Preparing for Death to Cross that Threshold Serenely The Purpose of Old Age in Human Life

The most vivid minds, made worthy of the privilege inherent in the human form and in its potential capacity for inquiry and reflection, have pondered and questioned the value of Life and its profound meaning. The great Socrates, daily engaged in dialogue in the streets of Athens with anyone who showed a desire to learn and to know what escapes the limited comprehension of the senses, used to affirm that life is a preparation for death, considered as liberation from the body and possible access to supreme knowledge.

Therefore, human life is truly worthy only when it is understood and lived as a continuous spiritual exercise of purification of the soul, still imprisoned by the needs and passions of the body. Aware of his ignorance and intent on seeking Truth, Socrates knew that death is not to be feared, but rather to be thought of and welcomed as an opportunity for spiritual growth and as a natural passage toward a higher condition of existence. Such a desirable outcome is reached when preparation for death becomes a daily exercise, a process that involves every aspect of one’s current existence, to be directed toward the acquisition of knowledge, the practice of virtue, and the attainment of wisdom.

The poet Michelangelo Buonarroti, better known as the divine sculptor, composed verses of extraordinary evocative power. In particular, sonnet 161 reveals a deep understanding of Reality and an exceptional yearning for the soul’s return to Heaven, from where it originates—pure and joyful—and where it will return once freed from the temporary infirmity within which “the perilous and mortal veil” confines it, that is, once purified from the narrow passions of the body.

The imperishable wisdom of the Vedas reveals that human life can be divided into quarters, whatever the number of years assigned to it in each age. In the present age, Kali Yuga, human life lasts on average one hundred years. Each quarter therefore lasts twenty-five years. However, with the advance of the discordant power typical of Kali Yuga, human life will enjoy a shorter and shorter span, until it will have only twelve years, during which each quarter will last three.

Human life represents a Journey aboard Knowledge that gradually frees us from the illusions of the material world, reveals the spiritual essence of ourselves and of every living being, and culminates in Love for God, Bhakti.

Given the sacred purpose of human life, in the present worldly scenario it is necessary to educate toward the rediscovery of its forgotten value, deliberately hidden by a social context designed to distract minds from sacrifice—that is, from the production of the sacred—and to entangle them in the grip of the guṇa, through the multiple and subtle faces of a pseudo materialistic, competitive, individualistic, and disintegrating culture. It becomes necessary to develop and spread the awareness that each of its four stages represents a gift to be offered to the sacred, and pursues a partial goal that contributes to the attainment of the supreme purpose of Bhakti.

As long as the soul has not extinguished the karma accumulated in the present life and in previous ones, it remains entangled in saṁsāra, the sealed circuit of births and deaths, in which birth marks the beginning of a new cycle, youth represents growth and development, old age marks physical decline, and death is the passage to another form of existence, a new beginning. Each quarter of human life, or āśrama, bears specific duties and purposes.

The phase of brahmacarya, that is, the first twenty-five years, begins with initiation and ends with marriage, and is dedicated to education and the study of sacred texts. The phase of gṛhastha, from twenty-five to fifty years, is when one assumes the responsibilities of a householder, marrying and generating children, maintaining the household and fulfilling duties toward family and society. The phase of vānaprastha, from fifty to seventy-five years, is when the individual withdraws from family life, leaving responsibilities to the children in order to dedicate himself to spiritual activities, thus preparing the ground for the next stage. The final phase, that of sannyāsa, runs from seventy-five to one hundred years and marks renunciation, when the individual abandons the material world and its attractions, seeking spiritual liberation.

Each phase of human life, currently of twenty-five years each, pursues a specific goal, which the Vedas define as puruṣārtha, the purpose of the individual soul. These are dharma, artha, kāma and mokṣa, which, together with the four stages described above, constitute a complete system that provides the individual with guidance and inspiration toward personal and spiritual realization.

The first puruṣārtha is Dharma, to be understood above all as the eternal cosmic-ethical order, or Sanātana Dharma, which inspires one to act in accordance with the values of truth, justice and compassion toward every creature, to harmonize one’s needs with those of others, to cultivate nonviolence in thought, word and deed, to be content with what one has by satisfying only real needs, to reduce expectations, to find happiness within oneself regardless of external events, to pursue virtue and to free oneself from desires, gradually renouncing ego. The first stage of life should therefore be dedicated to surrender to God, to self-realization through connection with the Whole. When one acts in conformity with Dharma, one experiences harmony and completeness, fulfilling one’s duty, or sva-dharma, which represents the personal path shaped by one’s tendencies and experiences, and which one must follow as honestly as possible.

Artha concerns the pursuit of material prosperity, not as accumulation of wealth as an end in itself, but as self-realization through the wise use of abundance, for one’s own and others’ well-being. In the Vedic texts artha is complementary to spiritual success, because material support is necessary to pursue the search for self-realization. It is therefore important to seek material success while remaining in harmony with one’s moral duty.

Desire has an important role in human life. Kāma, the third puruṣārtha, represents pleasure, desire and satisfaction through the realization of the senses. Kāma is an invitation to pursue values such as love, art, beauty. It concerns the understanding and expression of one’s emotions, the search for fulfilling relationships, the crowning of personal aspirations, harmonized with Dharma.

The fourth puruṣārtha is mokṣa, spiritual liberation, self-realization. The individual is liberated insofar as he overcomes the illusion of separation and reaches the awareness of the connection between individual consciousness and universal consciousness. This leads the individual to practice Dharma and to exit cyclical existence, finding God within himself and in every other living being.

By assimilating each quarter of human life to the corresponding purpose of the soul, it is interesting to recognize how old age is a beautiful phase, enlivened by grace and mercy, marked by a deeper understanding of love and desire, and by the ability to harmonize them with Dharma, to learn to avoid excesses, to gather and wisely direct one’s vital energy, freeing oneself from dependencies that could lead to undesirable consequences, and preparing in the best possible way for the supreme phase to come.

Freed from the anxieties caused by the pursuit of material means and the satisfaction of the senses, old age is the phase in which one reviews with proper emotional detachment the most significant experiences lived up to that moment, puts into practice what one has learned, and learns what has previously escaped understanding, smoothing out possible rough edges, adding what is missing, practicing being fully present in whatever one does, and concentrating on the object of one’s activities, with which an emotional connection is created. Ideally, old age is the phase in which one improves in the practice of perfect action, or karma-yoga, that is, performing one’s duties without expecting anything in return, without attachment to results.

This allows one to experience a consciously increasing sense of well-being, which gradually expands the awareness of the Source from which we come and strengthens the desire to return to It. Old age is the phase of gathering around meaningful activities and relationships, and such a tendency is desirable and made possible by one’s vision, refined over time, which allows one to look at every individual with altruism, and to consider every aspect of existence in an evolutionary key, with the energy of communion, free from the illusion of separation, competition, and the destructive false myth of the “enemy to be defeated.”

Reflection on āśrama and puruṣārtha, as ancient as they are current and perennial, offers precious guidance for human beings and for the understanding of the meaning of earthly life, made special by the dense moral, material, emotional and spiritual implications that run through it, and oriented toward offering everything to God and to the blossoming within oneself of Supreme Love.

Bhaktin Daniela Cirino