Renunciation of Family Live
BY: MAHESH RAJA
SB 6.10.8 P The Battle Between the Demigods and Vrtrasura
"We offer our respectful obeisances unto the lotus feet of
the Lord. upon whom one should always meditate. He left His householder
life, leaving aside His eternal consort, whom even the denizens of heaven
adore. He went into the forest to deliver the fallen souls, who are put
into illusion by material energy." To accept sannyasa means to
commit civil suicide. but sannyasa is compulsory, at least for every brahmana,
every first-class human being. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu had
a very young and beautiful wife and a very affectionate mother. Indeed,
the affectionate dealings of His family members were so pleasing that even
the demigods could not expect such happiness at home. Nevertheless, for
the deliverance of all the fallen souls of the world, Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu
took sannyasa and left home when He was only twenty-four years old. He lived
a very strict life as a sannyasi, refusing all bodily comforts.
TLK Vs 10 Devahuti Desires Transcendental
Knowledge
We are very much attached to this material world, but according
to the Vedic system, renunciation is compulsory, for when one reaches the
age of fifty, he renounces his family life. Nature gives warning, "You
are now past fifty. That's all right. You have fought in this material world.
Now stop this business." Children play on the beach and make houses
out of sand, but after a while the father comes and says, "Now, my dear
children, time is up. Stop this business and come home." This is the business
of the guru--to teach his disciples detachment. The world is not our place;
our place is Vaikunthaloka. Krsna also comes to remind us of this.
LoB 37
According to the varnasrama principle, it is compulsory that
one retire after the age of fifty, without considering other circumstances.
Business offices close at a fixed hour no matter what balance of work remains.
Similarly, after the age of fifty one must retire from the active,
external life and devote oneself to the introspective cultivation of the
human spirit. This retirement must be compulsory, so that foolish old men
will no longer disturb the peaceful progress of spiritual culture.
In the modern democratic government, no one should be elected after the
age of fifty. Otherwise the storm of the ocean of nescience cannot be stopped
to allow the ships and boats to sail back to Godhead. The greatest enemies
of progressive spiritual culture in human society are the old fossils of
political parties who are blind themselves and who try to lead other blind
men. They bring about disaster in a peaceful human society. The members
of the younger generation are not as stupid as the old politicians, and
therefore by state law the foolish old politicians must retire from active
life at the age of fifty.
Madhya 25.194 How All the Residents of Varanasi
Became Vaisnavas
It appears that Subuddhi Raya was a big landholder and a responsible,
respectable gentleman. He could not, however, avoid the social misconception
that one becomes a Mohammedan when water is sprinkled on one's face from
a Mohammedan's pitcher. Actually he was planning to give up his material
life and leave his family. Hindu culture recommends four divisions-brahmacarya,
grhastha, vanaprastha and sannyasa. Subuddhi Raya was thinking of taking
sannyasa, and by the grace of Krsna, he received this opportunity. He therefore
left his family and went to Varanasi. The system of varnasrama-dharma is
very scientific. If one is directed by the varnasrama institution, he will
naturally think of retiring from family life at the end of his life. Therefore
sannyasa is compulsory at the age of fifty.
680623SB.MON Lectures
Therefore, according to Vedic civilization, there is compulsory
get-out from household life. Compulsory get-out means pancas ordhvam vanam
vrajet. Pancas means fifty years. "As soon as one passes over
fifty years of age, he should get out." That is the injunction of the scriptures.
No more in household affairs. The life is divided into four
parts, four divisions. First of all brahmacari. Just like Prahlada Maharaja
is teaching. Brahmacari, a boy from five years old is taught, and up to
twenty-five years. And if he is not... Of course, he is properly taught,
but if he is not properly convinced that "Worldly life is botheration. Better
remain brahmacari for throughout the whole life..." There are many brahmacaris
in India still, naistika-brahmacari. They are called naistika-brahmacari.
That means they had never any experience of sex. They are called naistika-brahmacari.
Just like my Guru Maharaja was naistika-brahmacari. He never married. So
boys are taught like that, the inefficiency of this family life, encumbrances,
because the aim is to advance in Krsna consciousness.
690916LE.LON Lectures
Prabhupada: They are working so hard, just like animals, simply for sense
gratification. That is the beginning of His speech. But the human form of
life is meant for saving time for spiritual cultivation. We should be satisfied
with the bare necessities of life, and the time should be saved to cultivate
self-realization. That is the basic principle of Vedic civilization. Therefore
in Vedic civilization a certain period is devoted for accepting renounced
order of life, sannyasa. Compulsory. This sannyasa order, as we have accepted,
it is compulsory regulative principle of Vedic way of life. The first twenty-five
years brahmacari, strict life of celibacy, student life, without any sex
indulgence completely, up to twenty-five years. Then grhastha. That is not
for also all. If somebody is unable to remain a brahmacari all through,
then the spiritual master gives him permission to marry a suitable girl
and become a householder. This is called grhastha life. Then,
up to fifty years, he can indulge in householder life. Householder life,
according to Vedic civilization, is a sort of license for sense gratification.
