Yoga-Vāsiṣṭha 1.22—Problems of Aging
Channel: Consciousness Research Centre
Date: 2017-08-27

This series is classified Ajata-vāda | Jñāna-yoga | Turīya | Sahasrāra-cakra

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“Boyhood has scarcely lost its boyishness when it is overtaken by youth, which is soon followed by a ruthless old age that devours the other two. Old age withers the body like frost freezing a lake of lilies. It drives away the beauty of the body like a storm does autumn clouds. It pulls down the body like a current carries away a tree from the bank. An old man with his limbs slackened and worn out by age, his body weakened by infirmity, is treated by women as a useless beast. Old age drives away a man’s good sense, just like a stepmother drives away a good wife. A man in doddering old age is ridiculed as an imbecile by his own sons and servants, and even by his wife, friends and relations.” — 1.22.1-5

“The body overtaken by old age becomes as pale and battered, as a lotus flower beaten by frost becomes withered and shattered. As the Ganges upsets a neighboring tree by its rapid course, so old age destroys the body as the current of our life runs fast to decay. Old age takes as much delight in devouring our youthful bloom as a cat does feeding on a mouse. Decrepitude raises its ominous hoarse sound of coughing in the body, like a jackal sending forth her hideous cry in the forest. Old age is an inner flame that consumes the living body like a wet log of wood, which thereupon emits its hissing sounds of hard breathing, and sends up the gloomy fumes of sorrow and sighs.” — 1.22.20-26

“Old age, like a juggling girl, struts on three legs at the sound of coughing and whiffing, beating like a kettledrum on both sides. The tuft of grey hairs on the head of an aged body represents a fly-whisk fastened to the top of a handle of white sandalwood serving to welcome the despot of death. As hoary age makes his advance like moonlight over the body, he calls forth hidden death to come out of it, as moonlight makes water lilies unfold their buds. Again as the whitewash of old age whitens the outer body, so debility, diseases and dangers become its inmates in the inner apartment. The extinction of being is preceded by old age. What then is the good of this miserable life, which lives subject to old age? Senility is irresistible in this world, and it defies all efforts to avoid or overcome it.” — 1.22.32-37

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