Renunciation
Renunciation has always been a misunderstood concept in the realm of spirituality. While many boast of knowing the exact meaning behind the concept of renunciation, few ever come close to realizing it in their own lives. Individuals often have a set mindset when it comes to renunciation. Most feel that the spiritual path expects them to be a renunciant; that the spiritual path does not allow them the freedom of keeping any desires in their hearts. That is not the case. While the spiritual path generally dissuades an individual from incessant pursuit of desires, it has also laid great emphasis on perpetual peace and satisfaction. Peace and satisfaction, that comes owing to the fact that there are no unrequited desires present in the individual. Hence the fulfillment of desires becomes a pre-requisite on the path that leads to ultimate renunciation.
Renunciation is a very advanced state of being as far as true spirituality is concerned. It is not something, which can be practiced correctly by any random individual. It requires of the spiritual seeker a great sense of understanding, patience and fortitude. One day a friend quizzed me on the concept of renunciation when I stated the aforementioned concepts. Somehow fulfillment and renunciation did not seem to rhyme together in his mind. I smiled at him and said, “Renunciation comes from within. It comes at a point when the individual realizes on his own accord that incessant fulfillment of desires would only lead to more desire. It comes at a point in the seeker’s life, when he realizes that he can never ever hope to gain perpetual peace and satisfaction through the fulfillment of his desires for the temporary satiation of any unrequited desires does not mean that the desires itself disappears completely. The experience of having satiated a desire, though fulfilling, is flirtingly fickle. It hardly stays a moment with the seeker, for more and more desire engulfs him. Thus the seeker spirals away in a recursive cycle of misery as he is perpetually left wanting for more” I said.
“But I still cannot understand how his desires lead him to the point of renunciation” my friend persisted. I laughed at him aloud and said, “When the seeker goes through many of these recursive cycles of misery in his daily life, through sheer impersonal introspection, he realizes the aforementioned fact. He realizes that he can never gain true bliss through his desires. It is here when he truly starts to seek a way out of that wretched mode of existence” I said.
Our conversation ended there, but as I walked home later that night, I realized that indeed renunciation was a much complex and intricate process than people thought. I realized that a person could only be a true renunciate, if he had the will to renounce the worldly life from within. I realized that even though a renunciant gave up the pursuit of worldly joys, he could never give up the worldly existence owing to his karmic liaisons with those around him. I realized that a renunciant always had to lead an existence wherein he would be part of every single worldly equation and yet within, he would be beyond all worldly obsessions. To be part of it, and yet be devoid of it was what true renunciation implied.
As I thought of these very things, I realized that in the end the worldly façade of an individual had little to do with his inner state of the soul. I realized that even a king could be a renunciant from within; that even a powerful business tycoon, who earned millions of dollars could be a renunciant, if from within himself, he held no desire, no lust and no obsession for his worldly life.
In the end I realized that a renunciant was someone, who simply existed as a soul. He was an individual who had renounced the world and yet was part of it; an individual who knew what desire was and hence was beyond all its lure; a human being who in the end relished in naught but the fulfillment of a divine purpose… that of selfless benevolence…J
Back to Articles.
admin | 
October 12, 2009 9:04 pm
1 Comment
Other Links to this Post
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
By Umesh, November 9, 2009 @ 7:16 pm
It is rightly said in the above article. I did not recall in what chapter in Bhagwat Gita Bhagavan ShriKriana told Arjun that ,I did not have any desire to fulfill but I am doing all Karma with same enthusiam and effort as any person with desire will do.