Is There Room for Renunciation in Liberal Religion?

This is the, I don't know what, sermon I guess (presentation maybe) anyway, the whatever I gave at the Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship Meeting on Sunday, April 2, 2006.


There was once a beautiful lake filled with pure clean water. The lake was surrounded on all sides by rugged, almost impassable mountains. Over the mountains, on one side of the lake was a small village. The people there lived very hardscrabble lives, eeking out the barest of existences. For you see, the only water source for miles around was the lake. And so every day, people from the village would take their buckets and jugs and climb the treacherous mountains, descend to the lake on the other side, fill their containers and return over the mountains to the village. Often a good portion of the water would be spilled on the way back or polluted with dirt and debris, for the trail was exceedingly steep and difficult.

Now, there was an old aqueduct, a water pipe, that went through the very mountain. One end of the pipe was submerged deep in the waters of the lake and the other came out of the mountainside nearby the village. No one could remember who had put the pipe there and certainly no one had ever seen any water issue from it. Most people believed that the pipe only went a short ways into the side of the mountain, and had not considered that its other end might reach the waters of the lake. And there was no reason to think that it might, for the old pipe was so jammed with dirt, leaves, rocks and other sediment that not a drop of water had been able to traverse its length for generations.

Every day the aqueduct watched the people of the village, as they struggled so hard to bring water from the lake. After many years of observation the pipe thought to itself,

“Look at these people, how hard they struggle for just a few drops of water! And here I am, with one end totally submerged in the precious liquid these unfortunate ones work so hard for, and the other emerging here in their barren land. Would that the water might flow through me to them and thus ease their suffering.”

And so, from that day forward, the aqueduct decided that it would clear itself of all the dirt and debris that had clogged it up for so long. And slowly, ever so slowly, it began to work the sediment and detritus out of itself, some spilling out on the hillside near the village, some dissolving into the pure waters of the lake. To be sure, the process was tedious and time consuming, for water pipes are not in the habit of physical action, but slowly, ever so slowly, the pipe began to cleanse itself. In the village some people began to notice the pile of debris collecting around the old pipe, and began to wonder what it might mean.

And then, one day, miracle of miracles, a tiny rivulet of water managed to make its way from the lake, all the way under the mountain, and emerge on the opposite end of the aqueduct, to fall tenderly and unnoticed onto the pile of sediment that had accumulated there. Another rivulet of water soon followed and then another, and after some time, the rivulets combined to become a trickle. The pipe, for its part, still worked tirelessly, slowly moving stones and sticks, dirt and leaves down to one end or the other of its length and then out. The water continued to trickle.

And then another amazing thing happened. As the water flowed through the pipe, it itself began to remove sediment. The water itself began to pick up particles of dirt and debris and spit them out the end of the pipe, thereby assisting in the work that was begun for its sake. And now the cleansing process became much quicker. Soon, through the combined actions of the water pipe and of the water itself, the pipe was almost fully cleansed of debris, and now the water flowed in a rush and not a trickle.

The people of the village had noticed the miracle when the trickle became a stream, and ever since then had been rejoicing and back-slapping over their good fortune. Some people were so overcome that they began worshipping the pipe, from which pure water now issued. Others simply gave thanks that they would no longer have to rise early and climb the mountains.



The purpose of renunciation is to clear ourselves of all debris and detritus, to wash out the sediment from our bodies and minds, to remove that which has prevented the divine light from pouring through us and into the world. The renunciate is one who has realized that it is by his own actions that he has become thus clogged, and who has determined, by his own actions, to become unclogged. The renunciate knows that she is like a dirty window, and the more dirt she can remove, the more light will pour through her and into the dark room of the world. The story attempts to put this into metaphorical language, but what does renunciation mean in more concrete terms?

There are many different types of renunciation. Probably the first one to spring to most of our minds is physical or material renunciation; the giving up of possessions and wealth. However, this is but one aspect of renunciation, and cannot be properly understood without understanding the others as well.

Another oft-mentioned form of renunciation is the renunciation of judgment. This thing is good, that person is bad, this person is excellent, that thing is horrible. The renunciate gives up this categorizing and judging, knowing that they stem only from her own finite and relative perspective, that they are not Truth, which she is seeking.

And it is the same for negative thoughts and emotions, for these too must be renounced as products of our own egotism and delusion. As one Hasidic tzaddic put it “who knows all or your faults or knows them better than you yourself, and do you not love yourself all the same?” By renouncing our attachment to and identification with our negative thoughts and emotions, we see that they are only the result of our own prideful ness and egotism, and have no more reality than a desert mirage. They are but waves passing over the surface of Mind, and we need not cling to them.

The one final aspect or type of renunciation is one which we have a hard time dealing with in this, our culture of progress and planning, that is the renunciation of the fruits of labor. This means to work without care for the result or outcome of that work. It seems a paradoxical admonition, to work but not to care for what the work leads to. If we didn’t care what the work would lead to, why would we be working at all? Still we are told, if we would become pure channels for the divine, we must renounce this attachment to the fruits of our labor.

And that, in reality is what the renunciate renounces, attachment, in all it’s forms. All the various forms of renunciation might be summed up in that. Sever all attachment to everything, whether that thing be material, mental, emotional, or an object of the will. The renunciates tell us that we must not even be attached to the thought of our own salvation or enlightenment.

