| From The River Of Heaven |
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| Books By David Frawley |
| VEDIC SOCIAL SCIENCE : THE SPIRITUAL BASIS OF CULTURE | |
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| The fourth and last section from
sixty-three to eighty-four is the "Sannyasa" or renunciation phase.
The person, now an elder full of wisdom, inwardly aims to renounce all the outer goals of life. He also
becomes a teacher of the spiritual knowledge and no longer partakes in social or political concerns. This order reflects the general rule. More advanced souls may go directly to the renunciation phase. Less advanced souls may not even qualify for the first phase. They may never develop the purity, innocence and humility of the Brahmacharya phase. In this we see that only twenty-one years are allotted for the outer duties of life. Three-quarters of life is to be devoted primarily to spiritual study. A true society provides the appropriate experiences for each of these four stages of life. Our present society is based mainly on adolescent values. Even the elderly are expected to act like the young, pursuing sex, sports and money. Such a culture is one-sided and imbalanced. The potentials of the soul in old age are denied. The natural movement of the soul in its later years towards detachment and meditation is suppressed.
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