On a bright day if you look into the blue sky, you would see beautiful clouds slowly moving across the sky. Does the sky hold on to these clouds?. No . You would see them float and go away soon. The shapes and images it forms in the sky is all gone before you even start seeing them. They drift away into oblivion. The sky is never obstructed by them. The sky never cares for them. It accepts these clouds knowing that they would go away. However cloudy it may be, the sky is never affected by them.
As a young kid you might have imagined beautiful forms in these clouds . The form of an elephant or crocodile. But if you hold on to the form and want it to be there , will you be happy?. A passing breeze dissolves them and you are sad that the form is lost. But with age you cease to look at these clouds . Instead you want other clouds of life. You want different things in life. Things which are as impermanent as the clouds. Without knowing you hold on to impermanent things . Our youth goes away, our beauty if we have any would pass, our health would go away, our relatives , our friends will all part . We become impoverished in old age not only with money , but with company care and all. Nothing remains . If you try to hold on to these impermanent things , your misery is guaranteed.
We often say Renunciation as the necessary thing in our spiritual life. When you look at the clouds of your life, you can see that it is not abandoning anything. It is just letting go of the clouds by understanding there impermanence. It is just like the sky which sees so many clouds and yet never cares of holds on to them. So renunciation is nothing but acceptance of reality of impermanence and understanding what really exists independent of all of them namely the sky.
As Suzuki Roshi wrote , "Renunciation is not giving up the things of the world, but accepting that they go away."
Whenever you suffer in life , look closely and you would find some cloud that you are holding on to, which was sacred for you is about to depart or is slipping away. You are trying to cling to something which is fading away. You are trying to attach your awareness to the small separate self or ego. The moment you accept it is impermanent , it would be released without despair.
Just as we leave things and become free, it is a fact of life that life also is leaving us. Many people are leaving you. Many concepts are leaving you. You are part of a cloud of someone else. So there is an overall impermanence not only in your world, but also in others . There really is nothing to hold on to except your innermost being which is the sky of permanence . An awakened person has a mind like the sky; open, vast, infinite and without the clouds.
Any talk on renunciation leaves people perplexed on how to live if we abandon everything. What is life after that ?. Should we all become monks ?. What happens to kids , family society everything?. This is a misunderstanding of renunciation. Let us take the game of football. Suppose you hold on to the ball , will there be any play possible. You pass it along allow it to go on and finally onto the goal . There is still play of football. But there is no holding on. Becoming a monk is like throwing the ball away and having no play at all. So while playing itself if you realize that the ball will come and go and you cannot hold onto it forever and the game itself will end soon, you are not much affected and yet the play is there.
Osho used to say , renunciation is not about dropping possessions but dropping possessiveness. If you understand that it is not possible to possess anything since they every object is unreal, you would learn the art of having no possessiveness. Dropping possessiveness is also the way of not expecting. Only when we feel we own things, do we have expectations.
The sky of consciousness is vast and it supports many forms and images without holding onto anything. Seeing them and accepting them that they would go away is the way of being. If we don't hold on to anything we can appreciate the beauty of existence. True wealth is in having lot of nothing!!!.
Having no identity , having no concepts and roles, having very little fear, anxiety , dislike and anger . Lesser and lesser of all these is wealth. In fact spirituality is "becoming nobody, having nothing and going nowhere".
As a young kid you might have imagined beautiful forms in these clouds . The form of an elephant or crocodile. But if you hold on to the form and want it to be there , will you be happy?. A passing breeze dissolves them and you are sad that the form is lost. But with age you cease to look at these clouds . Instead you want other clouds of life. You want different things in life. Things which are as impermanent as the clouds. Without knowing you hold on to impermanent things . Our youth goes away, our beauty if we have any would pass, our health would go away, our relatives , our friends will all part . We become impoverished in old age not only with money , but with company care and all. Nothing remains . If you try to hold on to these impermanent things , your misery is guaranteed.
We often say Renunciation as the necessary thing in our spiritual life. When you look at the clouds of your life, you can see that it is not abandoning anything. It is just letting go of the clouds by understanding there impermanence. It is just like the sky which sees so many clouds and yet never cares of holds on to them. So renunciation is nothing but acceptance of reality of impermanence and understanding what really exists independent of all of them namely the sky.
As Suzuki Roshi wrote , "Renunciation is not giving up the things of the world, but accepting that they go away."
Whenever you suffer in life , look closely and you would find some cloud that you are holding on to, which was sacred for you is about to depart or is slipping away. You are trying to cling to something which is fading away. You are trying to attach your awareness to the small separate self or ego. The moment you accept it is impermanent , it would be released without despair.
Just as we leave things and become free, it is a fact of life that life also is leaving us. Many people are leaving you. Many concepts are leaving you. You are part of a cloud of someone else. So there is an overall impermanence not only in your world, but also in others . There really is nothing to hold on to except your innermost being which is the sky of permanence . An awakened person has a mind like the sky; open, vast, infinite and without the clouds.
Any talk on renunciation leaves people perplexed on how to live if we abandon everything. What is life after that ?. Should we all become monks ?. What happens to kids , family society everything?. This is a misunderstanding of renunciation. Let us take the game of football. Suppose you hold on to the ball , will there be any play possible. You pass it along allow it to go on and finally onto the goal . There is still play of football. But there is no holding on. Becoming a monk is like throwing the ball away and having no play at all. So while playing itself if you realize that the ball will come and go and you cannot hold onto it forever and the game itself will end soon, you are not much affected and yet the play is there.
Osho used to say , renunciation is not about dropping possessions but dropping possessiveness. If you understand that it is not possible to possess anything since they every object is unreal, you would learn the art of having no possessiveness. Dropping possessiveness is also the way of not expecting. Only when we feel we own things, do we have expectations.
The sky of consciousness is vast and it supports many forms and images without holding onto anything. Seeing them and accepting them that they would go away is the way of being. If we don't hold on to anything we can appreciate the beauty of existence. True wealth is in having lot of nothing!!!.
Having no identity , having no concepts and roles, having very little fear, anxiety , dislike and anger . Lesser and lesser of all these is wealth. In fact spirituality is "becoming nobody, having nothing and going nowhere".
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