THE WISDOM OF AGE

There is a Hindu saying which goes something like this: it is sad to see a young person who doesn't go to temple; it is even sadder to see an old person who still does.  This in no way implies a loss of spirituality; it suggests rather a gain in wisdom.  Wisdom, an inner-experiential knowledge of the interconnectedness of all things, combined with its practice, love, is all one needs.  It takes time to realize this.  There are certainly many older persons who are not wise and younger ones who are; the tendency of increasing wisdom with age, however, is not to be doubted.  Why?  Younger people are necessarily more competitive, since they are, in general, what the ancient Hindus called "householders," a status which entails supporting a family, or, at the very least, entails supporting themselves.  Many younger persons are so thirsty for success that they try to con a drink from persons ahead of them, who, in turn, are trying to con a drink from those ahead of them.  In this process, of course, those behind tend to be ignored by those who imagine themselves as being deservedly ahead.

I heard of a motivational speaker who strongly advised everyone to work at a job one loves.  But are there enough lovely jobs to go around for workers who have to support a family?  Resources are scarce; no wonder many young people are frustrated.  Their needs are not being met.  True, the needs of older people are not being met either, but the old tend to realize that one's needs are not ever going to be met and have come to terms with this--another aspect of wisdom.

Although I do not visit temples except to attend an occasional concert, I do not look down at those who are religious in the traditional sense.  Many people who criticize the devout fail to realize that many of them are either  internally or externally desperate--or worse, both; their critics, however, tend to  have good jobs and a good social life.  They can afford to scoff at religion; they don't need it.  But some people do.  The endless combinations of the state of one's brain and the state of the world, which make us who we are, sometimes result in difficult, even desperate lives.  It is natural to seek support beyond if one feels lost on Earth--an imaginary friend?  Shh!  The older person who has thrown away his "crutch," that is, the belief in an external God who intervenes in people's lives, has no desire, if he is kind, to reveal to those  needing this belief that it is illusory.  As the Hindu saying implies, it's best to let time do that.  If the person asks advice, well, give it; if not, let the natural tendency toward wisdom take its course.  (Ignorant deeds, which harm, must always be opposed.)

I think I might have needed religion when I was younger--it would have perhaps helped me not to feel so isolated at a time when I felt so alone, and might have provided some socialization which I so desperately needed.  But I was not good at it.  I tried to feel like a Jew on Monday, a Christian on Tuesday, a Muslim on Wednesday, a Buddhist on Thursday and a Hindu on Friday--and was happy, I must say, to take the weekends off. Obviously such an ecumenical approach obviates the possibility of taking any religion's dogma as literal truth, which made me old too young, that is, at a time when I needed more direct help, even if that help was imaginary.

I have come to believe, like most scientists, that the mind is a projection of the body.  There is an internal screen, as it were, on which the brain is showing a movie that begins with birth and ends with death.  (The title of your movie is your name.)  This film about one's narrow identity is very precious to us, and alas! Darwinian mechanisms combined with a self-absorbed culture sometimes insist that one's movie is worthless if it doesn't become a blockbuster.  One's story can be gripping, happy, or sad--but it is no more real than a movie. If a deus ex machina arrives, it is part of the film, not a part of reality.  The fiction that it will some day be gloriously edited, then shown in the sky forever is precisely that, a fiction.  A film that never ends exists only in the imagination.  Although our attempt to be a good director of our finite film might be another illusion, it is a noble one, and sometimes results in great scenes that inspire others as well as ourselves. (Both free will and the lack of it are true; it depends on which plane of existence one is discussing.)The only things that can really take us beyond ourselves, resulting in a classic, are love and wisdom.  What keeps us starring in a Grade-B film is delusion.

Yes, our stories, more or less, take place in darkness. When the movie is over, however, the lights go on.