"Living Thoughts of Great People" by Eknath Eswaran - Excerpt # 8

[Guest guest]

Dear friends,

 

Today's thought-for-the-day is an especial favourite of mine. It

describes the great but very hard-to-practice quality which in

Vedanta is called "vairAgya" -- the human trait that voluntarily

gives up what it has long desired and pursued, at exactly the moment

when the thing is easy of grasping.

 

Such human quality is very rare indeed. Great saints and "AchAryA-s"

cultivated it. It is also known as cheerful renunciation or self-

abnegation. One cannot know real personal freedom

without "vairAgya". The great SriVaishnavite "AchAryA" of the 14th

CE, Swami Venkatanathan, was an epitome of this human virtue and

came to be hailed in his time as "vairAgya bhUshanam" -- the

renunciate par excellence...

 

Hope you will like what you read below. Sri Eknath Eswaran explains

it all with the aid of a quote from Meister Eckhart, illustrated by

a commonplace yet telling analogy.

 

Regards,

dAsan,

 

Sudarshan

 

 

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Page 186 (June 27):

 

"It is permissible to take life's blessings with both hands provided

you know yourself to be prepared to take opposite events just as

gladly. This applies to food and friends and kindred, to anything

that God may give or take away... As long as God is satisfied you

should rest content. If he be pleased to want something of you,

still should you rest content".

--- Meister Eckhart

 

In order to live in freedom, we must learn to accept temporary

disappointment, if necessary, when it is for our permanent well-

being. Sometimes, when we want to eat a particular dainty that

appeals to us, or when we want to eat a little more than is

necessary, we can't help feeling a tug at the heart as we push away

from the table. We cannot help thinking that we could as well have

stayed on for five more minutes of pleasure, forgetting that it

would probably be followed by five hours of stomach-ache at night.

The right time to get up from the meal is when we want just a little

more. This is real artistry, real gourmet judgment: when we find

that everything is so good that we would like to have one more

helping, we should be able to get up and walk away.

 

--- Eknath Eswaran