SANYAS

There is widespread misperception that sanyasa is a state of physical

existence characterised by a spurning of all worldly and material associations
and surviving with bare minimum. This practice has resulted in a social
category of professional sanyasins, wearing ochre robes, with kamandal and
with no fixed abode.

In Hindu tradition, sanyas is understood as a state of a person’s

consciousness, irrespective of his social status or lifestyle. A person pursuing
grahastha dharma or raj dharma could also be a sanyasin, as long he can
remain detached from the humdrum of material existence and focus his
attention on spiritual attainment.

The best example is Mithila’s king, Raja Janaka, Sita’s father. He was a true
rajrishi, completely detached from all things material and worldly, thereby
earning the title of Vaidehi. A visiting sanyasin, it is said, was berating him
for surrounding himself with palace comforts, while calling himself a
sanyasin. Raja Janaka offered to give up all possessions at once and
proceeded to order the burning down of his most opulent palace, which was
also used as guests’ lodgings.

Suddenly, on remembering that he had left behind his kamandal in the

palace, the sanyasin asked Janaka to rescind his orders. The latter simply
smiled.

Not only Janaka, both Rama and Krishna followed the innate dharma of the
householder. Were they not true sanyasins? Krishna is known as Yogeshwar,
master of Yoga, despite being much married. Moses was married to Zipporah.
Issac’s mother was Sarah, married to Abraham who also had his son Ishmael
from Hagar. Confucius was married to Qiguan and had a son named Kong Li
and two daughters. Jesus boldly challenged the crowd, that was ready to
stone Mary Magdalene. Prophet Muhammad’s first wife was Khadijah, 15
years his senior; Guru Nanak’s wife Mata Sulkkhani is recognised for her own
spiritual status. According to the Shewtambar tradition, Vardhman Mahavir
Jain was married to Yashoda. Even Siddartha Gautam Buddha remained a
householder from the age of 16 to 29 and was married to Yashodhara before
he set out on his search for enlightenment.

Therefore it is evident that practising one’s duties as a householder, and a

responsible citizen has no bearing on spiritual evolution, which should be
the principle goal of a sanyasin. This practice of abdicating one’s worldly
responsibilities, perhaps started with the Buddha’s abdication of both his
householder’s dharma and raj dharma. The call for Sangam Sharanam
Gachhami, exhorting seekers to renounce their grahastha status created an
unsustainable and unnatural divide between those seeking spiritual evolution
and others who wished to discharge their responsibilities as a householder
and citizen and still stay on the path. It is really not necessary to abdicate
one’s role as householder and administrator in order to evolve on the
spiritual path.

The true sanyasin is one who is detached from his material possessions and
trappings, even while being surrounded by them. As Krishna advised, we
have to try and attain sakshi bhav, be a witness, an essential attribute of a
true sanyasin, achieved through regular practice of meditation and Ashtanga
Yoga. Following one’s destined dharma while striving to achieve sakshi bhav,
through regular dhyana, dharna, leading hopefully to attainment of
nirvichaar samadhi, has the amazing potential to transform the very nature
of our social fabric, making it more nurturing and supportive.
(Rajiv Kumar is Vice Chairman, Niti Ayog).

We can have different relationships with each moment of our lives, writes
RAJESH BHOLA

Certain encounters in our lives are truly timeless — a ‘time’ when we

become blissfully unaware of its passing. However, while it is not uncommon
for someone to lose track of time, this by itself does not constitute a mystical
experience of timelessness; in fact, this would not even challenge our
conceptual understanding of space and time. Timelessness is, in simple
terms, a mystical experience that transcends time. Such mystical
experiences make us feel and believe that time and space are illusory.

The mystic finds himself in a dimension where time does not exist; he is
always in the ‘now’. Mystics speak of three types of knowledge: sensible,
rational and a third kind described as an exalted power of the soul — a power
so high and noble that it enables one to come face to face with God. This
power knows no yesterday or tomorrow, for in eternity there is only the
‘present.’ Kahlil Gibran aptly said, “The timeless in you is aware of life’s
timelessness. And knows that yesterday is but today’s memory and
tomorrow is today’s dream.”

The feature of time that we are most familiar with is that of its passing,
flowing by us.
We are born, we grow, we live; we learn from living and eventually, we die.
This aspect of time’s flow is so deeply ingrained in our perception that we
don’t even question it; we take it for granted. Yet, the possibility of living in a
timeless manner is a capacity that each of us has; it emerges when our
embeddedness within physical reality diminishes and our connection with
God and the eternal becomes stronger. Such a shift involves a relocation of
identity to the present, freed of past connections and future plans. This
relocation roots our identity to the source of our being rather than to the
reflective feedback of others or to the content of external events. As we
move towards the foundation of our being, our relationship with the present
moment becomes the expression of our relationship with God-in-the-present.
However, this movement can be a challenge for us. We think of ourselves as
our parents’ children or our children’s parents, by the work we do, or the
work we wish to do. We do not feel comfortable defining ourselves by what is
unknown and changing. Living in timelessness involves a profound
redefinition of identity, trusting that what is happening now is all there is and
all that needs to be. This moment, this now, has immense significance
because its source is in God. For it is God who is unfolding Himself in a
myriad of forms. There is no need to hold on to anything. Within each
moment, we can have a significant interaction; each moment can call forth
our total engagement.

The new identity thus available to us is a fluid one, which includes the
perception of timelessness within time. We unfold like flowers within the
landscape of space and time. All moments of our life occur simultaneously
within the landscape of space-time, a landscape that unfolds like a scroll,
with all moments and events coexisting within it, even though we tend to
view these sequentially. It is our attention, focussing now on one aspect of
reality, now on another, that allows us to experience the passage of time.

Our selective attention concentrates on the details of experiences that it

deems important, separating these from all others, and this fluctuating
concentration, shaped by the relationship between subjects and objects,
allows us to experience the passing of time.

The relationship of time to our consciousness is complex, and changes as our

consciousness evolves, shaped by where we focus our attention and also by
how ‘embedded’ we are with our physical senses. With less embeddedness,
we discover that the sense of being immersed in the passage of time is not
an immutable property of reality.

Rather, it is a property of the reality maintained by the perceptual apparatus

of our brain and sense organs. As embodied beings, having higher cortical
centres and neural pathways, which modulate our five physical senses, we
perceive what our perception tells us.

As we become less dependent on this way of perceiving and more open to

other ways, we become increasingly liberated from what has been our typical
way of perceiving time and can experience a new relationship with the
‘present.’

In this freer perspective, it is not that the past is forgotten, it just becomes
part of a lesser reality. With an increasing sense of the eternal infusing the
temporal, eventually the present becomes all that there is. There is a method
to approaching the transition into timelessness and the eternal. As we move
across the unfolding scroll of our life, we can allow the present to be
highlighted and everything else to go dimmer. The past can form a
background for where we are now, but not determine who we are.

THE POSSIBILITY OF LIVING IN A TIMELESS MANNER EMERGES WHEN

OUR EMBEDDEDNESS WITHIN PHYSICAL REALITY DIMINISHES AND
OUR CONNECTION WITH THE ETERNAL BECOMES STRONGER

The fluidity of our consciousness, allows us to have a different relationship

with each moment. ■