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Thread: Juna Akhara Order

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    Juna Akhara Order

    Namaste

    Today I had recall of a brief encounter with an initiate of Juna Akhara in Kashi Varanasi. This is a very interesting order, and my first reaction despite language barriers was that of almost feeling as if this One was as a Saiva brother in soul.

    It occurred to me, that many Western Hindus have never heard of Juna Akhara order, many of Whom become Naga Sadhus. I could never aspire to their renunciation, to be a Sadhu is no minor matter. Nor do I know a lot of this order, other than that an obvious spiritual power is in their possession.

    I am wondering if there are members who are part of this order at any level. I doubt much response, again this forum uses English as the primary language in script and in communication of the forum, many of this order beside not participating in many “modern conveniences” are not often using English.

    But by chance, who knows, there could be some insight from One, and this is of interest to me because I sense now among “Western Hindus” a new phase of this journey which is now looking towards such and these type of Sadhus. I sense this from conversations among other avenues outside of this particular forum.

    They recently had participation in the Kumbha Mela. You can search and read of their participation, you will find such renunciates of the highest spiritual domain and path. Some will go about naked, or partially naked and in ashes – very much they make me think of Lord Shiva. There are some of Juna Akhara Who do not go about naked, but are Gurus who take any Hindu, they do not care about caste, gender, they welcome the sincere who seek Sannyas, and they teach of the Ekadandi of the Dasanami tradition and other such commitments.


    I know little of them, though as I have noted I am a great, avid admirer of Trailinga Swami who shares much with such order(s). But I am also vastly ignorant of their Holy Order(s), yet extremely of interest as I see is now emerging from others as well as if there is a new phase emerging and aiming at moksha.

    For example there is Sri Avdheshananda Giri Maharaj, Acharya Mahamandaleshwar of the Juna Akhara order.



    Here is an interesting video of Avdheshananda I found, he is entitled “Acharya Mahamandaleshwar” of this same order that came to my thoughts today, there are some English commentary in the video. I notice a Westerner in the video dressed as member of the Naga Sannyasis named Baba Rampuri.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZTRXIGjCDg

    Anyway, there are other examples of this Order. What I also found is that this sect (of which there are other orders) do not practice “by birth only Varna”. Birth into a varna can come by good or bad karma, but it is not what rules the house of varna and in this order I am finding that whatever varna the Guru has, so the sincere practitioner to that Teacher takes the varna of that Teacher in that very same life, no matter what birth circumstances is the seeker or whether even such has any such varna known by birth or parentage at all, it is a question of the quality of one's state at that time and formative in nature. So obviously, this is another reason this order is of great interest to Westerners.

    Perhaps there are those who have been involved in this order at some level? Please, the purpose of the thread is input from those who actually know and welcome Juna Akhara and would be willing to shed further light. Please no “guru bashing”. Thank you!

    Om Namah Sivaya

  2. #2

    Re: Juna Akhara Order

    Namaste Shiva Fan ji,

    I recently just came back from 3 months stay in India and spent the time living on the banks of Ganga Ma. Just south of Devaparayag there is one small Mandir with such Beautiful deities of Saraswati Devi, Kali Ma and Laxmi Devi, hopefully I get the spelling right the name of the Mandir is Bogleeswara Mahesh Mandir, where there is Shiva Linga installed by Adi Shankara Himself. There I met one sannyasa by the name of Govinda Giri Maharaja, he is affectionately known as Baccha Baba due to him being with them from an early age, previously before joining the Juna Akara he did 3 years service in Gurudwara when he was 8 years old, I never asked his age and its hard for me to guess but I would speculate he is now in his mid forties, a disciple of Prem Giri Maharaja who is his mantra Guru, they have 5 Gurus altogether, I forget the function of each one of the Gurus, but it will be specific and unified. They have a whole network of Ashrams all over India, and I was invited to do padayatra with one Tyagi and was told I would see the real India, but time did not allow.

    My Hindi is scratchy at best and his English was OK ish but not great, in between Sanskrit, English and Hindi, sign and body language we built up a very good friendship and was able to communicate, I stayed with him and his Guru Bhai Chutu Baba. He explained so many things to me about Juna Akara and told me they are the oldest and most revered Sampradaya in India, the top most Authority on Sanatana Dharma above such other Sampradayas as Nath Samparadaya, they are the Gurus of the gurus and align their Sampradaya to Guru Datta.

