♪ i came to india to do a show about hinduism. about karma. reincarnation. the caste system. and a little known hindu sect called the aghori. >> what's happening now? >> i don't know. >> that's when things got out of hand.

>> pretty sure that's not what i was looking for. >> reza aslan is a aught author and scholar. >> best selling author. >> scholar, muslim, american. >> what is your reaction? >> i've been studying the world's religions for 20 years. and now, i'm going to live them. religions are embedded in culture. in fact, they're inextricable from it. in many ways religion and culture are one in the same.

which is why religions have such influence over societies, for good and for bad. think of women's rights in islam or capitalism in christianity. in hinduism, there is a religiously defined social construct that essentially categorizes everyone in indian society. this is called the caste system. there is a sect of hinduism called the aghori, which while technically 500 years old, is now trying to up end the caste system embedded in hinduism spirituality. they are challenging the fabric of indian society. hindus believe in reincarnation. the idea that after death we are reborn again and again. each rebirth is determined by the karma that you accumulate from your previous life.

karma can be based on things like your words, thoughts or deeds. but it can also be affected by hindu notions of purity and pollution. if i achieve enough good karma, this my next birth will be higher than this one, until finally i achieve liberation, moksha from the ikele of birth and rebirth. karma can work the other way too, if i accumulate bad karma, i will have to pay the consequence of that in the next life. there's no such thing as hell in hinduism, but there is something that's almost as bad. i could be reborn as an untouchable. the untouchables, also known as the dalit occupy the lowest

levels in india's caste system. the brahmen are at the top, the untouchables at the very bottom. the untouchables take care of society's most polluting tasks, cleaning the sewer, collecting the garbage. and in this city of varanasi, disposing of the dead. the ganges is not just a river, it's a goddess, the mother of india. she's the embodiment of all sacred waters. the descent from heaven has made her a vehicle from the assent of the soul back up to heaven. the dead are burned all along her shores in the ghats, the cremation grounds. the ashes are then dumped into the water, allowing the soul to

achieve instant liberation. it's kind of a shortcut, a way out of the endless cycle of death and rebirth. this belief has transformed the holy city of varanasi, one of the oldest cities in the world, into a vast crematorium. there are 87 of these ghats all along the banks of the ganges. their fires burn continuingly. every ghat cremates 100 bodies a day. the bodies are cremated by an untouchable caste called the doms. so you were born here, right? >> oh yes, i was born here. i've actually grown up swimming

across the river and coming back every day. >> is that right? >> this is how i've grown up. >> i understand that a lot of people come here at the end of their lives hoping to die. in varanasi. it's sort of like a city of the dead in that respect. >> that's so correct. and there is a family of the doms who take care of an eternal fire which is burning there for ages. nobody knows how long it's burning. and these family of the doms there, they are the owners of this fire. and everybody has to come to the cremation ground. to get cremated. so they are indispensable part of the society. but they are considered to be untouchables. they are considered to be an outcast. >> no one becomes an untouchable or dalit by accident.

being born a dom is a result of bad karma, acquired through the pollution that you accumulated in your previous life. but because there's nothing more polluting in hinduism than a corpse, the dom continue to accumulate pollution and bad karma, lifetime after lifetime. it's a vicious never ending cycle. how long have you been working on the ghats? [ speaking foreign language ]

>> i understand that your wife passed away not too long ago. did you yourself take care of the body? [ speaking foreign language ]

♪ >> hinduism is a beautiful religion. i've always been fascinated by it. but i just can't wrap my head around this notion that there are people who simply because of their birth or because they did things in a previous life are then condemned to live life as an untouchable. i just -- i can't wrap my head around it.

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taking the meatballs. in india, it's good to be a brammen. they're at the top of the caste system, closest to being free, living what could be their final life on earth. >> what role does karma play in this attempt at liberation?

>> in the previous part, whatever you have done, it has imprinted your mind. >> karma accumulates and helps you on the path up and life after life, birth after birth until you finally achieve liberation? >> of course, of course. >> so if you are born in a lower caste, how do you achieve karma? how do you achieve liberation? >> look, if persons who are living on this earth, they're not equal. they're not equal. >> although the indian constitution has outlawed caste discrimination, in practice, life for most dalits in india can be bleak and unjust. dalits are often barred from entering hindu temples, from selling produce in local market, from touching food or water at common gatherings, from entering nondalit homes.

