When a person tries to renounce the world, why do people call him an escapist?

 From Rajeev C

currently ,when some body try to renounce his life ,why his family and other people blame him that you are escaping from your actual life or your are not able to face the problem of life ,that’s why you are adopt the life of celibacy? why people think like this.

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Transcript

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Question. When somebody tries to renounce his life, why his family and other people blame him that you are escaping from your actual life or you are not able to face the problems of life? That’s why you are adopting the life of celibacy.
Why people think like this? Answer. People think like this because that has been their experience. Most people have a very negative and limited conception of spiritual life where they think that those who cannot practice successfully material life, spiritual life is meant for the refusal, rejects of material life.
So because of that conception, when somebody tries to renounce the world and practice spiritual life, that’s what they naturally infer. And to some extent their inference is true because not only firstly they have not got any education about the positive aspects and positive motivations for spiritual life, but also their negative conceptions have also been confirmed by many people who do accept the renounced order as an arrangement or an excuse for avoiding taking up responsibilities in worldly life and for getting an easy way to earn one’s living along with some prestige also in traditional Indian culture. Renounced order is respected and many people who are self-interested and lazy abuse this for the sake of their own personal gratification.
So if this is the kind of knowledge and experience they have, then naturally they will think that if somebody is renouncing the world, which a person is doing it because either of frustration or escapism. Now, what could be the positive motivations? If a person understands how material life is temporary and how we do not have to die in the sense that we are eternal souls and we have a right to eternal life and for developing our right to eternal life, we have to develop love for Krishna, which is best developed in the most undistracted way in the renounced order of life and so a person takes to the renounced order of life that such a person is not just not escaping, but actually he is elevating himself to a higher level. So many of the devotees who join ISKCON are well educated and often quite successful in their material lives and they renounce material life not because they are frustrated with the failures of material life, but because they are frustrated with the successes of material life.
They get the successes that they have dreamt of and then they find that these successes are so insubstantial that they actually bring no worthwhile happiness in them. The happiness within them is so fleeting and temporary and they feel that there must be something higher to life, that life cannot be something so cheap and trivial that it will work hours and years for some pleasure that lasts for a few moments. So they recognize that life has a far greater potential than what materialism can fulfill and that is why to achieve that higher fuller potential of life, they take to spirituality.
So such a renunciate is considered glorious and that’s why the Srimad Bhagavatam also describes that for such a renunciate, तक्त्वास्वधर्मं चर्णां भुजमरे that such a person who renounces the world, there is no loss for such a person. In fact, any way one performs some devotional service to Krishna, that is glorious. So as far as we are concerned, we should never think of practicing Krishna Consciousness in the renounced order just because we are frustrated with material life.
We should actually practice Krishna Consciousness while being still in our material life as seriously as we can and after practicing for a few years, when we see that we are dedicated and we want the higher taste more and more and that we want to become purified in this very life and return back to Krishna, then on the basis of that dedication to the service of Krishna and the conviction that I want to attain eternal existence in this very life, then one can renounce the world and in general, it is best if one fulfills one’s material responsibilities to a reasonable level of completeness by, if one has some sisters to get married, one should arrange for their marriage. If the parents have taken some loans, one should arrange to repay the loans of the parents and then after doing that, when one renounces the world, that one is doing that not because a person is running away from responsibilities but because the person feels that there are higher responsibilities to be accepted in life and for that purpose when a person renounces, that is glorious. So if people start accusing us of escapism, we can try to explain to them as much as possible and we have to also honestly examine, introspect within ourselves whether that is our motive or whether it is just that is our motive but we don’t want to admit it, then we should wait for some time, purify our motives and then think of renouncing the world and if we have the positive motive and the positive conviction and if we still are not able to convince the people around us, then we have to understand that to practice a life of principles often means to be ready to face the displeasure and the censure of those who do not understand and value those principles and throughout the history of devotional culture, those who have tried to live a life of principles have faced not only opposition but even persecution from those who did not appreciate those principles just like Prahlad Maharaj faced problems from Hiranyakashipu.
We should not fancifully imagine that we are devoted like Prahlad Maharaj but we should recognize the principle that we may face opposition from worldly minded people because our taking to the renounced order challenges their worldly values. They think that the purpose of life is to eat, drink, be merry and just have a jolly time in this world and the fact that somebody is openly leaving their kind of lifestyle and is adopting an alternative way of life challenges their faith in their own conceptions of life. So naturally they may react in a very aggressive and vindictive way.
So we need to understand that we can’t expect the world’s sympathy if we are going to take this renounced order. So we need to associate with devotees who understand and encourage what we are trying to do and with their support and with the proper motivation in our hearts then we can proceed on the path that we want to proceed. At the same time we should try as much as possible not to hurt those who are around us especially their close friends or relatives.
We try to be as sensitive as possible to them without becoming sentimental and giving up our convictions and principles because of their sentiments. But we be sensitive, we understand the sentiments and try to soften the shock or the pain for them as much as possible. But at the same time it is not that because of other sentiments we should get swayed because we understand that if we practice spiritual life seriously then even they will get the benefit eventually.
So therefore even if they don’t understand right now they will understand later on. So to summarize first is because people have seen most renunciates run away from material life and that’s why they take renunciation and because they have never got the opportunity to be educated about the positive motivation and purposes of spiritual life so they naturally think that a person renouncing the world is for the sake of escaping or being unable to cope with problems of life. So we should check whether that is really true for us.
If it is true then we need to honestly purify our motives and understand that we take to spiritual life not because material life is too difficult but because material life is too pointless. That even after facing all the difficulties and gaining successes the pleasures are temporary and unsatisfactory and that’s why to fulfill life’s potential for a higher pleasure we take to the renounced order. That’s second point.
Third point is that we should not expect the world to clap and approve us if we renounce the world because we are adopting values that are radically different from the world and we should be prepared for the world’s disapproval and censure. And last point is still we should try to if at all we are going to renounce the world if we have the proper and pure motives and we complete the worldly responsibility to a reasonable degree then also we should take the step in a sensitive way so that we don’t hurt people too much by that step. We should do it in a very mature, sensitive way under the guidance of responsible senior devotees.