If I understood a little more about life then so many things would appear easier. I could recognise that aging is just a natural part of being alive. We spend much of our time avoiding this fact and it becomes a bit of a brain teaser. Perhaps you may wish to find some answers to this annoying predicament of why we must grow old. At some point on this journey, a mystery appears, a riddle to be solved. Laying hidden, it heralds the divine, but being murky and unclear we choose to look the other way.
There are many theory’s about an afterlife but none with any scientific proof to speak of. Faith can lead us a long way but eventually, we arrive at the original source of this existence, our own birth. If we are to make any sense of what’s going on we must start there, with ourselves and not with heaven. Some of us try to find merit and longevity by all sorts of means, charity work, exercise, a better diet or a few cosmetic enhancements to smooth over the wrinkles. But ultimately these attempts to delay the ultimate mystery only give us a brief departure from the reality we are all facing.
Because we’re not trained in looking closely at our emotions, our feeling and thoughts tend to push us around most of our lives. Instead of facing our demons, we spend much of our precious time covering up the things we don’t like about ourselves. Hey, if no one is watching I can indulge a little bit more right? The problem is we overlook the fact that we are watching ourselves. God is watching
“ What’s not understood leads to confusion”
Unknown
The reality is, once we’re born, we grow up and at some point begin to tire, ill-health lurks around every corner and finally, our lives are gone. Most of us don’t want to hear any of this but there are a few things we should know before reality sinks in. We need to look to see where the real value of age lies. Most of us can only find time to smile when things are going our way, if we take up skilful action then instead of turning away and blaming others we begin to focus the mind when things aren’t going our way. We start to see where the disturbance comes from. We need the time to get up-skilled and prepared to disable the thoughts of regret and self-doubt that drag us into the mud with all the problems of the aging unhealthy body. Otherwise, it’s a double whammy…We can never win that battle. Fighting our thoughts and body at the same time.
Our culture tends to treat growing older as a disease to be treated or covered up. How can we silence this thing they say or better still, make some money from it. Getting in touch with our aliveness, and our connection with the richness of the life we’re swimming in is critically important for our mental health as we age. To lament death is to negate the miracle of being born in the first place. Knowing that we are mortal allows us to experience the moments of our lives in a very clear way. We therefore must learn the skill of not allowing our minds to be weighed down by the ailments of this body. Body and mind are of course connected but don’t share the same level of awareness. One is on automatic mode, a vehicle, the other creating daily fantasies we hope will arrive someday. Some special training is needed if we wish to understand the difference.
Despite all our best efforts, we’re on borrowed time. One of the mistakes that we humans make without ever really thinking is continually seeking to create permanence in our lives, a legacy perhaps, something that won’t keep changing, a place to anchor ourselves when everything around us is moving so we’re somehow safe inside. We are, however, quite lucky to be born into the 20th century for we understand the universe exists, we have started to see the miracle, the images from space of multiple universes that are beyond our imagination. We are well equipped as a species to develop a high degree of conscious self-refinement if we tune into the fact that we are part of what shines all around us, everything we observe is ‘that’.
It’s through our ignorance of what most religions call the understanding of our ‘true nature’ that we continually re-enforce our delusions and our fragile opinions about the emptiness we face in death. We’re fearful of disappearing. Building goodness into our own minds is the best thing for a happy old age. If we can learn to challenge our bad behaviour patterns we can then build goodness. Contemplating this helps us grow a sense of equanimity and our restlessness begins to fade.
If you really think about it there’s still plenty of work to be done, soon you won’t even see this body anymore. Learning to count the blessings of each new day is a good place to start because we’re then in the present moment. All religion and science expound on the fact that material things decline and finally dissolve and it’s been this way from the beginning of time. It’s our job in retirement to not be ignorant of these facts of life. Even if you ask a very sick person they will tell you stories of how they remember their bodies when young, what a delightful thing it was, we then forget that the past is not the present and by dragging it into the future we only muddy the waters of logic even further.
We have spent our entire lives preparing for death, death is the flip side of life, but we are both charmed and also fooled by this body of ours and therefore, we never seek out where our true nature resides or where our ultimate refuge is and where to find immortality. We run out of time. So, if we are to live without regret then it’s time to let go, not waiting around for approval or some magical moment to appear that’s destined in the stars. We don’t want to die with a sour expression on our faces, do we? It’s time to get to work on a true understanding of what suffering really means to you. Growing old is a tremendous privilege if we treat it as an opportunity to smile like a child once more and gaze at the stars.
Lovely thoughts to ponder.
Thanks Phillip – anything that gives us pause from our busy thoughts can be helpful for changing things around