Religion 499: Renunciation, and the Three Stages of Hindu Life…
Hindu Temple in Sri Lanka
…which are actually four, but who’s counting (?), and I think it’s time to do a little historical trim, which coincides very well with my own three religious stages of life—Muslim, Christian, and Buddhist—corresponding to youth, prime, and maturity; i.e. dignity–and discipline, love–and family, wisdom–and renunciation; at something like 20-25 years each. The Hindu ‘ashrama’ stages of life are student (brahmacharya), householder (grihastha), retirement (vanaprastha) and renunciation (sannyasa).
Now obviously those stages can’t occupy the full prescribed twenty-four years each (who retires at forty-eight, anyway?), so I’d propose combining the retirement and renunciation phases. I’m not sure I much know the difference anyway, though most cultures wouldn’t acknowledge ‘renunciation’ as a goal, in any case.
But the Hindu trick is that the final sannyasa renunciation phase can occur anytime, relieving Indians of the burden of living to be 96-100 years just to fit the paradigm. So a student brahmacharya can go straight into the sannyasa phase at the ripe old age of twenty-four-ish, completely foregoing the career and head-of-family phase, opting instead for a life of moksha (no, that’s not a Jewish circumciser), i.e. spiritual liberation. (More …)
kc, and 
Thank God. I didn’t know there could be life without riots. I didn’t know there could be life without political assassinations. I didn’t know there could be life without scenes of war on TV. ‘Back to nature’ sounded really good, as if I’d been on the verge of a nervous breakdown or something the whole time at the ripe old age of twenty-two. We were the late 20th century cabin-dwellers. We were the FoxFire generation, looking for our roots in root cellars, attics, and storage sheds. We wanted the past not the future, evolution not revolution. We wanted little to do with cities, wars, hard rock, or hard drugs. We wanted real folk, bluegrass, and cosmic cowboys. We wanted our ganja as much as ever, maybe more, but no excess acid for a weak stomach, thank you, and for God’s sake, heroes and not heroin.
The 60’s took ‘it’ to the streets. We were young; we were hip. We knew more than ‘they’ did. ‘They’ were over-30, therefore suspect of collusion with ‘the man’, ‘pigs’, ‘whitey’, Nixon. That’s the name that came to be associated with the forces of repression more than any other. He just looked the part. The ‘movement’ had its anti-Christ. It all started innocently enough in the early 60’s with racial integration and affluence. Here was the strongest country in the world, lecturing the rest of the world on the evils of repressive Communism and Socialism, maintaining a system of apartheid that contradicted its own stated goals and ideals. This was a country once the symbol of freedom in the world, bathed in the fire of revolution, playing FTSE with some of the most repressive regimes the world has ever seen, i.e. Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, etc. The symbolism was not to be lost on everyone, certainly not on New York ‘beatniks’ and intellectuals inspired by folk music and high on the ideal of equality. The US was affluent now; there was money to spare, and therefore money to share.
streaming consciousness... 
davekingsbury 9:27 am on April 11, 2016 Permalink |
Your hinterland of learning, compassion and personal realisation is on show here, as usual. I like the way this plays with time, gently interrogating traditional beliefs to create something new and original. Not heard that Alan Watts saying before, really fits my situation at the moment! Don’t renounce blogging just yet, please!
hardie karges 10:20 am on April 11, 2016 Permalink |
thank you thank you thank you, looking for a temple with WiFi… 🙂
davekingsbury 10:21 am on April 11, 2016 Permalink
🙂
kc 7:30 am on April 29, 2016 Permalink |
really only briefly read this, but like lou reed said “music is my god”, in fact lou is playing now, thru an ipod, thru a blu tooth speaker, it’s a punk speaker but lou sounds good however you can get him. some younger friends of mine, starting to lose parents, partners and such are now into patti smith….another group, the self sustainability faction, they are learning to make kombucha. it is always remakable to me how people my age or just a few years younger have not a clue, about so much, esp that which, for me, was experienced many years ago.Should I turn them onto mochi? Ok, Peter Tosh playing now. back to god/dog.
hardie karges 11:16 am on April 29, 2016 Permalink |
I don’t know mochi…