Renunciation

A section from one of Steve Jobs' two most favorite books -- Be Here Now (by  Dr. Richard Alpert, Baba Ram Dass)


Renunciation

You might think of renunciation in terms of some external act like a New Year's resolution, or leaving family and friends to go off to a cave.  But renunciation is much more subtle than that -- and much harder -- and much much more continuing.  On the spiritual journey, renunciation means non-attachment.

To become free of attachment means to break the link identifying you with your desires.  The desires continue; they are part of the dance of nature.  But renunciation no longer thinks that he is his desires.

As long as any desire pulls or pushes you, you are like a flame which flickers in the wind.  But as you come to your center, as you break the identification with desire, you become calm, like a candle in a niche where no wind comes.  Remember, you can't do away with desire or give it up or try to get rid of it.  However, with increased wisdom and preoccupation with renunciation, desires will fall away.

You can't rip the skin from the snake.  It will shed its skin when it is ready.

And as you extricate yourself from your attachments and become quiet, you will be able to know more and more clearly how it all is...  The Way.  And the more clearly you hear, the more your actions will be in harmony with the Way... with His Will. 

Desire is a trap.  Desirelessness is liberation.  Desire is the world, desire is the creator, desire is the destroyer.  

When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.  You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal. 

He consciously moves with the cosmic current.  In moving he loses nothing but his limitations.  He can take with him in essence all the experiences and understanding that he has gained. 

The essence of civilization consists not in the multiplication of wants, but in their deliberate and voluntary renunciation.