The modern day sanyas- the journey of self discovery and awareness

The word sanyas elicits images of saffron clad sadhus wearing tell tale signs of
meagre sustenance and staying away from society in remote pilgrim centres and
holy places. The word sanyas and the image is closely associated with India and
its rich spiritual heritage. The western world associated the word with the
archaic and the arcane of India till time a saffron clad young Sanyasi from India
told loudly and confidently to the western world that the Indian Sanyasi was the
pinnacle of philosophical existence. The young monk, none other than Swami
Vivekananda in clear and confident terms explained to the audience at World
religion conference in Chicago in 1893 that the Indian Sanyasi was not a snake
charmer or rope trick artist rather the most serious seeker of the divine truth on
the whole planet.
The Indian vedantic philosophy provides for four age-based life stages known
as ashramas and the Sannyasa is the life stage of renunciation which comes last
in
order.
The
first
three
are
Brahmacharya
(bachelor
student) , Grihastha (householder) and Vanaprastha (forest dweller). Sannyasa is
traditionally adopted by men or women in late years of their life. However
young brahmacharis have had the choice to skip the intervening householder
and retirement stages. They renounced worldly and materialistic pursuits and
dedicated their lives to spiritual pursuits the most famous being Sri Adi
Shankaracharya who revived the vedantic culture.
Today we are seeing a revival of the age old philosophy and this time the current
is very strong globally. The United Nations accepted June 21 as the International
Yoga Day and the resolution was adopted unanimously with 177 member nations
voting in favour. Though Yoga is not exactly Sanyas the former is a modern day
variant and at higher levels is not much different from Sanyas. Sannyasa has
historically been a stage of renunciation, ahimsa (non-violence) peaceful and
simple life and spiritual pursuit in Indian traditions. In Holy Gita Lord Krishna says

-
He is known as a permanent Sannyasin who does not hate, does not desire, is
without dualities (opposites). Truly, Mahabao (Arjuna), he is liberated from
bondage.
Bhagavad Gita, Hymn 5.3
So it can be inferred that true Sanyasa is not a mere abnegation of the world or a
renunciation of material pursuits but rather a state of mind where negative
tendencies, worldly desires and conflicting thoughts and activities are laid to rest
for ever. The present day yoga forms which primarily are rooted in meditation are
the modern day equivalent of this great practice. The modern day sanyasi is
essentially an urban meditational enthusiast who is interested in transforming
himself by tapping into that divine source which drive everything manifested in
the world.

The journey to self discovery and awareness begins with a simple question Who
am I? Am I the body or the mind or the intellect or a divine consciousness that
illuminates everything from inside. The philosophy suggests that every living
thing in the universe is run by the same consciousness but the individual
consciousness identifies with the mind and intellect and gets obscured. The
objective of all spiritual practice is to disentangle the individual consciousness
from the superimposed limitations and reinstate the state of freedom. This is the
goal of all religions of the world but the paths prescribed are different.
Today the challenges faced by an aspirant are multiple times more compared to
a seeker of historic times. The information revolution has taken the volume of
sensory inputs going into the mind to an overwhelming level. The techniques of
clearing the clutter now focus allowing the mind to settle into a state of
peaceful abiding. Such a mind will remain calm and stable, and can rest in the
state of non-distraction, which is what meditation really is. The techniques can
vary from chanting to fixing attention on some spiritual image or even remaining
thoughtless and totally silent. Gradually the need for such images or support
vanishes and the practitioner can settle into meditative bliss the moment he sits
down for meditation. Just like any other human pursuit practice is the key to
success and the importance of regular and persistent effort need to be
emphasised.
The discovery of the self and abiding in that awareness is very important from
various perspectives. Firstly human genius and inspiration is believed to be
having its origin from divine source. Many genius who have contributed to
humanity by their discoveries and inventions have time and again mentioned the
invisible hand inspiration behind their contributions and exploits. A few names
like Einstein, Davinci, Arya Bhatta, Bhaskara, Ramanuja, Rumi, Napolean etc are
worth mentioning because of their experience with the divine source one time or
other. Not all might not have made conscious efforts at meditation or become a
sanyasin. But every single one of them derived their intelligence and inspiration
from deep within which is what meditation and sanyas also aim to reach. The
benefit to health and physical body is also boundless once awareness is reached.
The stress and tension associated with modern day living can be eased out of the
system and the illnesses gets cleared by themselves. Apart from the gains that
may come along with the self awareness the greatest benefit is for humanity as
a individual who is at peace from inside will contribute peace to the society. A
person who has identified that the self in me is the same self in all gets freed
from negative forces like greed, jealousy and hatred and hence serves as a
shining example for the others.