You will find many ‘dispassionate’ people looking morose, disinterested, and unenthusiastic. But that is not true dispassion. Dispassion is not apathy or inaction. In fact, apathy is when you have moved away from the source. Real enthusiasm comes from being connected to God within. When you are one with your source, when your mind is totally in the present moment, you can only be enthusiastic.Dispassion is simply a broader perspective of reality. It is the way back home. It is the journey towards the source, which is a reservoir of boundless enthusiasm. Though they appear to be opposite, they are actually complementary.
Dispassion brings freedom
Most people are thirsty for enjoyment, whether here in this world or hereafter in another world. The mind gallops towards the world of passion. It travels towards the sense of sight, smell, taste, sound, and touch. Or it gallops towards something it has heard or seen.
This craving for any of these experiences in the mind can stop you from being in the present moment. It is here that Vairagya (dispassion) gives you a few moments of reprieve from sensory cravings.
Vairagya is when, for a few moments, however beautiful the scenery is, you say: “I am not interested in looking at it right now.” However good the food is, you say, “This is not the time. I am not interested in it.”
Dispassion is that state of supremacy of consciousness in you, free from the thirst for the perceptible and celestial enjoyment. Without dispassion, there is no progress in life.
You will see that whenever you are unhappy or miserable, behind that is your wanting to be happy. Craving for happiness brings misery. If you do not even crave for happiness, then you are happy. When you do not care for happiness, you are liberated, and when you do not even care for liberation, you attain love. When you do not care for liberation, then you are free. Happiness is just a mere idea in the mind. You think that if you have this and this and this, you are happy.
Vairagya is putting a stop to the craving for happiness. That does not mean you must be miserable or do not enjoy yourself. It is knowing that everything is going to end one day. Before you become one with this earth, become free. Free yourself from this feverishness that is gripping your mind. Look into every craving you have closely and remember you are going to die. For example, you crave sweets, sugar, or food. Ask yourself if you want to keep eating them. Ok, eat for as long as you like. Consciously observe: what can they give you? Nothing. What else do you crave for? Beautiful views? Keep on looking at a beautiful view. How long can you go on looking? Finally, you are going to say, “Enough. I don’t want to see anymore; I don’t want to listen to music anymore…”
Your mind wants unlimited pleasure, which the five senses cannot give you. And this conflict burns and tires you over and over again. Your mind is tired and bogged down by galloping through desires. Just turn back and see all the desires you have had. Have they given you rest? No. They have only created more desires and then more. They have put you on another trip to achieve more and more; like you are on the merry-go-round, going around in circles. Stuck in this illusion, you travel miles and miles but go nowhere. This is what desire does to you.
The other extreme is getting stuck in wanting to be desireless. Now, saying ‘I do not want any desire’ becomes another desire. Some people are on a trip to destroy their desires. That is not very productive either.
Skillfully handling the objects of the senses and bringing the mind to the Self is dispassion.
Even a few moments of retrieving our senses, the craving or thirst for objects, and going back to the source is Vairagya. This is another basic requirement for meditation. Whenever you want to meditate, your mind should be in dispassion. Without dispassion, your meditation is not going to be very deep and will not provide you the rest that you are longing for.
The mind that gallops is an obstruction. An expectation is an obstruction in meditation. You have heard somebody’s experience of light coming and somebody coming from heaven and taking them by the hand, and you start ‘seeing’ it with your eyes closed. All these ideas are imaginative fiction. Just shatter all your dreams and fantasies; offer them all to the fire. Burn them down. What great happiness do you want to have? How long can you have it? It is all going to end one day.
Where Dispassion is Detrimental
Is there something we should not be dispassionate about? Divine love! Do not put off the fire of longing for the Divine or Satsang with dispassion. There is a little fire in you that propels you towards knowledge, spiritual practice or Sadhana, devotion, and service. Sometimes you use knowledge to put off that fire. Often, you hear people saying, “Oh, never mind, God is everywhere, God is in my heart. When God wills, he will call me to meditate.” Such excuses should not be justified as dispassion.
When you want to do some service, the mind goes, “Oh, it’s all Maya, anyway everything is an illusion. It’s all just happening. Things will happen when the time comes!” In this way, spiritual knowledge gets misused and quoted out of context to suit one’s convenience or laziness.
In the name of dispassion, do not lose that spark of enthusiasm and interest. When you misuse knowledge like this, you miss out on a lot. Keep the fire of longing for the Divine and service to society alive. Dispassion here would be detrimental.
