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To give this amorphous gathering of devotee the force of a social goal, on the 21st of September 1961 Baba laid the foundation of the organization called Shri Sarveshwari Samooh in the holy city of Banaras, an organization with a mandate to fight social evils like leprosy, dowry and illiteracy. Especially with reference to leprosy, it must be mentioned that it is a dreaded disease in India which even the government of India does not have adequate treat. People who become afflicted with this disease are often ousted from home and left to fend for themselves in the streets. It is not just a physical disease that rots the body; it is also a social disease where the whole family of the patient is often stigmatized as ‘being punished for their sins’ by suffering through an occurrence of leprosy in their house hold. Given the aghora practice of non discrimination and treating even the most disfigured, downtrodden and persecuted as an equal, Baba had no difficulty stepping in to make his own those who had been thrown out by own families. To fulfil the goals of the organization, Baba started an ashram and a leprosy hospital by the name of ‘Awadhut Bhagwan Ram kusht sewa Ashram’ (The Awadhut Bhagwan Ram Leprosy service Ashram) at parao, Varanasi. After the society was founded, there were initially no funds to run it, and its members would go out begging for operational resources. Some would go to the villages and beg for food; meals were prepared with whatever they got in charity. Usually even if there was enough rice, they would not even have any spices to put into it. They would cook the rice mix the leftover rice water with salt, and eat it. They would go and ask for bricks for the hospital building, then carry it to the hospital site and put each bricks begged atop the other, with Baba helping to build the wards for the patients. Despite these trials, the society members began to know their special members began to know their special purpose in life, giving them pure, joy that convinced them that this was Baba’s way of training them to live a simple contented life. In the beginning society members would go and pick up leprosy patients from the streets of Banaras. Two or three thatched huts were initially constructed to house the residents and to store and prepare the herbs to make medicine. Members would bring bark of the neem tree, jasmine leaves and whatever Baba asked them to; they would then grind them on a stone and cooked the resultant balm in mustard oil. When the medicine was ready, the wounds of the patients would be washed, then filled with the balm and tied in with bandage. It worked as a fast antiseptic, also drying their wounds. Those patients who observed discipline in what they ate and drink would heal very quickly.
The programs of the society included serving the leprosy patients and to inculcate a better social consciousness within the greater society. The aims of the society were simple but powerful when practiced in daily life: to consider the whole of humanity as one’s kin; to have a respectful sentiment towards women; to encourage courage little boys and girls towards progress in their lives, and to never behave cruelly manner with them; to donate a little once a year to the society; to conduct life passage rites according to the methods observed in the ashram without placing strictures on their family members to do the same; to help members of the society in need; to pursue one’s respective business honestly; to meditate daily to the best of one’s ability on the mantra given by the ashram.
Shri Sarveshwari Samooh progressed rapidly under Baba’s direction, soon becoming a refuge for hundreds of thousands to get free leprosy treatment. People began to donate resources and land to the ashram. Maharaja Vijaybhushan Singh Ju dev of jashpur in Madhya Pradesh donated three villages from his estate, where Baba established several ashrams. Slowly the ashram built boundary wall and the hospital developed better facilities to produce its own ayurvedic medicine for leprosy as well as for other common ailments. Enough agricultural land was donated to Baba so the ashram could cultivate the fields and harvest enough grains, cereals and vegetables to become self sufficient. The Guinness book of world records lists the achievements of the society in December 15, 1998, under the little “Most leprosy patients treated’’, as follows:
The Awadhoot Bhagwan Ram kusht sewa Ashram Hospital at parao, India, has treated more leprosy patients than any other hospital. The total number of registered patients since 1961 has been 99045 with full leprosy and 147,503 with partial leprosy all whom were fully cured. The hospital was established in 1961 and receives no government funding it runs entirely from public donations and gifts. Patients are treated free of change using ayurvedic herbal medicines and the fakiri system, a method invented by the India religious saints.
(Http //www Guinness world records com).
Baba also started a drive to eliminate the curse of dowry from Hindu marriages. All members of the organization who chose to have the marriage of their children performed in the ashram had to do it in a very simple manner, without the expense of dowry. With that, Baba also started a primary school for disadvantaged children and a fight for social equality, with the goal of eliminating the ills of the caste system.