But not for all the time. The injunction is pancasordhvam vanam vrajet.
Just after your fiftieth year you must give up, retire from householder.
That is called vanaprastha. Vanaprastha means you can take
your wife with you and travel all over the world in places of holy pilgrimage
just to give up your attachment for family life. In this way, when one is
completely detached from family affection, then he sends back his wife to
the elderly children to take care of her and he takes sannyasa, renounced
order of life. This renounced order of life means dedicate completely for
the service of the Lord.
SB 2.1.15 P The First Step in God
Realization
The foolishness of gross materialism is that people think of
making a permanent settlement in this world, although it is a settled fact
that one has to give up everything here that has been created by valuable
human energy. Great statesmen, scientists, philosophers, etc., who are foolish,
without any information of the spirit soul, think that this life of a few
years only is all in all and that there is nothing more after death. This
poor fund of knowledge, even in the so-called learned circles of the world,
is killing the vitality of human energy, and the awful result is being keenly
felt. And yet the foolish materialistic men do not care about what is going
to happen in the next life. The preliminary instruction in the Bhagavad-gita
is that one should know that the identity of the individual living entity
is not lost even after the end of this present body, which is nothing but
an outward dress only. As one changes an old garment, so the individual
living being also changes his body, and this change of body is called death.
Death is therefore a process of changing the body at the end of the duration
of the present life. An intelligent person must be prepared for this and
must try to have the best type of body in the next life. The best type of
body is a spiritual body, which is obtained by those who go back to the
kingdom of God or enter the realm of Brahman. In the second chapter of this
canto, this matter will be broadly discussed, but as far as the change of
body is concerned, one must prepare now for the next life. Foolish people
attach more importance to the present temporary life, and thus the foolish
leaders make appeals to the body and the bodily relations.
The bodily relations extend not only to this body but also to the family members, wife, children, society, country and so many other things which end at the end of life. After death one forgets everything about the present bodily relations; we have a little experience of this at night when we go to sleep. While sleeping, we forget everything about this body and bodily relations, although this forgetfulness is a temporary situation for only a few hours. Death is nothing but sleeping for a few months in order to develop another term of bodily encagement, which we are awarded by the law of nature according to our aspiration. Therefore, one has only to change the aspiration during the course of this present body, and for this there is need of training in the current duration of human life. This training can be begun at any stage of life, or even a few seconds before death, but the usual procedure is for one to get the training from very early life, from the stage of brahmacarya, and gradually progress to the grhastha, vanaprastha and sannyasa orders of life. The institution which gives such training is called varnasrama-dharma, or the system of sanatana-dharma, the best procedure for making the human life perfect. One is therefore required to give up the attachment to family or social or political life just at the age of fifty years, if not earlier, and the training in the vanaprastha and sannyasa-asramas is given for preparation of the next life. Foolish materialists, in the garb of leaders of the people in general, stick to family affairs without attempting to cut off relations with them, and thus they become victims of nature's law and get gross bodies again, according to their work.
SB 2.7.6 P Scheduled Incarnations with
Specific Functions
The Lord, being the source of everything that be, is the origin
of all austerities and penances also. Great vows of austerity are undertaken
by sages to achieve success in self-realization. Human life is meant for
such tapasya, with the great vow of celibacy, or brahmacarya. In the rigid
life of tapasya, there is no place for the association of women. And because
human life is meant for tapasya, for self-realization, factual human civilization,
as conceived by the system of sanatana-dharma or the school of four castes
and four orders of life, prescribes rigid dissociation from woman in three
stages of life. In the order of gradual cultural development, one's life
may be divided into four divisions: celibacy, household life, retirement,
and renunciation. During the first stage of life, up to twenty-five years
of age, a man may be trained as a brahmacari under the guidance of a bona
fide spiritual master just to understand that woman is the real binding
force in material existence. If one wants to get freedom from the material
bondage of conditional life, he must get free from the attraction for the
form of woman. Woman, or the fair sex, is the enchanting principle for the
living entities, and the male form, especially in the human being, is meant
for self-realization. The whole world is moving under the spell of womanly
attraction, and as soon as a man becomes united with a woman, he at once
becomes a victim of material bondage under a tight knot.
