103. *Samsar* and *Sannyas*

Samsar literally means the 'world' or the 'path'. It refers to the worldly life that causes endless cycles of birth and death.

There are two ways to move in any path: either with baggage and people or by yourself. In the first case, you may have to wait for a longer time. In the second case you can reach, even this very minute.

Sannyas is the decision not to carry any baggage while moving. You can have everything, but you don't have to carry it. When you don't carry anything, Existence brings to you what you need for the moment. That is sannyas!

There is a beautiful story from the life of Buddha.

Buddha's disciples gathered around him one day and asked him to teach them the essence of sannyas. He told them a small story:

One man was living on an island by himself. Suddenly he got the feeling it was time to move from the island. He did not have a boat. So he made one with whatever he could find – some twigs, branches, leaves. It was a difficult journey but somehow he crossed and reached the other side.

Buddha asked the disciples, 'After reaching the other side, should the man

	A sannyasi
	walks with his
keep the boat or	thoughts on
discard it?'	Existence. A
The disc	walks samsari
iples came	with his
out with	thoughts on
different	how to exist.
answers.

Buddha

continued, 'The man of sannyas discards the boat knowing that he will be provided for as needed in the future. The man of samsar keeps it so that his effort doesn't go waste if he wants to journey back!

A sannyasi walks with his thoughts on Existence. A samsari walks with his thoughts on how to exist. A sannyasi uses the boat to cross the ocean of life. A samsari carries the boat even beyond the time it is needed, not knowing he can drop it. That is the difference. There is nothing right or wrong in this. It is just two different ways to live.

Let me explain sannyas in the context of karma because sannyas is the shortcut to exhausting karma.

Karma is nothing but the unfulfilled actions of your past that pull you again and again to take birth to fulfill them. It is the very cause of the cycle of birth and death. It makes you take birth again and again in this world until it is exhausted.

There are three types of karma – sanchita* , prarabdha* and agamya* . Sanchita karma* is your entire bank balance of unfulfilled actions (karma) accumulated over many lives. Prarabdha karma* is that portion of sanchita* that you bring and come to exhaust in this one birth. Every time you take birth, you bring with you a small portion of sanchita as your prarabdha to exhaust. It includes all your unfulfilled desires, lust, anger, fear, and such things. The third karma, agamya karma* , is the fresh karma that you create in this birth because of fresh, unfulfilled actions.

Ultimately, these three things need to be done in order to exhaust all karma completely. First, the fresh agamya* should not get created because it only adds to the bank balance or sanchita at the end of the lifetime. Second, the prarabdha with which you came should get exhausted, or fulfilled, in this life completely without a trace. Third, the volume of the sanchita itself should somehow be burnt so that the number of times you take birth reduces. This happens by fulfilling the prarabdha without accumulating the agamya in a lifetime.

If the prarabdha is exhausted in the right way, agamya will not get created. The same intelligence that properly exhausts the prarabdha will take care of not creating new agamya. The sanchita itself can be exhausted only by the grace of an enlightened master.

Now understand clearly: if the fantasy of your prarabdha is greater than your intelligence, then samsar (marriage) is the path for you. If the fantasy of your prarabdha is lesser than your intelligence, then sannyas is the path for you! In the path of sannyas, your intelligence wins over your prarabdha and brings it to control and exhaust it. In the path of samsar, life teaches you in different ways and you exhaust your prarabdha through millions of births.

In Patanjali's Yoga Sutras* , there is an eightfold path to enlightenment. All eight parts have to be followed simultaneously. Three of the parts are pratyahara, dharana and dhyana. Pratyahara is drawing the mind inwards, away from the five senses. The next is dharana or the merging of the mind with the inner Self. The third is dhyana, meditation.

Sanchita karma - Bank of accumulated karma from which we choose to bring into this birth a few as prarabdha karma.

Prarabdha karma - Mindset and desires that we bring into this world when we are born.