54% of dalit women have been physically assaulted. 23% have been raped. only 1% of these cases has ended in conviction. in the last few decades as the indian economy has boomed, life has improved for the untouchables, particularly in large urban centers like delhi and mumbai. but in a religious city like varanasi, caste discrimination is still very much alive. this professor teaches journalism at the university in varanasi. so much of the hindu experience is about the caste system, can you talk about what that means? >> caste system is the only a tool for the people invested into this. the rich people, they will

always use the means to divide the people to rule. so now i can only say that we should overcome some day. we get out of this menace of cas castism. in varanasi there is a philosophy, a school known as agoura. the followers of that philosophy are known as aghoris. aghoris believes accept chicken are human flesh. >> so in a way they're rejecting the very concept of caste? >> we are the least to decide because they believe that god

has created. lord god made them. >> i've heard of aghori before, they reject the notion of purity and pollution and so they have these things that they do, these kinds of outrageous actions to prove that nothing can pollute you so they'll drink the water straight. from the ganges. they actually eat corpses, human flesh. they have been known to sleep on corpses, meditate on corpses, they do everything that would make your standard everyday hindu freak out, all to sort of prove that nothing outside of you can make you impure. nothing can pollute you. that, you know -- that god is within you. and so god can't be polluted, so then neither can you. they're not all that popular.

i have to say because of some of these actions. we're at lalibaba's ash ram. lalibaba is the most famous aghori sect in varanasi. everybody knows about him. >> welcome. >> thank you. >> come. this is a temple. >> while most aghori ascetic nomads, he hosts guests. age mellows him out. he no longer takes part of the theatrics. these days he spends his time meditating and doing yoga, subsisting on a diet of nothing but honey, which he drinks out of a human skull.

>> there is my special room where i am doing aghora work here. >> he invited me into his inner sanctum which is part tempo which is part hindu rave complete with a laser light show. can you tell me, where did you get the skulls? the skulls come out of the water? >> yeah. >> yeah. this is a holy person's skull. his name is [ bleep ] [ bleep ]. >> that's [ bleep ]? >> yeah. probably eight murder, eight rape. and most important is eating the food in the skull. >> why eat from the skull? >> there is lots of karma with the skull. powerful. you see, i'm 60 years old. you see just like bodies like 30 years.

you're going to fight me? >> no, i do not want to fight you. >> you could try. >> that's okay. i've heard that some aghori eat rotted meat, rotted food, even human flesh. >> one person told me after mourning, human face, body flesh is so tasty. so sweet and so tasty. >> so you're not worried that you can be defiled or polluted or that you'll be impure if you touch the dead? >> with bodies burning, if anybody gets this ashes in his body, power is coming from there. >> what kind of power? >> this is secret things. only disciple who are special can learn. if you want to know more, you can go to ganga.

get water from ganga if possible and three drops of ganga water to drink. >> he wants me to bathe in the water and then he wants me to drink it. and you may not know this about me, but i have -- i'm like a germaphobe. i -- this is -- i don't want to be an american asshole or anything, but there is no way i'm getting in this water. this is one of the most polluted bodies of water in the world. i mean, forget about like the ashes that are dumped in here, i actually have already seen three different cow carcasses, one i think was a cow carcass. it had a backbone. i couldn't even figure it out, floating in this water. there are millions of liters of human waste, sewage, untreated sewage that gets dumped into this water at varanasi every day. i'm not kidding. yesterday, i saw a guy take off his pants and literally just

take a shit directly into the water. right into the water. it's basically just a giant toilet. no. i am not getting in this water. and i am definitely drinking it. ♪ oh! the things you say ♪ ♪ oh! ♪ ♪ you're unbelievab♪e ♪ you're unbelievab♪e

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about bathing in the ganges, he has agreed to purify me in his home using tap water. >> there is one key. guru open the key. >> so i have to have a guru? >> yes. >> on the other side of the river ganges are groups of aghori nomads. hopefully one of them will take me on. >> namaste. >> namaste. >> can i join the fire? >> please sit down.

