Sanyas, renunciation,
ascetic, sadhu, leaving the world, staying in a cave, joining spiritual
organizations / cults
There are people
who have a wish to take sanyas, leave the worldly life
I will share my hands-on
practical experiences and some spiritual teachings
The Ashtavakra
Gita which is essentially
the philosophical dialogue between Janaka, the father of Sita and the sage
Ashtavakra, tell’s us:
“One who is
attached to the world wants to renounce it in order to avoid sorrow. But one
without attachment is free from sorrow and does not feel miserable even in the
world.”
“Those who desire
pleasure and those who desire liberation are both common in the world.Rare is
the great soul who desires neither pleasure nor liberation.”
“A Bhogi (who is
after more and more of enjoyment) as also a yogi who is bent on renouncing all
enjoyments are both qualitatively on the same plane, the minds of both are on
"enjoyment' one for grasping it and the other for leaving it.One has to go
beyond both by adopting the attitude of a witness (Sakshi) i.e. by neither
accepting nor rejecting.”
Having left the
world life twice, I have this to say that the best spiritual progress is
achieved by keeping in contact with the world and at the same time being aloof
from the masses
The world is like
the water and the self like the ship, the ship cannot leave the water, but at
the same time it cannot let the water enter in it
The world is
meant for the unfolding / realization of the Self: why should we then seek to
run away from it? One example is the life of Shri Krishna, the Bhagavad-Gita he
spoke it out on a battle-field, and not on a mountain peak. The person on the
spiritual path is always fighting the great Mahabharat war against his vices
whom he believe to be his own hence difficult to kill, just like Arjun
initially throwing away his weapons and saying they are my own how can I kill
them
People desire to
find God; even when they were unable to open their heart to find their love /
soulmate, to be a true friend to someone, to develop love but instead have
prejudices, again quoting Ashtavakra Gita--“Bondage is when the mind longs for
something,grieves about something, rejects something, holds on to something, is
pleased about something or displeased about something. Liberation is when the mind
does not long for anything, grieves about anything, rejects anything, or holds
on to anything, and is not pleased about anything or displeased about anything”
If one cannot
find the Divinity within, one can never find it outside, if one could not
achieve peace staying in the world, one can never be peaceful staying far away
A man at peace
does not run off to popular places or to the forest. Whatever and wherever, he
remains the same
It is not right
to forsake karma to become a sanyasi and further no one can escape karma, from
the movie Kung Fu Panda “one often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid
it”
People abandon their loved ones in the pursuit for
God—mostly men do it—you will hardly find a mother who has abandoned her
children and taken sanyas. For those who want to
leave their loved ones, let us take a teaching from the Mahabharat (all
teachings and guidance for the present age are given in the Mahabharat in form
of stories) I once met a man on the path to swargarohini, the trek route from
Badrinath to the sacred chaukhamba massif (the origin of both ice glaciers of
Gangotri and Alaknanda, which later merge to form the Ganga) via satopanth
lake. He was thinking of leaving his family to take sanyas. I told him the
story of Yudhisthir on his last journey to swargarohini he was followed by a
dog, when the Gods came to take him to heaven he refused to abandon the dog,
since the dog was his companion on the journey and he could not leave him
behind now, I told him you are walking on the same route now where Yudhisthir did not even abandon a stray dog
how could he think of leaving his family, I asked him that at the time of his
honeymoon did he get this same thought of leaving his wife?. I am happy that
what I wanted to convey he understood
The current scenario
Those sadhus we
find mingling in the society are freeloaders, much more worldly (connected with
ordinary life, not with the spirit)
Now a days it is
not possible to live in a cave, since forest have become barren, not able to
provide the necessary food /herbs, the local people have come to know that the
Sadhus are not sincere like before and hence stopped providing support, the
sadhus having claimed to abandon the world, fight for the cave, built a door
and put a lock with their name plate, extort money from the ones who want to
stay in
Life is very
