The literal meaning of the Sanskrit word ‘avadhuta’ is one who has shaken or cast off. The avadhuta is not a being who has created something new for themselves. The avadhuta is not a being who has searched for and found something that is not already present within him. The avadhuta is simply the one who has completely dissolved all false, limited and binding identifications. When such identifications, specifically with the physical body and the fluctuating, mirage-like personality, are dissolved, then the nature of reality is clearly perceived as the real self and as the ever-present substratum of everything that exists. The avadhuta dwells permanently and without interruption in this fully realised state of pure beingness.
Like the supreme avadhuta, Lord Dattatreya, who learnt from twenty-four gurus who were all elements, animals or characters in life, avadhutas are created and sculpted by life alone. An avadhuta is a totally original being who has shaken off all societal and cultural conditioning. Even if they seem to act like an ordinary member of society, they will have no conditioned, psychological counterpart to their involvement in society. That is to say, no matter how they appear on an external level, they are always free and totally unconditioned within themselves.
It is not easy to recognise an avadhuta. One of the hallmarks of avadhutas is their uncanny ability to hide behind an appearance and presentation that one would never associate with an enlightened being. Traditionally, these appearances have been grouped into three modes: bala, unmatta and pishacha.
An avadhuta in the state of bala is like a child. He is innocence personified and more youthful and free than even a child themselves. This state of freedom stems from the fact that the avadhuta has dissolved all of their heavy attachments and identifications with specific objects and experiences in the world. They are not even attached or identified with their own body or mind. This means that they are always unworried, blissful and without a care in the world.
An avaduta in the state of unmatta is like a madman. He is completely intoxicated and as if lost in his own invisible-to-the-outside-world world. His words and actions will often be absolutely incomprehensible to those around him and he may seem to pay no heed whatsoever to social norms.
In the state of pishacha, an avadhuta will be seen to resemble a demon or a monster. This will be manifested through an intense fierceness, anger and capacity to scold anybody in the surrounding area for no apparent reason. The anger of avadhutas is never personal. Their apparent anger is an expression of their destructive, subduing capacity. There a quite a few examples in both Shri Sai Satcharitra and Akkalkot Shri Swami Samarth Lilamrita of these great avadhutas, whose nature was really pure love, manifesting tremendous anger.
Avadhutas are not unidimensional beings. They are continuously operating on a multidimensional level and often work in many realms simultaneously. This multidimensional activity can manifest in their embodied form and personality as apparently inappropriate and out-of-place emotional displays and outbursts.
I would also add another category to the modes of avadhuta appearances, which is that of appearing absolutely ordinary and unassuming. It is possible for avadhutas to manifest in a very plain way without displaying any kind of unique behaviours, powers or profound spiritual knowledge. Such a way of manifesting is like a disguise that they put on in order to go unnoticed.
An avadhuta may want to go unnoticed for a number of reasons. The first reason is that their purpose on Earth could be merely to use the physical body as an anchor to operate in many different dimensions. Therefore, they have no wish or reason to make connections with people in the physical world. Another reason could be that they want to avoid the attention of immature seekers who only get attracted to superficial displays of power and wisdom. The harder an avadhuta is to recognise, the more likely he is to only draw mature seekers to him who have the subtlety to recognise his inner state despite his external display.
It is not possible to find an avadhuta with our minds. We cannot just go out into the world and look for people who externally manifest themselves in the modes of bala, unmatta and pishacha, because this is just an approximation. Avadhutas will always appear in ways that we don’t expect them to and in places that we don’t expect them to be. Expectation is a product of the conditioned mind. The natural force of life, which is both inside and outside of us, is always trying to escape from our rigid boxes of expectation, ownership and limited, intellectual interpretation. Avadhutas are manifestations of this raw force of life that will always, inevitably circumvent our expectations.
In reality, the only real way to meet an avadhuta is to become an avadhuta. Until we become totally empty within, until we have thrown off all of our own limited identifications, we still view everyone that we meet (including sages) through the lens of our own limited perspectives.
To become an avadhuta we have to start getting lighter, brighter and less stiff. We have to first be able to see every single psychological mechanism within ourselves that creates suffering. We must then learn to live consciously instead of unconsciously. The light of awareness within us that we use to actually see ourselves objectively, becomes the seed of avadhuta-hood within us. When we realise that our fundamental nature is awareness itself and not the patterns that it empowers and projects, we become awakened. When we become stable in the awakened state and use that state to dissolve all seeds of karmic earthbound existence within us, we become fully established beings—avadhutas.
Learn more about the nature of avadhutas in the Avadhuta Gita Book and Transmission Video Series, and the practical book of avadhuta wisdom, Avadhutam.
May the light of avadhutas prevail. May the light of true life endure in this world.