Renunciation

All preparations for supreme devotion are intended for the purification of the soul. The repetition of names, the rituals, and the symbols, all these contribute to this end. But the greatest purifier among all these is renunciation.

The very word renunciation frightens many yet, without it, there cannot be any spiritual growth. In all our yogic actions, renunciation remains the stepping stone and the real center of all spiritual culture. When the human soul turns back from the materialistic world and tries to go deep beyond worldly things, it is renunciation. This is also the beginning of spiritual growth. There are various kinds of renunciations: According to one school of thought, it is giving up all the fruits of one's actions. Another belief is that the whole nature is intended for the soul to acquire experience, and that the result of all the experiences of the soul is for it to become aware of its eternal separation from nature. Yet another sect learns the lesson of renunciation through their own experience of nature. The harshest among all these come from yet another group who believes that one has to realize from the very beginning that the whole material-looking nature is an illusion. They insist that from the very outset, all knowledge and all experiences are in the soul, and not in nature and by sheer force of rational conviction They have to tear themselves away from all bondages with material things.

Notwithstanding all these beliefs, of all renunciations, the most natural practice is the one in which there is no violence and there is no giving up and no tearing off anything. The devotee's renunciation is easy, smooth flowing and as natural as the things around us. We see the manifestation of this sort of renunciation around us every day. For example, a man begins to love a woman; after a while he loves another one and lets the first one to go. He eases her out of his mind smoothly, without any feelings for her any more. Similarly, a man loves his own city, then he begins to love his country and the intense love for his country, leaves him drop his city off his mind without hurting him.

Worldly pleasures are associated with the lowest of senses; but as soon as a man reaches a higher plane of existence, the lower kinds of pleasures become less intense. In human society, the nearer the man's thinking is to that of an animal, the stronger is his sensual pleasures. The higher and the more cultured he is, the greater is his pleasures in intellectual and such other pursuits.

And when a man gets even higher than the plane of the intellectual, and higher than that of mere thought, he is attracted to spirituality and out of divine inspiration, he finds more happiness at this state and comes face to face with true happiness. The simplest example to this is, when the moon shines, all the stars become dim; and when the sun shines, the moon herself becomes dim.