In general, both Sri Aurobindo and Sri Krishna, preferred tyaga over sannyasa. The Mother goes one step further when She says.
‘There is in books a lot of talk about renunciation—that you must renounce possessions, renounce attachments, renounce desires. But I have come to the conclusion that so long as you have to renounce anything you are not on this path; for, so long as you are not thoroughly disgusted with things as they are, and have to make an effort to reject them, you are not ready for the supramental realisation. If the constructions of the Overmind—the world which it has built and the existing order which it supports—still satisfy you, you cannot hope to partake of that realisation. Only when you find such a world disgusting, unbearable and unacceptable, are you fit for the change of consciousness. That is why I do not give any importance to the idea of renunciation. To renounce means that you are to give up what you value, that you have to discard what you think is worth keeping. What, on the contrary, you must feel is that this world is ugly, stupid, brutal and full of intolerable suffering; and once you feel in this way, all the physical, all the material consciousness which does not want it to be that, will want it to change, crying, “I will have something else—something that is true, beautiful, full of delight and knowledge and consciousness!” All here is floating on a sea of dark unconsciousness. But when you want the Divine with all your will, all your resolution, all your aspiration and intensity, it will surely come. But it is not merely a matter of ameliorating the world. There are people who clamour for change of government, social reform and philanthropic work, believing that they can thereby make the world better. We want a new world, a true world, an expression of the Truth-Consciousness. And it will be, it must be—and the sooner the better!
It should not, however, be just a subjective change. The whole physical life must be transformed. The material world does not want a mere change of consciousness in us. It says in effect: “You retire into bliss, become luminous, have the divine knowledge; but that does not alter me. I still remain the hell I practically am!” The true change of consciousness is one that will change the physical conditions of the world and make it an entirely new creation.’
(Ref. https://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/renunciation)
However, what She cautioned is against the so-called Sannyasin who claims or pretends to be a sannyasi by wearing the orange robe outside but harbours much that is vile and dangerous. Quite a few of them engage in some kind of ‘bhoota siddhi’, a power over elemental energies that can impress through show of crude miracles but can equally harm the gullible. These are vital powers, some from dark lower worlds and have nothing spiritual about them. Here is the full passage, which in itself is self-explanatory.
‘I knew of a very striking case of a sannyasin who was furious with someone who did not want to be his disciple—already this proved that he was far from having realised this state—and who wished to take revenge. And indeed he had some powers, he had made a very powerful formation to kill this person who had refused to be his disciple. It so happened that this person was in contact with Sri Aurobindo. He told him his story and Sri Aurobindo told it to me. And the result was that the formation made by that man, who was acting with his so-called divine Will, fell back on him in such a way that it was he who died!
And it was simply the fact of re-establishing the truth. There was nothing else to do.
So the moral of the story is that one must not pretend, one must be; that one must be absolutely sincere and not cover up one’s desires with fine theories.
I have met many people who claimed they had perfect equality of soul and perfect freedom, and hid themselves behind these theories: “All is the divine Will”, and who, in fact, in their thought, were substituting their own will for the divine Will, and were very far from realising what they claimed. They were idlers who didn’t want to make any effort and preferred keeping their nature as it was, rather than working to transform it. Voilà!
Sweet Mother, do these people have powers?
Yes! There are some who have great powers. But these powers come from the vital and from an association with vital entities.
There are all kinds of powers. Only, those powers don’t hold out before the true divine Power—they can’t resist. But over ordinary human beings they have much power.
Then, they can do harm?
Much. Not only they can, they do it. They do a lot of harm. The number of people who are tormented because they had the misfortune of meeting a so-called sannyasin,1 is considerable, considerable. I am not telling you this to frighten you, because here you are protected, but it is a fact. While receiving initiation these men have received the imposition of a force from the vital world, which is extremely dangerous…. This is not always the case, but most often this is what happens.
Because sincerity is so rare a virtue in the world, one ought to bow down before it with respect when one meets it. Sincerity—what we call sincerity, that is to say, a perfect honesty and transparency: that there may be nowhere in the being anything which pretends, hides or wants to pass itself off for what it is not.
- Later the Mother added the following commentary: “Of course, this refers only to those who put on the orange robe with the sole purpose of hiding their egoistic passions behind the veil of a dress which is generally respected. There can be no question about those who have a pure heart and whose dress is simply the outer sign of their integral consecration to the spiritual life.”
(Ref. https://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/22-february-1956#p30)
Affectionately,
Alok Da
