"An aghori lives in a cremation ground and cooks his food on the funeral pyre, before which he also meditates. His begging bowl is a male human skull. He eats and drinks anything, even his own urine and faeces and human flesh. The loincloth is his only garment, he smears his body and matted locks with ashes from the funeral pyre. He uses dead men's shrouds for bedding.

After being ceremonially initiated with liquor, food collected from the lower castes and a secret mantra, the initiate does maun sadhana (silent meditation) for 41 days in a cremation ground. After this, he awakens his inner light through the ritual of alakha jagana. As his inner energy focuses, he spontaneously calls 'alakha' even as his body shudders uncontrollably. He is a devotee of Shiva, also known as Aghora ('not terrible'). He turns dharma on its head; if all life is Brahman, all is divine.

There are some eternal lessons to be learned from aghoris. Surely death, decay and decomposition are as integral to existence as love, life and laughter. To feel this deeply, to transcend fear and disgust as much as greed and anger, to feel that all that lives is holy, as does the aghori, must be truly ennobling. What is it that leads some to live lives of such severe penance, of such bizarre practices when more moderate paths are at hand? They say there are as many paths as there are seekers."