difficult staying in a damp cave with is occupied by various insects and pests,
getting up and using a decent washroom and having a hot cup of tea is such a
big blessing we realize this when staying in isolation, it is very difficult to
carry out days activity in the cold Himalaya. Before the sadhus stayed as a
community, were trained, had local support, hence could manage staying in caves
The different
akharas are directly affiliated to political organizations, religion was
politicize in India; what better way of mind control then Religion, which helps
politicians to gain vote, I have written how this was done in my blog Hindus
destroying Hinduism
In the world of
the so called renounces there is a power struggle, big money is involved
Sadhus and drugs
So many sadhus
are drug edicts, many are also drug sellers, about narcotics and spirituality, you
may read my blog:
http://bhoj11.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-trinity-and-why-are-bhang-ganja.html
To be a business
man you require wealth; to be a sadhu your prerequisite is wealthlessness that
enables a sadhu to live a life he lives; but today some wearing orange robes
have entered politics while others turned businessmen
I would also like
to share that I have met a few sadhus who are staying high up in the Himalayas;
they have surrendered themselves to God and are living in the hands of God,
they told me that there was never a time when they slept on an empty stomach,
by miraculous arrangements someone provided them with what they required, they
do not have any worry of their investments or financial meltdown, the fears
that we live with or the day to day problems we face in city life, they own
nothing yet have all their basic needs without any attachments and are always
happy, such sadhus are very rare and you will not find them mingling with
crowds
He indeed is lucky who sole worldly possession is his underware—Adi shankara
Spiritual organizations / cults
All have the same
theme—the founder communicated with higher realms, the people who join the
organization are the chosen ones, and they induce fear and greed , the fear of apocalypse,
the greed that they would be saved and be the seed people for the next good age
which will come
The heads of such
organization live a lavish lifestyle, travelling in bullet proof cars, a life
far away from simple living and high thinking
I know an old
lady connected to the Brahma Kumaris, she told me that films were showed to members
showing the end of the World, they were told that only they would be saved, in
2012 she told me the date of the end has come now, a few days before the date I
saw her in the tailors shop, and asked her if the world is coming to an end why
was she getting new clothes stitched, the old lady was offended and said only
the members of Brahma Kumaris will
survive—people are so easily fooled, it is so easy to control the minds of the
people
People are easily fooled-- The stupidity of humans
Let me give you a
few examples
There is a YouTube
channel named Liziqi, it follows the life of a girl leading her life amidst
natural surroundings, she grows bamboos and makes bamboo furniture, breeds silk
worms makes silk and then makes a dress of silk etc, she has millions of
followers, people just do not realize that this is all made up, her life seems
to defy the rules of reality, all her videos are professionally crafted videos,
from the thousands of appreciative comments one can see how people get fooled,
now there is a legal dispute with her business partners and it has come out
that millions of dollars were involved and she is in a professional business of
making videos and selling natural products
There is a blogger
Capt Ajit Vadakayil, who is a self proclaimed most intelligent person on the
planet, he certainly does not believe that the more you know, the less you
speak, he always boast that he has millions and millions of profile view,
people do not even realize, that when he had less profile views compared to now
he had the same number of followers, so only his profile views are jumping day
by day with no increase in followers which is not possible , also there are
hardly any views on his youtube videos, people do not realize that he himself
has manipulated / generated his profile views, he does not display his actual
blog page views, which should be thousands of times more than profile views, he
is such a pompous person that he would have declared page views if they were
more, but he is fooling people by generating his profile views. Anyone can find
contradictions in all he says, he gives dikshas in his blog asking people to
write numbers on their body, now he has started a Kalki army where people are
