For real renunciation demands the courage to give up the worldly Maya, which these cowards cannot do, bound and attached to it as they are. Moreover, in the affairs of worldly people (duniyadari) all bears the stamp of incompleteness and imperfection irrespective of the ability, boldness, and nerves which one brings to the task of facing up to and managing the difficulties and critical situations that arise. Even the people who do this—who brave the world and its difficulties—labor under the burden of such sanskaras that they inevitably make mistakes for which they must suffer. For everything is due to and dependent on sanskaras. In many cases it happens that, for one reason or other, people fail in what they venture and experience severe disappointment. A sufficient number of these disappointments renders a man desperate to such an extent that he feels only disgust with everything; and this disappointment and disgust drives him eventually to decide to renounce everything—the world and all its attachments—and to undertake vairag (renunciation).
There are some who experience a natural fear of sexual connection and sexual intercourse. These fears, and indeed the fear of any kind of sin, are due to the formation of previous sanskaras.
He who is a coward in materialism becomes either the greatest sinner or a Master in the spiritual line. Those who have been the greatest Masters in their times have been the greatest cowards in materialism (diniyadari). But these “cowards” were heroes (mardan-e-khuda) in the spiritual world.
– “Meher Baba’s Tiffin lectures”, p247
21-September-1926; Meherabad