Vairaagyam - Part 12 of 15

(Continued..)

From their mouths we learn how, though acquiring that kind of vairAgyam may be most difficult, once we achieve it we then really have the treasure of the bliss of the Atman, -- the treasure that belittles as trash all those treasures that we have been holding as great.

Did not our own Acharya run away with the utmost vairAgya at the age of eight from home, from town and from the very mother who was treating him with extraordinary affection as her own very soul? In fact he has produced a panchakaM (a piece of five shlokas) where each shloka has the ending refrain: *kaupInavantaH khalu bhAgyavantaH* (Blessed are those with nothing but a loin cloth).

In BhajagovindaM also he asks *kasya sukhaM na karoti virAgaH* -- Who is the one that will not get Eternal Bliss from vairAgyaM?

The moment one thinks of vairAgyaM one will not fail to recall the famous PattinattAr! He was born as an amsha of Kubera and was doing even overseas trade.

But one day there came the boy, an amsha of Lord shiva, who left a written message “Not even a useless needle will come along with you on your last journey” and disappeared.

As soon as Pattinathar saw that, he renounced all his immense wealth and left home clad only in a loin-cloth, carrying only a begging bowl (‘Odu’ in Tamil), singing the couplet *VIDu namaakkut-tiruvAlangADu vimalar tantha Odu namakkuNDu*.

In course of time even that begging bowl was thrown away by him since holding that ‘property’ was thought to be unbecoming of a renunciate. And he sang:

Hometown is not permanent; nor are relatives
Neither is the name they gave you .....

(In Tamil: *Oorum cathamalla, uRRaar chathamalla [uRRup-peRRa] perum chathamalla ...*)

When we hear the innumerable songs he has composed, vairAgya arises in us, even though temporarily just as one gets after a child-birth (called *prasava-vairAgyam*) or after visiting a cremation (called *smashAna-vairAgyam*) !

(Continued..)