The order of Sannyasis had a meaning in the dark ages when India was invaded and the seekers of Light retreated in the silence of the woods and the hills to preserve knowledge. From all available documents it doesn’t seem to have been the case in Bharat of ancient times. The anchorites were there always but as individuals and small groups. The Ashrams were organised by Rishis who were creative in every field. The Vedas which forms the backbone of Indian culture is a living testimony of that.
The knowledge that the Sannyasis now preserve is largely the knowledge of Reality cut off from the world, useful for personal moksha but of little use to the collective march of mankind and the progress of earthly life.
The great Vedic seers, Agastya, Vishwamitra, Vasistha, Yajnavalkya and the seer kings, Sri Krishna himself, who form the edifice of this once mighty civilisation that has been the custodian of Sanatan Dharma were all people who were at once seers, creators, inventors, educators.
The order of Sannyasis in our times sets a wrong other-worldly ideal before the youth. It is impossible for mankind at large to follow it in earnest. It only breeds hypocrisy, mithyachara and dambha, of being a Sannyasi besides cutting off the spiritual consciousness from the mainstream life, thereby creating a gap between World and God. I am not saying all are like that. Swami Vivekananda is an exception and so are a few others. But proclaiming it as an ideal for humanity sets a wrong precedence and is not good. The laughter is not for the spiritually awakened who are everywhere and in every order, though few in number. It is for the hypocrisy that follows, the Sannyasi who declares he has renounced the world yet holds property and money for the work of propagating the ideal of otherworldliness. We have long revered this ideal and for individuals it has its place (as everything has) but if Bharat continues to indulge in this form of spiritual life, it is likely to get weakened and even run the danger of being runover again.
