Physical and mental aging bring changes that tend to quieten the mind, simplify everyday life, and stimulate interest in the meaning of life. By casting elders out of the mainstream, societies create social conditions that can facilitate spiritual growth. Based on an Eastern view, this paper examines the nature of spirituality and the way of liberation as a means of spiritual development. It then looks at aspects of aging that can facilitate a spiritual journey and roles elders can play in fostering spiritual development. This silence is conscious awareness that is free of attachment to the verbal mind and physical body.
Spiritual experience is impartial and nonpersonal.
It is an awareness that transcends the constraints and agendas of the personal mind or ego. This transcendent pure beingness is free to be quietly aware, without comment, of whatever happens here and now. Nonpersonal consciousness is unselfish because it is free of ego and it provides a clear view of how to be in the world and let the world be as it is. Pure beingness contains both clarity and compassion, not as concepts but as experiences. In a nonpersonal state of consciousness, the total elusiveness of the world to human understanding and control is obvious.