Purushartha and four stages in life
Stage 1, Brahmacharya – the young man studies scriptures with a Guru, gets initiated into the Gayatri, and meditates intensely on Brahman or God.
Stage 2, Grihastha – the man gets married and leads the life of a householder;
Stage 3, Vanaprastha - the couple having reached old age, and their children having grown up and entered family life themselves, retire to the forest. What it really means is that they substantially decrease their attachments to things both material as well as family, thus mentally preparing to focus more and more on God and seek to merge with Him when the time comes.
After all this, comes Stage 4, when the man becomes a complete renunciant; this is technically described by saying that the man embraces Sannyasa. As a Sannyasi, the man leaves home and, wandering in the world, makes the entire world his home. He is supposed to have absolutely no attachment of any kind, including to his wife and children.
BRAHMACHARI
The brahmacharin is the seed that develops into the practical experience of a grihastha in life, which again matures into the detached existence of a vanaprastha,which again matures into the total comprehension of the spirit in sanyasa.
HOUSE HOLDER
You have to keep good company always. Even if you are a householder looking like a bound person, you can be a good person, an ideal individual, by living in the midst of a good community in a village, or even a little township of friends and cooperative individuals.
Keep good company, as far as it is possible. If you can live socially, it is wonderful for you to choose your company and be in the midst of those people only.
Keep good company, as far as it is possible. If you can live socially, it is wonderful for you to choose your company and be in the midst of those people only.
Gradually, bear in mind that your householder-life is a preparation for a retirement from the occupations of a householder. It is not a retirement from work, necessarily. The occupation is inclusive of certain mental entanglements.
A householder actually is not a person doing many things, but thinking in many ways. The entanglement is not necessarily physical, but mostly psychological. The psychological detachment should mature gradually in a family. You do your duty to take care of your family, but don't be attached to the family.
A householder actually is not a person doing many things, but thinking in many ways. The entanglement is not necessarily physical, but mostly psychological. The psychological detachment should mature gradually in a family. You do your duty to take care of your family, but don't be attached to the family.
You may be wondering how it is possible to take care of the family with detachment. This is the difference between duty and work with desire.
A duty is a necessity, an obligation, that arises from your very being in the circumstance of your life; it has to be done for the welfare of the whole circumstance of your life, including the society outside.
A duty is a necessity, an obligation, that arises from your very being in the circumstance of your life; it has to be done for the welfare of the whole circumstance of your life, including the society outside.
Your obligation is not to be associated with a desire full action. Here it is that the Bhagavad Gita comes before you as a guideline. The gradual detachment, even in a householder, is a maturity of thought arising after the experience of the whole of life as an entangled individual in society. In the beginning it is all entanglement. Then, later on, it is only an apparent entanglement through social relations; mentally it is not so connected.
Slowly begin to feel that your mind is a little different from the body and social relations. Then afterwards you will find that you can live a life in the mind only, and let the social relations be anywhere. You are a mind, rather than a social unit. You are a mind thinking, rather than a physical individual associated with the mind. Thought is the human being, so let this thought be your final concern, and live in your ideas.
VANAPRASHTHA
Ideas rule the world. Every action is preceded by a thought. The world is not governed by the actions of people, but by the thoughts of people, by the ideas of the leaders of mankind. The ideas manifest themselves as activities or performances. The idea is the ultimate reality; thought is the final principle in the cosmos. Thus, you live in your mind, in your idea of total comprehension and satisfaction.
Then, gradually, you will find that you are capable of living independently without bodily associations. Such a life is called the vanaprastha stage, which does not mean running away from the family. It is a kind of family life only, without the agonies and the emotional pressures caused by relations with people.
Mostly, what people do is that they go away to some holy places for some time, though they have not left the family. For three months in a year, the family man goes out on a pilgrimage, lives in a holy place, and entrusts the enterprise of taking care of the family to his grown-up children. Whether you are a businessman, or whatever you are, this is the first step that you have to take to detach yourself.
For three months you are not in the house. After that, you come back to the house and stay there for nine months, so that you may feel no uneasiness that you are without any contact with your family members. Gradually, if this process continues for some years, you will find that you are in a position to live unconnected with family life, because the members of the family are taken care of by the children, who are well placed.
Then, you may increase your detached life into six months, nine months, then occasional visits to the family, only. Somewhere in a sacred place you live such a life; then your life and your idea that you have chosen takes possession of you completely. You become an ideal being, not a physical individual.
Your meditation is thought thinking itself, as they say, idea operating on idea, the Cosmic Mind dancing in the centre of your own idea, whereby your idea becomes a focusing point of the Cosmic Mind, and you are a sanyasin at that time.
SANYASI
A sanyasin is not necessarily someone who has put on any particular cloth. The cloth is just an indication that he has achieved that state. It is a social insignia to distinguish the person from other people. The essential thing is what you think in your mind, so live in your mind only, afterwards. Your ideas are the seeds of the universal idea of God. A person who lives such a kind of life in his ideas only is a sanyasin. He has renounced truly.
You have not thrown away anything in your renunciation through sanyasa. You have attained a perfect, total, developed maturity of spiritual comprehension. That kind of living of an ideal existence, free in every sense of the term, happy always, happy with anything and everything – such a person is a sanyasin.
