VAIRAGYA or non attachment is a quality rarely found in ordinary human beings! From the time the child sees the light of the day, it is surrounded by a number of relations, father, mother, brother, sister, uncle, aunt and others. Brought up with rare love and affection, the child develops unbreakable bonds. After a time, when a boy or girl, it has new relationship with his or her friends. In other words human existence is a combination of different relationships and connections! As the boy grows he has his desires, wishes, likes dislikes, preferences and is interested in satisfying them. The senses are more active and impel him to satisfy them immediately and quickly! How is it possible for the young to develop Vairagya with so much of doting and excess of affection on the part of parents and others? The child, to be non attached, should be extraordinary and blessed even from the time of birth like Dhruva and Prahlada! We can never expect to have such children in our families in this Kali yuga! This thought brings me to the different types of Vairagya which affect the common man in society!
There are three types of Vairagya that people usually consider as important! The first is called “Purana Vairagya!” Pious people attend religious and spiritual discourses by erudite scholars.The lectures on the Ramayana and the Mahabharatha delivered with gusto and feeling move them very much. As long as they listen to these discourses they are very much impressed. The righteousness of Rama, the fraternal affection of the brothers, the chastity of Sita affect them much! At the same time they hate the character of Ravana who aspired for the hand Sita! They love the exploits of Hanuman.They dislike Duryodhana and his brothers and love the Pandavas and Krishna who came to their help time and again! They desire to be like the Pandavas and be truthful like them in their life! But these thoughts ring in their mind as long as they hear the discourses! The moment they return home these thoughts evaporate into thin air! They become the ordinary mortals they are with all traits like ego, hatred, jealousy anger and other evil tendencies!
The second type of non attachment is related to women! Soon after marriage the couple is very happy with feast and festivity and the first experience of honeymoon. When the wife conceives, the pleasure is doubled and they expect the baby fondly. But pregnancy is not such an easy thing as it is imagined! For nine months she has to undergo many changes in her constitution to suit the child and protect her health. She has to endure the excruciating agony of labor pains. Unable to bear the pangs, she curses the husband for creating such a situation! In her fear and pain she vows that she should not have any more children! Sometimes it is a question of life and death for the woman. But soon after the safe delivery of the baby, she is relaxed and forgets all the pain and suffering she endured so stoically! Her disgust and philosophy of not having any more children goes into thin air! After a couple of years she has two more children!!! This Vairagya is short lived as “Purana Vairagya”.
The mind of man is very unstable! He sees the daily procession people being taken to the burial ground or crematorium! Seeing these things, he thinks that life is so short and one day or other he has to undergo the same experience! He wants to lead a clean life. He understands what death is and how his own kith and kin dread this inevitable end to life! But soon after the corpse is taken away, he reverts to his normal ways of life! He is afraid of death. He wants to live for long and does not wish to die! All his philosophical views on life and death melt into thin air! He resumes his life as if if he will never face death! In the Mahabharata, Dharmaraja tells the Yaksha that the most astonishing thing about man is that he wants to live for ever fully knowing that it is impossible! This attitude is called “Smasana Vairagya”.- non attachment of the burial ground.
Fickle minded man is susceptible to good and bad influences in his life! Under the influence of good things, he decide to be good, honest, and truthful. But when he moves away from that influence, he is the self same man subject to vicissitudes in life! This transitory influence of non attachment or philosophy is not enduring! He is in the same rut of his ordinary existence! He cannot release himself from the attachments and ‘mamakara’ that has bound him for ever! Hence, non attachment or Vairagya is a quality that is inborn and cannot be cultivated all of a sudden! These temporary pious resolutions are as brittle as as the bubble in the wave of water! Human nature, under the influence Maya or illusion cannot be changed unless under the Grace of God! These three Vairagyas are common experiences in men and women! Let us not be swayed by these momentary resolutions. Let us try to cultivate real non attachment by withdrawing from the bonds of family ties!
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