Tag: Renunciation

Summa Iru: Formal Renunciation for The Dissolution of the False Self


All my life I have been ending ignorance — reading, thinking, writing, seeking. Now the loose ends are nearly tied. Come July 16, my 62nd birthday, it will be summa iru: not a thing I choose, but what happens when the false self, strung together from my relationships, finally dissolves. The more I carve out this “Me Time,” the more I begin to disappear. Nothing defines me; nothing tells me who I am. And so the old question arises almost naturally — “Who am I?” — a question one can sit with, alone, and stand a very good chance of answering.

The Sacred Withdrawal: When Spiritual Sadhana Becomes Your Raison d’être


What looks like retreat to the world is often the most courageous advance inward. In this deeply personal reflection, I address a well-meaning piece of advice — that I shouldn’t “shut my door” simply because someone hurt me. But my withdrawal from worldly engagement is neither sudden nor born of wounded pride. It is the culmination of a 50-year spiritual quest, a decision quietly forming since December 2021, now firmly made. Drawing on Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, I explore how most of us mistake the shadows of the material world for ultimate reality — and how spiritual sadhana is the very act of breaking free from those chains. As Rousseau reminds us, man is born free, yet lives everywhere in bondage. True freedom isn’t found in the world’s noise; it is discovered in the sunlit stillness beyond the cave. This is not an escape. This is a homecoming.