Q: Is detaching oneself from worldly life, including family life, required to become a Yogi, Guru, or a person with spiritual light?
Sri M: Much before getting into marriage or relationship, we need to train our mind. The mind has to be conditioned in childhood itself. After conditioning our mind, nothing adverse will happen when we come to this field of spirituality. Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa used to put it simply: ‘Before cutting and preparing the jackfruit, we apply oil so the hands won’t become sticky’.
In these times, we don’t have this training. Now, in childhood itself, we are too exposed to TV, Internet, this and that. So, the mind has already been disturbed and, is in chaos and confusion.
In earlier times, at a young age, the person would either become a Brahmachari (a young student/celibate) or would go to a Madrassa to learn. Through this, the mind used to get disciplined. Nowadays, there is no such discipline. Nothing of such nature is offered in school. By this conditioning in one’s childhood, the mind would be matured to some extent. There is greater understanding and, then it is easy to enter relationships or the sphere of worldliness. One must live in the worldly life, then only we can say we have become truly matured. No use running away.
The other aspect is, after all our duties and responsibilities are carried out, our children carry these responsibilities forward. At that stage, comes Sanyasa. No use running away from life before that stage. Even if we do so before this stage, it is of no use. We come across people who took Sanyasa at young age. Their attire was changed but, later, they cannot come back to this life even if they want to. Their life is a misery – half here, half there, a big contradiction. A self- contradiction from which they cannot return, fearing, “What will people think!” The better way, according to me, is to live a normal life. This is what I feel.
