Sri Ramana Maharshi on true renunciation — selections from four records of his teaching
A devotee once told Sri Ramana Maharshi that he had a good mind to resign from his job and remain with him always. The reply undid the plan at its root: “Bhagavan is always with you, in you, and you are yourself Bhagavan. To realize this it is neither necessary to resign your job nor run away from home.”
Across the conversations gathered here, from Be As You Are, Day by Day with Bhagavan, Letters from Sri Ramanasramam and Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, Bhagavan returns again and again to one point: renunciation is in the mind, not in the forest. What must be given up is not home, work or family, but the notion “I am the doer”, the identification of the Self with the non-self. “Is the home in you? Or are you in the home?” he asks one seeker. To another he says that the very desire to renounce is the obstacle.
Yet this is no licence for comfortable worldliness. Complete renunciation, he says elsewhere, is the index of fitness. When the inner expansion comes, one drops from home “like a ripe fruit from a tree.” Till then, it would be folly to leave.
From Be As You Are: The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi
Edited by David Godman
When asked by a devotee who wanted to resign from his job, leave his family, and take up sanyas to find God, Ramana Maharshi responded:
“One who renounces desires actually merges in the world and expands his love to the whole universe… When this expansion comes, one does not feel that one is running away from home, instead one drops from it like a ripe fruit from a tree. Till then it would be folly to leave one’s home or job.”
Q: I have a good mind to resign from service and remain constantly with Sri Bhagavan.
Sri Ramana Maharshi: Bhagavan is always with you, in you, and you are yourself Bhagavan. To realize this it is neither necessary to resign your job nor run away from home. Renunciation does not imply apparent divesting of costumes, family ties, home, etc., but renunciation of desires, affection and attachment. There is no need to resign your job, only resign yourself to God, the bearer of the burden of all.
One who renounces desires actually merges in the world and expands his love to the whole universe. Expansion of love and affection would be a far better term for a true devotee of God than renunciation, for one who renounces the immediate ties actually extends the bonds of affection and love to a wider world beyond the borders of caste, creed and race. A sannyasi who apparently casts away his clothes and leaves his home does not do so out of aversion to his immediate relations but because of the expansion of his love to others around him. When this expansion comes, one does not feel that one is running away from home, instead one drops from it like a ripe fruit from a tree. Till then it would be folly to leave one’s home or job.
From Day by Day with Bhagavan
From the diary of A. Devaraja Mudaliar
2 January 1946, Afternoon
Visitor: Is renunciation necessary for Self-realisation?
Bhagavan: Renunciation and realisation are the same. They are different aspects of the same state. Giving up the non-self is renunciation. Inhering in the Self is jnana or Self-realisation. One is the negative and the other the positive aspect of the same, single truth. Bhakti, jnana, yoga — are different names for Self-realisation or mukti which is our real nature. These appear as the means first. They eventually are the goal. So long as there is conscious effort required on our part to keep up bhakti, yoga, dhyana, etc., they are the means. When they go on without any effort on our part, we have attained the goal. There is no realisation to be achieved. The real is ever as it is. What we have done is, we have realised the unreal, i.e., taken for real the unreal. We have to give up that. That is all that is wanted.
Visitor: How has the unreal come? Can the unreal spring from the real?
Bhagavan: See if it has sprung. There is no such thing as the unreal, from another standpoint. The Self alone exists. When you try to trace the ego, based on which alone the world and all exist, you find the ego does not exist at all and so also all this creation.
18 September 1945, Afternoon
A visitor asked, “When it is said that we must renounce all activities, is it meant that we should reduce our activities as much as possible?”
Bhagavan: By giving up activities is meant giving up attachment to activities or the fruits thereof, giving up the notion ‘I am the doer’. The activities for going through which this body has come, will have to be gone through. There is no question of giving up such activities, whatever one may or may not like.
1 June 1946
In the afternoon Bhagavan explained in answer to Mr. H.C. Khanna of Kanpur:
Why should your occupation or duties in life interfere with your spiritual effort? For instance, there is a difference between your activities at home and in the office. In your office activities you are detached and so long as you do your duty you do not care what happens or whether it results in gain or loss to the employer. But your duties at home are performed with attachment and you are all the time anxious as to whether they will bring advantage or disadvantage to you and your family. But it is possible to perform all the activities of life with detachment and regard only the Self as real. It is wrong to suppose that if one is fixed in the Self one’s duties in life will not be properly performed. It is like an actor. He dresses and acts and even feels the part he is playing, but he knows really that he is not that character but someone else in real life. In the same way, why should the body-consciousness or the feeling ‘I-am-the-body’ disturb you, once you know for certain that you are not the body but the Self? Nothing that the body does should shake you from abidance in the Self. Such abidance will never interfere with the proper and effective discharge of whatever duties the body has, any more than the actor’s being aware of his real status in life interferes with his acting a part on the stage.