Agamya karma - The actions one constantly does out of free will after taking birth on planet earth.These are not born out of true desires but from desires borrowed from society, by looking at others.

Yoga Sutras - The book on yoga authored by enlightened master Patanjali.

Withdrawing the mind from the five senses itself can happen only when the mind merges with the inner Self! For example, you can release the foot from the lower rung of the ladder only after establishing yourself in the higher rung, is it not? You can let go of the lower branch of the tree only after clinging to the higher branch. We all think that only after renouncing worldly attachments, we can attain god. No! The truth is, only after attaining god can you really shake off the worldly things. Only after you experience nithyananda or eternal bliss, you can shake off mithyananda or worldly fantasies.

If you can become aware of and hold on more firmly to the higher rung you may let go of the lower rung more easily. That awareness is called sannyas. It is the process of understanding and moving to the higher rung and leaving the lower rung. As you move, renunciation happens as a byproduct. Because you realize that to climb higher you don't need anything but yourself! Anything you take with you is only going to make it more difficult to climb.

A small Zen story:

Having renounced his kingdom, a king requested a Zen master to accept him as his disciple.

The master told him, 'I will accept you, but I feel you have to wait until you gain

more mat
urity.'
The king
was too
impatient
to wait. He
pleaded
with the

Withdrawing the mind from the five senses itself can happen only when the mind merges with the inner Self!

master. The master finally agreed on the condition that the king would move to another forest and live there. The king followed the master's words.

After a few days in the forest, the king was unable to bear the mosquitoes in the forest. He bought a mosquito net and protected himself. A few days after that he felt it would be better to have a cot to sit on for meditation, so he went and bought a cot.

Then he found that the rain was spoiling the cot. To protect the cot from rain, he built a small room and kept the cot inside it. A short time later he felt the need for someone to clean the room everyday, so he brought in a helper. Then, to keep the helper occupied, he brought in one more person.

This went on and on and eventually, he created a kingdom in the forest!

Understand, a king creates a kingdom even in the forest.

Sannyas is the search to answer the question 'Who am I?'

A samsari goes to places to see the beauty of Existence.

A sannyasi sees everything around him as already divine and beautiful. When the samsari starts turning inward, he becomes a sannyasi. Until he finds the burning need for that, it is better for him to continue with what he is doing. For a sannyasi, the mind is happy all the time. What he gets is what he wants. He is always living in the mood of grateful and welcome acceptance. For a samsari, the mind is occupied with too many conflicts. He keeps trying to get what he wants. With intelligence, the samsari can awaken to the truth that what he is getting is what he needs for that moment and for his ultimate fulfillment.

There was a sannyasi who lived in a mountain area. The animals and birds would talk to him and he would respond. They would spend the whole day near his hut and at night would go back to their homes. Three times a week the sannyasi would go to the market place and preach. He spoke a lot about how to share what one has with others without the fear of becoming poor. He taught that Existence would shower abundantly if one trusts and does this.

One day, he found three men approaching his hut in the mountains. They came and asked him, 'You have

always told us to share what we have and how good it is to do it. Now, we are in need of money for business. Can you give us some money which we will return to you as soon business picks up?'

The sannyasi was surprised. He took them into his hut and showed them. He had a mat, one set of clothes and a jug of water. He said, 'Take these if you wish to. I don't have any gold or silver to give you.'

The men became angry and shouted at him, 'So you teach and preach what you yourself don't follow!'

The samsari is concerned with material things and living life in a limited way. The sannyasi is concerned about death – death of all that is not him: ego, possessiveness, lust, anger, fear, jealousy and discontent. He knows he is something beyond all this. His whole quest is to find this, because once he finds it, he has found the higher rung of the ladder and he can leave the lower rung where the constant push and pull of all these emotions and material things reside.

Sannyas is the search to answer the question 'Who am I?' A sannyasi puts his whole energy into discovering the answer to this question. If people ask you, 'Who are you?' you will generally reply, 'I am so-and-so's son, I am an engineer, I am a professor.' But those words describe who you are in your relationships with the world. If there were no world, then who are you?

