Our great people – saints and sages – have divided life-time into four stages. In the first twenty-five years of our life, we should accumulate knowledge, wealth, especially the wealth of physical health and strength. It is observed that while learning mathematics, one of the first things that a student is taught is ‘to add’. Then he would be taught subtraction and, thereafter, multiplication – that’s just the way it is done.
Life has four stages
The sages said that the same is the order of life. To learn maths we have to understand these four things. In the same way, life is divided into four stages. During the first stage one is not married, say about twenty-five years of age, one learns how to add or accumulate. You add to your qualities, increase physical strength, mental capacity and balance of mind. So it is all addition. As you enter the family life, you start decreasing the same things on your own self. As one learns to increase and decrease in this way, one’s capacity, strength and experience also increase. Next, one has to multiply the same experience many times over, and, having done so, stepping out of his family life, he has to distribute the same knowledge and experience in the world outside.
A man retires four times in his life-time
In our Indian tradition there is no place for retirement, what according to the Western civilization, is supposed to be the period of life when one gets leave from work. In our tradition if you start talking about retirement, it won’t be once, but four times. From eight years to twenty-four years, a person lives in the house of his Guru to accumulate knowledge. He retires from there, i.e., his student life, and enters his family life. He lives in his family life up to fifty years. Stepping out of his family life he starts doing penance in forests. It is advised that during this stage of life, one should increase one’s endurance, have better control over one’s speech and the ears should be tolerant enough so as not to feel bad even after hearing unpleasant words.
Retirement is not the end of life
On turning seventy-five years of age, one should become an ascetic, sharing with one and all whatever one has obtained. In this way if one spends the last stage of life in philanthropy, so there is no scope of retirement anywhere. The Indian tradition is that you keep giving till the last stage of your life. The issue is not merely that of food and clothing – start social service which you can complete at any age. It is your duty, therefore, to do something good for the coming generations too. So get going and do something and make your old age useful.
Dr Archika Didi
