It will be seen, therefore, that isolation from the world or running away from
temptations does not help us in acquiring true Vairagya though this may be necessary
in the very early stages of acquiring self-control. We have to learn the lesson and test
ourselves in the midst of pleasures and temptations—of course not by yielding to
temptations and indulging in pleasures, but by trying to pierce through the glamorous
illusions which surround such pleasures while we are under their domination. Real
Vairagya is not characterized by a violent struggle with our desires. It comes naturally
and in its most effective form by the exercise of our discriminative faculty which is
called Viveka. Glamour plays a very great part in producing Raga or attachment and
even ordinary intellectual analysis combined with reason and commonsense, can free
us from many unreasonable habits and attachments. But the real weapon to be used in
acquiring true Vairagya is the more penetrating light of Buddhi which expresses itself
as Viveka. As our bodies are purified and our mind becomes free from the cruder de-
sires this light shines with increasing brightness and destroys our attachments by ex-
posing the illusions which underlie them. In fact Viveka and Vairagya may be consid-
ered as two aspects of the same process of dissipation of illusion through the exercise
of discrimination on the one hand and renunciation on the other. As the process
reaches a deeper level it merges more and more in Jnana and becomes almost indistin-
guishable from it.
that highest; ultimate by or from awareness of the Purusa or the
Self freedom from the least desire for the Gunas.
- That is the highest Vairagya in which, on account of the awareness of the
Purusa, there is cessation of the least desire for the Gunas.
It has been pointed out in connection with the previous Sutra that discrimina-
tion and renunciation mutually strengthen each other and bring about progressively the
destruction of illusions and attachments which are the root cause of bondage. This re-
sults in the release of consciousness from fetters which bind it to the lower worlds and
the whole process culminates as we shall see later in Kaivalya, the final objective of