Eastern Ideas on Aging

In Meanings of Old Age and Aging in the Tradition of India, Tilak and Pathak write:

"Both the Vedic (brahmana) and Buddhist thinkers concurred that old age entails all kinds of losses in physical and psychological terms.. . .the brahmana view is that old age also brings in its train significant gains to the aging individual notwithstanding the heavy losses inflicted by it.  What is lost in physical and psychological terms is more than made up in terms of the intellectual and spiritual gains.  With increasing age the human mind facilitates the mergence of quiescence which is the substratum (sthayibhava) for the sentiment of supreme peace (santarasa). With age the spirit naturally turns inward and becomes retrospective.  One disengages from the bonds of attachment to one’s family without doing violence to either party." (P. 89)

In consulting Hindu scriptures, we find the recommendation for the sanyas stage of life: 

(Reprinted from Generations (Journal of the American Society on Aging) Winter 1999-2000, Vol xxiii, No. 4)

“When a householder sees his skin wrinkled, and his hair white, and the sons of his sons, then he may resort to the forest....Let him always be industrious in reciting the Veda....In summer, let him expose himself to the heat of five fires, during the rainy season live under the open sky, and in winter be dressed in wet clothes, thus gradually increasing the rigour of his austerities....[Then] after abandoning all attachment to world objects....let him always wander alone, without any companion, in order to attain final liberation.” The Laws of Manu, M. Mueller, ed.

"This Hindu text quoted above, penned around 100 B.C.-100 A.D., presents a radically different vision. In fact, it almost seems a brief for unsuccessful aging from the Western point of view. When one becomes a white-haired grandparent, to head off to the forest and deliberately expose oneself to the brutal elements--this would hardly safeguard health. And instead of striving to remain actively engaged with life, this forest-dweller welcomes disengagement. Age has granted one permission to cast off the myriad roles and duties of midlife. Finally, "abandoning all attachment to worldly objects," the renunciate is freed up to focus on life's true goal--achieving union with God.

Here is one example of the spiritual model of successful aging, so different from our conventional paradigm. The spiritual model begins with the primacy of the transcendent. It is based on the assumption that there is something greater than the ego-self, be that called God, eternal soul, the Tao, Buddha-Nature, or any of a hundred names. In the prime of life, we often neglect this Source. We're so absorbed by earning money, advancing a career, and raising a family that we've little time for anything else. Nor need we turn our thoughts toward an afterlife. Still young, it seems we'll live forever.

Yet age throws all this into question. Despite our vitamin, exercise, and beauty regimens the body necessarily decays. Nor is our mind impervious to bouts of forgetfulness and other distressing signs. Then there are interpersonal losses. The kids move away, we lose touch with friends, and suffer through the death of loved ones. At work, we no longer lead the pecking order. There are others, younger, cheaper, more energetic, who may take away our jobs. Thus age renders us all (to some degree) forest dwellers--stripped of our habitual identities, poised at the edge of an abyss or the Transcendent.

The conventional Western model of successful aging assume that the losses that attend age should be wherever possible combatted. Let us be that "octogenarian on cross-country skis" hanging onto midlife health and energy. But the spiritual model involves embracing the "losses" of age, using them as modes of liberation.


From this perspective, growing old can be viewed as an advanced curriculum of the soul. Life's first half had lessons of its own. In the words of spiritual teacher Ram Dass, we were in "somebody training," building an effective identity. But having mastered being somebody, we become ready for the next lesson: how to explode past that limited self-definition. Who am I, if not just this body, developing aches and wrinkles? If not just "mom" or "dad," now that the kids have moved away? If not the "Director of Personnel for a Fortune 500 company," now that I'm semi-retired? What is the true self that transcends these roles? Aging raises these questions, and may provide the time and perspective to engage them in depth.

What constitutes a good old age? In their new book, Successful Aging, summarizing over a decade of MacArthur Foundation-supported research, Rowe and Kahn (1998) provide the sort of answer well accepted in our culture. Successful aging involves: 1) a low risk of disease and disease-related disability; 2) a high level of mental and physical functioning; and 3) a continuing active engagement with life. "In sum, we were trying to pinpoint the many factors that conspire to put one octogenarian on cross-country skis and another in a wheelchair" (p. xii). Who can quarrel with this vision of good health, high function, and an active lifestyle, as the very model of successful aging?  

Using this spiritual model, it is no longer clear that Rowe and Kahn's successful octogenarian on cross-country skis is better off than that apparent failure in the wheelchair. After all, the cross-country skier may be a shallow chap despite having powerful thighs. Conversely, the wheelchair-bound elder might be richer of soul. Disability may have attuned this person to the suffering of others, fostering a deep compassion. Perhaps she also learned to let others help her, a lesson in humility. And who knows how she spends those long hours sitting? Maybe it's a time for inward meditation, or intercessory prayer for the world. Successful aging involves coming to a wholeness of soul, whether on skis or wheelchair-bound."