Aghora

Aghora - A true treatise

All the concepts of vedas highly emphasize on purity and on the satwic to the farther extent on the rajasic style of worships. Example of satwic worship is any simple hawans for peace etc and examples of rajasic forms can be rites, ashwametha. But most people in kali yuga find it difficult to associate with satwa guna completely. Pure rajasic forms is also difficult to be found. So most of us stay between rajasic and tamasic characteristics hence most of the times , people find it difficult to honor promises for a ritual at the deepest level and hence vedic rituals are not being performed as an anustana in its essential essence. Aghora is one of the most faster and refined form for the rajasic , tamasic forms of beings. but during ancient times , for a vedi to achieve rishihood, its said that he should have mastered aghora too.

Aghora is the height is vama marga tantra in its essence. But it also is a way of life in true sense. All the white sides (disciplines) presumes maya as the reality and work towards realizing the uniqueness. But, aghora from the start believes in leaving everything behind, totally without relationship with the mundane world.

so an aghori perceives the world devoid of attachments. For him the world is also like his favorite dwelling place the smashan..he considers the world as the smashan, the one which belongs to one who are already dead or the one who will be dead at a future period of time.

Most of the time , when the word aghori is mentioned, most people identify it with a man who lives in filth and other related impurities in smashan. I do agree that some aghori's deliberately convey that picture. but it's not necessary to find the aghori in an unapproachable form. The major reason for aghori's to portray such a picture is to avoid unwanted conversations and disturbances.

The urge to converse always is a result of one being uncomfortable with oneself. As speech is an inferior form of communication which is subjective to the bodily existence, a person who is accustomed with fierce aghora discipline easily sacrifices it to achieve higher modes or methods of communication. In any white discipline, we always practice for enlightenment or advancement to newer spiritual level with moderation. Or in other words , we are patient. But an aghori embraces the darkness, sacrifices everything and extremely induces pain to burn of his karmic debts to return back to the source. The aghora practices are extreme in regard and hence only suited for people who have high temperaments.

Before moving into the nature of aghora rituals, I would love to attract the attention of the readers to the most less celebrated veda called Atharva Veda. There are two mantra samitha which can be seen associated with Atharva veda. They are the shaunka and pippalada systems. As the duty of the atharvan was to protect the vedic rituals from any hindrances, these systems provide ways from charms to sorcery to witchcraft. Its interesting that sage shaunaka even has a text for rigveda based tantra called shunaka rikvidhana. The relationship of atharva with aghora basically is in the level of deities on in other words, they share a lot of common deities. Eg of common deities ; tara ma , mahakala , bhairava , the ethereal beings like yakshini etc

But the sadhana and the philosophy of aghora are more different and spiritually oriented.

Philosophy of Aghora

The philosophy of aghora as mentioned is more devoid of unreal worldly pleasures. The real heart of this philosophy is the true love for "Ma" - the cosmic shakthi. Aghori loves everything with the same intensity like his/her love for Ma. It is like unconditional love to all beings equally as he/she sees the world as the manifestation of the cosmic shakthi. Nothing is pure or impure for an aghori. Every things around him is Ma in some form or other and he passionately embraces it.

The preliminary state of an aghori mind is to accept the fact of death during his life itself. For him as i said, everything around him is dead already or dying. The only sure event any animate and inanimate object can have is death. So when the death is accepted during life, the senses have no meaning. A dead man is neither hungry nor have any preferences of where to stay. But voluntary way of losing the body with hunger is also not acceptable for two reasons:

1. As the body came into being without one's consent and
2. Aghori's sole purpose of life is to return to the source and without emptying the karma he does not want to lose the medium to suffer.
   

so now whats the easy way? Use the preliminary logics from tantra and do extreme sadhana out of it.
Dear all, tantra relies on the purification on the five elements which composes the body. With the purification of the physical body, we can concentrate on increasing the subtle awareness and there by charging the sukshma sharira or subtle existence. This will result in access to the karana sharira, the causative body who is the accountant of all karmas and thereby births.

Aghori does not believe in rules. He just goes on the preparatory phase like the tantrics and then resolve to absolutely impossible ways of charging the sukshma chakra. Here the sadhanas are more or like a do or die scenario. If the adept who is in the aghora path makes a mistake, he can even lose his life. 

