Fear Of Old Age (The Guidelines of Vedanta II)

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The article in The Economist continues:

Even in the depths of history a few people have lived to a great age. Researchers reckon that Rameses II, who ruled ancient Egypt some 3,250 years ago, may have survived into his 90s. So did the Greek dramatist Sophocles 800 years later (and, so to judge from some of his late writings, felt it quite long enough) ...

But although on average people in affluent countries now will live far longer than their equivalents even a century or two ago, individual lifespans will not be huge by historical standards. Granted, there are regular reports of healthy 130- or 150-year olds being discovered in some remote mountain region in Eastern Europe, living on yogurt and garlic, herding goats and fathering children at an age when most people would have been dead long ago. But invariably the evidence to support their claim turns out to be less than solid...

These rules [of healthy lifestyle to live longer] are often flouted, sometimes without apparent ill effect. In a speech at his 70th birthday celebration, Mark Twain outlined his own survival strategy: 'I have made it a rule to go to bed when there wasn't anybody left to sit up with; and I have made it a rule to get up when I had to. In the matter of diet, I have been persistently strict to sticking to the things which didn't agree with me, until one or the other of us got the best of it. I have made it a rule never to smoke more than one cigar at a time. As for drinking, when the others drink I like to help. I have never taken any exercise, except sleeping and resting, and I never intend to take any. Exercise is loathsome.'

But, as The Economist points out, adding extra decades to life does not necessarily make life great: 'That, in Greek myth, was the fate of Tithonus, lover of Aurora, the dawn: he asked for immortal life, and got it—but he'd forgotten to ask for youth as well.' Know that Old Age is No Less Meaningful than Youth'. Youth is generally admired for its beauty, optimism, enthusiasm, spirit of adventure, and forward-looking imagination, but it often suffers from indiscretion, impatience, inexperience and instability.

Old age may bring many physical problems and limitations to a person but it endows him with the wisdom of maturity. The voice of this wisdom tells us: Optimism without realism brings disappointment. Indiscretion and inexperience can land us in endless difficulties. The impatient and the unstable are prone to make blunders. Mere external beauty is skin-deep and short-lived without the internal beauty of wisdom. In old age a person becomes a truth-teller. Such a person is liberated from the haunting desire and dream of being a superman or superwoman. He becomes more whole and more himself. All the earlier stages of life find their fulfillment in this wisdom of old age.

Those who think that they can have this wisdom ready-made by reading books or literature, or that they can find someone to give it to them, are greatly mistaken, because wisdom comes from living life through all its stages and there is no such thing as vicarious living. We are unable to recognize the wisdom of old age because we are feverishly trying to remain young without ever becoming old. As a result, our life has lost its meaning and direction.

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About the author

Swami Adiswarananda

Swami Adiswarananda, the Minister-in-charge of the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Centre, New York, USA, is a senior monk of the Ramakrishna Order. He is a well-known thinker and contributes articles to various journals.

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