The great enlightened masters who founded the world religions have said one thing repeatedly: Aham Brahmasmi or 'I am That' in the Hindu tradition, or 'Be still and know that I am god' in the Christian tradition, or Anal-Haq or 'I am the Truth' in the Islam tradition. Experiencing that you are god is the purpose of human life.

Once this purpose is experienced, the inner bliss that all these great masters talk about starts happening. Then you understand that the outer world is a beautiful stage where the divine play is happening. There is ultimate freedom from all worldly difficulties. You do, and yet you don't do, you speak and yet you don't speak. You cry and yet you don't cry. Your inner Self remains untouched. You are in 'eternal bliss' or nithya ananda.

The problem is that people generally think sannyas is a hindrance to worldly life. They think sannyas is seriousness. No! Sannyas is a certain quality for living life to its optimum. Seriousness will never help one live life to its full potential. Only sincerity and laughter will help. Laughter is the greatest spiritual quality.

A master was seated with his disciples. He was in an expansive mood and his disciples decided to ask him about the

various stages he passed through to reach the Divine. With the energy of sannyas, you are ready for the challenges of life. Sannyas is strength.

The master beautifully started explaining…

'God held me by the hand and first took me to the Land of Action. I stayed there for several years. Then god returned and took me to the Land of Sorrow. I fell into deep sorrows but eventually went beyond them. I felt happy. Then, suddenly I found that god put me in the Land of Love. I went through burning emotions and found myself cleansed thoroughly. Then, he took me to the Land of Silence. There I learned the mysteries of life and death.'

The disciples asked, 'Was that the final stage of your quest?'

The master said, 'No. One day god said, Today I will take you to my very heart… and he led me to the Land of Laughter.'

So understand, sannyas is your very energy. How can it be a hindrance to anything? Not only that, with the energy of sannyas, you are always young. With the energy of sannyas, you are ready for the challenges of life.

Sannyas is strength. It is the quality of supreme self-discipline in this fantasy With sannyas, you will continue to do what you are doing but in a much better way.

world. Someone asked Mahavira, the great enlightened Jain

master, 'Who is more superior, the samsari or the sannyasi?'

He replied, 'Self-discipline is the most superior! A samsari can sometimes be more self-disciplined than a sannyasi.' Please understand that self-discipline is not self torture. It is a beautiful resting that happens within you. It happens out of a deep understanding of the nature of your mind and the world. That's all. It happens from inside you.

When I share this idea, people ask me, 'Then why can't we continue in samsar and live with the consciousness of a sannyasi?' You see, the nature of man is such that unless a conscious decision is taken, it is difficult to bring about a permanent transformation in the consciousness. Sannyas is a conscious decision to transform the consciousness. Sannyas is a conscious decision. That is why sannyas needs to be taken. With a conscious decision, there is continued awareness. Continued awareness decreases the chance of slipping back. Without it, there is nothing binding one to keep on the path. It becomes easy to slip.

With sannyas, you will continue to do what you are doing but in a much better way, in a more confident way, in a more creative way, in a way that is closer to god. Creation is the quality of god or Existence. Existence continuously creates. Sannyas is imbibing the very qualities of Existence, and knowing that everything is the creation of Existence.

A small story:

A woman was walking from her village to the neighboring village. While walking, she came to a field of golden pumpkins. She saw a huge oak tree in one corner of the field.

As she was very tired, she sat under the oak tree for some rest.

Suddenly she looked up and saw tiny acorns all over the huge branches of the oak tree. Ahead of her, she also saw big pumpkins on tiny vines in the fields.

She thought to herself, 'Even god makes blunders with his creations. He should have put the small acorns on the tiny vines and the big pumpkins on the branches of the big oak trees.'

After some time, she stretched out and decided to take a nap under the oak tree. She fell asleep.

