If Truth Be Told: A Monk's Memoir

by Om Swami

He had spent eight years in Kamakhya, the foremost tantra peetha, the land of tantric practices. In line with the austerities of hatha yoga, he had also done a number of practices including pancha-agni-dhoona, where the practitioner draws a circle, seats himself in the middle and lights a fire in the four directions along the circumference of the circle; the fifth fire, the sun, burns above. Baba would do this for forty days during the height of summer from noon until 4 p.m. Pancha-agni-dhoona bestows upon the practitioner complete control over the fire elements in the body. In the rainy season, Baba practised jala vihara, water wandering, during which he simply lived under a tree. In the winter, he did jala dhara, water flow, by sitting under a leaking pot of ice-cold water. He would sit naked while 108 pots of water would be poured over his head from midnight until 4 a.m. These methods help the seeker gain complete control over the water element in his body. Baba had also done the khadeshwari sadhana, where he did not sit down for nine years at a stretch. For more than forty years, he had been on phalahara, a gluten-free diet. Since starting his special diet, he had only drunk water from the Ganga. He was given the title of ‘tantra samrat’, emperor of tantric practices, by an elite congregation of tantriks.