Hello all! One of my favourite things, and the reason I was drawn to NoFap in the first place, was the study of the Upanishads. It is through the wisdom of the rishis that I first learned of the importance of brahmacharya in ones' spiritual life. It has taken many years but I'm slowly learning that being in a state of equinimity and detachment is far superior to any state of intoxication or craving. I like to read religious texts from around the world to do with renunciation and ascesis but I feel that I'll always identify most with and practice jnana yoga. Being a westerner, it is incredibly difficult to find any texts on renunciation with real substance. Even when you find a teacher or group who claim to teach ascetic ideals, it always ends up being a way for the leader to make money and operates as a business. As such I'm slowly researching more and more of the classical texts which give instructions on vairagya, tyaga and dhyana. I learned some time ago that there is a core collection of upanishads focusing on sannyasa, which I hope to find in book form at some point to become a key part of my sadhana. It's a bit confusing as I desire most heavily, to buy a piece of land which I don't have to pay rates on and can build a small house to operate as my personal ashram (I don't want to be a teacher, I just want a place to practice in silence in solitude, and to be able to live largely outside the financial system.) Perhaps as desires go this isn't too bad, but it does leave me wishing that taking sannyasa was a possibility for me. I'm currently reading this, despite that a lot of the elements of ascesis described therein are not possible to practice in a western country, I am finding it very relevant to my personal religious aspirations, and can still be practiced to some extent in the right place, ie somewhere that it doesn't cost money simply to be alive. http://www.astrojyoti.com/naradaparivrajakaupanishad.htm Please share your own favourite texts or quotes on renunciation-- it is such a hard topic to discuss with people in Australia as people simply think I'm insane for having this aspiration. I was told when I started practicing meditation that 'once the door is open, you can't close it-' and I'm finding that very true. Now that I have seen how beautiful simplicity and non-craving is, it is becoming my primary motivation in life. At the very least, let's talk about how our religious practice is helping us through the delusion that is pornography and sexual addiction. With love, -Dakshinamurti
It's wonderful that you have such high aspirations. I would like to state what a senior monk of the Ramakrishna Math once told me. He said, one should always keep good company, and books with high thoughts like the one on Sanyasa you are reading are such good company. Keep that up. Feel free to post any thoughts you have in this thread. You can also drop a link to your daily
