Sannyas is the Ultimate Gamble🔗

Our ability to be in tune with others and Existence depends entirely upon how we conduct ourselves. It depends on the priorities we choose in life. What if we do not choose? What if we accept things as they happen to us?

It is time to talk about renunciation. Renunciation is not running away from life. Renunciation is flowing with life without resistance. The Sanskrit word sannyas refers to this state of trust with Existence that allows us to let go all other things in life.

There is a beautiful story from the life of Buddha:

After enlightenment, Buddha visited many places preaching his dhamma or teachings, and initiating people into spiritual life.

On his way, he entered Kapilavastu, his birth place. He walked on the streets with his disciples, wearing the saffron robe. Everyone watched him with great wonder.

Buddha's wife, Yashodhara, heard the noise in the street and asked what it was. Her maids told her that it was none other than her own husband who had returned as the Buddha, the enlightened soul. She did not go to meet him. Instead, she called for her son Rahul. Rahul was born the night that Buddha left home in search of enlightenment.

She asked Rahul, 'Do you see that radiant figure there who holds a begging bowl and yet looks like a king? He is your father. Go and ask him for your inheritance.'

The young boy ran downstairs and pushed his way through to where Buddha stood. He fell at Buddha's feet and boldly repeated what his mother had told him.

Buddha lifted him up gently with a smile and looked at him. He simply removed the gold hemmed cloth the boy was wearing and replaced it with a saffron one.

The boy, seven years of age, was given his inheritance. He was the first and only child allowed into the monastic order of the Buddha.

Someone asked me, 'If everything in life is evolving naturally by the process of evolution > The right revolution leads to evolution - or enlightenment. That is sannyas – the greatest revolution of an individual.

like monkey into man, and bad into good, would man not ultimately evolve into god? Where then is the need for meditation, sannyas...where then is the need for inspiration?’

I replied, ‘It took five thousand years for the monkey to become man, and it would take equally long for man to become god. If you are willing to wait that long, it is alright with me!’

On the other hand, you can decide to live consciously with a clear understanding about life, the laws and structure of the universe, and meditation. You can revolutionize the process of your evolution. The right revolution leads to evolution or enlightenment. That is sannyas, the greatest revolution of an individual. It is to live like a Paramahamsa, like an enlightened being.

Adi Shankara, the enlightened master from India, beautifully says in his work Vivekachoodamani¹:

For all living creatures, a human birth is rare,

and even rarer is to have a sattvic (goodness) attitude,

and more so to have steadfastness on the path of spiritual activity

as explained in the Vedas²...

These words had a very powerful effect on the life of Swami Vivekananda, an enlightened master from India who lived thousands of years after Adi Shankara. When Swami Vivekananda was preparing for his law examination, these very words landed on him like a thunderbolt. He could not read further. He left his books and started running along the road. He was running to his master, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. While he was running, the truth of Adi Shankara’s words was ringing in his very being. He thought to himself, ‘I have gained all these three: I have been born as a human being. I have gained the desire for liberation. I have got a great master….then why am I still wasting my life? Why am I still wasting my life?’ Again and again, these words were haunting him. Swami Vivekananda went on to become enlightened and spread Ramakrishna Paramahamsa’s mission worldwide.

Sannyas is the path for those who want to win over themselves, who want to be free of the clutches of jealousy, anger, stress and depression forever. People think sannyas is chosen by losers. No. Of course, sometimes those who don’t know what to do with their lives take up sannyas. But that is not the spirit of sannyas.

Samaveda and Atharvaveda. These texts explain about the performance of sacrifice and consist of stories and chants. The Vedas are considered to be revelations of the Truths that happened to the mystics and seers.

Sannyas is the effort to become conscious for the first time, conscious of the mechanism that surrounds you as a human being. You are part of Existence. Existence moves with its own mechanism, with its own music. Falling in tune with it is the science of sannyas. Sannyas is a being level relationship, being in tune with the whole of Existence. That is the shortest path to success in life.

To hear the song of Existence, you need to start moving in the right space. To find that space, you need to first drop any other thing you know, and listen to the song with deep awareness. You will find it. In that space, life will flow like a river moving towards the sea. Any other path will take longer.

When life becomes a flowing river, it has to merge with the sea. There is no other way. Sannyas is the science of flowing with the natural course of Existence and finally merging with it.

The river heads only towards the sea. It does not stagnate anywhere. A sannyasi heads only towards his goal of enlightenment. He knows no distractions. The river flows blissfully, whatever be the things thrown into it on its way. So many things are thrown into the river – flowers, twigs, food, animals, birds, dead bodies, etc. But the river flows, not bothering about anything.

Similarly, a sannyasi moves blissfully, untouched by anything that comes his way. The current pulls the river over its obstacles, and it gurgles with a constant music, moving towards the sea. The cosmic intelligence pulls the sannyasi over obstacles as he moves towards the ultimate goal. He knows not what obstacles are. For him, they are all stepping stones on the path to bliss.

One Zen master was asked, ‘What is Zen?’

He replied, ‘Walk on!’