These are some of the traditional features of a spiritual life – the methods of the harmonizing of the principles of dharma, artha, kama and
In one of the discourses on Ugadi day, Swami said,
People aspire for liberation (Mukti). They have no idea what constitutes liberation. Man seeks liberation from the ills of the body, the senses, the mind, the intellect and the Anthakarana (internal motivator). All these are no doubt necessary. But liberation in the ultimate sense consists in liberation from the cycle of birth and death.
This means that one should redeem one's present life so that one is free from rebirth. Men should pray to God for freedom from rebirth so that they will not have bodies which are bound to be afflicted with diseases. People have no clear idea of what Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha (the four goals) mean.
(Extracts taken from Sanathana Sarathi, April 1998)
Love.
Love.
Sairami,
ReplyDeleteYesterday Blog explains about 4 stages of Jiva in a profound manner.
As Brahmacahri the Jiva grew under the guidance of parents.
In the case of this Sadhaka , parents introduced the sadhaka in the path of Bhakti in child hood itself.
Sadhaka followed the path of devotion and that made a strong Foundation within.
Bhakti, Bhajan Singing.,Balvikas- Indeed, childhood was the Most Beautiful Stage, with avidya at a very low Level!!
That Life taught How to be patient, humble and Simple !!
Then came the Grahastha stage!!
Here Real Life challenge started and the avidya level also increased.
As given in the post, mental entanglement gets us into undergo prarabdha with different states of mind and also makes us undertake so many actions with our avidya.
Each Day came with different experience, making the us to Realize that there is nothing permanent in this world , we came alone and we would go alone. Here comes the mental detachment, as given by the acharya in the post.
Brahamacharya and Grahasta some how managed but the next 2 asramas- Vanaprastha and Sanyasa!!
This 2 Varna Asharama can never be gone through in the right manner with out guidance of a Guru at all.
The sadhaka came to the guru and started taking spiritual sessions under the guru.
Each Session brought about major Transformation within.
Vanaprastha state was experienced within , while contemplating and practicing all the spiritual instructions, with all worldly obligations brought to bare minimum.
Thus, all experiences culminated into the state of Awareness.
Guru always used to quote.
"Manam eva Manusyana Karanam Bhandha Mokashayoho"
All knots of entanglement cleared !
Total Fearlessness and Total Freedom experienced and the sadhaka continues to move forward for the ultimate goal which the Guru has covered in the first theme in the blog- The purpose of Human birth.
Hari Aum Tat Sat!!
As a sadhaka, journey through these stages can be aligned as under:
ReplyDeleteBrahmachari
Sadhana though was initiated for the sadhaka in his Grihastha Stage; the preparations as though were in process since his childhood. The line “the seed that develops into the practical experience…” which is being referred in the post is what was graced on the sadhaka. Sadhaka was nurtured into this journey where for the first time he started to chant slokas and sing bhajans (Vedanta infused from its kindergarten level). These were the first instances of Jnana being fed into him. The way was fixed and laid for the sadhaka wherein he just travelled without knowing where he was being led to. The grooming took place gradually and as a result the sadhaka was different from his lot of peers. Sadhaka drew his circle with a close set of people beyond which he could never step out.
Grihastha
The seed sprouted and the practical experiences started to gather around as though preparing the sadhaka for yet another journey towards an unknown destination. Guru shined in His pristine radiance and blessed the sadhaka with His guidance. The importance of each and every member of the family was made aware of as the first and initial teaching. Each family member is a contributor to one’s spiritual quest. So the art of Gratitude was first filled into the sadhaka by the Acharya. This totally changed the whole dimension of being into the grihastha stage. The aspect of detachment always starts from being grateful rather than being desirous. When this experience set in the sadhaka it was easy to accept each family member with their roles in their journey. Even sadhaka as a family member had the responsibility to ensure their journey is filled with such gratitude. The mutual synchronization of individual goals into a one aim to merge with Him starts from here.
If you ever happen to see migrating birds they always fly in a flock. This ensures reaching the distance without any fatigue and each one’s strength adds power to the entire flock’s flight. Same is the phenomena with humans as well. Family is granted as a grace to make up for the distance or the gap between us and Him (not in physical terms but spiritually). The entanglement referred in the post is to go against this phenomena and assuming that one is leading all others and discharging his duties.
There is no dharma other than merging unto Him. Rest all are just happenings. Sun’s shinning is not a dharma but a happening. Accordingly, respective roles are mere happenings and they are already destined. The body, mind and intellect awarded to us is also a part of this happening. So that leaves us with the Self which is not a part of the happening but a part of that Eternal Supernal Dharma to which we have to merge never to emerge.
Vanaprastha
Associations made so far with family continue to remain, however, this stage reverts to some extent back to Brahmachari stage where all the learnings are gathered and weighed against. There is a self introspection that is initiated automatically. These learnings are passed on to the younger members (brahmacharis) of the family who are yet to make their beginning in the Grihastha stage. Once it is understood that brahmacharis have equipped themselves with the experiences of Grihastha stage as above, and then the process of detachment automatically sets in. That is why it is said that one lives in the mind.
Once starts to see the ONE in every one around which build the platform for the next stage.
Sanyasi
What sadhaka could gather is if one is merged in the thought of attainment of the Eternal supreme is a sanyasin. This is a stage where Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha in each and every stage of Brahmachari, Grihastha and Vanaprastha all find refuge, not to exist anymore.
Pray that the sadhaka’s travel continues to explore mergence into the Ultimate.
Hari Aum Tat Sat.