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Remembering spirit - from Age-ing to Sage-ing

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My father's last years were not happy. He was bitter, scared, unhappy, afraid of dying and afraid to talk about it. I wish he'd had the perspective provided by this insightful and practical book, From Age-ing to Sage-ing, a Profound New Vision of Growing Older.

Author Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi wrote, "I was approaching my 60th birthday, and a feeling of futility had invaded my soul, plunging me into a state of depression that no amount of busyness or diversion could dispel.... I feared becoming a geriatric case who follows the predictable pattern of retirement-painful physical diminishment, a rocking-chair existence in a nursing home, and the eventual dark and inevitable end to my life. I wondered, with an extended life span guaranteed by medical advances and our health conscious life styles, couldn't I convert my extra years into a blessing rather than a curse?"

This book answers that question by proposing a new model for aging through a process of spiritual eldering. This is a vision for living by conscious choices which counter social expectations and stereotypes of old age. Instead, elders can again become wisdom keepers, models for the next generations to follow.

Drawing from the newest consciousness and mind-body research, yoga, humanistic and transpersonal psychology, Zen, Tibetan Buddhism, shamanism and contemplative techniques, Schachter-Shalomi said, "People don't automatically become sages simply by living to a great age. They become wise by undertaking the inner work that leads to expanded consciousness."

The Hindu tradition sees life in four stages. People have an important "job" in old age: self-realization and service to society. The first stage is a student, then house holder, then at about the age of 50 they begin detaching from their families and social identities and devoting more time to spiritual development and meditation. In the fourth stage all their time is devoted to self-realization, spiritual instruction and selfless service to society.

Schachter-Shalomi said a similar attention to spiritual development in this model allows elders to regain positions of reverence and authority that can help heal our families, renew political life and restore the Earth to eco-health.

The inner work involves tasks of life completion-harvesting life to recognize, appreciate and enjoy our successes, reconceptualizing our failures to finally see clearly what they taught us, healing relationships by forgiving ourselves as well as others, coming to terms with our mortality, and processing feelings of fear, despair and confusion.

The tools used for harvesting life include meditation, journaling, philosophic homework, and exercises for "Sages in Training" which include Journey to our Future Self, Healing a Painful Memory, the Gift of Forgiveness, and my favorite, A Testimonial Dinner for the Severe Teachers.

Schachter-Shalomi's challenge to us to do the inner work of spiritual eldering is supported by extensive examples from many cultures and spiritual traditions. His picture of the future of eldering is inspiring. By doing the inner work and making our peace with the past, by accepting our own mortality, even rehearsing our death, we become guides and mentors to the next generation, models of vigorous, actualized older adults, guiding a future nourished by spiritual elders and bringing spirituality back into American life.

As elders do their contemplative homework and assume their mission to build the future rather than withdraw from it, it is inevitable that we will see that we "are integral to planetary evolution and environmental defense." As a clearer sense of Gaia consciousness grows in us, we will assume a vital role as stewards of the Earth.

Finally, Schachter-Shalomi describes new institutions that will evolve as we view aging with higher consciousness. Spiritual eldering will be taught and nurtured in residential retreat centers combining the best of Elderhostel and Esalen, offering training for body, mind and spirit to deepen connection to spirit. Self-help communities will provide initiation into the responsibilities of elderhood. This "Elder Guild" rests on three legs of community, contemplation and service.

This guidebook shows us a path through the mire of fear and denial of aging and death and leads to confidence, joy and fulfillment. I wish my father had known it was possible.

From Age-ing to Sage-ing, A Profound New Vision of Growing Older, by Zalman Schachter -Shalomi and Ronald S. Miller, Warner Books 1997. The Spiritual Eldering Institute can be reached at 7318 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19919; 215-348-9308.

On the Internet you can find discussions like this at www.noetic.org, the site of the Institute of Noetic Sciences

One-time article Copyright 1998 by Humboldt Senior Resource Center.