Understanding True meaning of Vairagya

26th Feb 2022 | Author - Viraj Malik

If you are born and brought up in India, there is a high chance you’ve heard a term called “Vairagya”. It basically means the state of being detached from the materialistic pains and gains of the world. A person who has renounced the worldly life is called a “Vairagi”. 

It is true that vairagya is being above this mundane world, however renunciation can also be achieved without the need of abandoning everything or moving to a cave in Himalayas or becoming a monk. I believe, that living in the constant chaos of this world gives us a better understanding of why all these materialistic pleasures are not the sole purpose of life. 

It is said that the origin of suffering, is the craving. We mostly try to measure happiness with materialistic components. We think the we will only be happy if our lives head the way we planned or desired it to be. We keep forgetting about the higher purposes.  Life is unpredictable and that is, its beauty. 

Vairagya helps us to free ourselves from the fluctuation of our mind and feel our true nature which is joyful and blissful and is far-far away from all these objects with which we construct our happiness. 

Vairagya doesn’t promote being a saint, it just simply promotes why all wealth, desires, attachments or emotional turmoil that we go through on a daily basis are illusions and just a mind game. If you control your mind, you’ll win over every situation in life. 

 

How to develop “Vairagya”?

I would say that one should experience life fully and only true experience can develop wisdom to understand the endless chain of attachments and desire and move into Vairagya naturally instead of theoretically clinging on to the definition of Vairagya

• A life live with full will, gradually helps us understand the difference between materialistic pleasures and true happiness. We would understand that our natural attachment is towards the body and pleasant sensations, we get it in our mind by experiencing the pleasures of life, however, if we ponder a little more, we can realise that all pleasures are short lived and body with which we are so attached is only temporary. With this realization comes the seeking for liberation from this bondage and true desire for vairagya develops.

 

• Sooner or later in life we shall fall in love and only when we can truly fall in fall we can understand the true nature of love and get freedom from personal love which is based on attachment to person and suffering associated with it. With the understanding comes our attempt to come out of the attachments and move into real love where we love the person without attachment. Only with a vairagya can true love happen, true love which is free of motives and memories or expectation of future results from a relationship. True Vairagya understands that no one belongs to us and we belong to no one.

 

• As we look at life more clearly, we would start realizing that we have got so many gifts in this life including our own birth, family, friends and experiences which have come to us without our role in it. This realization would soon start developing a feeling of gratitude and devotion within us and we would start treating this life as a joyful journey, a divine experience instead of an opportunity to prove ourselves and compete in this world. We often take life too seriously and real and we cling to everything which is pleasant to our senses, once we truly get the essence of Vairagya, we accept everything life has to offer and we start flowing with it.
   

With life experiences comes the wisdom that ‘True happiness comes from within ‘. 

With Vairagya we are able to see the world without the conditioning of our desires, likes and dislikes. This is the essence of yoga: to neutralize the waves of reaction in the heart. Be ever happy inside.