Attaining Desirelessness
The discipline of dispassion,
is a part of the education of the mind, by which it is purified and enabled to
return to its essential nature. The vairagya, or the
spirit of renunciation that yoga speaks of, is a very subtle attitude of
consciousness, and it is not merely any kind of outward conduct or behaviour.
It is not an abandonment of things in the pure physical sense, though a safe
distance from attractive physical objects may be conducive to this internal
discipline of dispassion. Physical distance does not prevent the mind from
desiring and, therefore, a mere physical isolation is not the entire meaning of
renunciation. It is an inward transformation that has to take place, by which
consciousness – or in its more pronounced form, mind – does not relate it to
its objects.
The object of sense can be
physical or conceptual, and one can be attached to a conceptual object even
though there may be no physical object. As far as attachment is concerned, it
makes not much difference whether its object is physical or purely
psychological, because inward reveries of the mind are as dangerous as outward
possessive attitudes. The mind can be in the thick of enjoyment even inside a
monastery or a nunnery, and what binds us is this craving of the mind, and what
makes us take rebirth is this craving of the mind. It is a mental potentiality,
a predisposition of the mind towards something, that causes rebirth.
When Patanjali, lays great
emphasis on the requisite of vairagya, or
renunciation, he intends to convey to us the message that bondage – from which
yoga tries to free us – is not merely in a physical location of objects of
sense, but in a connection of consciousness with these locations of objects and
an appreciation by the mind of the characters of these objects. We cannot enjoy
an object unless we appreciate it, and this appreciation is the recognition by
the mind of certain characters or values in the object which itself is lacking.
The love that we feel towards
an object is an indication that those features which we see in the object of
our attraction are absent in us, and we try to make good the lack by a
connection that we establish inwardly, psychologically, between ourselves and
the object. Can we love an object eternally, for all times – from birth to
death? That is not possible. We jump from one thing to another thing. Today
this is desirable, tomorrow another thing is desirable; and the mind has found
that the object which attracted it yesterday is inadequate today. And with all
its experiments, it finds that it cannot find or acquire what it lacks, because
the mind is incapable of knowing what it really lacks.
There is an infinite
shortcoming in the mind and, therefore, finite objects cannot bring it
satisfaction. When there is an awakening into this fact, it tries to discover
the causes of its failure and take to right methods, by which it can gain what
it has really lost and what it really seeks. But the mind is wedded to the
senses. The senses begin to tell it once again the very same thing that they
conveyed to it earlier, and we once again begin to interpret the causes of our
suffering in this world in terms of the objects of the world; and there is a
possibility, then, of our entering into a muddle, which is the state of mental
confusion.
This is what is described in
the first chapter of the Bhagavadgita, in which condition, on one side we feel
that we are in need of light, advice and guidance from a higher power, a
greater source of wisdom; but on the other side we cling to our own views, as
Arjuna did. He was seeking advice from Bhagavan Sri Krishna, but he was also
arguing on behalf of his own feelings and opinions, as if they were right. In
this confused state, the mind can get into an entangled situation where partly,
or outwardly, it may appear to be engaging itself in a pious adventure of even
the practice of yoga, devotion to God, etc., but it can become, unfortunately
for it, a totally sidetracked movement, a direction which it takes by the
guidance of the senses, and it can imagine that it is moving in the right
direction though it is moving in the opposite direction.
Vairagya,
or the spirit of renunciation, is a mastery that we gain over the objects of
sense, and is not merely a forgetful attitude of the mind in respect of objects
of sense. What are the objects of sense? Drishta and anusravika are the words used: that
which is seen, and that which is heard – both these are objects. We can cling
to objects which are seen with the eyes, and also cling to things which are
only heard by our mind.
What is vairagya then, which the yoga
speaks of? It is a vitrshnata, or a
feeling of inward desirelessness, towards everything that is seen or capable of
being seen, and everything that is heard of, even through the scriptures or by
other sources. Acharya Sankara says that even the pleasures of Brahmaloka are
to be despised by a desireless mind, as they are mere dirt which have no
essence in them.
Attraction is impossible
unless both cooperate – the object and our own mind. The object has to be
placed in a proper context, it must reveal certain characters, and those
characters and that context should be the very same thing that our mind is
lacking at that particular time. Then we are attracted by it. That is why we
cannot be attracted by the same thing always, because the mind changes when we
advance in age or in experience.
Knowing all these things, the viveki, or the man of
discrimination, gets disillusioned. For
certain reasons which are to be explained, the whole world is full of pain
only. It is not a place of beautiful enjoyment or an occasion for exciting
pleasures. There is something very terrible about things.
All this is a precaution that
masters of yoga give us, so that we may not get caught up by the very same
forces from which we try to gain freedom, because freedom is an inward
adjustment of consciousness towards the natural order of things. Our harmony
with the universe is real freedom.
The joy of the Atman, the
Supreme Self, reflects itself in all these manifestations – right from the
delight of Brahma, or creator, down to the grossest physical object of sense –
in various degrees. What is giving us joy, pleasure, is this Atman present in
things. We are happy wherever the Atman is manifest. Where the Atman is not
manifest, we cannot feel joy. The Atman is not an object, of course, and yet it
is capable of getting revealed in some degree through the objects. Completeness,
or an absence of any kind of want, is the character of the Atman.
Excerpts from:
Chapter 24: True
Spiritual Living by Swami Krishnananda
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