>> i came to learn about what it means to be aghori. >> he says go take a bath and he will give you the sacred words to how to be an aghori. >> ganges? okay. i knew he was going to say that. oh [ bleep ], let's just do this. all right. here. aghor literally means without fear. without fear of pollution. without fear of taboo. and so it's time for me to put

aside any fear i may have of germs and disease. to simply accept this experience for what it is.

it was peaceful in there. especially seeing the burning ghats and those ashes being dumped in here and mingling with my body. it was kind of a profound thought. also a little bit gross. >> he ask you do you believe the god of the cremation, that's lord shiva. do you believe in him? >> yes. yes. why the color black? >> he says, the aghoris in our sect, we use only the color black. >> thank you. >> please sit down here. he want you to sit here.

he wants you to sit close to him so that he can protect you. he's asking, will you be his disciple? >> yes. >> what ash is this? >> that's from the cremation. ashes of the dead.

>> what was that? >> some kind of a lubricant from inside the skull. >> like a brain? >> exactly. that's one of the ways to practice aghori. >> i came here to ask you some questions. maybe later. maybe a little bit later. >> he said the god from

cremation, lord shiva, he gives them something to eat in the forms of rotten bones or some kind of human flesh. >> okay. maybe i'll take this off right now and then -- just -- thank you. okay. thank you. why are people on that side of the river so afraid of the aghori? >> i see. why --

>> making a mistake. maybe we just like -- somebody distracts him and i just leave. >> see where it goes. >> i can be very polite about it. >> i think you should stay. >> now he says that skull, that's empty, that's hungry, he wants you to feed that. he wants you to make some donation to that. >> what would he like me to -- [ speaking foreign language ] >> he wants that skull to be filled with alcohol. >> okay. actually, i think it's in the boat. >> he says, he wants you to sit down, he wants me to go bring it for him.

>>. [ speaking foreign language ] [ speaking foreign language ] >> will he tell me now what i have to do? [ speaking foreign language ]

>> he's not polite with me. and he knows -- oh my goodness. oh my goodness. oh my goodness. >> [ bleep ] [ bleep ]. >> that got out of hand real fast. and pretty sure that that's not the aghori that i was looking for. (vo) maybe it was here, when you hit 300,000 miles. or here, when you walked away without a scratch. maybe it was the day your baby came home.

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definitely feel like i've taken a wrong turn. culminating in last night and running from my life from some crazy, drunken baba. i'm not the only one turned off by these aghori theatrics. it's no wonder they're feared and mocked throughout india, and that's a tragedy.

because the aghori message that god does not care about pure and impure, clean and unclean, brahmen or dalit is an important one. there are modern sects that have seen that the age old theatrics aren't getting their message across, are now working to change their methods and their image. it began with an aghori guru, by the name of bhagwan ramji, known to his disciples as ba babaji. babaji brought adoghoriism into the mainstream where the values caught on with the rising middle class. although he died in 1992, his disciples have been carrying on his work, opening clinics and centers and schools all across india that disrupt the caste system. they've even started an orphanage. which is run by geerish sharma.

he grew up a wealthy brahmen but abandoned his caste when he became an aghori. >> they have a big beard and skull and drinking and all these like scary -- >> frightening. >> yeah, frightening. so he make few rules for them that now it will be a white place. nothing scary. so people can reach you and come to you and then you can help them. >> i've spent some time learning about the aghor from some of the s sadhus, trying to express as much as i can my belief that there is no such thing as purity and pollution. i truly do believe that, but i feel like so much of what i've been told and so much of what i've tried to do to express that, it seemed meaningless, it seemed i was just trying to prove something.

>> self-satisfaction. >> it was self-satisfaction. >> you have an idea in your mind, and you, from your action, you are trying to prove that idea that this idea is correct, which it's not correct. >> so how do i then express my aghori belief? >> just be a good human being. everything will be straight. everything you're taught will be straight. your action will be straight. you will think about yourself, your family, your friends, your society, your world. you will start to respect the things that you have. >> and is that the path to liberation, would you say? >> there is no other way. there is no other way. >> this is the only way. >> for a lot of these children, because many of them are from lower caste, they really wouldn't have any other possibility of getting this kind of education. >> aghori never associate with the caste. for us they are just a human.

doesn't matter from when caste they came. i accept them. i welcome them, and we try to give them equal facilities and equal love and equal opportunity to learn. god just create the humans, the lives. he doesn't create a dead caste system. this is created by the human. so we don't believe in this. >> how many? >> two. [ singing ] >> there's a painting in the

dining hall of shiva an his wife and their son, ganesha. when i first walked in here, i thought wow, this is like a familial scene. it was ironic to have this painting in the orphanage. but then i realized shiva is their father. pavarti is their mother. ganesha is their brother. [ singing ] >> they're so bright-eyed. and i feel like i've learned something completely new not just about what it means to put your faith into practice, but i feel like i've in a way found the hinduism that i was looking for. the beauty of the religion,