Aghora - Beginning Stages

The basic notion of accepting Jagat Sat Brahman Sat will make the importance of the sthula sharira; physical body more prominent. Aghora also demands a few preliminary steps to be taken before entering into the sadhanas. Since the jagat or this world is also considered as a reality, the instrument which binds the human being, the body is to be made conducive for progress.

For the purpose of the same, the composition of the body is to be carefully understood. Just like everybody knows the body is made up of the five elements. Each element should be purified. But most of the times, the matter that is overlooked is the much rooted ayurvedic concepts on tridoshas (vata , pitha , kabha) . So a human being whose state of comfortable life in this world is decided by the balancing of the tri doshas; the nature of the stula based on the doshas should be identified and balanced , then the person can enter into the purification of the five elements , the bhuta shuddhi.

The key aspect one should understand is every ritual whether it’s internal or external, vedic or tantrik is keen on emphasizing the five elements or even their purification. Even a small puja held in the households represents the five elements starting from the fire which is symbolically represented by a lamp to flowers which is the representation of ether.

As the preparatory step for aghora, one should first understand the key concept called prana. Prana alternatively called the vital force keeps the physical body functioning. The moment the flow of prana stops or the prana exits the realms of physical body, the state of death happens. Prana can be acquired from all the five elemental sources based on the stage of progress of the sadhak. But for the beginner, the prana is being derived basically out of food.

The association of prana with food needs careful observation. If we fail to understand the implications we will still remain rooted to the limited level of existence than liberation.
 
The sources of prana which is primarily limited to food for the human being; in the beginning of spiritual plan; should be carefully scrutinized. Although aghora as a system does not distinguish which food to eat, till a certain level of control is achieved over body metabolism, a vegetarian diet is to be adhered to.

Most of the texts recommend up to the level as to why a vegetarian diet is to be taken that too on to basic level of understanding but a generic interpretation do not prepare one self for any further levels. So analyze one self carefully. What are the natures of your emotional and physical behaviors? Eg can be are you rest less person? Do you tend to increase weight with limited consumption of food? Etc. A so called healthy person who cannot sit idle and whose mind is very fluctuating is a clear example of having a vata intensified stage. Based on the nature of the body, there are foods which can be consumed to balance the dosha. For eg sweet foods help to control vata. Even the dietary timings can also be fixed to control a dosha.

There is plenty of literature available in print media for this as natural health, perfect health etc. but the essential understanding anyone should have is that, this is just preliminary requisite. Every vegetable or way of preparation affects the system.

This post looks like very health oriented, but i would love to say that a proper identification of body type, arranging the food habits and live with the food habits for 3 months can be really helpful in making a good start.

lets make the physical body to the level at which we can work on; understanding the assimilation of food more effectively, understand the various types of fires that exist and then thereby accelerate across to more subtle levels.

Aghora - Beginning Stages - Agni

Before proceeding into further levels of aghora itself, we should understand the relevance of two important elements from all sides of philosophy. Those two elements are agni and vayu. Let’s begin with the element Agni.

Agni
Irrespective of the school of thought which the aspiring spiritual disciples belong to, agni play a major role. What is the major superior quality of Agni which makes it much decorated in all scriptures? Among the five elements, only agni can purify anything without getting impure itself. Take the aspect of water for eg, when we clean with water; water gets impure within the process. So agni is supposed to be the only element to be used for purification in subtle levels.

According to vedic system, the agni is classified as laukikagni and yajnaagni. The agni; laukikagni is the fire we used for various household activities. This is also used in tantric fire worship of tantra shastra and also in which rig veda mantra samhita or atharvana veda samhita is used.

Now the yajnaagni is classified basically into smartha and sharutha agni's.

All rituals which are performed as recommended by grihya sutras use smarta agni. also smartha yagnas and samaskaras of daily nature (nitya karma) , for fulfilling desires(kamya karmas), incidental worships( naimittic karma) are also done with this agni. There are various names given for this agni as aupasana, griha etc etc. this is installed in the house during the marriage ceremony and is used for upasana. Everyone should keep this agni at least in the smallest form in house through out his life. Only a person who has smartha agni in his home can kindle shrauta agni or store shrauta agni in the house hold.

