(Continued..)When a foetus grows into a baby, does it grow in sequence such as, first the feet, then the stomach, then the chest and so on?All of them grow up simultaneously. So also these SAdhanAs have to be done side by side – not one after another.
At each stage the concentration may be more in one or the other. Thus we begin with sorting out the good and bad. The very sorting will teach us something about the task of discarding the bad and taking the good.
And in due course of time this sorting will become automatic, by sheer practice over a long period of time! And that is when we have to start concentrating on the discarding of the undesirables.And that is the part Number Two in the four parts of SAdhana-ChatushhTayaM. That is called *VairaagyaM* (Dispassion).
It is also called *virakti*. *rAgaM* and *rakti* both mean desire or liking. The discarding of desire or liking is *vairaagyaM* or *virakti*.
Sensual pleasures are the greatest obstacles to Spiritual wisdom.They are pleasures of the senses. When we run after a pleasure it means there is a desire for experiencing that pleasure. If we have no such desire, do we run after them?
So what it means to discard those obstacles to spiritual growth is to be rid of all desires – from the little desire for consumption of a snack to the great one of a desire for the obtaining of Bharat Ratna Award. This absence of desires is exactly what VairaagyaM means.
Tirumoolar, the Tamil mystic, describes Vairaagya parAkAshhTA (the apex of Vairaagya) as follows:
Even with God cut off your desire!
As you keep desiring misery follows
Cutting off desires – that is Happiness, Bliss!
[Tamil original: Asai arrumingaL, Asai arrumingal !
IsanoDAyinum Asai arrumingal !
AsaippaDappaDa Ayvarum tunbam
Asai viDa viDa AnandamAme ! ]
If desires are eradicated totally, moksha is right there!.
Nammazhvar has also sung: *atradu patrenil utradu veeDu*, which means exactly the same.
(Continued..)
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