Eating from acharyas sayings and vomiting unbaked knowledge is useless and in fact is just mental masturbation

Avadhoota Nadananda

(from "Autobiography of an Avadhoota - part 2"):

Avadhoota Nadananda: One day a sadhu living in the shmashan came in contact with me. For long, he had been at the shmashan doing tantra sadhana. He was from Assam, a calm, quiet, and advanced sadhak known as Taranand Brahmachari. I talked with him about my sadhana in Kashi, and he wanted to instruct me further in sadhana. I initiated him into shodashi mahavidya.

Taranand had a good idea to restore my solitude.

"Just come and stay in the shmashan, no one will come and disturb you, so please come along with me," he said.

So I shifted to stay under another big tree at the shmashan. Though in those days I never knocked on the door of any ashram that imposed its rules as conditions for stay, I still had to depend upon the ashrams for food.

I observed that Taranand never slept during the nights and was fully involved in sadhana. One day he said, "Let us go to Tara Pith." 

I declined -  saying I was feeling quite blissful in that solitude. With no visitors to disturb me, I was enjoying the seclusion, One day Taranand left for his gurusthan as well. Now other than then occasionally arriving corpses, I was all alone in that cremation ground. 

Instead of simply wasting time, I wanted to continue my sadhana, though not a purashcharan. I opted to meditate for some more time. This was the place where I perfected my meditation and of course, remained in ecstasy or in trance for long periods. In fact, I felt reluctant even to collect bhiksha because of the bliss state from the trance.

One day a sadhu, a longtime acquaintance, came to meet me. He was born in Kerala, but stayed in Sadhana Sadan to pursue his Vedanta studies. He was known as Anand Saraswati and was full of the ego of his studies. He would quote Adi Shankaracharya for everything we talked about and fed me Vedanta, but I used to keep quiet as I wore no label of being Vedantin. He sarcastically dismissed my stay at the shmashan grounds. With his sadistic nature, he contaminated my equipoise. I lost my temper and shouted at him, 

"Mind your business, your way and mine are poles apart. I belong to the Siddha Parampara. I am not a person like you, who eats from great acharyas' sayings and vomits out the words he was never able to digest, You people are mere "masters of mental masturbation". So get lost."

This incident had unfortunately kindled some negativity in me. I was disturbed and made plans to move to Rishikesh in search of a more secluded place.

I was happy to see Taranand return at night. I told him about my plans, and that I had been disturbed by so-called Vedantin.

He reassured me, "I will take care of it now. Nobody shall come and disturb you anymore. Continue here." So I stayed back. Now Tarananda had taken the responsibility to collect my bhiksha too. My sadhana was going result-oriented.

It was the rainy season, and the Ganga was in a full spate of the flood. One morning I heard shouting and screaming at the ghat. I rushed there to discover Taranand caught right in the middle of the fierce flow. The situation was beyond anybody's reach, and Tarananand drowned. All were standing there helplessly, witnessing the tragedy. 

The next day we discovered his body in the nearby bushes and resubmitted it to the Ganga as jala samadhi. 

I stepped onto the road to Rishikesh, walking alone in an aimless and mechanical sort of way, my mind in a state of distress.