{"id":968,"date":"2013-07-13T01:31:38","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=968"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:31:38","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:38","slug":"25-renunciation-vol-20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20\/25-renunciation-vol-20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20","title":{"rendered":"-25_Renunciation.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\nChapter V<\/span><\/font><\/b> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nRenunciation<\/span><\/font><\/b> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>I<\/font><\/span>F DISCIPLINE<\/span><\/font> of all the members of
\nour being by purification and concentration may be described as the right arm of
\nthe body of Yoga, renunciation is its left arm. By discipline or positive
\npractice we confirm in ourselves the truth of things, truth of being, truth of
\nknowledge, truth of love, truth of works and replace with these the falsehoods
\nthat have overgrown and perverted our nature; by renunciation we seize upon the
\nfalsehoods, pluck up their roots and cast them out of our way so that they shall
\nno longer hamper by their persistence, their resistance or their recurrence the
\nhappy and harmonious growth of our divine living. Renunciation is an
\nindispensable instrument of our perfection. <\/span><\/p>\n

How far shall
\nthis renunciation go? what shall be its nature? and in what way shall it be
\napplied? There is an established tradition long favoured by great religious
\nteachings and by men of profound spiritual experience that renunciation must
\nnot only be complete as a discipline but definite and final as an end and that
\nit shall fall nothing short of the renunciation of life itself and of our
\nmundane existence. Many causes have contributed to the growth of this pure,
\nlofty and august tradition. There is first the profounder cause of the radical
\nopposition between the sullied and imperfect nature of life in the world as it now
\nis in the present stage of our human evolution and the nature of spiritual
\nliving; and this opposition has led to the entire rejection of world-existence
\nas a lie, an insanity of the soul, a troubled and unhappy dream or at best a
\nflawed, specious and almost worthless good or to its characterisation as a
\nkingdom of the world, the flesh and the devil, and therefore for the divinely
\nled and divinely attracted soul only a place of ordeal and preparation or at
\nbest a play of the All-existence, a game of cross-purposes which He tires of
\nand abandons. A second
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 31<\/span>1<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

cause is the soul’s hunger
\nfor personal salvation, for escape into some farther or farthest height of unalloyed
\nbliss and peace untroubled by the labour and the struggle; or else it is its
\nunwillingness to return from the ecstasy of the divine embrace into the lower
\nfield of work and service. But there are other slighter causes incidental to
\nspiritual experience, \u2013 strong feeling and practical proof of the great
\ndifficulty, which we willingly exaggerate into an impossibility, of combining
\nthe life of works and action with spiritual peace and the life of realisation;
\nor else the joy which the mind comes to take in the mere act and state of
\nrenunciation, \u2013 as it comes indeed to take joy in anything that it has attained
\nor to which it has inured itself, \u2013 and the sense of peace and deliverance
\nwhich is gained by indifference to the world and to the objects of man’s
\ndesire. Lowest causes of all are the weakness that shrinks from the struggle,
\nthe disgust and disappointment of the soul baffled by the great cosmic labour,
\nthe selfishness that cares not what becomes of those left behind us so long as
\nwe personally can be free from the monstrous ever-circling wheel of death and
\nrebirth, the indifference to the cry that rises up from a labouring humanity.<\/span><\/p>\n

For the
\nsadhaka of an integral Yoga none of these reasons are valid. With weakness and
\nselfishness, however spiritual in their guise or trend, he can have no
\ndealings; a divine strength and courage and a divine compassion and helpfulness
\nare the very stuff of that which he would be, they are that very nature of the
\nDivine which he would take upon himself as a robe of spiritual light and
\nbeauty. The revolvings<\/span> of the great wheel bring to
\nhim no sense of terror or giddiness; he rises above it in his soul and knows
\nfrom above their divine law and their divine purpose. The difficulty of
\nharmonising the divine life with human living, of being in God and yet living
\nin man is the very difficulty that he is set here to solve and not to shun. He
\nhas learned that the joy, the peace and the deliverance are an imperfect crown
\nand no real possession if they do not form a state secure in itself,
\ninalienable to the soul, not dependent on aloofness and inaction but firm in
\nthe storm and the race and the battle, unsullied whether by the joy of the
\nworld or by its
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 312<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