You ask whether you can tell yourself: “I am not the body but the Self”. Of course, whenever you feel tempted to identify yourself with the body (as you may often have to, owing to old vasanas) it may be a help to remind yourself that you are not the body but the Self. But you should not make such repetition a mantram, constantly saying: “I am not the body but the Self”. By proper enquiry into the Self, the notion ‘I am this body’ will gradually vanish and in time the faith that you are the Self will become unshakeable.
K.M. Jivrajani: In the early stages would it not be a help to man to seek solitude and give up his outer duties in life?
Bhagavan: Renunciation is always in the mind, not in going to forests or solitary places or giving up one’s duties. The main thing is to see that the mind does not turn outward but inward. It does not really rest with a man whether he goes to this place or that or whether he gives up his duties or not. All that happens according to destiny. All the activities that the body is to go through are determined when it first comes into existence. It does not rest with you to accept or reject them. The only freedom you have is to turn your mind inward and renounce activities there.
K.M. Jivrajani: But is it not possible for something to be a help, especially to a beginner? Like a fence round a young tree. For instance, don’t our books say that it is helpful to go on pilgrimage to sacred shrines or to get sat sang.
Bhagavan: Who said they are not helpful? Only such things do not rest with you, as turning your mind inward does. Many people desire the pilgrimage or sat sang that you mention, but do they all get it?
K.M. Jivrajani: Why is it that turning inward alone is left to us and not any outer things?
I [Mudaliar] answered: Nobody can answer that. That is the Divine scheme.
Bhagavan: If you want to go to fundamentals, you must enquire who you are and find out who it is who has freedom or destiny. Who are you and why did you get this body that has these limitations?
8 December 1946
A French official from Pondicherry has been here for two days, and he told Bhagavan that he intended giving up his job and doing some sadhana in the spiritual line. As usual, Bhagavan told him it was not necessary to give up one’s job or renounce the world or go to a forest, etc., to do any sadhana; and that, wherever one might be, and whatever duties one might be discharging in one’s office or family, one could still practise sadhana. (I was not present at the above conversation. But Mrs. Osborne told me about it).
From Letters from Sri Ramanasramam
By Suri Nagamma
Letter 98: Self (Atman)
25 February 1947
Lady: Is living in seclusion necessary for sadhana, or is it enough if we merely discard all worldly pleasures?
Bhagavan merely answered the second part of the question by saying, “renunciation means internal renunciation and not external,” and kept silent.
Letter 99: Guru Swarupam (The Guru’s Form)
26 February 1947
This afternoon a Tamil youth approached Bhagavan, and asked, “Swamiji! Yesterday morning you told the Gujarati lady that renunciation means internal renunciation. How are we to attain it? What is internal renunciation?”
Bhagavan: Internal renunciation means that all vasanas should be subdued. If you ask me, ‘How to attain that?’ my reply is, ‘it is attainable by sadhana.’
Question: Sadhana requires a Guru, doesn’t it?
Bhagavan: Yes! A Guru is required.
Question: How is one to decide upon a proper Guru? What is the swarupa of a Guru?
Bhagavan: He is the proper Guru to whom your mind is attuned. If you ask, how to decide who is the Guru and what is his swarupa, he should be endowed with tranquillity, patience, forgiveness and other virtues capable of attracting others, even by a mere look, like the magnetic stone, and with a feeling of equality towards all — he that has these virtues is the true Guru. If one wants to know the true Guru swarupa, one must know his own swarupa first. How can one know the true Guru swarupa, if one does not know one’s own swarupa first? If you want to perceive the true Guru swarupa, you must first learn to look upon the whole universe as Guru rupam. One must have the Gurubhavam towards all living beings. It is the same with God. You must look upon all objects as God’s rupa. How can he who does not know his own Self perceive Ishwara rupa or Guru rupa? How can he determine them? Therefore, first of all know your own real swarupam.
Question: Isn’t a Guru necessary to know even that?
Bhagavan: That is true. The world contains many great men. Look upon him as your Guru with whom your mind gets attuned. The one in whom you have faith is your Guru.
Letter 184: The Doer and the Doing
29 April 1948
This morning, at about 9 o’clock, a lawyer from Rayalaseema who came here yesterday, sat near Bhagavan’s couch and asked, “Swami, in the Gita, Lord Krishna first said that everything is embraced in the ‘doing’ only, and one’s self plays no role. Subsequently, He says that He Himself is the ‘doer’, the ‘doing’ and the ‘deed’ (karta, karma and karyam); though ‘doing’ (karma) is the most important of the three, it is ineffectual by itself (jadam). If this is so, then everything depends upon the ‘doer’, who is Ishwara. Why when He first created ‘doing’ (karma), did He create different karmas for different people? It is said that afterwards everyone is made to function according to his karma. How did this difference come about in the very beginning? How did it arise? Not only that, if everything is left to the ‘doing’ and to the ‘doer’ who is Ishwara, where does personal effort (purushakaram) come in? If there is no personal effort, why is it said that we ourselves must attain Realization? What does it mean?”