There was a heavy wind blowing. She was awakened by a tiny acorn that fell and bounced off her cheek. She rubbed her cheek and thought, 'Maybe god is right after all!'

Sannyas is about seeing the wonderful coexistence of everything in Existence. Sannyas is existing in relationships like a water drop on the lotus leaf. If you see the lotus leaf, the water droplet will be on the leaf but will be untouched by it. Sannyas is living in relationships while being untouched by them. A common misconception is that sannyas is renouncing relationships. No. Sannyas enriches relationships.

So many of my disciples who have embraced the path of sannyas come and tell me, 'Swamiji, after initiation, the husbandwife understanding has flowered so beautifully. Now we are really living in tune with each other and with everything around us.'

With sannyas, you start watching everything. You become a witness. Because of this witnessing, a gap is created between you and the other person. That gap is misunderstood as 'renunciation'. If you notice, the gap was not there earlier. Each one was suffocating the other. Now the gap is there. The gap is not a gap of distance but a gap of awareness.

Awareness is bringing your consciousness to your mind and watching nonjudgmentally. It is a very subtle action. Soon it becomes continuous in you. That is sannyas! Bringing awareness to the moment continuously is sannyas. With awareness, the very root of suffering is addressed before it takes root. The suffering is addressed because you are watching. Without awareness, there is bound to be suffering.

Sannyas is also living without the burden of the inner woman or inner man. What is meant by inner woman or inner man? It is nothing but the lust hidden in your mind, the fantasies that you have created in your mind. Shiva says beautifully in the Tantra* , a man who has abandoned the woman in his inner mind is a sannyasi, even if he is still in the family. On the contrary, if thoughts of a woman persist in a sannyasi's mind, he cannot be called a sannyasi. This is the scale to measure if a man is a sannyasi.

In Buddha's teaching, the Four Noble Truths, the second truth deals with the cause of suffering. He beautifully says that suffering is because of the demands we make on life every moment. It is like asking a banana tree to bear mangoes! We will understand this habit only when we bring in awareness.

Not only that, when you watch, you start seeing exactly how transactions are happening in relationships. You see how

Tantra - Ancient vedic tradition of achieving enlightenment through spiritual techniques or practices, meditations and ritual worship.

A sannyasi takes responsibility for the whole of Existence. He doesn't know the difference between his family and the rest of the world.

expectations are driving the whole thing. You see the ulterior motives in everything. I remember

an incident that happ-

ened when I was around twelve years of age. One of my grandmothers was about 104 when she passed away. She had no more children of her own. She was looked after by one of my uncles. My uncle and his wife were not happy looking after her. They would complain about her and not take care of her properly. She was also a difficult and unpleasant person. She was very miserly even though she was wealthy. She would often ask me to buy her tobacco. When I asked for money, she would tell me to ask my father for it! She would not even give water from her well to her neighbors during summer.

When she died, no one in the family wept. But the women in the household changed into cheap saris* , removed their jewelry and got ready to receive friends and neighbors who arrived to offer condolences. As soon as the guests arrived, the women would start wailing. Every time a new set of relatives arrived, the wailing would start all over again. I was shocked at the hypocrisy of the situation.

When the dead body was still in the house and relatives were still coming, the immediate family went into the dead lady's room where her box of jewelry was kept under her bed. They all laid their individual claim to her jewelry and started negotiating and bargaining even before her body had grown cold! They called in a goldsmith to estimate the worth of the jewelry.

At that moment, I lost all respect for family and its social conditioning. I started laughing loudly at their behavior. An uncle tried to hit me to stop my laughter. I held his hand and told him that if he tried to hit me again, I would tell the entire crowd what they were up to – trying to loot even before the body was cremated. My mother knew me well and told the uncle to be careful. She knew I was quite capable of doing what I threatened to do!

Then the relatives started arguing about who would pay for the funeral expenses. My father, a mild and innocent man who hated arguments, immediately agreed to take care of all expenses.

