Printed in the Summer 2025 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Keene, Douglas, "Aging: A Time-Honored Process" Quest 113:3, pg 12-3
By Douglas Keene
National President
Everything in the physical universe has a beginning and end. It is born and someday it will die. From the mayfly, the shortest-lived animal, which lives one day on average (females live about five minutes) to the stellar universe, where the average medium-size star “lives” 50 million to 20 billion years. Life is a terminal condition. Yet without endings, our world would cease to exist.
Humans are generally aware of the aging process. In our younger years it can bring great joy: as we develop physically, emotionally, and mentally, we are more and more capable of participating in various activities. But as the years progress, we are aware of something else: we may begin to lose capacities, particularly physically, that we valued at earlier stages. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the French Jesuit priest and philosopher, wrote sardonically, “Growing old is like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven’t committed.” Yet growing older can be a gift, which, although perhaps unrecognized and dismissed by the young, yields treasures of its own.
Unless it is cut short by illness or accident, a human life generally has many stages, which are addressed by various cultures. Hindu tradition divides a human life into four ashramas (stages), with different goals attributed to each stage. They are sometimes associated with particular age ranges.
Brahmacharya (or student) is typically the first stage of life, which correlates to preparatory learning, maturing, growth, and development for the adult life ahead. This usually runs to the age of twenty or twenty-five, followed by the stage of grihastha, or householder. This part of life contains the activity of the mature adult, such as earning a living, developing a career, starting a family, maintaining a home, and helping one’s children establish themselves in the world. This stage is usually to considered to last up to the age of fifty years, but there can be great variability.
The third stage is vanaprashta (or forest walker/hermit), which begins after the householder’s responsibilities have diminished. Vanaprashta corresponds with a life focused primarily on returning to nature and having years of reflection and service. The age range usually given is fifty-one to seventy-five years.
The fourth stage, at advanced old age, is sannyasa (or renunciate/recluse) and is directed toward spiritual growth, returning to a very simple lifestyle, having a minimum of material possessions, and contemplating the end of life.
We can see in this example—as in life generally—a pattern of shifting priorities. As we age, we gain experience and have the option to learn from those experiences. Often we have fewer distractions and more time for reflection. Most people experience loss of loved ones, perhaps also of health and even of identity, as our careers come to a close. As the physical body deteriorates, frequently our world gets smaller, and our choices fewer.
Many elderly people become lonely and less engaged, but this is not inevitable. If we remain curious, there are many ways to explore new paradigms and gain fresh insights. Annie Besant wrote, “The old person who ‘late in life,’ as we say, begins to learn the truths of the Ancient Wisdom, instead of lamenting over his age and saying ‘How little can I do in the short time that remains to me,’ should say, ‘How good a foundation I can lay for my next incarnation, thanks to learning the truth.’”
As students of Theosophy, we recognize we are on a much longer path than one mere physical incarnation. Our consciousness may survive death and may even expand as we enter the various stages of postmortem existence. Through each life, we gain lessons, and from these lessons we can choose to learn. With the unfolding of evolution, we develop our inner being, progressing in certain abilities.
Aging is a time for memories and reflection. We may have regrets about choices that have been made or feel a certain satisfaction for goals accomplished or character traits advanced. We may cherish the moments we’ve had with family and friends or lament the inevitable separations. Our core beliefs about religion and metaphysics are necessarily challenged. We are called upon to consider purpose, past and present, and what this will lead to in our remaining years and beyond. The mask of pretense will be stripped away, revealing our true nature. We will need to face our fears of potential judgment in the afterlife, realizing that our life cannot be lived over again and we carry responsibility for our actions. We may seek peace after the storm of life but struggle to know how to summon this peace, particularly when we are infirm. We stand on the brink of a great mystery that the conscious mind has not known. However, there is comfort in surrender, particularly to a higher (hopefully beneficent) force.
In Socrates’ Apology, he states, “To fear death . . . is no other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know. No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils.”
For many, it is not so much physical death that is frightening, but the process of dying. Moreover, despite some religious reassurances, we may fear the unknown. We wonder what we will experience—what is in store for us—on the far side of death. We may also wonder how our passiong will affect our loved ones. As most of us live in the personality, it’s difficult to imagine the world without ourselves in it, because to that consciousness, we have always been here, no matter how small or large our role in society.
But if we shift our identity from the personality to the higher Self, death will lose its power over us. We will know that we are eternal, striving (with flaws perhaps) to serve humanity and ultimately to work to a larger extent and contribute to the unfoldment of evolution. In such a setting, it matters little what the avenue for that effort would be.
In The Voice of the Silence, H.P. Blavatsky notes that the pilgrim passing through the seven portals “standeth now like a white pillar to the west, upon whose face the rising sun of thought eternal poureth forth its first most glorious waves. His mind, like a becalmed and boundless ocean, spreadeth out in shoreless space. He holdeth life and death in his strong hand” (Voice of the Silence, §282).
Every stage of life is precious, and advanced age is no different. Love still lives, but may be transmuted into new forms. We are still able to relate to our fellow humans and savor that connection. We breathe the air of life and know that we are part of a greater network. We exist in a specific time and place, yet we know we are not chained to this physical form. We are much more than we seem, much more than we know. We begin to touch this greater knowledge, this expanded awareness. We sense we are immortal. We see purpose in the universe. We long to be part of the whole.