Zen Buddhism beautifully says, life is like the river that flows and fills each form, and bursts its own limitations to expand its capacity. This is the essence of life, and sannyas. Sannyas is learning in action as life moves, not philosophizing. It is a force, not a dogma. For a real sannyasi, life simply moves in the right direction. The learning happens during the movement, not as a separate thing.

Sannyas is nothing but straightaway practicing the truths every passing moment. There is enough philosophy in the world but no one to follow it. Sannyas is simply a conscious decision to live the truth immediately in your life.

A Zen master tells his disciple very beautifully, ‘Studying the truth as a philosophy is just collecting preaching material. Remember that unless you practice constantly, your light of truth may go out.’

Practice is nothing but continuously flowing in the right direction without stagnating. Even

A sannyasi continuously moves with the intelligence of Existence with an attitude of surrender. By surrender, I don't mean inaction. I mean action with an attitude of surrender. There is no stopping. He lives in the moment, spontaneously and according to the need of the moment, which is what is called fluidity.

Sannyas has always been wrongly associated with renunciation. You don't have to renounce anything. You just need to understand that you are a temporary custodian of some wealth, which is a part of Existence, just as you are as well. Then you won't need to renounce because you never possessed anything in the first place! Even if you have to part with wealth, you will not feel that you are giving away or losing your possessions. The problem starts with the attitude of possessing, with the feeling of 'mine'.

Neither does a sannyasi need to renounce the world nor does a samsari^\* need to be afraid of renouncing. Just the plain understanding that Existence gives and takes at the right moment is enough. Then you know that what is happening is the right thing for the moment and life is flowing as it should. This creates a mental gap between you and your wealth and that gap is called renunciation! It is just a gap, a break in the attitude of possessing, nothing else. It has been wrongly used in the context of sannyas.

A small story:

Two monks were traveling together. One of them strongly believed in acquiring wealth. He practiced spirituality through it. The other strongly followed the path of renunciation. They were discussing the two ways of life. As they were discussing, it became nighttime and they reached a river that they had to cross.

The one who believed in renunciation did not have money with him. He said, 'We don't have money to cross the river. Let us spend the night here and some one will take us across the river tomorrow morning.'

The other one replied, 'That is not possible. We will be eaten by wild animals if we spend the night here. I have money with me. Let us pay the boatman and cross the river.'

Once they crossed the river safely, he asked his companion, 'Now do you understand the value of money? If I too had been a man of renunciation, what would have happened to us?'

The first one replied, 'It was your renunciation that brought us across safely. You parted with your money to cross the river!'

Renouncing is ‘having’ without the idea of having, and ‘parting’ without the idea of parting. Otherwise, by merely renouncing outer wealth, you will not gain anything. You will only feel the pain of sacrificing the ‘mine’. Sannyas is not escaping from the ‘mine’. It is going beyond the ‘mine’. And that is possible only through a proper understanding. If you renounce with understanding, it is okay. Otherwise, the ‘mine’ will simply persist wherever you go. Not only that, if you renounce with the idea that you are renouncing ‘yours’, it becomes the right action but for the wrong reason! By merely renouncing outer wealth, you can never be a sannyasi. Sannyas is a change in the inner mental setup, not a change in the outer material setup. Renouncing outer wealth to be a sannyasi is like doing the right action but for the wrong reason.

Wealth and sannyas are not mutually exclusive. In fact, sannyas is the art and science of creating wealth flawlessly.

If you read the vedic scriptures you will see that they always talk only about the abundance of life. They never teach escaping from it. They teach loosening the attachment over possessions, not renouncing or hating it. Sannyas is seeing the vast abundance of life as one whole, and therefore not being attached to your own small possessions. It is knowing that wealth is also a manifestation of Existence and not the essence of life itself.

Sannyas is not suicide. It is life. Sannyas is living in tremendous beauty, both inside and outside you.

Understand, outer beauty and wealth are not enemies to the path of sannyas. They are complementary. Sannyas adds inner wealth and beauty to your outer wealth and beauty. It gives us the intelligence to handle the outer wealth and beauty without any suffering related to it.

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 long 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 some twigs, branches, leaves and whatever he could

Buddha asked the disciples, ‘After reaching the other side, should the man keep the boat or discard it?’

The disciples came out with different 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 thought 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 or agamya karma is the new karma that you create in this birth because of new, unfulfilled actions.

Ultimately, these three things need to be done in order to exhaust all karma completely. First, the new agamya should not get created because it only adds to the bank balance or the 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

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

Agamya - 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. 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, the merging of the mind with the inner Self. The third is dhyana, meditation.

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.

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 samsari moves to pursue his fantasies. He goes to places to see the beauty of Existence. A sannyasi sees everything around him as already divine and beautiful! He is fantasized by what he sees! 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.

* - The book on yoga authored by enlightened master Patanjali.

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, which is his 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 repeatedly, ‘Aham Brahmasmi’ meaning, ‘I am That’ in the Hindu tradition, or ‘Be still and know that I am god’ in the Christian tradition, or Anal-Haq meaning ‘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’ – 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.

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.’

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.

People ask me, ‘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. 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.

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 him, 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 Budd-ha’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 expectations are driving the whole thing. You see the ulterior motives in everything.

There is a little known truth about a sannyasi, that 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

ritual worship.

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 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.

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.

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.