suffering. The ecstasy
\nof the divine embrace will not abandon him because he obeys the impulse of
\ndivine love for God in humanity; or if it seems to draw back from him for a
\nwhile, he knows by experience that it is to try and test him still farther so
\nthat some imperfection in his own way of meeting it may fall away from him.
\nPersonal salvation he does not seek except as a necessity for the human fulfilment
\nand because he who is himself in bonds cannot easily free others, \u2013 though to
\nGod nothing is impossible; for a heaven of personal joys he has no hankerings
\neven as a hell of personal sufferings has for him no terrors. If there is an opposition
\nbetween the spiritual life and that of the world, it is that gulf which he is
\nhere to bridge, that opposition which he is here to change into a harmony. If
\nthe world is ruled by the flesh and the devil, all the more reason that the
\nchildren of Immortality should be here to conquer it for God and the Spirit. If
\nlife is an insanity, then there are so many million souls to whom there must be
\nbrought the light of divine reason; if a dream, yet is it real within itself to
\nso many dreamers who must be brought either to dream nobler dreams or to
\nawaken; or if a lie, then the truth has to be given to the deluded. Nor, if it
\nbe said that only by the luminous example of escape from the world can we help
\nthe world, shall we accept that dogma, since the contrary example of great
\nAvataras is there to show that not only by rejecting the life of the world as
\nit is can we help, but also and more by accepting and uplifting it. And if it
\nis a play of the All-Existence, then we may well consent to play out our part
\nin it with grace and courage, well take delight in the game along with our
\ndivine Playmate.<\/span><\/p>\n

But, most of
\nall, the view we have taken of the world forbids the renunciation of
\nworld-existence so long as we can be anything to God and man in their
\nworking-out of its purposes. We regard the world not as an invention of the
\ndevil or a self-delusion of the soul, but as a manifestation of the Divine,
\nalthough as yet a partial because a progressive and evolutionary manifestation.
\nTherefore for us renunciation of life cannot be the goal of life nor rejection
\nof the world the object for which the world was created. We seek to realise our
\nunity with God,
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 313<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

but for us that
\nrealisation involves a complete and absolute recognition of our unity with man
\nand we cannot cut the two asunder. To use Christian language, the Son of God is
\nalso the Son of Man and both elements are necessary to the complete Christhood;
\nor to use an Indian form of thought, the divine Narayana of whom the universe
\nis only one ray is revealed and fulfilled in man; the complete man is
\nNara-Narayana and in that completeness he symbolises the supreme mystery of
\nexistence.<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore
\nrenunciation must be for us merely an instrument and not an object; nor can it
\nbe the only or the chief instrument since our object is the fulfilment of the
\nDivine in the human being, a positive aim which cannot be reached by negative
\nmeans. The negative means can only be for the removal of that which stands in
\nthe way of the positive fulfilment. It must be a renunciation, a complete
\nrenunciation of all that is other than and opposed to the divine
\nself-fulfilment and a progressive renunciation of all that is a lesser or only
\na partial achievement. We shall have no attachment to our life in the world; if
\nthat attachment exists, we must renounce it and renounce utterly; but neither
\nshall we have any attachment to the escape from the world, to salvation, to the
\ngreat self-annihilation; if that attachment exists, that also we must renounce
\nand renounce it utterly.<\/span><\/p>\n

Again our
\nrenunciation must obviously be an inward renunciation; especially and above
\nall, a renunciation of attachment and the craving of desire in the senses and
\nthe heart, of self-will in the thought and action and of egoism in the centre
\nof the consciousness. For these things are the three knots by which we are
\nbound to our lower nature and if we can renounce these utterly, there is
\nnothing else that can bind us. Therefore attachment and desire must be utterly
\ncast out; there is nothing in the world to which we must be attached, not
\nwealth nor poverty, nor joy nor suffering, nor life nor death, nor greatness
\nnor littleness, nor vice nor virtue, nor friend, nor wife, nor children, nor
\ncountry, nor our work and mission, nor heaven nor earth, nor all that is within
\nthem or beyond them. And this does not mean that there is nothing at all that
\nwe shall love, nothing in which we shall take delight; for attachment is
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 314<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

egoism in love and not
\nlove itself, desire is limitation and insecurity in a hunger for pleasure and
\nsatisfaction and not the seeking after the divine delight in things. A
\nuniversal love we must have, calm and yet eternally intense beyond the brief
\nvehemence of the most violent passion; a delight in things rooted in a delight
\nin God that does not adhere to their forms but to that which they conceal in themselves
\nand that embraces the universe without being caught in its meshes.\u00b9 <\/span><\/p>\n