Baba still travelled extensively, with sometimes to manage the various ashrams he had established in Uttar Pradesh, Bilhar, and Madhya Pradesh and sometimes to visit holy shrines in different parts of India. Baba visited several times the Himalayan shrines of Haridwar, Rishikesh, Badrinath and kedarnath, the Girnar mountain complex in Gujarat, the numerous shrines and pilgrimage places in the states of West Bengal and Assam, as well as the temples of south India. In 1968 Baba visited Nepal and the temple of pashupatinath in Kathmandu, as well as holy places in Sikkim and the independent Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. One year later, in 1969, his devotees in Afghanistan arranged for him to visit Kabul, kandhar and heart, and Tehran in Iran. He was also invited for a visit by his devotees then living in Mexico. In 1972 Baba visited Mexico and toured through Mexico City, Acapulco and lguala city.
As the Shri Sarveshwari Samooh developed, so did the number of Baba’s devotees increase exponentially. This led to further expansions of the various ashrams and more responsibilities to fulfil. Those who came in contact with Baba soon realized that, even while doing the most mundane activities, Baba was actually trying to do something good for whomever with him. He would through his spiritual powers, on some of their problems upon himself, and expiate them in his own body. As a result, later in his life Baba became sick with a number of ailments; most prominent amongst these was that his kidneys stopped functioning. His doctors in India advised him to visit the United States for a kidney transplant operation in 1986. He was operated at Mount Sinai hospital in New York in 1987, but that transplant failed within a year. Baba had another transplant operation performed on him in 1988 and his doctors at Mount Sinai advised him to visit New York every year for an annual check up. That kidney lasted until November 1992, when Baba finally relinquished his mortal frame at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.
In pursuit of his social aims, Baba would speak to all those who came to him. All were welcome to him, and with all he discussed even the mundane of their concerns. Baba’s teachings were, therefore, imparted more through everyday conversations rather than through sermons. Later in his life, when the Sarveshwari Samooh turned into a huge organization and people wanted him to give talks, Baba began to do so, and some of those words have been published in various books, as well as the newsletter published by the organization ‘Sarveshwari Times! It was during his time spent at the Mount Sinai Hospital that Baba asked me to compile his worlds into a book that will have the essence of all his messages, first in Hindi, and then in English. The Hindi book was published in 1991 as ‘Aghor Vachan Shastra’ a year before Baba left his mortal frame at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. This is the English version of the same book written in blog which will benefit all the readers who wants to know any detail about the ‘Aghor’.
To give this amorphous gathering of devotee the force of a social goal, on the 21st of September 1961 Baba laid the foundation of the organization called Shri Sarveshwari Samooh in the holy city of Banaras, an organization with a mandate to fight social evils like leprosy, dowry and illiteracy. Especially with reference to leprosy, it must be mentioned that it is a dreaded disease in India which even the government of India does not have adequate treat. People who become afflicted with this disease are often ousted from home and left to fend for themselves in the streets. It is not just a physical disease that rots the body; it is also a social disease where the whole family of the patient is often stigmatized as ‘being punished for their sins’ by suffering through an occurrence of leprosy in their house hold. Given the aghora practice of non discrimination and treating even the most disfigured, downtrodden and persecuted as an equal, Baba had no difficulty stepping in to make his own those who had been thrown out by own families. To fulfil the goals of the organization, Baba started an ashram and a leprosy hospital by the name of ‘Awadhut Bhagwan Ram kusht sewa Ashram’ (The Awadhut Bhagwan Ram Leprosy service Ashram) at parao, Varanasi. After the society was founded, there were initially no funds to run it, and its members would go out begging for operational resources. Some would go to the villages and beg for food; meals were prepared with whatever they got in charity. Usually even if there was enough rice, they would not even have any spices to put into it. They would cook the rice mix the leftover rice water with salt, and eat it. They would go and ask for bricks for the hospital building, then carry it to the hospital site and put each bricks begged atop the other, with Baba helping to build the wards for the patients. Despite these trials, the society members began to know their special members began to know their special purpose in life, giving them pure, joy that convinced them that this was Baba’s way of training them to live a simple contented life. In the beginning society members would go and pick up leprosy patients from the streets of Banaras. Two or three thatched huts were initially constructed to house the residents and to store and prepare the herbs to make medicine. Members would bring bark of the neem tree, jasmine leaves and whatever Baba asked them to; they would then grind them on a stone and cooked the resultant balm in mustard oil. When the medicine was ready, the wounds of the patients would be washed, then filled with the balm and tied in with bandage. It worked as a fast antiseptic, also drying their wounds. Those patients who observed discipline in what they ate and drink would heal very quickly.
