Difference between Renunciation and Sahaj Yoga

It is a very good idea to live in a monastery but it is very difficult to find a true monastery outside.  Your body is the monastery in which you have to live. You cannot find a better temple than your own self, your own body. Try to live within it ! This is best fortress, God has given you. We must take a shield within us. You can never find a monastery which can detach your mind from everywhere else. Your mind will run to people and places, no matter where you live.

That is why Christ says, ‘Thy body is the temple of living God.’  (2 Corinthians 6:16 ‘And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.’) Gurvani also refers to the human body as Harmandir (Temple of God).

You can’t find a better temple than your own body. You are already living in a monastery where nobody can harm you, nobody can reach you, where you can save yourself from senses and all the enemies of the world who are pulling you in different directions.

You will never be able to control your mind by doing austerities, by will power, by fighting with it. There is only one way to get rid of the negative and evil tendencies of mind, and that is to attach it to the Divine Word (Ram Naam) within. And that helps. We do not have to arrest our body but we have to arrest our mind. In a monastery, you can succeed in confining your body to four walls, but you can’t detach from outside. The mind will run wild.

A monastery may be restful in the sense that you don’t have to work for your living; you live on the charity of other people. You may call that rest, but it adds to your karmas by living on others’ earnings. Being in home and surrounded by your family, you be a like a monk detached from them.  And being a thousand mile away from them, you may be attached to them. It is the mind which is to be detached, not the body.

With renunciation, we try to run away from situations and that is likely to be suppression; and with detachment, the mind is attached to something else and so automatically you become detached. In renunciation, we run away to the forests; we leave our children and family, the comforts of home and other responsibilities and hide in the remote corners of the jungles and all that, just to avoid those situations. Detachment comes when we are attached to something superior and better. Mere renunciation does not create any detachment. Your mind may be still be in all these things; there may be suppression. Real detachment from the world can come only when we are attached within to something superior. That is the real difference between renunciation and detachment.

If a river is flowing and you try to build a dam to hold the water in the catchment area, you will be able to hold the water for some time. But when too much water flows in the catchment area, there will be build-up of excess pressure which will not only break the dam but also overflow the banks and there will be floods.

Renunciation is just building of a dam and not letting the water flowing anywhere. Detachment is like building a dam and then digging another channel tp allow the water to flow in a different direction. Thus the danger of breaking the dam is averted. That is why the way detachment is also called as Sahaj Yoga (The natural way).

In detachment, renunciation and attachment goes together, we are not just suppressing the mind, we are withdrawing it and channelling it to inner journey , attaching it to the divine light and sound of Word (Ram Naam) within. It is only the change of direction of mind. From downward it goes upward, and when it becomes attached to the inner sound and light, it starts detaching from the senses. The senses no longer pull it as it is enjoying far superior pleasures than the sensual pleasures. But without getting a better pleasure within, how long will you be able to hold your mind? It will pull you back again, with more vigour, more force, downward. This is the real difference between renunciation and detachment.  

--- Shri Vipin Tyaagi