Self-will in
\nthought and action has, we have already seen, to be quite renounced if we would
\nbe perfect in the way of divine works; it has equally to be renounced if we are
\nto be perfect in divine knowledge. This self-will means an egoism in the mind
\nwhich attaches itself to its preferences, its habits, its past or present
\nformations of thought and view and will because it regards them as itself or
\nits own, weaves around them the delicate threads of \u201cI-ness\u201d and \u201cmy-ness\u201d and
\nlives in them like a spider in its web. It hates to be disturbed, as a spider hates
\nattack on its web, and feels foreign and unhappy if transplanted to fresh
\nview-points and formations as a spider feels foreign in another web than its
\nown. This attachment must be entirely excised from the mind. Not only must we
\ngive up the ordinary attitude to the world and life to which the unawakened<\/span> mind clings as its natural element; but we must
\nnot remain bound in any mental construction of our own or in any intellectual
\nthought-system or arrangement of religious dogmas or logical conclusions; we
\nmust not only cut asunder the snare of the mind and the senses, but flee also
\nbeyond the snare of the thinker, the snare of the theologian and the church-builder,
\nthe meshes of the Word and the bondage of the Idea. All these are within us
\nwaiting to wall in the spirit with forms; but we must always go beyond, always
\nrenounce the lesser for the greater, the finite for the Infinite; we must be prepared
\nto proceed from illumination to illumination, from experience to experience,
\nfrom soul-state to soul-state so as to reach the utmost transcendence of the
\nDivine and its utmost universality. Nor must we attach ourselves even to the
\ntruths we hold most securely, for <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b9 <\/span>Nirlipta<\/span><\/i><\/span>.
\nThe divine Ananda in things is nişkāma<\/i><\/span> and nirlipta<\/i><\/span>, free from desire and
\ntherefore not attached. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 315<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

they are but forms and
\nexpressions of the Ineffable who refuses to limit himself to any form or
\nexpression; always we must keep ourselves open to the higher Word from above that
\ndoes not confine itself to its own sense and the light of the Thought that
\ncarries in it its own opposites. <\/span><\/p>\n

But the
\ncentre of all resistance is egoism and this we must pursue into every covert
\nand disguise and drag it out and slay it; for its disguises are endless and it
\nwill cling to every shred of possible self-concealment. Altruism and
\nindifference are often its most effective disguises; so draped, it will riot
\nboldly in the very face of the divine spies who are missioned<\/span>
\nto hunt it out. Here the formula of the supreme knowledge comes to our help; we
\nhave nothing to do in our essential standpoint with these distinctions, for
\nthere is no I nor thou, but only one divine Self equal in all embodiments,
\nequal in the individual and the group, and to realise that, to express that, to
\nserve that, to fulfil that is all that matters. Self-satisfaction and altruism,
\nenjoyment and indifference are not the essential thing. If the realisation,
\nfulfilment, service of the one Self demands from us an action that seems to
\nothers self-service or self-assertion in the egoistic sense or seems egoistic
\nenjoyment and self-indulgence, that action we must do; we must be governed by
\nthe guide within rather than by the opinions of men. The influence of the
\nenvironment works often with great subtlety; we prefer and put on almost
\nunconsciously the garb which will look best in the eye that regards us from
\noutside and we allow a veil to drop over the eye within; we are impelled to
\ndrape ourselves in the vow of poverty, or in the garb of service, or in outward
\nproofs of indifference and renunciation and a spotless sainthood because that
\nis what tradition and opinion demand of us and so we can make best an
\nimpression on our environment. But all this is vanity and delusion. We may be
\ncalled upon to assume these things, for that may be the uniform of our service;
\nbut equally it may not. The eye of man outside matters nothing; the eye within
\nis all.<\/span><\/p>\n

We see in the
\nteaching of the Gita how subtle a thing is the freedom from egoism which is demanded.
\nArjuna<\/span> is driven to fight by the egoism of strength,
\nthe egoism of the Kshatriya; he is turned from the battle by the contrary
\negoism of weakness,
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 316<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

the shrinking, the
\nspirit of disgust, the false pity that overcomes the mind, the nervous being
\nand the senses, \u2013 not that divine compassion which strengthens the arm and
\nclarifies the knowledge. But this weakness comes garbed as renunciation, as
\nvirtue: \u201cBetter the life of the beggar than to taste these blood-stained
\nenjoyments; I desire not the rule of all the earth, no, nor the kingdom of the
\ngods.\u201d How foolish of the Teacher, we might say, not to confirm this mood, to
\nlose this sublime chance of adding one more great soul to the army of
\nSannyasins, one more shining example before the world of a holy renunciation.
\nBut the Guide sees otherwise, the Guide who is not to be deceived by words;
\n\u201cThis is weakness and delusion and egoism that speak in thee. Behold the Self,
\nopen thy eyes to the knowledge, purify thy soul of egoism.\u201d And afterwards?
\n\u201cFight, conquer, enjoy a wealthy kingdom.\u201d Or to take another example from
\nancient Indian tradition. It was egoism, it would seem, that drove Rama, the
\nAvatara, to raise an army and destroy a nation in order to recover his wife from
\nthe King of Lanka. But would it have been a lesser egoism to drape himself in
\nindifference and misusing the formal terms of the knowledge to say, \u201cI have no
\nwife, no enemy, no desire; these are illusions of the senses; let me cultivate
\nthe Brahman-knowledge and let Ravana do what he will with the daughter of
\nJanaka\u201d? <\/span><\/p>\n