Now about shrautaagni – ritualistically this agni is used for conducting all yagnas as recommended by the shrutis (vedic corpus). This agni installation in the house is like the householder or the yajamana's desire to attain the dyu and swar lokas too. Hence it’s called expansive agni, or vaitharanikagni.

Shrauta agni again have been classified into 5 basically named as panchagnis. The panchagani's are garhapatya, dakshina, ahavaniya, sabhya and avasatya. Among these the first three form (tretagni) the primary ones and are extensively used for shrauta rituals.

The three forms of agni commonly used are

1) garhapatya - symbolizes the grihapathi or the householder and the oblations to this helps him to conquer expanded prithvi loka. Since earth is circular, the fire pit used for doing the offering is also circular.

2) dakshina - the oblations to this agni helps the householder to conquer dyu loka , the akasha . Hence it appears semicircular to view; the fire pit used for the rituals is semicircular in shape.

3) ahavaniya - the oblations to this agni helps to conquer the swar loka. Here this agni is used for invoking various devas. since the shape of the heaven is perceived as square (perfectly symmetrical) the square or rectangular fire pits are used for this rituals.

With this preliminary knowledge of the agni as per vedas, we should expand our familiarity towards the nature of yagnas too in the essential level. yagnas can be classified broadly into three

1) paroksha yagna - this is the yagna that happens in nature. The celestial interplay of complex nature.

2) antaryama yagna - this is the yagna which can be called internal sacrifice.

3) pratyaksha yagna - this is the yagna which is more commonly seen as this is the outward ritual representation. It in limited sense; model on the paroksha yagna.

With these concepts as the foundation, lets move towards the other disciplines of tantra and even the latter yogas mentioned in bhagavat gita and the relevance of agni and sacrificial representations there ....

dear all, with the generic explanation of agni in vedic aspect; being briefly mentioned in the previous post , lets focus on the internal agni. There are two types of internal fire. One is bhuta agni and another one is jataragni.

Before defining the two agni's lets understand the human body in the subtle level. The human body in the subtle level is divided basically into two levels. bhautika and daivika. The first three chakras: mooladhara (earth), swadishtana (water) and manipurka (fire) are the chakras which makes the ordinary human beings characteristics or in simple words the human beings themselves.

jataragni is responsible for the all the digestive , sexual and other instinctive fires of bhautika level of human body. The main purpose of this agni is to absorb the prana from food in the stula or physical level and is always being centered at the manipuraka chakra.

When the jataragni is strong it makes the bhuta agni dormant and will make the ego self identified with the body. Human beings acquire land, make houses, have kids, try to achieve worldly distinctions, differentiate among one self and also very materialistic when the jataragni is strong.

Tantra speaks extensively about the laukikagni (ritualistic fire used for external tantric rites) which is the jataragni in one form and hence never refrain or make people abstain from the world. This makes the strong emphasis on the concept of “brahman sat jagat sat ".

When we interpret it to Vedas, the yajnagni classification which is mentioned as the smarthagni; is the jataragni itself in the internal level. All the grihya rites are done externally with the smarthagni. So the internal agni creates the will and the external representation makes the necessary performance of manifested levels of existence; the definitive samaskaras.

We will continue with deeper concepts and also the explanation of the presence and relevance of agni in various yogic disciplines

dear all, now with the presence and relevance of agni being explained in the tantric and vedic levels and explaining its common existence in both realms , lets view on the various yogic disciplines.

All the yogic systems advocate on restraining of sense organs with yamas and niyamas. In this way , the fire created by the abstinence is the fire used for offerings. Based on the nature of the offerings this fire is again named suitably. A yogi at first control his senses , as senses are the receptors for the mind. since yogas are based on achieving the enlightenment either by controlling mind or the vital breath(prana), the fire created also is named appropriately. the yoga systems which emphasizes on the control of breath like pranayama systems symbolically works on the varied version of antaryaga.

But when the control is done by restricting and restraining the mind , the agni takes various names and forms. An adept starts his journey by offering his sense organs to this fire symbolically. Then he will kindle the agni for various other related activities of mind and perform the offerings. this also is called yoga yagna. for eg: if the offering to this agni is jnana or knowledge of spiritual mileage , its called jnana yagna. the devour for the new knowledge levels to offer to the subtle fire , janana agni is also created in return. similarly all yoga systems in Bhagavat Gita could be viewed.

