Books leave different impressions on people. Certain parts of it may leave a deeper impression on me while for others, it may not be majorly memorable. And vice versa. Moreover, these impressions change over time. All of a sudden when life situations change, we may remember some section and see it in a new light. Thus, I feel that reviews of books like this Aghora 2 should be read keeping this context in mind.

Earlier I had reviewed the Aghora Book 1, and now over a year later, I read the second book and have jotted out my quick review thoughts on it.

Esoteric Meanings of Indic stories and rituals.

One key part of this book Aghora 2 was about the hidden/esoteric meanings behind many Indian rituals and stories. These Indian rituals and stories have a literal and commonly known meaning. And then it has a deeper esoteric meaning which the Aghori Vimalananda keeps alluding to through out the book.

The esoteric meaning of Ramayana is detailed out quite a bit so we get a clear idea of what exactly these “esoteric” meanings are. For many more rituals and stories some specific bits are sometimes explained esoterically or alluded to having esoteric meaning.

Initially, I was so-so about this. Because it felt like flights of fancy. A simple story of a woman kidnapped by an egotistical and powerful king, and the husband going in search of her…. how are we to understand this as a story about the kundalini and its relation with soul or atman. Mental focus or Laksh(man) is always with the kundalini and atman. Then the kundalini gets taken away from these two by ego (false identity).. it gets embroiled in samsara and maya and needs to find its way back. How will she find her way back? And so, Ramayana then depicts various ways of enlightenment.

Does such a hidden meaning of this story feel a bit far fetched?

I found it a bit far fetched when I read it. But somehow it has seeped in… and it makes me wonder about many different ritual or stories in India lore.

Kundalini

The kundalini or Shakti energy in us gets caught up in the maya (illusive world) – Shakti is also the dance of maya and illusive world but it has forgotten its identity as the creator. Considering this, I guess all life can be seen as one big esoteric dance of Shakti. There is an outward play of various happenings. However, if we look a little deeper, it is all only a play of Maya or Shakti. And a journey of it coming back to oneness. In this way, it makes sense that this book on Kundalini talks so much about “esoteric meanings”.

There are also some long bits about the actual working of Kundalini and various chakras in the body. But I found them too technical and honestly, not very relevant for me. Cause I am nowhere a great yogi who has any active requirement to understand about various chakras and how energy flows through them and all that. 🙂

However, this is the first informative content I have read on the Chakras. So that was interesting. We seekers aren’t here to believe all sorts of theories about our body and system. Now that I am able to simply read without identifying with the content – it was interesting to read a little about the Chakras. But people could sometimes act silly after reading about such things which are not in their experience. So one should be wary of this.

This book also makes it very clear, what SadhguruJV has already made it clear for me, that we don’t dabble in chakras and all such things we don’t fully understand nor experience. Whether the chakras are closed or open or whatever, it is fine. It has a purpose and that is fine. Either case, we have to do our practices as prescribed by the Guru. Stay away from yoga paths that talk about “opening the chakras”.

Agni & other interesting stuff

The first chapter started with a very interesting chapter on the fire element – Agni. It came at a time when I was experimenting with an akhand diya at home, so there was much serendipity.

Apart from this there were a lot of interesting bits and stories that even the first Aghori book was filled with. Like, evaluating the worth of a yogi by checking their faeces (yes, you read that right), incidents in lives of known yogis like Vivekananda, the popular Chowringhee lane of Kolkata is named after a great Nath yogi and so on.

At the end of the first half of this Aghora book 2, I felt that it is too technical for newbies to read. But after I have finished the full book, I am not sure. I think it was pretty cool. And the esoteric meanings of our rituals and stories have remained in my mind and I feel it is relevant for everyone.

That’s all I have on that.

I have already started reading the Aghori 3 “law of karma” (buy here). Let’s see what that has in store for me.

Sadhguru’s OTT platform – Sadhguru Exclusive – has also been launched in the past week. So there is also some good content for me to check out there. Look forward to that.

🙂 Happy when there is some amazing spiritual insight to be heard/read/seen. So good to have access to many yogis and their work through so many myriad ways. Good life.