STUDY GROUP on SPIRITUAL INSTRUCTION Ch2V22

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STUDY GROUP on SPIRITUAL INSTRUCTION

 

CHAPTER 2

PRACTICE

Abhyasa

 

V22.

Q Is asceticism (sanyasa) one of the essential requisites

for a person to become established in the Self (atma nista)?

 

M. The effort that is made to get rid of attachment to one's

body is really towards abiding in the Self. Maturity and enquiry

alone removes attachment to the body, not the stations of life

(asramas), such as student (brahmachari), etc. For the attachment

is in the mind while the stations pertain to the body. How can

bodily stations remove the attachment in the mind? As maturity

and enquiry pertain to the mind, these alone can, by enquiry on

the part of the same mind, remove the attachments which have crept

into it through non-enquiry. But, as the discipline of asceticism

(sanyasasrama) is the means for attaining dispassion (vairagya),

and as dispassion is the means for enquiry, taking sannyasa may

be regarded, in a way, as a means of enquiry through dispassion.

Instead of wasting one's life by taking sannyasa before one is

fit for it, it is better to live the householder's life, from

which many benefits accrue.

In order to fix the mind in the Self which is its true nature it

is necessary to separate it from the family of fancies (samkalpas)

and doubts (vikalpas), that is to renounce the family (samsara) in

the mind. This is the real asceticism.

 

 

 

 

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