The Upanishads have ordered that there should be enjoyment in life with sacrifice. First sacrifice, then enjoyment. To serve the welfare of the world is sacrifice, to serve one’s own welfare is enjoyment. Sacrifice is humanity, divinity and enjoyment is animality and demonism.
India is a country of sacrifice, Ramji gave up the right to rule for 14 years. Mahavira and Buddha renounced the world for all time. Lord Mahavira has said in the second study of Dashvaikali Sutra that a renunciant should be one who gives up the enjoyments under his control.
Not being able to enjoy an object due to compulsion is not sacrifice. Not enjoying an object voluntarily is sacrifice, only such a renunciant enjoys sacrifice. Not enjoying an object under compulsion, not using it gives only pain to the mind, not pleasure.
There are three levels of sacrifice – you gave up an object under someone’s pressure. In reality, you have not given up that object, it has been made to be given up by you. In this situation, the other person put pressure on you and you had to leave. In this, the effort is of the one who is making you leave, not of the one who is leaving. The one who is leaving is helpless and compelled. The doctor said, “Leave the addiction, otherwise I will not treat you.” This is the first level of renunciation.
The second level is to leave voluntarily, to put pressure on your mind yourself that O mind, leave this thing, otherwise your present life and the next life will be ruined. At this level, the person convinces himself, suppresses himself, this is renunciation.
The first level of leaving is to get someone to leave, the second is to leave. The third level is to leave. In this, the seeker becomes so comfortable that he does not have any attachment, right or affection for any thing. He makes himself so neutral that the thing is left and he does not even realize that he has left something.
There is a famous incident – Ranka-Banka husband and wife were going from the hut to the forest. The husband saw gold coins lying on the way. A thought came to my wife’s mind that if she gets tempted to pick up the coins, I started covering them with mud. My wife came from behind and asked- what were you doing? I had to tell her that they were gold coins and I picked them up, so I covered them with mud. My wife said- how crazy are you? You are covering mud with mud. You are still seeing a difference between gold and mud. For me every substance in the world is mud.
This incident makes it clear that the husband had left the gold, the wife had left the gold. The one who leaves has the thought in his mind that he has left something, but the one who leaves the substance does not even have this feeling.
There are three levels of renunciation- getting rid of, leaving and leaving.
Bahushrut Jai Muni