Generally the most important aspect of agni is to amplify the effect and the quality of the offerings. hence it is used for subtle purification and also used for attaining purusharthas with external rituals.

With the brief explanation of agni and its associations with the various disciplines, lets move our focus on to the second element called vayu. dear all, the interesting fact is the literature available on agni and its multilevel existence which is broad , sometimes makes people really perceive every aspect of it as distinct and mutually non interchangeable.

Aghora - Beginning Stages - Vayu

The external representation of vayu is the vyana (all pervading vayu) which forms prana itself for the universe. As per the tantric concept of microcosm and macrocosm, the representation of the world with all its elements is just an extended existence of the inward form. The essential nature of vayu is that it interacts with the beings in a different level compared to agni. Even agni is kindled in presence of vayu and hence the mutual existence can be comprehended.

So all external rituals as per vedic systems enrich the vayu and purifies it, with which it enables the much healthier existence of sthula sharira or physical body and also the astral body in subtler levels. But just like agni, vayu also has different manifestation based on its functions. If we evaluate the roles of agni and vayu in the deeper level it is agni that facilitates assimilation and vayu that facilitates sustenance. Without mutual existence life will not thrive in limited levels.

when the time vayu is existing in environment, it performs major activities in totality. But once it becomes confined to a body like human body there are five types of vayus like the five types of agni's.

The five types of vayus are prana, apana, samana, udana and vyana.

The function of prana is absorption of essential elements and hence it exist in the thoracic region till the diaphram. 
Apana powers the activities like urinary excretory and reproductive activities and hence reside in the lower abdomen. 
Samana exists between diaphragm and lower abdomen. 
The throat and facial expression are performed by udana.

Vyana exits through out the body as all pervading base.

dear all, with the five vayus being explained, we will now look closely to the two major vayus which are vital for the spiritual progress in any disciplines. They are prana and apana.  For kindling the mystic fire or the real fire, the role of vayu is known to all beyond explanation. Hence the prana and apana are the vayus responsible for the sustenance of bhuta agni and jataragni respectively. When prana is strong the bhuta agni; the spiritual fire will dominate the jataragni, the digestive fire. Now in normal human beings whose prana is not so strong, prana and apana are doing their respective jobs of absorption and elimination and will both intensify the digestive fire only at the seat of fire, manipuraka chakra.
Now the yogi in which ever discipline he/she is, will start bhuta shuddi as the discipline specifies. He will enter into prana route with pranayama and discipline his lifestyle. Now when he starts this process, prana starts intensifying making the bhuta agni more prominent. But this will be a small beginning. Still the jataragni is fully active with the apana facilitating its sustenance. Thus during the process of bhuta shuddi, this state of bhuta agni; kindled and kept ready for further enhancement, is achieved.  Now the biggest question of yogi is how to enhance the bhuta agni over jataragni. Many disciplines from yoga to tantra provides ways and means to achieve this, but essentially what happens is one truth i.e, the flow of apana is reversed. When apana is reversed, the attachment of jataragni and apana is affected and without the vayu present the agni cannot sustain. The apana, when its flow gets reversed meet the prana and bhuta agni at manipuraka chakra. On this transformation, the yogi moves from state of adhibhautika to adhidaivika. when the flow of apana is fully reversed which requires tremendous sadhanas which ever discipline followed, the kundalini will start rising from the mooladhara.

with all the aspects of vayu being discussed under the purview of tantra, the focus is on to the other disciplines. The view of vayu as per the Upanishads also requires special mention. As per the various upanishads like Maitri, Chandogya, the prana is mentioned as inbreath, the apana as outbreath, the samana as middle breath and udana is upbreath. Or in other words, prana is inhalation, apana is exhalation, samana is the duration between prana and apana and udana the extension samana. The natural question about the role of vyana can be explained as samana is the higher form of vyana and in between them is the synthesis of udana.

Now which is the most important vayu for a yogi? The most preliminary texts of yoga to even intermediate texts glorify the role of the vayu : prana. But prana and the exercises to regulate and distribute prana comes just as the preliminary steps. when the prana is balanced with apana, the sushmna awakens and now the most important vayu becomes samana which is the vayu responsible for sushumna breathing. The explanation to this statement is based on the relationship of prana to ida, apana to pingala. the moment ida and pingala are balanced, sushmna gets activated. Suspending of prana and apana to perfection, in the relams of samana, the mid section of the body will force the exit or rising of it through the central canal of sushmna.

