Hazrat Inayat Khan said that in our time materialism and commercialism were ever on the increase.  ‘Materialism’ could be understood as meaning a belief in matter alone, with no recognition of something beyond the physical experience. With that as our environment, it is not surprising that the idea of renunciation is difficult for us to assimilate, but Hazrat Inayat’s image, given below, of the dog judging the man who throws away a bone is illuminating.  The previous post in this series may be found here.

The Learning of Renunciation

People think that renunciation is learned by unselfishness. It is the onlooker who sees renunciation in the form of unselfishness, as a dog might see renunciation when a man throws away a bone: it does not realize that the bone is only valuable to it and not to the man. Every object has its peculiar value to every individual; and as a person evolves through life so the value of things becomes different; and as one rises above things so one renounces them in life. And when the one who has not risen above them looks at someone else’s renunciation, he calls it either foolish or unselfish.

One need not learn renunciation; life itself teaches it, and to the small extent that one has to learn a lesson in the path of renunciation, it is this: that where in order to gain silver coins one has to lose the copper ones, one must learn to lose them. That is the only unselfishness that one must learn: that one cannot have both, the copper and the silver.

There is a saying in Hindi, “The seeker after honor dies for a name, the seeker after money will die for a coin.” To the man to whom the coin is precious, the name is nothing; to him who considers a name precious, money is nothing. So one person cannot understand the attitude of another unless he puts on his cloak; and sees life from his point of view. There is nothing valuable except what we value in life; and a man is fully justified in renouncing all that he has, or that may be offered to him, for the sake of that which he values, even if it be that he values it only for this moment; for there will never be a thing which he will value always in the same way.

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend;
Dust into Dust, and under dust to lie
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and —sans End!*
—Omar Khayyám

*This is the translation from Farsi by Edward Fitzgerald of 1859, which is the most widely known English version of the Rubaiyat.  Modern readers may be unfamiliar with the literary use of the French word ‘sans’ for ‘without’.  But while the meaning conveyed by Fitzgerald is appropriate to Hazrat Inayat’s teaching, it is not necessarily exactly what the poet said.  For comparison, here are two translations by the poet Shahriar Shahriari. The first is ‘literal,’ or as close to the original sense as the poet can manage, while the second conveys some of the spiritual sense, according to the poet’s understanding.

Don’t permit sorrow to be your friend
Sadness and pain become your trend
Don’t let the book or the farm you tend
Rule your life before to earth you descend.

Before to dust you shall return
There is one thing that you must learn
Sorrow and pain your soul shall burn
Joy and bliss to light shall turn.