The criterion
\nis within, as the Gita insists. It is to have the soul free from craving and
\nattachment, but free from the attachment to inaction as well as from the
\negoistic impulse to action, free from attachment to the forms of virtue as well
\nas from the attraction to sin. It is to be rid of \u201cI-ness\u201d and \u201cmy-ness\u201d so as
\nto live in the one Self and act in the one Self; to reject the egoism of
\nrefusing to work through the individual centre of the universal Being as well
\nas the egoism of serving the individual mind and life and body to the exclusion
\nof others. To live in the Self is not to dwell for oneself alone in the Infinite
\nimmersed and oblivious of all things in that ocean of impersonal self-delight;
\nbut it is to live as the Self and in the Self equal in this embodiment and all
\nembodiments and beyond all embodiments. This is the integral knowledge.<\/span><\/p>\n

It will be
\nseen that the scope we give to the idea of renun<\/span>– <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 317<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

ciation<\/span><\/span> is different
\nfrom the meaning currently attached to it. Currently its meaning is
\nself-denial, inhibition of pleasure, rejection of the objects of pleasure.
\nSelf-denial is a necessary discipline for the soul of man, because his heart is
\nignorantly attached; inhibition of pleasure is necessary because his sense is
\ncaught and clogged in the mud-honey of sensuous satisfactions; rejection of the
\nobjects of pleasure is imposed because the mind fixes on the object and will
\nnot leave it to go beyond it and within itself. If the mind of man were not
\nthus ignorant, attached, bound even in its restless inconstancy, deluded by the
\nforms of things, renunciation would not have been needed; the soul could have
\ntravelled on the path of delight, from the lesser to the greater, from joy to
\ndiviner joy. At present that is not practicable. It must give up from within
\neverything to which it is attached in order that it may gain that which they
\nare in their reality. The external renunciation is not the essential, but even
\nthat is necessary for a time, indispensable in many things and sometimes useful
\nin all; we may even say that a complete external renunciation is a stage
\nthrough which the soul must pass at some period of its progress, \u2013 though
\nalways it should be without those self-willed violences<\/span>
\nand fierce self-torturings<\/span> which are an offence to
\nthe Divine seated within us. But in the end this renunciation or self-denial is
\nalways an instrument and the period for its use passes. The rejection of the
\nobject ceases to be necessary when the object can no longer ensnare us because
\nwhat the soul enjoys is no longer the object as an object but the Divine which
\nit expresses; the inhibition of pleasure is no longer needed when the soul no
\nlonger seeks pleasure but possesses the delight of the Divine in all things equally
\nwithout the need of a personal or physical possession of the thing itself;
\nself-denial loses its field when the soul no longer claims anything, but obeys
\nconsciously the will of the one Self in all beings. It is then that we are
\nfreed from the Law and released into the liberty of the Spirit.<\/span><\/p>\n

We must be
\nprepared to leave behind on the path not only that which we stigmatise as evil,
\nbut that which seems to us to be good, yet is not the one good. There are
\nthings which were beneficial, helpful, which seemed perhaps at one time the one
\nthing desirable, and yet once their work is done, once they are
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 318<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

attained, they become
\nobstacles and even hostile forces when we are called to advance beyond them.
\nThere are desirable states of the soul which it is dangerous to rest in after
\nthey have been mastered, because then we do not march on to the wider kingdoms
\nof God beyond. Even divine realisations must not be clung to, if they are not
\nthe divine realisation in its utter essentiality and completeness. We must rest
\nat nothing less than the All, nothing short of the utter transcendence. And if
\nwe can thus be free in the spirit, we shall find out all the wonder of God’s
\nworkings; we shall find that in inwardly renouncing everything we have lost
\nnothing. \u201cBy all this abandoned thou shalt<\/span> come to
\nenjoy the All.\u201d For everything is kept for us and restored to us but with a
\nwonderful change and transfiguration into the All-Good and the All-Beautiful,
\nthe All-Light and the All-Delight of Him who is for ever pure and infinite and
\nthe mystery and the miracle that ceases not through the ages. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 319<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter V  Renunciation    \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 IF DISCIPLINE of all the members of our being by purification and concentration may be described as the right arm…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20","wpcat-20-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}