As per Chandogya upanishad, the soul and senses is supported in prana, the prana (when its balanced with apana by altering the flow) is supported on apana, the apana inturn is supported by the all pervading vyana and vyana supported by its extention to higher realms, the samana.

Now, we will look into the upapranas based on five movements and the relevance of prana based on prasna and brihadaranyaka upanishads.

with the clearer understanding of each vayus and the relevance lets look into prana with much more detail. prana has five sub classifications based on its movements.
They are : Koorma - which makes the eyes blink Krikara - that which generates hunger, thirst, the coughing and sneezing  Devadatta -  that which causes sleep and yawning  Naga  - that causes hiccups and belching
Dhananjaya - that linger soon after death

According to prashnoupanishad (3.3) , prana is born for the self itself. Like the shadow to a man's body, it remains with the self and at death the magnetic force that makes the body together binding, which is prana itself leaves and makes the body deteriorates.

now if any one gains complete control over prana and its associations along with the other elements, he/she can create his own body from nowhere( like sages and rishi's do) and also can switch between absolute sukshma+karana state to sukshma+karana+stula sharira(ordinary living being) free at will. Since the karana sharira and sukshma manifests to the visual level of sthula, the necessary information required for correctly reproducing the body at will is stored there and can be accessed once you have complete control over these proceedings. Aghora has very powerful sadhanas for achieving this level and also for projections.

The thread of togetherness, prana is being highlighted in Brihadaranyaka upanishad also with similar meanings. According to this upanishad, the prana is the thread on which this world and the whole beings are held together, when an individual dies, the limbs are loosened for the binding thread.

Initiation into Aghora as a Disciple

Dear all, the topics which we have discussed so far are preliminaries pertaining to bhuta shuddi. Although there are practices to do to achieve this, the secrecy of tantric doctrine has to be maintained. But the further topics here will be a little bit more elaborate, but still be devoid of intricate details pertaining to practices.

The initiation ceremony happens in aghora only after the bhuta shuddi. The ceremony happens in a cremation ground on a special day based on the strength of the lunar energy. Eclipses are also considered as an auspicious day, but instead of selecting a random day, the presence of the various planets (jyothish) as per the prasna or the astrological positions of planets in kundali.

The temperament for learning aghora is determined by the positions of various planets prior to even making a disciple embark on bhuta shuddi. So now it’s all about when the ritual should be conducted.

On the predetermined day, between midnight and three in the morning, the aspirant and the aghori reach the cremation ground. The first step is to protect the aspirant from any responses from ethereal beings when invoked by the aghori. So he makes the necessary protection enchantments and then draws a kilana (the bounded space) inside with the disciple sits.

As you all know, the root of aghora sadhanas is on the cosmic force, the goddess in the "ugra" (cogent and potent) form. Various people call these manifestations as tara, bagalamukhi, chinna masta etc.

Depends on the aghori, he/she will invoke the goddess basically with a shava (corpse) sadhana. This sadhana needs a new corpse preferably of a man or woman of young age, died of non natural causes. The corpse has to be naked and positioned and has to be filled in its mouth with various elements (details will not be mentioned) and then the aghori sits on it in a particular direction, wearing the yantra of the goddess he worships and will invoke the goddess with the mantra. The offering to the goddess is meat and liquor which denotes the elements of air and fire respectively.

Depending on the reach of the aghori, the goddess manifests from any form - beast to non visual realms. There are specific indications to understand the success of the sadhana. After all, the aspiring disciple is just a spectator to this event. On successful completion of the sadhana, with the power invoked of the goddess in the essential elemental form of fire and air and subtle levels, the aghori gives the disciple a mantra, and infuses it to the various realm( realms purified by bhuta shuddi). This happens in presence of the funeral pyre of the corpse used for shava sadhana.

The disciple receives the mantra and then an yantra for worship and will commit to a few oaths. this is one of the most common way of initiation.

