Ramana Maharshi About Sanyasam And Renunciation

[Guest guest]

Bhagavan taught that true renunciation was giving up interest in and

attachment to anything that is not the Self:

 

Giving up the non-Self is renunciation. Inhering in the Self is jnana or

Self-realisation. One is the negative and the other the positive aspect of

the same, single truth. (Day by Day with Bhagavan, 2nd January, 1946,

afternoon)

 

Renouncing the ego

 

Only those who have renounced the ego-mind have truly renounced. What have

all the others, who may have given up other things, really renounced?

 

By becoming the source of all desires, the ego is the doorway to the sorrow

of samsara. The extremely heroic and discriminating person first attains

through dispassion the total renunciation of desires that arise in the form

of ‘I want’. Subsequently, through the Selfward enquiry ‘Who am I?’, he

renounces that ego, leaving no trace of it, and attains the bliss of peace,

free from anxieties. This is the supreme benefit of dharma.

 

 

Renouncing desires

 

Question: What is the best way of dealing with desires, with a view to

getting rid of them – satisfying them or suppressing them?

 

Bhagavan: If a desire can be got rid of by satisfying it, there will be no

harm in satisfying such a desire. But desires generally are not eradicated

by satisfaction. Trying to root them out that way is like pouring spirits to

quench fire. At the same time, the proper remedy is not forcible

suppression, since such repression is bound to react sooner or later into

forceful surging up with undesirable consequences. The proper way to get rid

of a desire is to find out, ‘Who gets the desire? What is its source?’ When

this is found, the desire is rooted out and it will never again emerge or

grow. Small desires such as the desire to eat, drink and sleep and attend to

calls of nature, though these may also be classed among desires, you can

safely satisfy. They will not implant vasanas in your mind, necessitating

further birth. Those activities are just necessary to carry on life and are

not likely to develop or leave behind vasanas or tendencies. As a general

rule, therefore, there is no harm in satisfying a desire where the

satisfaction will not lead to further desires by creating vasanas in the

mind. (Day by Day with Bhagavan, 12th April, 1946)

 

Question: How am I to deal with my passions? Am I to check them or satisfy

them? If I follow Bhagavan’s method and ask, ‘To whom are these passions?’

they do not seem to die but grow stronger.

 

Bhagavan: Satisfying desires and thereby trying to root them out is like

trying to quench fire by pouring kerosene oil over it. The only way is to

find the root of desire and thus remove it.(Day by Day with Bhagavan, 2nd

January, 1946)

 

Question: How can they [desires] be rendered weaker?

 

Bhagavan: By knowledge. You know that you are not the mind. The desires are

in the mind. Such knowledge helps one to control them.

 

Question: But they are not controlled in our practical lives.

 

Bhagavan: Every time you attempt satisfaction of a desire the knowledge

comes that it is better to desist. What is your true nature? How can you

ever forget it? Waking, dream and sleep are mere phases of the mind. They

are not of the Self. You are the witness of these states. Your true nature

is found in sleep. (Day by Day with Bhagavan, 12th April, 1946)

 

Bhagavan: There is room for kama [desire] so long as there is an object

apart from the subject, i.e., duality. There can be no desire if there is no

object. The state of no-desire is moksha. There is no duality in sleep and

also no desire. Whereas there is duality in the waking state and desire also

is there. Because of duality a desire arises from the acquisition of the

object. That is the outgoing mind, which is the basis of duality and of

desire. If one knows that bliss is none other than the Self the mind becomes

inward turned. If the Self is gained all the desires are fulfilled.(Talks

with Sri Ramana Maharshi, talk no. 502)

 

 

Renunciation of ‘I’ and ‘mine’

 

 

‘Internal renunciation’ is renunciation of the ego whereas ‘external

renunciation’ is giving up possessions. Together they are known as giving up

‘I’ and ‘mine’. It is the former that results in enlightenment.

 

If you attain perfect mastery of internal renunciation, external

renunciation will have no importance. (Padamalai, p. 170, v. 102)

 

Bhagavan sometimes illustrated the superiority of inner over outer

renunciation by telling the story of King Sikhidhvaja who unnecessarily gave

up his kingdom and retired to the forest to seek enlightenment:

 

He [the king] had vairagya [non-attachment] even while ruling his kingdom

and could have realised the Self if he had only pushed his vairagya to the

point of killing the ego. He did not do it but came to the forest, had a

timetable of tapas and yet did not improve even after eighteen years of

tapas. He had made himself a victim of his own creation. Chudala [his

enlightened wife] advised him to give up the ego and realise the Self, which

he did and was liberated.

 

It is clear from Chudala’s story that vairagya accompanied by ego is of no

value, whereas all possessions in the absence of ego do not matter. (Talks

with Sri Ramana Maharshi, talk no. 404)

 

Abandon your mind unconditionally at the feet of him [siva] who shares his

form with the Lady [uma]. Then, as the ‘I’ that investigates the false dies

away, along with [the concept of] ‘mine’, the powerful Supreme Self will

unfold fully and flourish eternally. (Guru Vachaka Kovai, vv. 484, 487)

 

 

Renouncing the ‘I am the body’ idea

 

Question: Why cannot the Self be perceived directly?

