The very goal of life is enlightenment. You may have other goals, but knowingly or unknowingly, they are just different names that we give to the goal of enlightenment. In the same way, whatever else you may seek, what you actually seek is sannyas itself. But you don’t know it. That is the problem!

You may think your goals are to have more money and more relationships. The truth is that even the one who searches for money actually searches only for enlightenment! See, there are only two things. One is money, and the other is name and fame. Name and fame mean nothing but to have more relationships. Whatever experience you feel you are going to get through money or relationships, you will only get through enlightenment!

Sannyas is recognizing the goal properly and integrating to achieve it

That is why the soul never rests until enlightenment happens. No amount of money satisfies the soul. No relationship satisfies the soul. When money and relationships don’t give satisfaction, it is called the ‘depression of success’. This is what happens after reaching the peak of our career. People come to me and say, ‘I have achieved all that I wanted to achieve, but what for I wanted to achieve, I have not achieved. I feel incomplete.’ Understand that this is the call of your being that seeks no other goal except enlightenment. The response to it is sannyas.

Not properly understanding the goal of life is the root cause of all problems. Sannyas is recognizing the goal properly and integrating to achieve it. Whatever goal you may be running behind in your life – money or relationship or whatever, your end goal is only bliss. There is no other separate goal in life!

There are only two types of people. One group knows the word bliss or enlightenment, and the path to it. They live their life according to that. The other group does not know the word or the path, so it comes around in circles. That’s all! The former is sannyasi, the latter is samsari.

If you stand in Mysore Road and decide to go to Bangalore, you can take the shortcut and reach after thirty kilometers. Without knowing the shortcut, you can go around and reach after 30,000 kilometers. The people who don’t know the shortcut keep going around.

Any goal other than enlightenment will leave you halfway through the process. Any other goal will not fulfill you completely. Only the goal of enlightenment has the energy to stay with you until the end and fulfill you when it is achieved.

You are going to live for maybe 70 or 80 years in this body. Am I right? In those years, you can keep your consciousness either in a high state or in a low state. You can play with it either way. The freedom to keep the consciousness either at a high or low level is available to you for a span of 70 to 80 years. Understand deeply, if you get any other gift and waste it, it is okay. But if you get the gift of consciousness and waste it, it is the greatest loss ever.

There are many glass pieces. But only a few are positioned in such a way as to receive the sun’s reflection. Similarly, there are millions of living creatures. Not all of them are in the state to receive the cosmic consciousness and reflect it themselves. Only man has the power to reflect the cosmic consciousness in himself as the ‘I’. For the mere reflection to fall on us, we are highly blessed souls. It is the highest possibility on planet earth.

If the direction of the glass changes, or if the glass breaks, the possibility no longer exists. The greatest loss is losing the possibility of the glass reflecting the sun in itself. Man is the glass that has been blessed with the reflecting capacity and given the right orientation to receive the reflection of the cosmic consciousness. Only human consciousness has the highest possibility of flowering into enlightenment.

Generally I don’t force or impose anything on anyone. But when I see humans wasting the highest possibility of their birth, I feel bad for them. Everyone is moving around like people who have been led into the forest blindfolded. You move around in circles to fulfill the ego of other people. You are not even running to satisfy your own ego. You are running to satisfy someone else’s ego! Your life itself is moving in this fashion. You don’t know why you are running.

You have achieved the human body which gives you the highest possibility to take the jump in consciousness. The glass is already reflecting the sunlight. Now all that the glass needs to do is to see the source of the reflection. That’s all!

Merging with the Source is what I call enlightenment, merging of the individual consciousness with the cosmic consciousness. If this happens, then the goal of life, the purpose for which the glass was created, is achieved. Then, even if the glass breaks, there is no problem. But without achieving that, if the glass is broken, it is the greatest loss ever. If the human body perishes before enlightenment, there cannot be a greater loss than that.

Sannyas is the means to this achievement. Sannyas is not the end of life. It is the beginning of life. Sannyas is moving towards enlightenment, the only and permanent purpose of life.

source: Living Enlightenment