The disciple will be asked the next morning after his sleep about any dreams and the aghori will interpret the dreams and thus determine whether the subtle level infusion of the mantra was successful or not and there by the initiation.
 The initiated disciple has more tests to face than any one who is in any other discipline. the twofold approach of aghora are 1) rituals with the master and mastering them and 2) develop and identify the powers of a mantra sharira and mantrika mandala.
The rituals of various nature are done along with the guru. The first stage of rituals is to control over the lower ethereal beings. There are classifications of these ethereal beings based on the ages and the level the spirits existence. For the proper understanding of this realm, the guru has to guide you through the various sadhanas as per atharvana veda to achieve the results and understanding.

The internal mantra sharira is recognized by the help of one seed syllable the guru bestows upon the disciple. One such seed on perfection open doors to the infinite realms of understanding. It is like entry pass to the whole different universe.

There are a lot many people who asked me a question why Sanskrit is called language of Gods. For that to be explained correctly we need to go to the deeper levels of understanding of our existence which will be outlined soon.

As I mentioned in the previous posts, we have outlined a lot many generic outlooks on purifying the agni and vayu.These were processes which will give you both the physical and subtle level shuddhi. But only cleaning the deeper levels will not result in complete progress.

Just like the metal which is purified in fire in presence of air, the body is now ready to be energized and finally invoke the manifestations and also one's own divinity. The process of invoking the external manifestations include external rituals which has specific mantras, yantras and tantras required. My humble plan is to outline the sadhanas of

1) various forms of goddesses like tara , chinna masta , bagalamukhi , varthali , prathyangira (atharvana bhadrakali)

The whole rituals right from the nyasas and the mantras for it also along with the various upachara and acharas will be mentioned. Also how the yantras to be drawn and the articles to be offered to the fire will also be mentioned. But I will remove one seed syllable and one detail from the entire sadhana, so that the reader here cannot practice it. :). This whole posts is for understanding not for practices.

2) the yakshini , kinnari , gandarva , apsara sadhanas
3) the shaiva sadhanas except mahakala sadhana and
4) the sadhanas for various lower level ethereal beings like karnapishhachini.
  All these sadhanas will connect the cosmic existence of the manifestations and also the internal existence of the manifestations in subtle realms. But the internal realms have to be strengthened and properly perceived before one attempting the sadhanas alone.

I thought of giving an index to the external sadhanas before proceeding with mantra sharira.

Mantra Sharira

The awareness of the existence of a mantra sharira can be achieved from various literature. But to have one of your own requires constant and rigorous practice. Lets be back to the original question of the divinity of sanskrit. Lets take our attention to the various chakras in the sublte body. Most literature speaks of the basic beeja mantras for the chakras as LAM , VAM , RAM ,YAM , HAM , OM in the order from mooladhara to agna respectively. But when we carefully analyze the various petals we can find that there are inscriptions of various letters in it too. the various letters associated with various chakras and number of petals are as follows

1) Mooladhara - 4 - vam , sham , ssham , sam

2) Swadhistana - 6 - bam , bham ,mam , yam , ram , lam

3) Manipuraka - 10 - pham , dam , dham , nam , tam ,tham, ddam , dham , nam , pam

4) Anahatha - 12 - kam , kham , gam ,gham,ngam, cham ,chham ,jam ,jham, nyam, tam, tham

5) vishuddhi - 16 - am , aam , im , eem ,um , oom, rim ,reem, lrim, lreem , em ,aim , om, aum , am , ah

6) agna - 2 - ham , ksham.

Now you can find that the letters of the alphabets are present even with certain repetitions in the main centers. the repetitions of letters are just for establishing the progressive connection of one energy center to another energy center.

Lets take individual letters. every letter has a bindu and a physical representation. this bindu adds energy to the ordinary letter. based on the nature of the underlying letter , the nature of the diety representing the beeja also varies.

For eg lets take the agna chakra . it has two petals with inscriptions of ham on the left petal and ksham on the right petal. the beeja for cosmic akasha and the shakti together here into oneness. thus every chakra with the sanskrit syllables with bindu can be interpreted and used for various purposes in accordance with the respective deities.

kula - akula - cakra and understand the relevance of sanskrit

Now lets look into the kula - akula - cakra and understand the relevance of Sanskrit. A lot of people here may disagree on making the secret doctrines public. But i feel same alike of what mentioned in Mahanirvana tantra; in kali yuga, tantra should be discussed and disclosed openly for people. but still the success depends on finding a competent guru. so i will still remove a few minor details which will make the reader just one person who is aware of this and not a sadhak :).