But now the question arises, why? Why give up our attachments? Is it not our attachments that make us human, that anchor us in this world? If we are not attached to anything, will we not become cold and distant? The answer is that we must cut all our attachments so that we may become truly free. So long as we are attached to anything, whether outside ourselves or inside, it is as if we had strings tied to us. The strings of our attachments are pulled and we react. We are attached to our sense of self-worth, so we react when it is assaulted. We are attached to our car, so we react when someone compliments it. The more attachments we have, the more time we spend reacting. For most of us, most of our time is spent reacting to one attachment or another. And these reactions, it should be said, can be either positive or negative. But when we are reacting, we are not acting. To act, that is, to act freely, one must be calm, detached, able to see the situation for what it is and then to decide on the best course of action, without being pulled this way and that by every stimulus that assaults our senses. But there is no time for this in reaction, reaction is a reflex and to confuse a reaction with an expression of free will is like striking a person’s knee cap and saying they chose to kick. So long as we are attached, we cannot be free. To sever attachment then, is to sever the bonds that hold us down and constrain our actions.



St. Francis of Assisi referred to the body as “brother ass.” “I will feed him, I will wash him, I will take good care of him, but I am going to ride.” When we spend our time chasing after sense enjoyments and catering to the whims of bodily nature, we are letting the ass ride us, and how can this be anything but ridiculous and a little bit pitiful. The object of physical, material renunciation then is to end our attachment to, and our mistaken identification with, the body, so that we may ride it and not vice versa.

The mind is also an ass, that we may ride, or that we may allow to ride us. And just as laziness and physical indulgence are the reactions to bodily attachment, so are judgments and negative thoughts and emotions the reactions to mental attachments. Attachments to what we believe to be good, and right, to how we believe others ought to act; we with our finite and relative intelligences, mistaking our mind’s truth for the Truth. When we indulge in these judgments and emotions, we allow the ass of the mind to ride us. The purpose of renouncing them is to gain control over the mind, so that the mind may become a tool through which our soul may work in the world. A hammer is necessary for carpentry, to be sure, but it is the carpenter, and not the hammer, that decides where to pound the nail.

When we are attached to the fruits of our labor, when we look forward to the goal and desire its attaining, we also become slaves to something, slaves to the goal. To be attached to the goal, to the fruit of our labor, is to begin, even if ever so slightly, down the slippery slope of ends and means thinking. We will end by declining to do good things if they don’t seem to further our goal, and by consenting to do bad things, if they do. Attachment to the fruits of labor puts a constraint on present action, and so binds us and negates our freedom. By renouncing the fruits of labor, we allow ourselves to act always in accord with our highest, that is to say, our most loving, impulses, without thought for a future that was never more than a dream anyway.

And all of this simply means to extract from ourselves every vestige of selfishness. Selfishness is based on an illusion, and so it is a chain for us. The illusion is this: that this body, this mind, these opinions, these things are who I am. And yet the body changes, generation after generation of cells growing and dying before we too cast off the mortal coil. The mind changes as we grow, our opinions change, our possessions change, and yet we remain somehow the same. The essential reality of our being then, must be separate from all these things. The illusion is that we identify with all of these things, these transient and dependent things, and so blind ourselves to our True Self, which is Soul, which is God, which is Love and Goodness unadulterated, everlasting and independent. To free our self of this illusion, to break this chain, is the purpose of renunciation. We hear the word renunciation and we are a little afraid , for we think we shall have to give up something, but is it right that the prisoner be afraid when asked to give up his cell? But many are the inmates who prefer the comfort and routine of the penitentiary to the infinite possibilities that await on the other side of the wall.



And we must not think that renunciation is solely the domain of monks and saddhus. One need not flagellate herself or take vows of silence to become a renunciate. Even the householder, the working mother or stay-at-home dad can practice renunciation. All that is necessary is that she set herself to the task of removing selfishness and everything else will follow. For what happens as we slowly begin to cut the bonds of attachment? That small voice, that some call conscience, that is usually drowned out by the shouting our attachments, that is, the shouting of our selfishness, seems to become louder, or maybe it is that the room has become quieter, but either way, our actions begin more and more to align themselves with the pure intent of the Soul. And then our very actions become an aqueduct, bringing the pure life-giving water of our Souls into the parched landscape of the world. And as the nature of our Soul is Love, so the nature of our actions becomes loving, and this love too, will aid in the work of renunciation. For when Love flows through us, all attachments are broken, at least temporarily. For what mother would not renounce all for her beloved child, without even a second thought, and with no difficulty whatsoever.

Which brings us to an interesting point, which is that in the end, renunciation destroys itself. The renunciate ends, as it were, by renouncing even his renunciation, for there is no longer any need for it. Swami Vivekananda puts it this way. Attachment is like a thorn buried in our flesh, and renunciation is another thorn that we use in order to remove the first. But when the first thorn is removed, then both are thrown away. When all attachment has been severed then even renunciation itself is unnecessary, for we are no longer pulled by the strings of attachment. We rest calmly in the embrace of the Soul, using each thing that comes to us as an instrument for pure intent of the Soul, without being moved by the instruments themselves. It is at this point, and this point only, that the renunciate has achieved the goal of being in the World, but not of it.


And now, I must answer the question that forms the title of this service. Is there room for renunciation in liberal religion? The answer I propose, as you may have already guessed, is yes. But first perhaps I should explain what I mean by “liberal religion”. By “liberal religion” I mean those people, of whatever denomination, sect or belief system, who are concerned more with the content of the religious experience than the particular forms that it happens to take. These people, are to be found, I hope, here, in Unitarian-Universalism, as well as in Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Shamanism or any of the various other brands of spirituality. It is these people, I would claim, who are the true fundamentalists, who are concerned only with the fundamentals of their religion, which has always been and always will be, the realization of God in Man, and the outpouring of God into the world through Man. The end of all spirituality is the end of all selfishness, and this is also the end of renunciation. To end selfishness means to become a pure channel, a spotlessly clean window, through which the Divine Light may pour into the World. As the Hasidim say, “in a man who is full of himself, there is no room for God.” If we would keep the true flame of religion and religious experience alive in this our ever-darkening world, we must take up the task of renunciation, we must make room.