The desires for lording it over the material world, under the intoxication of a false sense of lordship, specifically begin just after the man's unification with a woman. The desires for acquiring a house, possessing land, having children and becoming prominent in society, the affection for community and the place of birth, and the hankering for wealth, which are all like phantasmagoria or illusory dreams, encumber a human being, and he is thus impeded in his progress toward self-realization, the real aim of life. The brahmacari, or a boy from the age of five years, especially from the higher castes, namely from the scholarly parents (the brahmanas), the administrative parents (the ksatriyas), or the mercantile or productive parents (the vaisyas), is trained until twenty-five years of age under the care of a bona fide guru or teacher, and under strict observance of discipline he comes to understand the values of life along with taking specific training for a livelihood. The brahmacari is then allowed to go home and enter householder life and get married to a suitable woman. But there are many brahmacaris who do not go home to become householders but continue the life of naisthika-brahmacaris, without any connection with women. They accept the order of sannyasa, or the renounced order of life, knowing well that combination with women is an unnecessary burden that checks self-realization.
Since sex desire is very strong at a certain stage of life, the guru may allow the brahmacari to marry; this license is given to a brahmacari who is unable to continue the way of naisthika-brahmacarya, and such discriminations are possible for the bona fide guru. A program of so-called family planning is needed. The householder who associates with woman under scriptural restrictions, after a thorough training of brahmacarya, cannot be a householder like cats and dogs. Such a householder, after fifty years of age, would retire from the association of woman as a vanaprastha to be trained to live alone without the association of woman. When the practice is complete, the same retired householder becomes a sannyasi, strictly separate from woman, even from his married wife. Studying the whole scheme of disassociation from women, it appears that a woman is a stumbling block for self-realization, and the Lord appeared as Narayana to teach the principle of womanly disassociation with a vow in life.
SB 3.24.35 P The Renunciation
of Kardama Muni
Kardama Muni was to leave his family life to completely engage
in the service of the Lord. But since he knew that the Lord Himself, as
Kapila, had taken birth in his home as his own son, why was he preparing
to leave home to search out self-realization or God realization? God Himself
was present in his home--why should he leave home? Such a question may certainly
arise. But here it is said that whatever is spoken in the Vedas and whatever
is practiced in accordance with the injunctions of the Vedas is to be accepted
as authoritative in society. Vedic authority says that a householder
must leave home after his fiftieth year. Pancasordhvam vanam vrajet: one
must leave his family life and enter the forest after the age of fifty.
This is an authoritative statement of the Vedas, based on the division of
social life into four departments of activity--brahmacarya, grhastha, vanaprastha
and sannyasa.
SB 4.27.7 P Attack by Candavega on the City of King
Puranjana: the Character of Kalakanya
Even though we may produce many good children, our desire for
sex that is beyond the prescribed method is to be considered sinful. Too
much enjoyment of any of the senses (not only sex) results in sinful activities.
Therefore one has to become a svami or gosvami at the end of his life. One
may beget children up to the age of fifty, but after fifty, one must stop
begetting children and should accept the vanaprastha order. In this way
he must leave home and then become a sannyasi. A sannyasi's title is svami
or gosvami, which means that he completely refrains from sense enjoyment.
One should not accept the sannyasa order whimsically; he must be fully confident
that he can restrain his desires for sense gratification. King Puranjana's
family life was, of course, very happy. As mentioned in these verses, he
begot 1,100 sons and 110 daughters. Everyone desires to have more sons than
daughters, and since the number of daughters was less than the number of
sons, it appears that King Puranjana's family life was very comfortable
and pleasing.
SB 4.29.54 P Talks Between Narada and King Pracinabarhi
The deer in the flower garden is an allegory used by the great
sage Narada to point out to the King that the King himself is similarly
entrapped by such surroundings. Actually everyone is surrounded by such
a family life, which misleads one. The living entity thus forgets that he
has to return home, back to Godhead. He simply becomes entangled in family
life. Prahlada Maharaja has therefore hinted: hitvatma-patam grham andha-kupam
vanam gato yad dharim asrayeta. Family life is considered a blind well (andha-kupam)
into which a person falls and dies without help. Prahlada Maharaja recommends
that while one's senses are there and one is strong enough, he should abandon
the grhastha-asrama and take shelter of the lotus feet of the Lord, going
to the forest of Vrndavana. According to Vedic civilization,
one has to give up family life at a certain age (the age of fifty), take
vanaprastha and eventually remain alone as a sannyasi. That is the prescribed
method of Vedic civilization known as varnasrama-dharma. When one takes
sannyasa after enjoying family life, he pleases the Supreme Lord Visnu.
SB 6.1.24 P The History of the Life of
Ajamila
The word pravayasah indicates Ajamila's sinfulness because
although he was eighty-eight years old, he had a very young child. According
to Vedic culture, one should leave home as soon as he has reached fifty
years of age; one should not live at home and go on producing children.
Sex life is allowed for twenty-five years, between the ages of twenty-five
and forty-five or, at the most, fifty. After that one should give up the
habit of sex life and leave home as a vanaprastha and then properly take
sannyasa. Ajamila, however, because of his association with a prostitute,
lost all brahminical culture and became most sinful, even in his so-called
household life.