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THE PREPARATORY RENUNCIATION
We have now finished the consideration of what may be called the preparatory Bhakti, and are entering on the study of the Parâ-Bhakti, or supreme devotion. We have to speak of a preparation to the practice of this Para-Bhakti. All such preparations are intended only for the purification of the soul. The repetition of names, the rituals, the forms, and the symbols, all these various things are for the purification of the soul. The greatest purifier among all such things, a purifier without which no one can enter the regions of this higher devotion (ParaBhakti), is renunciation. This frightens many; yet, without it, there cannot be any spiritual growth. In all our Yogas this renunciation is necessary. This is the stepping-stone and the real centre and the real heart of all spiritual culture—renunciation. This is religion-renunciation. When the human soul draws back from the things of the world and tries to go into deeper things; when man, the spirit, which has here somehow become concretised and materialised, understands that he is thereby going to be destroyed and to be reduced almost into mere matter, and turns his face away from matter,--then begins renunciation, then begins real spiritual growth. The KarmaYogin's renunciation is in the shape of giving up all the fruits of his actions; he is not attached to the