Completely disgusted, I took my Bhagavad Gita book and started chanting its verses in front of the dead body. It is said that

Sari - One piece garment worn by Indian women.

merely reading the Gita in front of a dead body can liberate the soul.

Given my age, this was the best I could do in that situation. A sannyasi takes responsibility for the whole of Existence. He doesn't know the difference between his family and the rest of the world. All are the same. He wishes for the liberation of anyone who comes his way. On the other hand, a samsari takes responsibility for one family or maybe for a few organizations. This taking of responsibility is always towards a definite cause. It is either to accumulate the credit of serving, to fulfill some obligation, or to co-exist easily with the people around him.

The nature of a sannyasi's responsibility is completely different. For him, the whole world is his family. There is no obligation driving him. Responsibility happens completely out of the quality of his inner space. Also, a samsari can rest after fulfilling every duty at that stage in life. A sannyasi continuously works, because people are constantly in need of truths in their life.

A sannyasi is established in rich relationships. People think sannyasis run away from relationships. A young girl asked me while I was addressing a college gathering, 'Was it failure in love that caused you to become a sannyasi?' I told her, 'It was success in love that

Sannyas is the ultimate royalty, because it is rich without any paraphernalia!

caused me to become a sannyasi!' Actually, sannyas is what softens you into real love, love towards not just one person but towards the whole of Existence.

Ordinary love comes with a reason, or with lust. Real love knows no reason. It is just a causeless overflowing energy towards everything in Existence.

In reality, sannyas is living like a king. Sannyas is the beginning of a kingly life because when you have cleaned yourself of all your suffering, then you have gained everything you can ever gain! You gain far more than mere wealth can give you.

When I was born, the family astrologer was called to cast my horoscope as per family tradition. The astrologer studied it and said I would be a raja sannyasi* , a kingly sannyasi. If sannyas is adapted in its right spirit, it gives a kingly stature. Sannyas is the ultimate royalty, because it is rich without any paraphernalia! A king is rich because of his outer wealth. A sannyasi is rich because of his inner wealth. With outer wealth, there is the danger that any time you may become a pauper. With inner

Raja Sannyasi - King amongst monks.

The rich person is the one who is enjoying everything around him continuously.

wealth, you remain rich forever.

It is said that when Buddha

went begging, he would look like a king, and the person who gave him alms would look like a beggar! That is the hallmark of the sannyas quality. Of course Buddha was enlightened at that time. But the sannyas dimension itself has this quality in it. It will simply radiate a kingly energy.

Not only that, the inner richness causes everything outside to be experienced with richness. A sannyasi recognizes the unending abundance of Existence. His vision is oceanic. He is not stuck in narrow perceptions. He perceives the whole of Existence as one. He feels part of the whole. That is why he is rich. A rich man who feels he owns a few acres is not really the rich one. The man who feels the abundance of Existence is really the rich one.

A small story:

One day a rich man took his son on a trip to the country with the purpose of showing his son how poor people live. They spent a few days with a farmer's family.

On their return from their trip, he asked his son, 'How was the trip?'

The son replied, 'It was very good, Dad.'

The father asked, 'Did you see how poor people live?'

The son replied, 'Yes I saw.'

The son answered, 'I saw that we have one dog and they had four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden, whereas they have a river that has no end. We have imported lights in our garden, but they have the stars at night. Our courtyard reaches to the front yard, and they have the whole horizon. We have a small piece of land to live on, whereas they have fields that go beyond our sight.

We have servants who serve us, but they serve others. We buy our food, but they grow their own food. We have walls around our property to protect us, whereas they are protected by friends.'

The father was shocked! The son finally said, 'Thank you, Dad, for showing me how poor we are.'

Understand that the very word 'rich' has been misinterpreted. How can a person who is enjoying just a few bungalows be rich? He cannot be! The rich person is the one who is enjoying everything around him continuously. His richness is the richness of the whole Existence. He enjoys everything with no attachment to anything.