[Advaita-l] Re: doubt on the role of shruti vAkyAs : Liberation

[m w]

Vidyashankarji,
   
  "Don't take this personally, as these questions are meant generally for many 
others on this list too. Too often we see, on this list, people devaluing 
traditional renunciation and all its associated symbols, while privileging 
an entirely new concept that it is somehow enough to renounce mentally."
   
                  I am not devaluing anything Vidhyashankarji. It is the best thing that people turn towards sannyAsa. For me it is the greatest thing that can happen to anyone. SannyAsa is the culmination of any experience. If I am saying it, I mean it. I would say that I have experienced the path also. From all the learned members, I would ask just one question, how many have taken the path of external Renunciation.  I don' t say that it is being devalued, but just think if you turn the whole world into a monastry. First of all it won't happen and second if it happens, not a single person can have any food to eat. Also this is not a very convincing remark as it may seem as this is not the way of evolution, still atleast it is very logical. Anyways logic is being devalued also most often than not, still it begins the process of understanding. Also that is why there is so much talk about four varNAs.
   
                I would just ask all of you, who really talk so high of external renunciation, did you ever take external renunciation!!! Also one more thing, it is not that everyone is made for taking external renunciation, some take that path, for that's where they are being lead by their wheel of action. Swami Vivekananda looks beautiful as a renunciate and so a Christ as a Bachelor. A Rama or a Krishna look beautiful in their leela and their married lives. I would ask, were not Sri Krishna and Rama renunciates or sannyAsins. Do we really understand sannyAsa as it is. 
   
  The thrust of what was being said was upon as to what we understand from sannyAsa. I have heard a lot about sannyAsa of which all of you talk about in terms of SAmkhya as external renunciation of action. I had written about Janaka. The point was that it would not be taken in right spirit and that's why I added his name, for he stands as a great example of sannyAsin as a yogi performing his duties without feeling any need for renouncing anything. Some day if I take external sannyAsa again it won't mean that I don't understand what sannyAsa means, for it is in truth the renunciation where all the desires, hopes and notions have left you (Arjuna, become nirAshi, nirmama and then fight). If I wouldn't have really seen it the way it is, I wouldn't have spoken so high of Vivekananda or Maharshi Raman or Sri RAma Krishna Pramahmsa ( sorry but he was married, I inclued him in a renunciate, did I make a mistake. Ask your hearts, I know I didn't!!) who were also external
 renunciates. 
  "Arjuna, wise see SAnkhya and Yoga as the same." The whole BG stands on this truth. 
   
                Here I am not trying to clarify my point. I would ask just one question from all who have read Bhagvada Gita. What does it talk about from first page to last page in it???  If anybody has read it properly please tell me what is Sri Krishna trying to convince Arjuna in the whole BG. Where was he turning and where did Krishna lead him!!!!  Sri Krishna has talked about everything to everything in BG but again his main thrust is upon internal renunciation without which there is no renunciation at all. He tells him not to run away anywhere for that is not needed, fight if you are into it. 
   
  Do we ever think in that direction!!! I won't say that external renunciation is not important, I have always written in all my emails where I talked about external renunciation that if it serves the purpose for someone and if that is where they are being lead then perfectly fine. If that is not the way it is for someone then their insistence upon it as something mandatory is not wisdom. 
   
             I would also agree with your point that it may seem delusional to someone that they have attained to renunciation but I would also say that once one really becomes a renunciate, all the life breath that are so dynamic and so wild lose their control, mind grows completely silent, mind is infact not found anywhere. Though it may arise again and again since mind is a sensing faculty, it will perform its function, but it goes so deep that it doesn't revive. You don't know from where the breath is arising, it calms down. You seem like breathing from somewhere deep inside as if the depth of the whole universe is inside you. And this is not delusional, if it happens with you, then you will see for yourself. You will see that not a single thing touches you like something very external, internal is not touched. It stays as it is. 
   
         Not like before that you are breathing at what Doctors call the average human breath rate per minute of 12-15 breaths per minute for that is the control of life breath upon you and not your upon it. When it really goes down, you will see where is mind, where is breath. There are many more things to it which I won't like to speak for this is a common ground for all for discussions. You asked, I had to speak. 
   
          If experience is important and if true understanding is the goal, then I would say you are on the right path, and if only learning is the goal even then you are on the right path as for me there is no wrong path, and also for learning is a step, a preperatory step and I won't say anything wrong about it. But it will take its own time. Let us all unfold as it comes, what else to say. Everyone has to rise to that towards which one can only reach when it takes complete possession of you and in your strongest desire elevates into some peace that is unexplainable. 
          
             Who am I, a little entity to devalue anything as stalwart as a tradition which is speaking and is the light of the whole world, for I stand for them when it comes to talking about traditional aspects, but that is for the sake of protecting the truth in its pristine form. I won't say that I haven't felt the way your concern is at this moment, but that has to be transcended, that's all what I mean. A RAmakrishna, cannot become truth, until and unless he transcends his insistence upon worshipping KAli. Anyways, the way you asked Vidyashankarji, I had to speak. I respect all your concerns, so I speak. I respect many other people's concern about this, that's why I speak. It is in no way important to participate in these discussions. When emptiness fills you completely it again starts filling with infinity. Since through email, without a personal contact it is not a very good way of communication, I would like to take a back seat. Someone has rightly said, "Either I
 wear my own shoes or I fill the whole earth with leather." 
  __________________
  "Where the mind is without fear
  Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way 
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake."  --- Tagore
  ___________________
   
  Rest upon all the learned members!!!
   
  PraNAms,
  Manish
                 
   
   
   
  

Vidyasankar Sundaresan <svidyasankar at hotmail.com> wrote:
  
> Renounce- I said,
> He said, I renounced,
> I asked, "What"
> He said, "house and property"
> Renounce- I said,
> He said, I renounced,
> I asked, "What"
> He said, "friends and relatives etc."
> Renounce- I said,
> He said, I renounced,
> I asked, "What"
> He said, "clothes and everything else"
> Renounce- I said,
> He said, I renounced,
> I asked, "What"
> He said, "everything did I, what else is left"
> I said, "Renounce, your mind and whatever is is to be renounced 
>from your mind,and what

Dear Shri Wadhwa,

Why is it being assumed that traditional renunciation is limited to house, 
people and property? Why is it being assumed that the traditional 
renunciation does not extend to the mind and its constructions? Why is it 
also being assumed that a newly created emphasis on mental renunciation is 
superior? Also, please let me know if this focus on mental renunciation 
leaves intact the previous externals such as house and property and friends 
and relatives?

Don't take this personally, as these questions are meant generally for many 
others on this list too. Too often we see, on this list, people devaluing 
traditional renunciation and all its associated symbols, while privileging 
an entirely new concept that it is somehow enough to renounce mentally.

While I appreciate that traditional renunciation has often been abused by 
many, I would also say that the modern conception is even more prone to 
abuse by self-delusional people. It is not at all easy to renounce the 
externals of home, family and money if one has also not mentally renounced 
everything. On the other hand, it is easy for the mind to fool itself into 
believing whatever it pleases. Call us stick-in-the-mud or whatever else, 
but there are strong reasons why so many of us on this list value our 
tradition highly.

Vidyasankar

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