 

Bhagavan: Only the Self is said to be directly perceived [pratyaksha].

Nothing else is said to be pratyaksha. Although we are having this

pratyaksha, the thought ‘I am this body’ is veiling it. If we give up this

thought, the Atma, which is always within the direct experience of everyone,

will shine forth. (Living by the Words of Bhagavan, 2nd ed., pp. 218-19)

 

Here is a sequence of verses from Guru Vachaka Kovai that covers this

important aspect of renunciation:

 

34

 

The world that associates with us as an appearance of names and forms is as

transient as a lightning flash. The faltering understanding ‘I am the body’

is the deceptive device that makes us desire the world as if it were real,

[thereby] entrapping us instantaneously in the powerful snare of bondage.

 

 

846

 

Be aware that the ‘I am the body’ ego is truly the one unique cause of all

the sorrows of samsara. Therefore, make genuine, firm and steady efforts to

destroy that ego, and desist from making any other kind of effort.

 

 

Renouncing the ‘I am the doer’ idea

 

According to Bhagavan, it is not actions themselves that should be given up,

but the inner feeling that one is doing them:

 

If total cessation from activity is alone the determining criterion for

jnana, then even the inability to act because of leprosy will be a sure

indication of jnana! You should know that the state of jnana is the exalted

state of remaining without any sense of responsibility in the heart, having

renounced both the attraction to, and the revulsion from, the performance of

actions. (Guru Vachaka Kovai, verse 1160)

 

Unless one’s connection with individuality is destroyed at its root, one

will not become a true jnani, free of the sense of doership [kartrutva].

Even if one attains a supreme and eminent state of tapas that can be

marvelled at, one is still only a sadhaka who is qualified to realise the

truth. (Guru Vachaka Kovai, v. 122)

 

Deeds [karma] are not your enemy, only the sense of doership [kartrutva] is.

Therefore, live your life, having completely renounced that enemy.

(Padamalai p. 171, vv. 106, 107)

 

A mind that has dissolved in the state of God, and ceased to exist, will not

be aware of any activity that needs to be performed because when the ego,

which has the idea that it is the performer of actions, has been completely

destroyed, the idea that something needs to be accomplished ends.

 

Prarabdha, like a whirlwind, relentlessly agitates and spins the mind that

has shrunk through the ‘I am the body’ idea. However, it cannot stir, even

slightly, the limitation-free mind that shines as the extremely clear space

of being-consciousness when that ego-impurity [the ‘I am the body’ idea] is

destroyed by self-enquiry. (Guru Vachaka Kovai, vv. 703, 698)

 

Sankalpa [thought] creates the world. The peace attained on the destruction

of sankalpas is the [permanent] destruction of the world. (Padamalai, p.

264, v. 6)

 

The world is seen distinctly only in the waking and dream states in which

sankalpas [thoughts] have emerged. Is it ever seen during sleep, where

sankalpas do not emerge even slightly? Sankalpas alone are the material

substance of the world. (Guru Vachaka Kovai, v. 29)

 

Instead of ruining yourself by clinging, as your refuge, to the utterly

false world that appears as a conjuring trick, it is wisdom to renounce it

in the mind and remain still, forgetting it and remaining detached from it,

like the ripe tamarind fruit that, despite remaining inside its pod, stays

separate from it. (Guru Vachaka Kovai, verse 825)

 

Question: Should not a man renounce everything in order that he might get

liberation?

 

Bhagavan: Even better than the man who thinks ‘I have renounced everything’

is the one who does his duty but does not think ‘I do this’ or ‘I am the

doer’. Even a sannyasi who thinks ‘I am a sannyasi’ cannot be a true

sannyasi, whereas a householder who does not think ‘I am a householder’ is

truly a sannyasi. (Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, talk no. 530)

 

Know that not regarding oneself erroneously as being limited to the body and

trapped in family bonds is a far superior renunciation to the state wherein

one thinks repeatedly within one’s mind: ‘I have truly extricated myself by

renouncing all the ties of this world.’ (Guru Vachaka Kovai, verse 840)

 

Muruganar made the following comments on this Guru Vachaka Kovai verse:

 

Thinking, ‘I am a person who has renounced’ is only mental imagination. The

state of truth transcends such imagination. Only the state of remaining

still, which is the natural state, is true sannyasa, the nature of

liberation. It is not thinking repeatedly, ‘I am someone who has renounced

samsara’. Therefore, not thinking is a far superior renunciation to

thinking. Like the thought, ‘I am caught in bondage’, the thought, ‘I am

one

who is free from bondage’ indicates the delusion of regarding yourself as

being limited to the body. When that delusion is destroyed, along with it,

both of these thoughts will cease. Unless the ‘I am the body’ belief is

present to some extent, there can be no possibility of having the thought,

‘I have renounced’.

 

 

Source: http://sri-ramana-maharshi.blogspot.com/2008/10/renunciation.html

 

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