Vairāgya
Vairāgya, “freedom from passion”
Vairāgya means dispassion, or freedom from attachment. In the teachings on moksha (liberation), it is the basic turning of the heart toward freedom. Vairāgya is not coldness, and it is not running away from life. It is seeing clearly that everything we experience is passing and does not last, together with the natural letting-go that follows from seeing this.
Vairāgya is the ground on which jñāna (spiritual knowledge), dhyāna (meditation) and every other sādhanā (spiritual practice) stand. Without it, none of them can take root. The Mokshadharma Parva of the Mahābhārata teaches vairāgya through dozens of dialogues and stories, each showing a different side of this one essential insight.
The Agni Purāṇa, in Agni Deva’s teaching on yoga and the knowledge of Brahman, calls vairāgya the tapas of the mind and one of the two reins with which the mind is held. It says that vairāgya opens the way to jñāna, that the meditator must have it, and that it is the stalk of the lotus of the heart on which Bhagavān Vishṇu is meditated. It defines vairāgya as serenity, free of burning distress and dejection, and names it among the six excellences that make up the word Bhagavat.
What Vairāgya Is
Vairāgya cannot be forced by argument or by willpower. The traditional teaching is that it arises naturally from viveka, the power to tell the lasting from the passing. When the mind truly sees the duḥkha (suffering) hidden in every pleasure that depends on conditions, the śānti (peace) that belongs to what is unconditioned, and the impermanence of everything that seems permanent, a clear mind responds naturally with vairāgya.
Several levels are recognised:
Manda vairāgya (mild dispassion): One understands impermanence in the head, but emotional attachment has not yet gone. The practitioner knows, but does not yet feel what this fully means.
Madhyama vairāgya (middle dispassion): One truly experiences the limits of the things of the senses. The pull of attachment is still felt, but it no longer drives one’s actions.
Tīvra vairāgya (strong dispassion): The belief (bhāvanā) that the things of the senses can bring real satisfaction has completely dissolved. The manas (mind) no longer produces the restless craving for things it once wanted.
Parā vairāgya (highest dispassion): Even the subtle pull toward inner experiences, siddhis (special powers) and spiritual achievements has dissolved. The sādhaka (seeker) cares for nothing except the ātman (the true self).
Vairāgya in the Mokshadharma Parva
The Mokshadharma Parva teaches vairāgya through many different teachers and situations:
The six gurus of Bodhya (Chapter 178): Bodhya Ṛshi learned vairāgya not from human teachers but from the world around him:
- Piṅgalā the dancing girl: inner contentment comes from giving up expectations of others
- The lāṭukika bird: possessions draw conflict
- The snake: no fixed home is needed
- The bee: take a little from many sources
- The arrow-maker: complete, one-pointed absorption
- The young woman with bangles: ekatva (being alone, being one) brings peace
Ajagara-vṛtti (Chapter 179): The way of the python, which accepts what comes and does not chase what does not come, is vairāgya lived out as a daily way of life.
The dānavas who did not grieve (Chapters 222–226): Perhaps the most striking vairāgya teachings in the Parva are the three dialogues of Prahlāda, Bali and Namuci. These three dānavas (asura kings) have lost everything, yet sit in peace. Their vairāgya is not the easy renunciation of the comfortable. It is real loss met without grief. Prahlāda has lost his kingdom; Bali has been reborn in a humble form; Namuci is bound and imprisoned. Each one teaches Indra, who comes to mock them, about a deeper kind of kingship: that of the one who has found the inner ground that nothing can take away.
Jaigīshavya (Chapter 229): The seven marks of the mahātmā (great soul) described by Jaigīshavya show how vairāgya looks in everyday dealings with people. He does not insult those who insult him. He does not grasp at what is out of reach. He is free of jealousy. He takes insult as amṛta (nectar) and honour as visha (poison).
The Positive Side of Vairāgya
In the Mokshadharma Parva, vairāgya is not shown as denial or withdrawal. It is what makes real peace possible, and peace is described as the most positive state of all: the natural state of the ātman once its false identifications have fallen away.
The Namuci dialogue describes the dhuraṃdhara, “one who carries the great burden”, who stands firm like the Himālaya in hard times. Such a person has not lost feeling; he stands on wider ground. The depth of his calm matches the depth of his vairāgya.
Vairāgya and Sannyāsa
Vairāgya is the inner state that makes true sannyāsa (renunciation) possible. Putting on ochre robes without inner vairāgya is not renunciation; it is only a change of clothes. The Mokshadharma Parva makes this point by holding up Prahlāda, Bali and Namuci, none of whom are formal sannyāsīs, as examples of the highest vairāgya. Vairāgya is an inner state, not an outer form. It can live as fully in a king as in an ascetic.
