SANNYĀS

SANNYĀS

Sannyās is the mean (average/zero-resultant) state of mental neutrality, the psychological bob oscillating neither to affection nor to disaffection, leave aside affectation as in very many cases is current these days, but remaining at perpetual rest which is termed 'samādhi'. It is the zeroing in of the mind unto the Spirit, the universal set of positive and negative attributes in all its relative relations cancelling in summation to be the Void that is Brahman, not as such in name or terminology which language in describing must necessarily rest on but in the indefinable essence of things which is nameless but is absolute in singular existence beyond enumeration.

The sannyāsi who is formally initiated into sanyās is merely a novice in this arduous path of renunciation as he begins his upward trek against the gravitational force of natural impulses en route to the summit of spiritual realisation.

Sannyās is the destination and not the path, the end and not the means, for it entails complete annihilation of desires, aspirations, even attributes. The means is sādhanā, the end sannyās.

Written by Sugata Bose

Photo: Mohendranath Dutta