Renunciation. It’s a popular topic here at the Hermitage. Perhaps popular isn’t the right word; let’s say it’s a subject of conversation, thought, and contemplation on a quite frequent basis. As it is, I think, for most people attempting to live a spiritually focused life. For today, however, I really want to focus on some of my own thoughts around renunciation.
For those of us oriented towards the quest to live a spiritual, prayerful, and dharmic or truthful life, renunciation tends to mean the giving up of things, activities, and behaviours (including thoughts, attitudes, and the like). The theory is the very act of renunciation itself predisposes one to more authentic and close identification with their own true natures. It places them nearer to realisation of the Divine, of God, Absolute Reality.
And of course when harmful things, situations and attitudes are released, one has less to distract from the spiritual quest and life, Of course, most acts of renunciation don’t result in a one off quick fix: I heard in one of our hermitage conversations a few days ago the perfect quote to help make this point:
‘You just have to keep renewing the renunciation.‘
In other words, it’s a full-time, life-long job!
But, in the attempt at renouncing, we can potentially find some help towards a clearer focus on the spiritual side of life as well as more sensitivity towards what is good and what is not good for us.
A person free from both hatred & desire is always renounced. Indifferent to dualities, he is free from all bondage and easily attains liberation
Bhagavad Gita Ch 5:V 3
Which is where every one of us knows exactly what it means to try to give up what’s bad for us. It ‘ain’t easy is it? Still, we’re here to talk about me, not you or anyone else. So …
There are a few things that in perusing the monkish life, that I didn’t have to renounce; some things like eating flesh, drinking and smoking, going out to clubs, pubs and the rest, are things I’ve either never engaged in, or haven’t done for a very long time.
Which brings me to a good point to mention here. Any renunciation whatsover has to be a personal decision taken only after serious reflection and thought. And it must be made without outside coercion or pressures. While others may think they know what’s good (or bad) for you, in truth, it’s only you who really knows.
Anyway, as I was saying, or about to say, renouncing things hasn’t always a piece of cake for me. Actually, I love cakes of many and varied kinds and have had to renounce all of them. But that was more for my body’s health than for my spirit, though obviously the two go hand in hand.
Then, just a couple of days ago in a momentous event which in fact was the trigger for all this reflection on renunciation, I vowed to give up a particular breakfast cereal I’m really very fond of.
This renunciation – not the first attempt I might add – being prompted by the fact that I tend to experience quite strong indigestion, huge bloating, and general feeling yuck, when I’ve indulged in this cereal for any length of time.
There is nothing trivial about attempting to renounce foods and so on that harm our health; as I said, it’s a lifetime’s effort. And equally daunting are the non-physical things like attitudes and behaviours.
Any renunciation whatsover has to be a personal decision taken only after serious reflection and thought.
Here is an example, or group of examples, which along with the above-mentioned cereal saga, played a serious role in bringing about this post. They are behaviours and attitudes which very emphatically interfere with my quest for a Dharmic, prayerful, and spiritually focused life,
What I absolutely hate, despise, detest, am revolted by … Oops sorry; I forgot my monkish manners there for a minute. Let me try to rephrase.
I have a strong aversion to gossip, to judgemental thoughts and comments. I am averse to it on a couple of levels. Firstly, I do not like, for one second, the idea of not minding my own business, of commenting on what other beings do or say, or don’t do or don’t say, or how they behave.
Surely, my thinking goes, I have enough of my own business to mind, why do I need to mind the world’s business?
That’s the key one I think. But I really dislike the feelings such behaviour and attitudes invoke in me: anger, frustration, guilt, inappropriate thoughts, words and conversations. There is even a physical component sometimes when I make myself sick in some way through the stress of such things.
There is another point too, just as key if not more so. I’m routinely disgusted by the notion that these criticisms, judgements, not minding my own business, really do impact on what I call the vibes of life for all of us. Call it vibes, energies, whatever, but I sense that our own behaviour has a ripple effect beyond our immediate relationships and environments to the wider world beyond.
So, by now it’s pretty clear that I am in need of some serious renunciation of my judgemental, critical thought and words, as well as the anger, disgust and the like, I feel and express towards those I deem worthy of my judgement. Okay, not just others: all we’ve been saying here applies equally to myself.
Perhaps it’s to do with family, school, or societal conditioning? And like any full-on conditioning it can tend to preoccupy, even possess, one’s life.
These are all old stories. They come from a past that doesn’t exist. For real, it’s gone right? Actually, when you think about it, there really is no such thing as the past.
Long ago, decades really, I was big into affirmations. I had a whole collection in a little folder that I kept in my pocket of on my desk or wherever was handy.
There are a few I remember even now thirty or more years later, and there are one or two that come to mind that might be helpful that I can resurrect to share here.
I release and let go of all that is unlike love. There is plenty of time and space for everything I want to do.
You let go of all that’s unlike love, what’s left? Love. Love is all. All is love. And this affirmation has an added bonus: no regrets, it’s never too late, there is time – and space – aplenty.
And the second one. I think it’s just as good:
I am at peace with my own feelings. I am safe where I am. I create my own security. I love and approve of myself.
This one I’ve rewritten as a prayer; I might share that one sometime. The helpfulness here is easy to get: I’m safe; it’s okay to have my own feelings.
There’s no outside threat – nothing to attack, nothing to defend – and, finally, I have no need to be entangled with all that unwanted stuff, that – as I’ve already said a couple of times – is none of my business.
For my community, the invisible and the visible, with love
Notes from the Hermit's Cave 