simpsons.. to see a world in a grain of sand…or in Homer’s skin cells…

And here is Monty Python’s Galaxy song, sung by the inimitable Eric Idle, who jumps out of Mrs. Brown’s refrigerator and cheers her up with a song about how insignificant the human race is:

Here are the lyrics to the Galaxy Song:

Just remember that you’re standing on a planet that’s evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That’s orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it’s reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the ‘Milky Way’.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It’s a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it’s just three thousand light years wide.
We’re thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go ’round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that’s the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you’re feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere up in space,
‘Cause there’s bugger all down here on Earth.

Willy Power…Naga Sadhus and Shaolin Monks

image from bbc

Perhaps you remember, that, during the Maha Kumbh Mela 2001, which happens every 114 years, Naga Sadhus (a Shivite sect of powerful holy men known as “warrior ascetics”) performed some rather daring feats of brawn…using nothing more than their willies. The Naga Sadhus claim to have reached the highest form of tapasya (penance) in their abandonment of the material world, and this includes severe spiritual practices that include tying stones to their willies to desensitize them and remove carnal desire.

During the Mela, at least one Naga Sadhu tied his Johnson to the District Commissioner’s car and towed it while the Commissioner sat solemnly inside with his wife and children.Alas. If only I had a clip of that to show you. But these are perhaps just as good, and goes to show that the idea of genital torture is a spiritually universal one. A Kung Fu grandmaster ties a rope to his willy and tows a truck with it (imagine the Naga Sadhu doing it with his shaggy dreds and all these nice middle class families watching with their hands in their pockets) Click here But this is really something. This Shaolin monk has another monk actually HANG suspended from his manhood! It just looks terribly painful to me but I suppose spiritual strength comes in many different…packages. Definitely worth the click. And for the grand finale…” Qigong Grandmaster Tu Jin Sheng Demonstrating Iron Crotch pulling an Air Plane.” AN AIR PLANE!

Ouch! And… on that, rather bizarre note…now for something completely different by Monty Python in praise of yogis and kung fu masters everywhere and their extraordinary talents…sung by Eric Idle.

“But do not take it out in public or they will stick you in the dock and you wont come back…” or so we thought…

sadhu images from adolphus

LMAO with the Laughter Yogi… “I am happy I am relaxed I am happy I am relaxed”

This clip is guaranteed to crack you up…I’ve actually seen these guys get together in parks in the early mornings, just bouncing about and laughing maniacally- why? Because its good for you! Apparently you dont need to be happy to laugh…you need to laugh to be happy…and every time I watch this guy jiggling around in his golden tunic it puts me in a good mood.

And not so funny…as a tad desperate…Ramesh the laughter yogi goes to perform on “America’s Got Talent” And check out Monty Python’s John Cleese as he checks out laughing yoga in Mumbai

A British Guy in Gujarat Discovers he is a Reincarnated Hindu Goddess

12 April 2007

I had to read it to believe it. The guy apparently had his divine revelation in a British shop when he happened to look at a picture of the Goddess Bahuchar Mata. In a temple in Gujarat he is being worshiped as her living reincarnation. And I have to say I’m impressed that Xenophobia isn’t a visible factor here…He doesn’t speak Hindi or Gujurati and no one is allowed to address him in English so he’s basically blessing people with monosyllables….wearing a sari…and living in Gujurat now on the same basis that other Indian hijras do…by taking food that is offered to him by devotees that he meets at the temple. His visa is expiring in six months and he doesn’t want to leave. I wonder if the immigration authorities would have the balls to deport a reincarnated goddess in the body of a British man named Stephen Cooper! link to article