THE RENUNCIATION

* Renunciation - Not a painful obligation, but the result of a free choice; nor the giving up of an object of desire in favor of another object of desire. The question of advantage or disadvantage does not enter into it; these are delusions of the personal ego. The one who truly renounces abandons the acquisitiveness and desire for personal advantage which are the law of the lower nature, and follows the law of the higher nature, which is the law of love and harmony. ...

The Renunciation

Before you indulge
in the act of renunciation,
know what you renounce.
Have you lain on a bed
of combed-cobweb down
electing, instead, a bed of thorn?
Have you tasted ambrosia,
drunk the dew of the gods,
choosing instead dry bread and salt?
Have you flown with the eagles,
run with the wolves,
fleeted, gazelle-footed,
before wearing your shackles?
Have you heard loves whisper?
Felt its molten melting,
and its sharp, acid recall?
Feel it, ere you deny it,
for the celibates thin cell.
Have you beaten and eaten
the flesh of the old dying bear,
betrayed the weeping and helpless,
who, in their dark night of grief,
called you friend?
Have you murdered the light
in your thought and your speech,
collected debts you were never even owed?
Did you gamble for the dying man's clothes,
for his sandals cast lots,
withheld the hydrating drink?
If youve withheld no approval,
neither murdered nor mocked,
never bargained for love,
or haggled for more than you've given,
killed nothing for pride,
nailed no one to a tree there's little to renounce,
for there's little you've done worth setting free.