In reading Swami Muktananda Play of Consciousness, I am curious as to how a householder is to maintain renunciation.
I believe you are reading from book two, chapter four the secret of renunciation. In this section there are many stories Baba tells of examples of renunciation, true and false. The false is giving up that activity which cannot be done. Such as renouncing the body, or jobs. Every person has a role to fulfill to complete his or her destiny. That role must be played out even for a king or a monk or for a householder. Every action that we do creates another reaction. It is that activity we call karma. The karma for renunciation is to give up the idea that I am the doer. The one who identifies themselves with their activities will experience the mood of joy for proper action and depression for infractions. How to do this? Practice of chanting and mantra is the best means to come to an understanding of proper relationship between the sense of I and the activity one experiences.
For a householder, they exist in a partnership with their mate. All actions more closely are reflected in the state of your mate. When you feel good you prepare beauty all around you. When not so good, you may be like the walking cloud of doom. For there to be a healthy relationship there must be agreement and communication. A householder cannot renounce sex unless the partner is in agreement. It is natural for a married person to engage in sex relations and other forms of intimacy that are not shared with others. What is to be renounced is deeper than the activities, it is the tendency of the mind to attach importance and great significance to what we do and how we feel. The best form of purification for this false identity is immersion into mantra. Play a mantra chanting tape over and over, run the mantra through your mind as you go about your daily activity, and sit in silence letting the mantra do its work of ?transforming your thinking process?. That is the literal meaning of t he word mantra.
?Having realized with mind and heart, having become wise, you will no longer move on the path of death. Therefore, they call renunciation the ardor surpassing all others.?
Krishna Yajur Veda, Mahanarayana Upanishads 537
I was reflecting on this post and want to give my thoughts. Why do profiles matter in yoga? As in all these names, ‘king’, ‘monk’ are only given by society to classify their actions. Whatever names we call somebody, they are all in some ‘action’. Everyone needs food and sleep as these are indispensible for an ordinary person to stay alive, whatever means they use. Even a child has some action and creates karma. So it is with these profiles of what people do that I don’t understand why it still matters with regards to practising yoga.
Also, the term ‘householder’, I see often used in yoga to group a class of people. The definition I looked in the web is - householder n. One who occupies or owns a house. The head of a household.
If that is so, what about those born of the householder who also practices yoga?
Also Baba mentioned that renunciation of jobs is false. Can you clarify what it means by ‘jobs’? Do you mean as in a job that gives you a salary? Or do you mean all kinds of actions, as I know all actions creates karma e.g. cooking, mowing the lawn, eating. Whatever we do, aren’t we affecting another or all beings whether directly or indirectly?
Life on this earth is eating and being eaten. Nothing changes that. This is partially true for us, humans too, because we live in the physical world. People living in todays artificial world (big cities), kept safe and “human” by great efforts, forget this. It is not said in vane: For someone who really knows this world, it is only suffering.
But we have to live in it, because this is also the world we created by our former actions, both in this life and earlier ones.
Liberation or renunciation does not mean non-action. For a liberated soul, his/her actions no longer generate karmic deposites. Of course, this is our ulimate goal, and we might not get there too soon.
What is important is to get rid of attachment. Actions done without attachment don’t generate further karma.
So, as a householder, it is ok to have intercourse, if you do it without attachment. It does not depend on your spouse at all. She might attach herself and you still not. That does not mean you don’t love her. Because, what is love ? To many times we identify love with attachment. (Think McDonalds and the I’m loving it advertising) Real love is caring not because what you get, but because you see God in the other person. Making love to your wife is serving God. Giving food to your child is serving God. Every action must be done as a service to God. Than they will not harm anyone anymore, including you. Sometimes I say to myself when I lose focus, or I am depressed, or stressed: Why do I worry ? I am not important, these problems are not really problems but only in my mind. Than I feel great relief, and a new power to attend to the things what must be done.
Of course all this is great in theory. It must be realized in our everyday life, day by day, action by action. We might fail a lot, but with every single egoless action, we get closer to freedom.
I guess replacing the word ‘jobs’ with ‘action’ seems more appropriate. I think ‘action’ was what Baba meant. I just feel that nowadays what people do are not strictly defined by those profiles/roles anymore. Could a monk have intercourse and be liberated as long as he is not attached? Or should we say, he is not called a ‘monk’ anymore because he does intercourse when he should be celibate?
Nowdays there is too much information. Information is data. We store a lot of data in our minds, images, concepts, and so one. There is very little we really live. Only the informations that we seek out, find, apply, test, and reap benefits from in our own life should have importance. That is not information anymore but intimate knowledge.