Letting Go

This is one of the Chinna Kathas (Short Story)by Bhagwan Sri Sathya Sai Baba

There was once a sadhu, who was a sadhu only by – if I may say so – vocation; but not by thought, word and deed; for he had donned the ochre robe not because he had any immortal longings for liberation from the thralldom of perennial plurality; but because this life suited his laziness and indolence.

This fake sadhu had a small hut by the Ganges; the water of the Ganges quenched his thirst and the generosity of the gullible pilgrims satiated his hunger – enviable was his position.

One day, while sitting on the banks of the Ganges as he was entertaining his idle curiosity; he saw a shiny object floating down the stream. Without a second thought, he plunged into the water; swam with deft strokes; reached the shiny object; retrieved it out of the water; held it close to his bosom; claimed it as his and to his utter amazement and joy he saw that it was a beautiful silver vessel. With that vessel held in one hand, he started swimming back to the bank.

But all was not well – man proposes; God disposes. He realized that the current was so strong that the more he tried to extricate himself, the more viciously it sucked him to its center; for he had only one hand to save himself!

After a desperate struggle, the instinct of self-preservation gained the better of his greed. He let go of the vessel and with both his hands and with a Herculean effort, he swam back to safety. On reaching the land he looked back and saw the shiny object floating away from him. He couldn’t bear the anguish and burst out into tears and wept and wailed: “Oh! I lost my silver vessel!”

A real sage – a man of genuine dispassion and renunciation - was seeing all this panorama, all this drama. He came to him and said: “Friend! That vessel was floating down the stream and would have continued in its course had you not interrupted it. You swam to it, gleefully grasped it, claimed it as yours, then to save your own life you let it go and now you say you lost your vessel? When was it yours? Is not all this sorrow your own making?”

Sisters and Brothers, like the anchorite of our story is that we too come to have a flawed, a mistaken relationship with the objects of this world. First we painstakingly strive to possess them and then madly wrestle to preserve them – all the while forgetting the fundamental fact that everything in this prapancha (world) follows the law of movement and change. The only constant is change they say - we forget that everything is in a state of flux.

“This prapancha(Universe) is nothing but reaction, reflection and resound. That is all it is!” Therefore the dictum is: “Welcome all that comes to you, stand not in the way of that which departs you.”

Real Renunciation

Real renunciation is to be totally contented, perfectly happy with what is here and now. For what is, will be. What is not, will never be! Then why grieve? To be completely at ease, relaxed and contented with what is – is real renunciation.

But then why does the mind get attracted to temporary objects? Because it has not seen the Permanent. The mind runs after these fleeting objects because it has not yet seen what is real joy. It has not yet dissolved itself in God even for a glimpse of what is real bliss – what is true contentment. That is why it runs madly after these so called objects.

Doesn’t Lord Krishna say in the Geeta?

Vishaya Vinivartantey Niraharasya Dehinah
Rasavrajam Rasopyasya Param Drishtva Nivartatey

For a man who turns away from objects; the objects also will turn away from him – that is the law. But the essential craving still remains which too vanishes when ‘Param Drishtva Nivartatey’, when the Supreme is beheld!