Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Hari Menon on November 21, 2012 at 11:02pm

Dear PLJ,

  My father is 92 years old , has a fantastic memory and absolutely no ailments , does everything on his own, is absolutely cheery and has tremendous reserves of spirit . Wakes up at 4:00 or 4:30 AM every day never later even if a bit under the weather  , Goes to sleep by 8:00 PM (this is a recent development ) Otherwise never later than 9 to 9:30 at night . Why I write this is you have to understand something very clearly (as for me I am 50 years myself ) . If you lead a regulated life style and in the process have been leading a fairly decent life of moderation , there will be a sense of well being as you become older - not a sense of weakness . Faith and equivalent practices (nothing intensive - but leisurely done ) also confer a very happy life , the mind becomes cheerful and you can take it as a part of Dying , You enjoy dying .

god has given every person the ability to know the very changes in his mind and spirit . you are really lucky to be experiencing what you are at your age , there will be millions in this world who have everything on earth and yet would not probably be enjoying in mind and spirit what you feel (the lightness in steps, a feeling of going up,a soft effortlessness)

But these things do not come just to anyone , it only comes to people who have lived life in moderation and have live life maybe not as a wise man but as individuals with some practice of faith or other such stuff , but because of the intent being known by god , the rewards are there in old age , one lives dignified and happily , loses interest in the world and soon wisdom and yoga is upon him without any pain . You are ideally located now to really listen to your self amd monitor every single thing in your body . My father precisely yells me of the effect of different food on his mind and body and way of thinking , he eats what is agreeable to him , and has just a cup of hot milk at night or porridge as he says . I am not saying this by way of advice - I respect any person who has lived even One hour more than me in this miserable world .

My fathe sits happily in meditation , and like a small child or a cat wanders into naps and wakes up, I s happy if we sit by his side and we talk , is not unhappy if we do not . my mother passed away last year - for myself and my father  it was such an ennobling and intensely spiritual experience , words cannot describe some things - and so it should be also woth you - You mentioned that you are 70 it is very young , my father is 92 he has friends who are closing in on 100 and are older than him . I think that I have lost more friends than him at my age , at times I am ashamed when I think of it - I envy you - You are so ideally situated in life - you have nothing to run after not even knowledge , just let everything come to you

Of course there may be problems if you are living in places where there are an surfeit of physical activity in the open - 

this feelings of well being might get you gravitating to thoughts of youth and sex (I am being frank ) - much like those who take up Yoga and start to get some well being and then immediately have a surfeit of mojo all wrongly attributed to kundalini !!!- any man who starts a regulated life style will find that well being confers a sense of virility (also ladies) but it is this unseen creative energy that has to be dissipated into the spirit . It is god itself . It is not something from any organ in the body - it is from the surrounding space and it can literally lift a person physically and transport him .

Hope I have been helpful .You are quite young - the way I look at it (compared to my father ) . You should not need any knowledge anymore - just look very detached on the memories of the last 70 Years it will be revealing - the world is not required - your memories will give you whatever knowledge you require . I am not advocating anything you have to read this in the backdrop of the culture that I was born in . Just writing fearlessly at the cost of being misunderstood that is all.

Permalink Reply by Hari Menon on November 23, 2012 at 1:40pm

Dear Paul,

   Thank you for your kind words , there is a lot to be said about experiences of which we have in our lives of which we cannot put into words , if it is something that you cannot put into words - then it is something that you should not even try to do so as that is the way it is meant to be . An ounce of experience is worth more than a million tons of knowledge garnered from books or practice . Life is the practice and its results are the lessons. Nobody stops learning till their last breath . Every experience that you have in life is to be seen as a picture shown to you by god only for yourself and at that time - there is nobody else privy to that same experience ., which is why memory of the past helps us ,particularly since we are distanced from it by time - it will not impinge on ones consciousness as it had at the time of originally happening - so we can learn a lot more as it becomes more objective . Yes very true what you have written about lessons from life - you are already a wise man . It is just as well if one counts ones blessing , even in retrospect it edifies and raises a person .As with my father you are also ideally situated - consider this you do not have to ''practise'' non violence or even have violent thoughts and a lot more things which much younger people have to struggle with . You do not have to fight temptations of all kinds - it is time alone helping you . Whether anybody likes it or not time is god itself - it mellows everyone and protects them along with nature . Age makes you an ascetic in mind - it does not have to be striven for . I do sit and talk with my father a lot - and we discuss life and dying and I have learnt a lot from him - he laughs when I ask him ''are you napping or meditating '' - inevitably he tells me there is no meditation everything is meditation, he actually enjoys old age and enjoys dying , is absolutely thoughtless but internally very awake and is the least bothered if anyone looks after his welfare or not , has no care and no worries , according to him this is the best phase of his life . He informs me that life in a pure sense started for him after he was 80 !!. He feels just as you have mentioned very alive and keen inside. According to him death is just like a small mosquito bite and not worth thinking about and is just a very small event that does not merit any attention and  just not worth fearing about . In a way he is beyond caring , but in a very dignified manner - he does not read the news paper , but still listens to the radio and the news and music . Has a keen interest in what is going on - but he has told me that the impressions are nothing , and his past 90 years or so just appear as a second in time . He cannot believe that he was 10 years one moment and 92 now - and actually enjoys this consciousness greatly , it is as if everything has collapsed to a single point (as he put it) . Everything is as if a dream , his marriage, and our childhood, and life in his ancestral house with all his brothers and sisters and uncles (it was a joint family ) and now most of them have vanished - everything has taken on a sort of a solidified dream as he puts it . So I guess, thats about it , so much for youth and old age - ultimately everything becomes effortless - may god grant the minimum strength in old age to every person to be able to conduct his daily routines on his own , and the strength of mind to love and wait for death as if it were an old friend - without troubling others . Thank you paul for getting me into this mood it helps a person at times ! Peace to you .