The Renounced Order

Due to the contamination of the present Kali age, Lord Caitanya advised that no one should take sannyasa but that everyone should chant the holy names, Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. Justifying the wisdom of Lord Caitanya's prohibition of sannyasa is a phenomenon in India involving the cheaters and the cheated. It is known that a certain class of women feel that it is auspicious to have sex with a sadhu (holy man) and have a child by him. Women gather at holy places where sannyasis are known to go for the purpose of seducing them. This practice has become known, and a class of low-bred sensualists have taken to dressing themselves in the saffron robes of sannyasis and going to those places for the purpose of being seduced by women. Thus the cheaters meet the cheated. Of course, if anyone can actually follow the rules of sannyasa then he must take the renounced order.

Sannyasa is required so that the materially engrossed householder can get out of his mundane occupations before the time of death. The bona fide sannyasi who has received information from authorized scriptural sources and from a spiritual master in disciplic succession must not be merely self-satisfied in that knowledge because he is needed by society at large to go and preach to the people and inject them with the immediacy of eternal spiritual values. If the sannyasi does not teach the common men of their spiritual nature, then they will have wasted the human form of life. It is possible, by direct surrender to God, to be factually sannyasa or renounced, even while living at home with wife and children. But the existence of the sannyasi in the renounced order, either as a missionary with a large following, or as a wandering hermit, will culminate in the highest form of human being, the paramahamsa, or intimate pure devotee of Krsna, who is without envy and always fixed in ecstatic absorption of love of God.

The four orders and castes of varnasrama-dharma are meant to perfect human society. The four orders become distinct where there is enlightenment. Such spiritual life is actually the most democratic because God accepts as wonderful whoever surrenders to Him. By the material standard the rich are great. But in spiritual life the most advanced person serves all others and brings them to Krsna consciousness. In Krsna consciousness the most advanced person gives up everything, whereas in material life the most advanced is greedy, vicious and dangerous to mankind at large. The real democracy we need is democracy of spiritual consciousness-the understanding that all belongs to God and every living being is Krsna's beloved creature. Any man who takes up devotional service is to be respected regardless of his position; and at the same time, whatever qualities he displays in terms of work he can use for Krsna.