
7Sannyasa/ Via Negativa
In the Hindu asrama system, a spiritually directed life is divided into four stages: 1) bhramacharya, a celibate student living with a guru; 2) grihastha, a hoseholder tending to the needs of his family and community; 3) vanaprastha, the “forest journey,” retirement from worldly affairs; 4) sannyasa, renunciation of worldly possession and ties, literally “throwing away everything.” This last stage is similar to the path of Hindu and Buddhist ascetics and mendicants, (saddhus, sramanas, yogis, swamis, arhats,)who devote themselves to physical “austerities” and mental disciplines, (sadhanas, dhyanas, yogas,) to achieve moksha, liberation from attachment to illusion (maya) and samsara (reincarnation.) In Buddhism, the goal of these practices is ascent to the most minimal state of consciousness of the arupadhatus or “formless realms,” nirodha samāpatti or saññāvedayitanirodha, defined elusively as “neither perceiving, nor not perceiving.” Since, however attenuated, this is still a state of consciousness, it too must be “snuffed out” (Sans.> nirvana.)For example, Tibetan monks spend days constructing intricate, sand mandalas as meditative aids, only to scatter them in order to remind themselves that even dharma, divine wisdom, stands between them and the bliss of non-consciousness.
Christian renunciants from Simeon Stylites, sitting 37 years atop his column, to Simone Weil, pursuing “de-creation” to its logical and tragic conclusion, to Dame Judith of Norwich, bricked up in her East Anglian anchorage, traveled the via negativa or path of self-annihilation to return topre-individuated oneness with their creator. Islam too has its ontological circle, qaws al-nuzuli, the “arc of descent” into differentiation, and qaws al-su’u, the “arc of ascent,” the Sufi’s pathback to unity with the Supreme Pen, author of the Qu’ran. Unlike Hinduism, however, the ontology of the Mosaic faiths’ is not cyclical but eschatological, so that its telos can also be said to be its eschaton.
