We continue with Hazrat Inayat Khan’s teaching on the subject of renunciation, begun here.  As with many mystical subjects, the finer they become, the more problems they present to our limited understanding.  It is not difficult to grasp the idea of the ‘law of reciprocity,’ or the give and take of the world, for we constantly experience the exchange of hammer-blows in the market, but when we come to the idea of renunciation, of giving up something, and of giving it up for the pleasure of giving it up, then our habits, our thoughts, and of course our ego, all begin to protest.

Renunciation

Those in the East who have renounced pleasure, comfort, riches, possessions, from a mystical point of view, have not renounced because they were too weak to hold them or because they did not desire them, but because they wished to renounce them before they passed from their hands. All things one possesses in life one has attracted to oneself; and when one loses them, it shows that the power of attraction is lost; and that, if one can renounce them before that power of attraction is lost, one rises above them. All things that are in a person’s hold are not really his own, although for the moment he may think so; when he loses them he realizes that they were not his own. Therefore, the only possible way to everlasting happiness is to realize that what one possesses is not one’s own, and to renounce in time, before all that one possesses renounces one. The law of renunciation is great; and it is the only way of happiness there is. When one looks deeply into life one sees that there is no gain which is not a loss, and that there is no loss which is not a gain. Whatever man has gained, he has also lost something with it, which he often does not realize; and sometimes when he knows it, he calls it the cost, if he considers it a lesser loss. But when he does not know, the loss is great; for every gain is after all a mortal gain, and the time that is spent in its acquisition is a loss, and a greater loss in comparison with the gain. The loss of every mortal thing is a gain in the immortal spheres; for it wakens the heart which is asleep both in the pursuit and the pleasures of the gain. When man closely watches his own life and its affairs he finds that there has been no loss that is to be regretted; that under the mantle of every loss a greater gain was concealed; and he also notices that with every gain there has been a loss, and when this gain is compared with the loss it has proved to be a greater loss. In the eyes of the world people who renounce their pleasures, comforts, and happiness seem to be foolish; but there is nothing that man has renounced without receiving a greater gain. And yet renunciation for gain can be called nothing but greed; renunciation for the pleasure of renunciation is the only renunciation that is worthwhile