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Tyaga and vairagya

The path to enlightenment is rooted in the inseparable practices of inner renunciation and dispassion. The banyan tree symbolizes this enduring spiritual truth, as it was under such a tree that Buddha attained enlightenment through a life of tyāga and vairāgya. These two qualities are mutually dependent; the presence of one ensures the other. True renunciation is not merely external but must be an inner sacrifice of ego, jealousy, pride, greed, and delusion. One enters the divine kingdom specifically through this gate of inner sacrifice. While outer renunciation is meaningless without the inner counterpart, some disciplined practice remains essential. Our current spiritual program incorporates austerity and detachment, though in a form less rigorous than in the past. Without cultivating this inner feeling of renunciation and dispassion, one is like a bird that has lost its wings, incapable of true flight despite the motion.

"as long as you have vairāgya (dispassion), that long you will have tyāga (renunciation)."

"Enter the kingdom of the Lord through the gate of sacrifice."

Filming location: Strilky, Czech Republic

Only the banyan tree is a tree that can survive for thousands of years. Therefore, Śrī Kṛṣṇa said in the Bhagavad Gītā, comparing the banyan tree to a human, "Among the trees, I am the banyan tree." That is the very tree under which Lord Buddha, the prince Siddhārtha, attained enlightenment. He spent most of his life as a very simple monk, living a life of tyāgī jīvan—a renounced life—and vairāgya. Tyāga and vairāgya: as long as you have vairāgya (dispassion), that long you will have tyāga (renunciation). And when you have tyāga, you still have vairāgya. If you cannot renounce, then you have no vairāgya. Therefore, Gurujī always said, in almost every satsaṅg, "Enter the kingdom of the Lord through the gate of sacrifice," through tyāga. There are many kinds of tyāga. Outer tyāga is nothing if the inner tyāga is missing. If inwardly you are suffering, then you have not renounced anything. So the renunciation of the inner ego, jealousy, cruelty, mada (pride), lobha (greed), moha (delusion)—all this inner renunciation is very important. Buddha practiced what we call udāśīna mauna (detached silence). We had this in our kriyānuṣṭhāna, but we have reduced it. Our kriyānuṣṭhāna is a program of 21 hours; the other three hours are for a little eating, washing, and sleeping. That is a program for enlightenment, but a comfortable one—not a stressful one. Yet you still need tyāga and tapas (austerity) for it, and vairāgya. So tyāgya, tyāgī, tapasvī, vairāgī, jñānīs, and bhakti—this leads us to liberation or enlightenment. When this is lost, it is like a bird that has lost its wings. Now the bird would like to fly but cannot fly; only its muscles move, because that inner feeling is lost.

This text is transcribed and grammar corrected by AI. If in doubt what was actually said in the recording, use the transcript to double click the desired cue. This will position the recording in most cases just before the sentence is uttered.

The text contains hyperlinks in bold to three authoritative books on yoga, written by humans, to clarify the context of the lecture:

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