Bhagavan said, “Who is it that is asking? To whom has this doubt arisen? Why has it arisen? First think that over and find out.”
The devotee: “Swami, I am only enquiring why Lord Krishna said that.”
Bhagavan: “That is what I am referring to. What exactly did Lord Krishna tell Arjuna? He told him, the deed will get done according to the ‘doing’. I am the ‘doer’ watching the whole thing from above. Why do you worry? It is your body which does the killing of your relatives. Are you the body? No! Why then this bondage for you? Renounce the idea, He said. This means that He asks Arjuna to do the thing but to give up the feeling that it is he that is doing it. That is personal effort. The feeling that one is, or is not, the body, comes from one’s own ignorance. One only has to give up that feeling; that which one has, one must oneself reject. Who else can do it? If by personal effort that bondage is removed, action, under the orders of the ‘doer’, Ishwara, goes on of its own accord. Every one has his work allotted to him and he will do it automatically. Why should one worry? Arjuna, when he felt that it was not proper to kill his relatives, was only told to give up the feeling that he was the ‘doer’, yet it was Arjuna himself who ultimately fought. By listening to the Gita, he lost the feeling of being the ‘doer’ and the doubt he had had was no longer there. The work had to be done with that particular body, and it was done. Even Duryodhana was like that. Not that he was not aware of the correctness or otherwise of what he was doing. He knew that what he was doing was not right, but some force was leading him on to that work. What could he do? That work had to be done in that way by that body, and it was done. He is reported to have said so at the time of his death. Hence it is clear that some Force is making all people to do things. Getting rid of the feeling that ‘I myself am doing’ is personal effort (purushakaram). All spiritual practices (sadhanas) are towards that end.”
Another devotee: “That is all right. For this karma there must be a beginning, but how it began, no one has mentioned.”
Bhagavan: “Yes, but it is the same thing. If you are asked ‘how did you get this?’ you say you have got it by ‘doing’ (karma). How were you born? By ‘doing’ (karma) that is all that could be said. If, however, you ask how was this karma born, you are told you should not ask such questions. This is known as the Law of the seed and the tree (bija ankura nyayam). The tree is born of the seed; again from the tree a seed is born. Where is the origin of that seed? That is a question which you are told is not to be asked. What can we say to that? That is why I always ask people to find out first how they were born and where they were born.”
From Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi
Recorded by Munagala S. Venkataramiah · D. = Devotee, M. = Maharshi
Talk 283
D.: Can a sanyasi remain in the midst of samsara?
M.: So long as one thinks that he is a sanyasi, he is not one, so long as one does not think of samsara, he is not a samsari; on the other hand he is a sanyasi.
Talk 427
D.: Is it necessary to take to sanyasa for Self-Realisation?
M.: Sanyasa is to renounce one’s individuality. This is not the same as tonsure and ochre robes. A man may be a grihi; yet, if he does not think he is a grihi, he is a sanyasi. On the contrary a man may wear ochre robes and wander about: yet if he thinks he is a sanyasi he is not that. To think of sanyasa defeats its own purpose.
Sri Bhagavan remarked: People see the world. The perception implies the existence of a seer and the seen. The objects are alien to the seer. The seer is intimate, being the Self. They do not however turn their attention to finding out the obvious seer but run about analysing the seen. The more the mind expands, the farther it goes and renders Self-Realisation more difficult and complicated. The man must directly see the seer and realise the Self.
Talk 643
An elderly, learned Andhra asked: “Are the two methods Karma marga and jnana marga separate and independent of each other? Or is the Karma marga only a preliminary which after successful practice should be followed by jnana marga for the consummation of the aim? The Karma advocates non-attachment to action and yet an active life, whereas the jnana means renunciation. What is the true meaning of renunciation? Subjugation of lust, passion, greed, etc., is common to all and forms the essential preliminary step for any course. Does not freedom from passions indicate renunciation? Or is renunciation different, meaning cessation of the active life? These questions are troubling me and I beg lights to be thrown on those doubts.”
Bhagavan smiled and said: “You have said all. Your question contains the answer also. Freedom from passions is the essential requisite. When that is accomplished all else is accomplished.”
D.: Is it then necessary to leave the home and lead a life of renunciation?
M.: Is the home in you? Or are you in the home?
