There are three stages of life. First comes sanyas, renunciation, which means complete surrender through evaporation of ego. But, so long as there is life there is ego. You cannot do without it. You can only take it as His ego. Your mind then becomes manjari, budding seed. The picture of a new born baby in the mother’s lap typifies sanyas.
Then comes the stage of brahmacharya, celibacy, when one lives in and through Him and feels His presence in every experience. True sanyas is a sort of subconscious behaviour or reflex action. And real brahmacharya is conscious perception of one reality through the manifold of existence.
While sanyas displays unconscious will and brahmacharya evinces conscious feeling, the stage grihastha is marked by complete merger in thought, feeling and will. The real grihastha is He, Himself, who dwells in this tenement of clay.
Actually, sanyas is the state of one who is self-poised, one who has no ego attachments.
Sanyas in the true sense of the term, implies the total annihilation of ego and identification with the Supreme I-Consciousness absolutely in everyday life. The five senses also surrender completely to the Self. Sanyas is possible only when life ceases. A living being cannot be a sannyasi.
Real renunciation, sanyas, is to be shorn of ego and to be in svabhava, a natural state of attunement with the Supreme. We are all purna kumbhas, pitchers full of Him. To install this Consciousness in our empiric being is the only necessity. Picking pockets is much better than the business of sadhus and sannyasis, holy people and renunciates. The whole host of them so-called sadhus propose to lead us to the Fountain Source. But, in fact, they are leading us to perdition. Neither the sadhus and sannyasis, nor the pundits, intellectuals, know anything.
Renunciation and self-denial enlarge the ego and do not eliminate it. They create vanity, a vanity of calculated achievement, a vanity of having a distinct position in society. Complete and silent surrender to Him without any exhibitionism is the only path. Renunciates project their vanity, which leads to complete darkness. A little exhibition of power is of no avail so far as realisation of Truth is concerned.
The world is His. Every object, from the moon and stars, to the sun that shines to dispel darkness and give life and joy is His handiwork. So what does one renounce? And, for what? There is no escape from His creation, it encompasses one from all sides. God is available here and now, anywhere and everywhere.
Saffron robes and vows of celibacy are against the law of nature. When I am born, brought up and leave my body in the lap of nature, how can I deny her demands? For instance, a soldier goes to the battlefield and is determined to fight with the enemy. Suppose he flies away from that place out of fear. He then is in the same boat with the socalled sannyasi, renunciate, who tries to escape the burdens of family life to avoid the pangs of prarabdha, destined unfolding process of life.
Brahmacharya does not mean not using sexual organs. It means to be in Him. What does sexual intercourse stand for? Absorption, relishing His rasa, tasting His love.
Being a saint or a monk has nothing to do with God but is only acceptance by tradition. Sadhus and yogis avoid responsibilities of natural life and become escapists, ritualists, and achieve nothing. You cannot leave His creation and find Him elsewhere, can you?
-Amiya Roy Chowdhury