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i feel like i may have found the guru i've been looking for. someone who offers a practical path for putting aghori principles into practice. baba bagram modern interpretation of aghoriism. there's no division in the rich and poor, high caste and low cast in which hindu taboos are meaningless is precisely what i came to india to find. the sri literacy center is another of bubba g.'s schools. breaks all the rules. >> okay. mother means ma. >> boys and girls and children from different castes learn side by side. they are all taught to read, write, and speak english. shushmita singh is one of the teachers at this school.

>> right. >> there is a lot of discrimination at against untouchables. >> in india, they don't allow the children to work with them to, play with them. not here. you can stay in the school. we allow the children to play along with everybody. >> so this kind of discrimination makes it very difficult for lower caste kids to get any kind of education normally. >> yeah, right. every year, 300 children been spread the message what our guru wanted us to do. >> they're taught humanity. >> and aghori principles. when they graduate they become sort of representatives of an gorism. >> so everything is made possible here. there's no word impossible in the dictionary ashram. >> it doesn't matter what caste you are, religion, race. >> no, they're all same.

>> bye-bye. bye-bye, guys. see you guys. bye-bye. >> and attached to this aghori school is a lep rousey clinic which kind of makes sense if you think about it. it is not just one of the oldest diseases in the world but probably the most stigmatized and almost every culture sees lep rousey as a sign of a curse or a sin. here in india, among many hindus, it is seen as a sign of bad karma. if you have lep rousey, you probably did something in a previous life to deserve it. they are, in essence, the most untouchable of the untouchables and so millions of lepers here in india are left untreated,

many of them die. the patients here are not just treated but they're loved. they're given compassion. this doctor is a second generation aghori and a doctor at this clinic. >> before ba back, the lep rousey patients, they were kind of untouchables. >> yeah. >> they were condemned a lot. people think it is not curable. they would ultimately die. so when baba came by treating those patients, giving them self-respect that they are human being and he said that lep rousey is not untouchable by touching a patient, you can't contaminate this infection. he gave consent and they started treating. > it's the fear of pollution, as well. they were seen as unclean, impure. but of course, the foundation of an bure philosophy is there's no

such thing as unclean or unpure. >> there's nothing called untouchable in the aghori system. >> you feel like aghori philosophy can actually change indian society. >> sincerely believe because here everybody's equal. we are trying to convert this society into a caste free society. >> it's funny, everybody talks about putting their faith into practice that religion be supposed to be not just the things that you believe but the things that you do. you want to know what putting your faith into practice looks like? this is what it looks like. stream all your live channels, on your devices. switch to directv and lock in your price for 2 years. new offers starting at $25/mo when you have the new at&t unlimited plus plan.

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you touch can cut you off from god. that if god lives inside you as the aghori believe, thin nothing can defile you. the family you were born into, the color of your skin, the clothes that you wear, your education, your wealth, none of these matter. what matters is what you do. how you love. how you care for the least among you. so i will eat the ashes of the dead. i will drink the water from the ganges. i will wore slip the godwin me.

i came to india to discover what it means to be aghori. what i discovered is what it means to be human. >> i believe there's no discrimination in society among the gender and the religion and cavity and creed. >> i believe in duty first to my responsibility and to my karma. >> i believe we are all part of one energy, one god. >> i believe in the river ganges more than a religion, more than a river. it is a way of life for me. >> i believe in hindu philosophy. it gives me strength. >> i believe in my guru's philosophy service to humanity and mankind. >> i believe the external bodies we live in, within the soul is one. >> i believe civilized universal

god. civilized heart. . >> in north korea fired four ballistic missiles sparking strong reaction from the united states and its allies. cnn is live in seoul, south korea. and tokyo, japan with reaction ahead. the fbi is sending the trump administration a message asking the justice department to refute the president's allegations of wiretapping by his predecessor, the latest on this fast developing story. >> nearly 60,000 people very escaped western mosul as the army, would there is to retake that city from isis. ben read man takes us on their brutal and heart breaking journey. welcome our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i'm george howell in