Per Agni Purāṇa
In the closing chapters of the Agni Purāṇa, Agni Deva teaches the way to the final freedom: the ashṭāṅga yoga, dhyāna (meditation) and Brahma-vijñāna (the knowledge of Brahman). Vairāgya appears at every step of this teaching. It opens the way to jñāna, it is the tapas of the mind, it is one of the reins that hold the mind, it is the stalk of the lotus on which Bhagavān Vishṇu is meditated, and it is one of the six excellences that make up the word Bhagavat.
Vairāgya opens the way to jñāna
Agni Deva begins his teaching on the ātyantika pralaya, the final dissolution that ends the round of births. It comes about through jñāna. A man who comes to know santāpa (affliction), beginning with the ādhyātmika affliction that belongs to his own self, should gain some vairāgya towards that self; then jñāna arises. The ādhyātmika affliction is of two kinds: śārīra, of the body, and mānasa, of the mind. Agni Deva then tells of the jīva’s passage after death, through Yamaloka, svarga and naraka, and of its entry again into the womb.
Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 369
The tapas of the mind
Agni Deva teaches the ashṭāṅga yoga, the yoga of eight limbs, “for the removal of the burning distress of saṃsāra”. Among the five niyamas (observances) is tapas, which he defines as keeping the mind and the indriyas (senses) one-pointed; conquering the indriyas and the mind is the dharma higher than all dharmas. Tapas is of three kinds:
- mantra-japa and the like are vācika tapas, the tapas of speech;
- vairāgya is mānasa tapas, the tapas of the mind;
- deva-pūjā and the like are śārīra tapas, the tapas of the body.
This threefold tapas gives everything.
Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 372
The reins of the mind
In teaching prāṇāyāma (the restraint of the breath) and pratyāhāra (the drawing back of the senses), Agni Deva says that one who has conquered the indriyas by jñāna, vairāgya and prāṇāyāma has, as it were, conquered everything. He gives the image of the chariot: the body is the chariot, the indriyas are the horses, the mind is the charioteer and prāṇāyāma is the whip. With the reins of jñāna and vairāgya one keeps the mind under control, and the mind held in this way slowly becomes still.
Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 373
The meditator and the lotus of the navel
In the chapter on dhyāna, Agni Deva names four things to be known: the dhyātā (the one who meditates), the dhyāna, the dhyeya (the one meditated on) and the fruit of dhyāna. The dhyātā is the sādhaka who has jñāna and vairāgya, who is full of śraddhā (faith) and patient, who is a bhakta of Bhagavān Vishṇu, and who meditates always.
The meditator then contemplates a divine lotus that has appeared from the navel, above the Purusha. It is twelve aṅgulas (finger-breadths) wide, perfectly pure, white and fully blossomed, and its stalk, rising from the bulb at the navel, is eight aṅgulas long. Agni Deva gives the meaning of each part:
- its eight petals are the eight powers, aṇimā and the rest;
- its karṇikā (pericarp, the seed-centre) is jñāna;
- its stalk is uttama vairāgya, the highest dispassion;
- its bulb is Vishṇu-dharma.
One who knows this padmāsana, this lotus seat, which is the form of dharma, jñāna and vairāgya, full of auspicious aiśvarya (divine power) and most excellent, crosses over all sorrows. In the middle of its pericarp one meditates on Parameśvara, Bhagavān Vishṇu.
Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 374
What vairāgya is and where it leads
In his teaching on Brahma-vijñāna, Agni Deva tells the five gatis (goals) that beings reach:
- by yajñas, the devaloka;
- by tapas, the Virāṭ-pada, the state of Virāṭ;
- by karma-sannyāsa (the renunciation of action), the Brahma-pada, the state of Brahmā;
- by vairāgya, prakṛti-laya, merging into Prakṛti;
- by jñāna, moksha.
He then defines it: vairāgya is prasannatva (serenity) and the absence of tāpa (burning distress), vishāda (dejection) and the like. Sannyāsa is giving up the fruit both of karmas done and of karmas not yet done, and jñāna is the discriminating knowledge of the conscious and the insentient, from which alone comes knowledge of the Paramātmā.
In the same chapter Agni Deva explains the word Bhagavat. The six together, in their fullness, are called bhaga: aiśvarya (sovereignty), vīrya (valour), yaśas (glory), śrī (fortune), jñāna and vairāgya. Because these dwell in fullness in Śrī Hari, and all beings dwell in him, the word Bhagavat belongs first of all to Bhagavān Vishṇu.
Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 379
Sources
- Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Mokshadharma Parva, Chapters 174–230
- Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 369, 372–374, 379