initiated, given ranks, people just lack basic common sense and are misguided,
people will waste their precious time, while I criticize him, I also add that
he has written very good blogs on chemical tankers (ships), but he is certainly
misguiding others by writing everything under the sun from Vedas to women’s
problems
Common sense is
not very common, so if people get carried away by reading a blog of an egoistic
person who is so foolish as to give advice to world leaders, how easy it is for
Godmen to fool people by establishing their grand ashrams
So you see,
people do not think, what differentiates humans and animals is that humans have
buddhi (intellect) by which they can discriminate between right and wrong, but
when people lack proper reasoning power (the ability of the mind to think and
understand things in a logical way) custodians of Religion and politicians take
advantage and control the minds of an entire nation. What can be the best
example of mind control then the current government of India, by controlling
the social media and mainstream media they have projected a false image, they
are no different from other politicians, but have managed to create a clean
image, they have filled the minds of people with hate against neighbouring
country and communities and have kept them busy by diverting their minds with
no on to question their misdeeds and unfulfilled election promises
_____
I once again say,
that the best spiritual progress can be made by staying in the world, while
leading a simple life, people can form communities and live amidst nature
following a Vedic life style leaving behind a world of constant comparison and
competition, and I myself have such a dream and trying to find likeminded
people with whom I can travel and eventually find a suitable place and settle
The advantages of
living amidst nature are explained in the link below; giving an example of
astronauts who cannot survive in space unless a magnetic pulse generator
mimicking the Earth's frequency is fitted in their space craft, such natural
frequency may be disturbed in a city
https://bhoj11.blogspot.com/2014/02/astronauts-earths-heartbeat-living.html
The sanyasi is
not enslaved to any specific doctrine but instead follows his own
consciousness, his own conception of the absolute but there are also some
Upanishads on Sannyasa
People are bound
by rites (rituals), and liberated by direct experiences
The best
renunciation is one, states Maitreya, where one abandons pride, wealth,
delusion and lust; when delusion dies in a person, enlightenment is born
If we reflect deeply we can understand that we all are under some delusion
in our religious beliefs and the rituals that we carry or otherwise
From the book
Mother by Maxim Gorky “There are extremely few free men in the world–that’s its
misfortune”
There is a
beautiful poetry in urdu by Mirza Saadiq Sharar; which applies to us all on the
spiritual path
गए दोनों जहाँ के काम से हम न इधर के हुए न उधर के हुए
न ख़ुदा ही मिला न विसाल-ए-सनम न इधर के हुए न उधर के हुए
रहे दिल में हमारे ये रंज-ओ-अलम न इधर के हुए न उधर के हुए
Gaye dono jahaan ke kaam se ham, na idhar ke huy en
audhar ke huye
Na Khuda hi mila na visaal-e-sanam, na idhar ke huye
na udhar ke huye
I found neither faith,
nor union with my lover/and now I belong neither there nor here
Some more from The Ashtavakra Gita
To be free, shun
the experiences of the senses like poison. Turn your attention to forgiveness,
sincerity, kindness, simplicity, truth.
If one thinks of
oneself as free, one is free, and if one thinks of oneself as bound, one is
bound. Here this saying is true,
"Thinking
makes it so".
It is true what
they say:
“You are what you
think.”
If you think you
are bound you are bound.
If you think you
are free you are free.
You are really
unbound and action less, self-illuminating and spotless already. The cause of
your bondage is that you are still resorting to stilling the mind.
Of all four
categories of beings, from Brahma down to the last clump of grass, only the man
of knowledge is capable of eliminating desire and aversion.
Enough of wealth,
sensuality and good deeds, in the forest of samsara the mind has never found
satisfaction in these.
Trying to think
the unthinkable, is doing something unnatural to thought. Abandoning such a
practice therefore, I am now established.
Liberation is
distaste for the objects of the senses. Bondage is love of the senses. This is
knowledge. Now do as you please.
I see statistics of readers mainly from India, USA and Europe who visit
the blog but they do not interact so I have decided that after one more blog I
will take a break and stop blogging for some time, I do not feel like writing
for ungrateful readers
