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Patanjali's Eight Stages of Yoga and Meditation
Art & Science of Meditation
vairagya or dispassion as the crucial prerequisite temperament to be developed for pratyahara.
Real and momentary
The distinction between real and momentary, vairagya is repeatedly emphasized in Vedanta. It is said that even Brahmana-vichara, the enquiry into the self and all yogic practices are rendered redundant if the mind has not yet fully turned away from all externals, and real vairagya is absent. Sages state that most people go through a sort of momentary phase of dispassion, arising out of personal disillusionment with a situation, but they are unable to sustain this attitude for long, especially when faced with external charms of wealth, beauty, position and fame.
Then there are those who hypnotize themselves into believing that this 'accidental' vairagya is the real state of renunciation, and renunciation itself becomes a means to seek the same external vanities. Real vairagya, sages say, can only arise when there is genuine inner discrimination developed through vichara, to be able to distinguish between the outer 'glamourous drama'that is transient at best, and the witness-Self, which is beckoning to a dimension beyond the transitory.
(17)
