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A) Vaanaprastha-ashrama: This is the penultimate stage for reaching the final goal and hence he has to follow some duties assigned in Grihasthashrama and follow some virtues prescribed in Sanyasashrama. This is the middle-path i.e. the path of both pravritti and nivritti combined harmoniously as indicated by Sri Ramakrishna Paramhamsa's allegory of boat which is in water but, water is not in the boat.
When the house-holder sees wrinkles and white hairs in his body, then, he has to retire along with his wife from the active life and lead a life of hermit in forest(vaanaprasta). Now a days, it is very difficult to go to forest as either there are no forests or even if there are forests it is not safe to go and stay there. The implication of such suggestion is that, at this stage one should be with nature to maintain health and solitude to practice meditation and spiritual sadhanas to become eligible for the next stage(i.e. sanyasa). Hence both husband and wife should leave the day-to-day affairs of samsaara by handing over that responsibility to their progeny and do sadhana in solitude either in their courtyard or (if there is no courtyard - which is a must from the point of view of health as forests are vanishing) in their house itself.
They(both husband and wife) should lead a life of Tapaswis and take only saatvika food. They should lead a celibate life sleeping on the floor and following the path of detachment. The rule of their life is to study(swadhyaya) and continue to perform the five great sacrifices. Manu says: "Let him be ever be engaged in the study of Vedas, controlled, friendly, collected, evergiver, not a receiver and compassionate to all beings."45
The beauty of this stage is that man after seeing the ins and outs, and merits and demerits of samsaara automatically tends towards something beyond mundane and material domain and hence seeking solutions to the problems of mundane world through spiritual attempt. The inner Spirit(Atman) which is operating and witnessing in all the states of human experience will be tapping him to turn within and be with It so that man can be blissful by transcending all the dualities of life. Hence, this stage is naturally the preparative stage for the final stage i.e. sanyaasa.
c) Sanyaasa ashrama: After attaining perfection in Vanaprasthaashrama one has to relinquish and renounce everything and become yati or sanyasi. As stated above even if he/she cannot live at forest he/she can stay at home and lead a life of sanyasi/sanyasini. In this stage, he/she is not offering any sacrifices since they have given all their properties to their progeny( if they do not have their own progeny they can give all their properties to some charitable institutions as charity) and lead a detached and indifferent life. In this stage of sanyasa he/she is though detached but attached in a higher sense as he will be working for the spiritual upliftment of the entire mankind(sarvodaya) treating the whole world as Vasudaivakutumba. The
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| SR No. | 007005 |
| Book Title | World of Philosophy |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave |
| Publisher | Shanti Prakashan |
| Publication Year | 2011 |
| Total Pages | 1002 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 30 MB |