D.: It is in my mind.
M.: Then what becomes of you when you leave the physical environment?
D.: Now I see. Renunciation is only action without the sense of being the karta. Is there not action for a jivanmukta?
M.: Who raises the question? Is he a jivanmukta or another?
D.: Not a jivanmukta.
M.: Let the question be raised after jivanmukti is gained if it is found necessary. Mukti is admitted to be freedom from the mental activities also. Can a mukta think of action?
Talk 251
D.: Can I engage in spiritual practice, even remaining in samsara?
M.: Yes, certainly. One ought to do so.
D.: Is not samsara a hindrance? Do not all the holy books advocate renunciation?
M.: Samsara is only in your mind. The world does not speak out, saying ‘I am the world’. Otherwise, it must be ever there — not excluding your sleep. Since it is not in sleep it is impermanent. Being impermanent it has no stamina. Having no stamina it is easily subdued by the Self. The Self alone is permanent. Renunciation is non-identification of the Self with the non-self. On the disappearance of ignorance the non-self ceases to exist. That is true renunciation.
D.: Why did you then leave your home in your youth?
M.: That is my prarabdha (fate). One’s course of conduct in this life is determined by one’s prarabdha. My prarabdha is this way. Your prarabdha is that way.
D.: Should I not also renounce?
M.: If that had been your prarabdha, the question would not have arisen.
D.: I should therefore remain in the world and engage in spiritual practice. Well, can I get realisation in this life?
M.: This has been already answered. You are always the Self. Earnest efforts never fail. Success is bound to result.
Talk 268
D.: Is it morally right for a man to renounce his household duties when he once realises that his highest duty is Atma-chintana (continuous thought on the Self)?
M.: This desire to renounce things is the obstacle. The Self is simple renunciation. The Self has renounced all.
D.: It is true from Bhagavan’s standpoint. But for us… my work demands the best part of my time and energy; often I am too tired to devote myself to Atma-chintana.
M.: The feeling “I work” is the hindrance. Enquire, “Who works?” Remember, “Who am I?” The work will not bind you. It will go on automatically. Make no effort either to work or to renounce work. Your effort is the bondage. What is bound to happen will happen. If you are destined to cease working, work cannot be had even if you hunt for it. If you are destined to work you cannot leave it; you will be forced to engage in it. So leave it to the Higher Power. You cannot renounce or hold as you choose.
Talk 320
In the course of an informal conversation Sri Bhagavan pointed out that Self-Realisation is possible only for the fit. The vasanas must be eliminated before jnana dawns. One must be like Janaka for jnana to dawn. One must be ready to sacrifice everything for the Truth. Complete renunciation is the index of fitness.
Talk 39
Conversing with R. Seshagiri Rao, a visitor, Maharshi remarked that a Self-Realised sage (Atma Jnani) alone can be a good Karma yogi. “After the sense of doership has gone let us see what happens. Sri Sankara advised inaction. But did he not write commentaries and take part in disputation? Do not trouble about doing action or otherwise. Know Thyself. Then let us see whose action it is. Whose is it? Let action complete itself. So long as there is the doer he must reap the fruits of his action. If he does not think himself the doer there is no action for him. He is an ascetic who has renounced worldly life (sanyasin).”
Talk 54
D.: How does a grihasta (householder) fare in the scheme of moksha (liberation)?
M.: Why do you think you are a grihasta? If you go out as a sanyasi, a similar thought (that you are a sanyasi) will haunt you. Whether you continue in the household, or renounce it and go to the forest, your mind haunts you. The ego is the source of thoughts. It creates the body and the world and makes you think you are a grihasta. If you renounce the world, it will only substitute the thought sanyasi for grihasta and the environments of the forest for those of the household. But the mental obstacles are always there. They even increase in new surroundings. There is no help in the change of environment. The obstacle is the mind. It must be got over whether at home or in the forest. If you can do it in the forest, why not in the home? Therefore why change the environment? Your efforts can be made even now, in whatever environment you may be. The environment never abandons you, according to your desire. Look at me. I left home. Look at yourselves. You have come here leaving the home environment. What do you find here? Is this different from what you left? Even if one is immersed in nirvikalpa samadhi for years together, when he emerges from it he will find himself in the environment which he is bound to have. That is the reason for the Acharya emphasising sahaja samadhi in preference to nirvikalpa samadhi in his excellent work Viveka Chudamani.
One should be in spontaneous samadhi — that is, in one’s pristine state — in the midst of every environment.
Talk 588
To an Andhra seeker, Sri Bhagavan said: Sannyasa is mentioned for one who is fit. It consists in renunciation not of material objects but of attachment to them. Sannyasa can be practised by anyone even at home. Only one must be fit for it.