The programs of the society included serving the leprosy patients and to inculcate a better social consciousness within the greater society. The aims of the society were simple but powerful when practiced in daily life: to consider the whole of humanity as one’s kin; to have a respectful sentiment towards women; to encourage courage little boys and girls towards progress in their lives, and to never behave cruelly manner with them; to donate a little once a year to the society; to conduct life passage rites according to the methods observed in the ashram without placing strictures on their family members to do the same; to help members of the society in need; to pursue one’s respective business honestly; to meditate daily to the best of one’s ability on the mantra given by the ashram.
Shri Sarveshwari Samooh progressed rapidly under Baba’s direction, soon becoming a refuge for hundreds of thousands to get free leprosy treatment. People began to donate resources and land to the ashram. Maharaja Vijaybhushan Singh Ju dev of jashpur in Madhya Pradesh donated three villages from his estate, where Baba established several ashrams. Slowly the ashram built boundary wall and the hospital developed better facilities to produce its own ayurvedic medicine for leprosy as well as for other common ailments. Enough agricultural land was donated to Baba so the ashram could cultivate the fields and harvest enough grains, cereals and vegetables to become self sufficient. The Guinness book of world records lists the achievements of the society in December 15, 1998, under the little “Most leprosy patients treated’’, as follows:
The Awadhoot Bhagwan Ram kusht sewa Ashram Hospital at parao, India, has treated more leprosy patients than any other hospital. The total number of registered patients since 1961 has been 99045 with full leprosy and 147,503 with partial leprosy all whom were fully cured. The hospital was established in 1961 and receives no government funding it runs entirely from public donations and gifts. Patients are treated free of change using ayurvedic herbal medicines and the fakiri system, a method invented by the India religious saints.
(Http //www Guinness world records com).
Baba also started a drive to eliminate the curse of dowry from Hindu marriages. All members of the organization who chose to have the marriage of their children performed in the ashram had to do it in a very simple manner, without the expense of dowry. With that, Baba also started a primary school for disadvantaged children and a fight for social equality, with the goal of eliminating the ills of the caste system.
Baba still travelled extensively, with sometimes to manage the various ashrams he had established in Uttar Pradesh, Bilhar, and Madhya Pradesh and sometimes to visit holy shrines in different parts of India. Baba visited several times the Himalayan shrines of Haridwar, Rishikesh, Badrinath and kedarnath, the Girnar mountain complex in Gujarat, the numerous shrines and pilgrimage places in the states of West Bengal and Assam, as well as the temples of south India. In 1968 Baba visited Nepal and the temple of pashupatinath in Kathmandu, as well as holy places in Sikkim and the independent Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. One year later, in 1969, his devotees in Afghanistan arranged for him to visit Kabul, kandhar and heart, and Tehran in Iran. He was also invited for a visit by his devotees then living in Mexico. In 1972 Baba visited Mexico and toured through Mexico City, Acapulco and lguala city.
As the Shri Sarveshwari Samooh developed, so did the number of Baba’s devotees increase exponentially. This led to further expansions of the various ashrams and more responsibilities to fulfil. Those who came in contact with Baba soon realized that, even while doing the most mundane activities, Baba was actually trying to do something good for whomever with him. He would through his spiritual powers, on some of their problems upon himself, and expiate them in his own body. As a result, later in his life Baba became sick with a number of ailments; most prominent amongst these was that his kidneys stopped functioning. His doctors in India advised him to visit the United States for a kidney transplant operation in 1986. He was operated at Mount Sinai hospital in New York in 1987, but that transplant failed within a year. Baba had another transplant operation performed on him in 1988 and his doctors at Mount Sinai advised him to visit New York every year for an annual check up. That kidney lasted until November 1992, when Baba finally relinquished his mortal frame at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.
In pursuit of his social aims, Baba would speak to all those who came to him. All were welcome to him, and with all he discussed even the mundane of their concerns. Baba’s teachings were, therefore, imparted more through everyday conversations rather than through sermons. Later in his life, when the Sarveshwari Samooh turned into a huge organization and people wanted him to give talks, Baba began to do so, and some of those words have been published in various books, as well as the newsletter published by the organization ‘Sarveshwari Times! It was during his time spent at the Mount Sinai Hospital that Baba asked me to compile his worlds into a book that will have the essence of all his messages, first in Hindi, and then in English. The Hindi book was published in 1991 as ‘Aghor Vachan Shastra’ a year before Baba left his mortal frame at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. This is the English version of the same book written in blog which will benefit all the readers who wants to know any detail about the ‘Aghor’.
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