RENUNCIATION(SANNYAS)

What is renunciation(sannyas)? People equate renunciation with going to forest leaving everything, i.e. all worldly responsibilities towards one’s dependents, throwing them on the roads. The renunciate thereby avoids doing any work. This kind of understanding about the renunciation is reinforced by the sadhus roaming the streets in saffron robes. The sadhus live on alms and are a burden on society, obviously without contributing to the productivity of the society.

But, renunciation according to scriptures has different meaning. The renunciation, the scriptures insist is in the mental attitude and not in physical appearances. One may go to forest leaving everything, but he will not be peaceful there. His mind still keeps on dwelling on the comforts missed.

The true renunciant leaves everything mentally, he has no ego which gives rise to the feeling of doership. He may be in the world carrying out the tasks that may come to his lot, but he does not entertain idea of doership. As per him, God is utilizing his body, mind, intellect equipment to get His jobs done.

Also, a true renunciant does not have a family of his own, but he is related to everyone through the God consciousness in which he finds himself all the time. Normal people think that a renunciant is avoiding responsibility of his family. But it is to be looked into like this: when God is satisfied with the renunciant’s way of handling his domestic responsibilities in a detached manner, he graduates in God’s eyes and thereby becomes eligible to take on higher responsibilities, ie. the responsibility of the entire society on himself. Therefore, renunciation(sannyas) has to be seen as going to a higher stage of responsibility without entertaining any idea of return for the self or doership.

Therefore, one has to understand properly the concept of renunciation. It certainly has nothing to do with the sadhus whom we see on roads and they should not be the basis for forming wrong opinion about renunciation as such. Most of the mothers think that if the child is attracted towards the scriptures, he is going to be a sannyasi and leave everything. In fact, becoming a sannyasi in the true sense is the highest goal of the human life and every mother has to encourage her children in that direction. This is the art of living, one should cultivate from childhood onwards. It is not a pastime to be pursued at the end of one’s life, when one has absolutely no energy to do anything else. At that time, it will be very well impossible to pursue spirituality, since spiritual life requires a healthy mind in a healthy body and lots of courage.



…. K.V.RAO