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Art & Science of Meditation
Patanjali's Eight Stages of Yoga and Meditation
A vicious cycle
It is this real vairagya that Bhartihari alludes to in his classic work "Vairagya-Shatakam, Hundred Verses on Renunciation, where he points out how, despite the transitory nature of the world staring us in the face whether it is death or disease, old age or deceit we continue to desire and continue to want endlessly, trapping ourselves in a vicious cycle of pleasure and pain. Nothing seems to stop us from desiring more, Bhartihari says, and this arises from our wrong notion of what is real and permanent.
In perceiving outer empirical reality as the only reality, and in perpetuating this notion, we keep desiring external 'enjoyments' and become addicted to them. Desire begets more desire and triggers a self-consuming 'mind-reality,' desperate to possess just that bit more, be it riches, fame or position. This play of the mind keeps defining an identity for us, which inevitably makes us dissatisfied and restless. The true yoga practitioner tries to reverse this notion through pratyahara and vairagya.
Intense vairagya
"What vairagya also does not entail is to go to the other extreme, of the abnegation of social responsibilities by running away on a whim. If the mind is not disciplined
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