What’s the best way to live as seniors, in the ‘golden years’ of our life?
In the Indian tradition, we have different phases of life, and the final phase is called sanyas. First, we live our youth, complete our education, establish ourselves on a career path and then we have a family. After that, we retire. These are the golden years of sanyas when we’re supposed to pull away fully from things of the material world and, in preparation for leaving our bodies, connect deeply to the Divine, our soul, to that which is eternal and immortal.
However, that doesn’t necessarily mean we must pull away on a physical level. Detachment from the material world and reattachment to the spiritual world must take place at the level of our mind, our intentions and our focus. Often, we may pull away physically, but that’s not the highest goal or purpose. We may leave behind our family and live in an ashram. But if our minds are still with the family, if our attachment is still there, our emotional involvement is still there, then, for all practical purposes, we are still there, even if our bodies have moved to an ashram or an isolated mountain cave.
Pujya Swamiji says that just because someone is meditating in a cave, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re free from all that binds them. There are many people living in families in the world who are actually much more spiritual and more detached on a spiritual level than some of the ‘spiritual’ people living in isolation.
When we reach our golden years, we’ve done our worldly duties. We’ve got our education, accumulated money, had our family, raised our children, educated them, given them careers and got them married. So it is time to turn to our sanyas, the phase of life where we dedicate our attention and focus to God. Otherwise, the cycle of attachment never ends.
There’s a great story of a young disciple living in an ashram with his Guru. He says to the Guru, ‘You know, I’m living here, but my mind is really on the outer world. I want to know what’s it like, what it would be like to have a family and live in that world. So I think, Guruji, maybe I should go. I just want to experience it once, and then I’m going to come right back. I want my mind to at least know what it’s like, otherwise maybe I’ll have regrets my whole life.’
So the Guru says, ‘Chalo , OK, take ten years, go out, get married, have your family, do your thing, but in ten years’ time, come back.’
The boy promises to return and leaves the ashram for the material world. Ten years later, of course, he doesn’t come back. Then one day, there’s a knock at the door of his house. His wife answers and there’s an old man asking for her husband. The husband sees the visitor, immediately recognizes his Guru and falls at his feet. The Guru says, ‘OK, now come with me. Your ten years are over.’
But the man says, ‘No, I can’t, because you see, my children are very young. My poor wife would be all alone. What is she going to do? There are three mouths to feed and the kids are starting school. We just got our house. I only need five more years, just to get them settled. Let the kids grow a little more, and then I’ll leave my wife some money in the bank.’
The Guru goes away. He gives him not five years, but fifteen years. Fifteen years later, the Guru comes back and says to the man, ‘OK, now what?’
The man says, ‘Oh, Guruji, I’d love to come, but now we’ve got grandkids, and they’re babies. They really need me because my son is working and he’s out all day long, so they need someone to take care of the grandkids. Just give me a few more years.’
Five years later, when the Guru returns, he immediately sees that the man is not there, but there’s a dog in front of the house. He recognizes that his disciple has been reincarnated as a dog. He says to the dog, ‘Now what?’ And the dog says, ‘Yes, I know. I died. I’ve been reincarnated as this dog to protect them, but I have to stay here another couple of years because now they’re doing very well, but they have so many enemies! Everyone’s out to get them, and that’s why I’m here as this dog to protect them. Guruji, just another couple of years.’
So the Guru goes away and returns a few years later. This time, two young children answer the door. The Guru tells them, ‘Go upstairs near the family safe. You will find a hole in the wall next to the safe. In that hole is a snake—bring me that snake. Do not kill it, but break its back so it doesn’t hurt you.’
The children, of course, are very surprised, but they do as this old, wise man tells them. They go in, find the snake in the hole in the wall, break its back and bring it to the Guru.
They ask him, ‘But how did you know there was a snake in the wall? You’ve never been in our house before.’
The Guru replies, ‘Do not worry, just go back inside.’
He takes the snake, slings it over his back and walks away. As he walks, he tells his disciple, now in the form of the snake, ‘See, there’s no end. You came back as a snake to protect the wealth. First it was the wife and the kids, then the grandkids, then you needed to come back as the dog to protect them, now you’re a snake to guard the wealth, to be near the safe . . . there’s no end. There’s no such thing as just one more time, just another year. You have to draw that line, because attachment doesn’t stop.’
The same is true of most people’s lives. When we reach this phase of sanyas, the teaching of the scriptures is to renounce. But it doesn’t mean we abandon what we have. This is a really important distinction. It doesn’t mean, ‘I don’t see you, I don’t talk to you, I don’t care about you, I forget your birthdays.’
What the sanyas phase of life means is that inside me, I am not stuck. I am not sitting down to meditate but finding myself unable to do so, because I’m wondering how my grandson is doing on his math exam today. It’s much more an inner state of renunciation.
If you can come and live in an ashram, that’s great. There’s nothing like it; that’s the ideal situation. You can live out the golden years in sadhana, in seva . You’ve spent your whole life working for yourself and your family, and now you give your energy, experience and expertise to the world. Your family expands. When we talk about sanyas being a renunciation of family, it doesn’t literally mean that you have no family. It means that the world is your family. You’ve gone from having a family of two or four to having a family comprising all of Creation, seven and a half billion humans, and all the animals and plants on this earth. Sanyas doesn’t mean that I don’t care about anything; it means I care about everyone. The scriptures say, ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam ’—the world is one family.
Sanyas is a very beautiful and natural stage of preparation for departure from the planet. Otherwise, when death comes and if we’re still attached, we’re not able to let go. This is what literally creates the bondage of the soul. This is what they mean by the soul being stuck, not being able to go, to attain that union with God, to go on that next journey. So this is a preparatory phase where we say, ‘God, whether I have two years left or twenty, these are my golden years. At some point, I’m going to return to You. My form will change again; it’s changed from young boy to young man to old man, then it’s going to turn to ashes, and I need to prepare myself for that.’
Thus, sanyas in the golden years becomes a benefit to your own spiritual growth, to your preparation for that final transformation. You’ve been a benefit to your family; now you’re able to be a benefit to the global family.
However, this is something that applies to your entire life. There is no phase of life where you should be attached to the things of this world. Even while doing your duty in the workplace in the householder phase of life, you work for them but don’t get attached to them. Ultimately, if we haven’t learnt this before, we learn it in sanyas, but ideally we learn it even in the earlier phases, while managing our homes, when we are working, serving, raising a family and doing our duty. We do these things without being attached in such a way that it ends up thwarting the actual purpose we came here for, which is our own awakening. Our love, our relationships, our duty and our karma can be a way of expanding our consciousness and getting on a great path to awakening. But if we get stuck, it thwarts our progress. So this philosophy actually holds true for the other phases of life as well.