    The order is split into 4, Tyagis or renunciates being the highest and the other 3 orders have different functions, from Brahmacari to house holders and people in high positions in the Government, in fact he told me that Juna Akara is the Guru of the government of India. In Varnashi at the Kashi temple they apparently have all the original texts from all traditions, from Adi Shankara, to Buddha, Mahavira and Kabira, and anything outside are copies, and the original texts are kept secret and not available to anyone apart from the ones who look after them.

    Due to poor physical memory I forget the exact names of each of the 4 orders within Juna Akara, Giri is either the top one the Tyagis or the second one, 2 are mostly Sannyasa or Naga Babas and Avadhutas and Aghori, the other 2 are mainly within society and normal life, as I understood they are the soul of Sanatana Dharma and the final Authority. From what was explained they are totally non sectarian and universal in their understanding of Sanatana Dharma, all other Sampradayas are considered as family, even Gaudia whose Sampradaya is not always accepted as genuine, they accept as a Dasa Sampradaya and considered Sri Chaitainya Mahaprabhu as Bhagavat Bhagavan, or simple put God Himself in the guise of a pure devotee.

    Mainly due to the spirit of Garhwal being more immersed in the Puranas he spoke mostly knowledge in the spirit of the puranas, and as long or short a time I have been in India I have never heard anyone explain the Puranas in the way he did, it literally blew me away, such depth and clarity, and as he said his knowledge is not technical. Baccha Baba Govinda Giri Maharaja, is not very literal and may not have good reading skills, as he told me, he is jungle baba, but his oral understanding and knowledge was as pure as I have heard and I could never never even attempt, not that I would want to measure his depth of understanding and pure love for India or rather as he says Old India or the true essence of Sanatana Dharma.

    My time there was priceless, and I felt very blessed to be accepted by him, he was always so pleased at my initiated name and used to call me the Mahatma Bhagavat and introduced me to people who visited him very proudly as Markandeya Dasa the Mahatma, I am just saying how nice we developed our friendship with each other. Although I am not so sure if I would be accepted so fondly universally in their order as some are very fierce, especially if they have done years of Tapasya.

    Baba Ram Puri is the most famous westerner to be accepted into their order, I am not sure how many other westerners or non Indians are in their order, but its very few and as far as I know only Indians are allowed to be initiates in these times.

    i would like to take this chance to tell one story. The Mandir is about a 2 kilometer walk down the mountain side from the nearest village and rests just above in a safe position for when Ganga Ma heightens in rainy season. 3 older women came down one day on their daily rounds of collecting leaves for the cows, they used to visit quite often and he would serve them tea/chia while they worked. On this day all 3 of them had large brass basins for storing water, very beautifully decorated. Now the walk from nearest village is not to hard but in no way easy and these ladies were in the age range from around 65- 80 as far as I could tell, they walked down to the banks of Ganga Ma which is a bit like cliff to fill the brass basins, not easy to walk, they filled the brass pots, put them on their heads and then walked up the temple and did Shiva Puja, the pots are not small, each one would perhaps hold 5-10 liters. After they did the pujas to Shiva Lingham, Hanuman Ji and Sarawasti Devi, Kali Ma and Laxmi Devi Baccha Baba served them tea and started to talk about Lord Rama. The ladies were so empowered by this. They paid their respects to Baba and then approached me with folded hands and each gave me 10 rupees , I could see in their eyes a purity that was unstained and smile of complete innocence and joy. The whole thing touched me very deeply, when they left I said to Baccha Baba that to me this is Old India, he smiled and agreed. That was my last day in his place and I then walked and hitched back to Laxman Jhula and then Haridwara and Delhi, with the strong spirit of Garhwal and Old India, such a blessing.

    Garhwal in places is still in Satya Yuga, although the business development is changing that and the terrace farms are becoming dry and not used as the youth are being sent to city in search of money, but the place is still so pure, Ganga Ma is in her full glory, for the whole 3 months I almost only ever drank directly from Ganga Ma, and apart from one nights visit to Danda Nagaraja temple Mella I stayed on the banks 7 weks in a gufas called Ananta Shesha and or just outside on the banks, where ever I would drop, and I think by doing this I rewarded to meet Baccha Baba from Juna Akara who is now and always will be a very dear friend, who showed me the spirit of Old India and Sanatana Dharma.
    Last edited by markandeya 108 dasa; 11 May 2016 at 06:10 AM.

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