Question: Why did Buddha renounce everything?
Answer: In order to attain to what is real.
Question: Why did Ramakrishna renounce everything?
Answer: In order to see and become one with God (Ishwar).
Question: Why did Tukaram renounce everything?
Answer: He became disgusted with the world because of continual losses and failures in business. Having renounced the world, there was created in him the love of God. After this he had to pass through further untold sufferings.
Merely becoming aloof from the world because of worldly disappointments, or committing suicide to escape from them, or going mad on their account—all these are quite different from the renunciation we have been talking about. True renunciation is actual death. After that, if a man is fortunate enough to find a Guru, well and good; otherwise, he is doomed—with untold difficulties thrown upon his head as further severe testing.
In a nutshell, then, all these talks with their questions and answers hinge on the question of the unfoldment of sanskaras. That is the essence! If those sanskaras get wiped off that accrue from karma attaching to the pure (shuddh) Paramatma Itself, then all is well. Otherwise, if they remain there accumulated on the pure Paramatma, they comprise just that much more burden which one has to pick up and carry, with that much more stress and strain upon the self.
Sant Tukaram, as we have said, undertook renunciation (tyag) after experiencing disappointment and disgust with the world. Then the love of God was created in him, and this led in turn to the meeting and darshan of a Guru. But all these developments in his life resulted from previous sanskaras and a tremendous self-preparation that cannot even be imagined. Unthinkable difficulties, acute stress and strain, and all manner of hardships created and prepared such powerful sanskaras that circumstances in due course afforded him opportunities for renunciation, the appearance of the Guru, and the incurring of the Guru’s grace all within a single lifetime, indeed, within the scope of just a few years.
Altogether different from this is the experience of circle members but that’s another matter.
– “Meher Baba’s Tiffin lectures”, p252
21-September-1926; Meherabad