This topic that I will talk is something that I consider very important in life, which people, especially in the West, are very far from grasping.
Ignorant people, especially in the Western cultures, believe that maximizing their own pleasure even if it requires to step over others is wisdom or smartness. Possibly, these people are so ignorant that they might not even use the word wisdom. They would just say smartness while considering the others who are virtuous and good hearted as ignorant and dumb.
So this is a kind of mind that is very common in Western cultures. The dumb think they are smart.
So as quite some people in our modern cultures can't even grasp the benefits and advantages of goodness, how can they grasp the advantages of renunciation? So in the Western cultures almost everyone is very far from this reasoning.
Why is renunciation good? The main advantage of renunciation is that it simplifies our lives. Here I must say that renunciation is towards the worldly happiness which is getting happiness through achieving things like social status, wealth, a beautiful partner, enjoying the pleasures of the five senses, building a family, and so on.
We can speak also in renunciation towards the pleasures of the five senses.
Renunciation has the great benefit of simplifying our lives. If for example we wish to be rich, we will have to work a lot, soon our youth passes and it will be wasted on pursuing wealth. When we arrive at old age that wealth will be meaningless and we will be overtaken by time. We will suffer a lot. This situation happens due to lack of wisdom.
Another example is if we wish a beautiful wife we must work a lot to have a high social status in order to attract a beautiful wife.
So these things will complicate our lives. By being detached towards the worldly happiness we live life more smoothly and are happy. In the ancient Indian culture they had methods to make humans detach themselves from the mundane happiness through connecting themselves with the supramundane happiness. Our minds need happiness anyway, so we should substitute poisonous food by healthy food. And what is the healthy food? The healthy food is spiritual practice. Doing spiritual practice will make one more satisfied, and this will enable one to simply one's life.
These reasonings are things that the general people, especially in the West, are very far from reaching. People nowadays are very ignorant and even evil. They wish to not work much, so they create schemes against the good hearted colleagues which they consider dumb. But these very ignorant beings are not aware that ultimately they are creating their own self-destruction. They might not realize that in their whole lives, or when they realize, it will be too late.
This is the story of our world. So renunciation is very important in order to bring happiness to one's life.