Kula- Akula-cakra categories syllables based on the five elements. the categories are wind(air),  fire, earth, water and ether. The syllables are respectively allotted to the various categories and respective intonations. The Kula-Akula-Cakra is as follows

Wind - a, a( strong pronounce) , e , ka , ca, ta ( stress on t) , ta , pa , ya , sa ( stress on s)

fire - i , i ( strong pronounce ), ai , kha , cha , tha ( stress on t) , tha , pha , ra , ksa ( not a strict letter in Sanskrit , but serves as a substitute for anusvara )

earth - u, u (strong pronounce) , o , ga , ja , da ( stress on t d) , da , ba , la , la( gap filler to that left as an omission of visarga)

water - r (strong pronounce) , r ( double emphasis) , au , gha, jha, dha ( stress on d) , dha , bha , va , sa

Ether - I (strong pronounce) , I ( emphasis and strong pronounce) , am ( stress on m) , na ( stress on n), na , na (emphasis on n) , na, ma , sa ( mild on s), ha

Every disciple based on the nature of him/her is given a syllable and hence its become his/her practice to maximize the effect with the deity and understand the subtle relevance of the other beejas. Just like all aghori's , we consider Kula as mild and not so fast and not superior :)) and also less intense than aghora. Let them believe they are superior forgetting the fact that nothing is superior or inferior in the eyes of the lord.

every disciple is given a beej mantra based on his or her tenacity and temperament by the guru. every beeja has a diety , a tatwa like fire , earth , water etc and also a mandala ( space). every element in the pancha bhuta are related and are ordered based on the level of existence. so gaining control over the various elements and the respective siddhis and overpowering them in essential self is the next step. :))

now the recital of mantra will activate a specific nadi. in every mantric discipline , we recite a mantra after the necessary pranayama. for each mantra we do an anustana. such like three anustanas form a purushacharana. with the purushacharana and the necessary percentages ( which i do not want to mention) will be done as marjara , tarpana and homa. after this , the person will obtain the siddhi. so whats the mantrika mandala?

the mantrika mandala is the space thus one create with the nadi's activated and controlled and use one's body to habitat the respective energy. this energy can be released for various purposes or amplify it using various sadhanas. this is the base for the tricks which people do in black magic even. but our goal is higher , we are here to realize our self in aghora.

Now the specific mantra on proper initiation and proper practice will make the person completely aware of the tatwa. most master gives a mantra for a satwic mind pertaining to akasha mandala. for a rajasic mind , its good to give a agni mandala mantra and for a tamasic mind a water mandala mantra. since earth is so stable , people wont try to control it directly as it make time of years to lifetimes.

the beauty of gaining control over the higher mandala like akasha is that , the aspirant with a little effort can control the other lower elements like fire and water. since the akasha mandala is attached to the agna chakra and the syallable OM is attributed to it, i would like to tell that , this is the prime reason why OM is the most widely used mantra in our times.

Purifying thus the subtle levels of existence and energizing to the threshold will decide the success of external sadhanas . the rise of mantrika mandala will eventually make the various chakras accessible to the adept. Most of the "softer paths" always recommend the chakras and thereby kundalini activated slowly. But when an aghori increases his mantrika mandala to a certain level he focuses that energy so intense to the various energy centers and make them activated. this comes with tremendous bodily responses.There can be loss of appetite for days, cannot withstand the body heat etc etc But as i mentioned earlier , aghora is about do or die doctrine. But this is always the last stage for any discipline.

Now lets discuss on the external sadhanas a little bit as an introduction. aghori sadhanas are basically routed to athavana veda and tantric sects. but its refined and more focused on non material aspects. just like a normal tantric ritual in essential self or a abhicarini in the realms of atharvana veda , the results obtained are used for ascent higher in terms of material realms. aghori's do not believe in perfections or siddhi's , for them its just a road block to progress. so transmute such material gains into spiritual gains is what aghori's do when they perform external rituals.

when i am outlining the concept of each sadhana , i will mention separately what a normal tantirc or vedi will demand or bestowed upon with (basically kamya rites) and what an aghori asks for or command for as the blessing.

So all that matters here is what an aghori demands and what a tantric demands?