Do you Have a ‘Vanaprastha' Plan?

Our Vedic texts state that ‘vanaprastha’ means retreating into a forest after absolving all familial responsibilities. However, this cannot be practiced in today’s modern times and hence Suresh Chandra outlines a plan that should suit us all.

- Suresh Chandra

In an earlier article I had mentioned that the nearest to retirement was our ancient concept of the third ‘ashrama’ – ‘vanprastha’ . The literal meaning of vanprastha is ‘going to the forest’. However, according to some scholars, vanprastha is a mental attitude which includes going out into the world, self expansion and exploring the spiritual dimension of life. It tells us not to sit at home, spend time with our family, depend on others, and simply wait to become old and die. On the contrary, it tells us that this is the time to create a new life with new energy, to do something for others who are not our family members and friends, to learn new things, and become less dependent on our family of birth. In the following paragraphs I would like to elaborate on this theme and point out how a person can become a ‘vanprasthi’ while staying at home.

It seems that our ancient Vedic ‘rishis’ and scholars had great insights into human psychology and needs and incidentally they also had a special affinity for the numeral four. According to them, human life was held in its place by four pillars or actions viz. ‘dharma’ (duty), ‘artha’ (wealth), ‘kama’ (desires) and ‘moksha’ (liberation). For smooth functioning of the human society, they created the ‘brahmin’ (teacher), ‘kshatriya’ (warrior), ‘vaish’ (trader) and ‘shudra’ (labourer). They concluded that each person incurred debts to four sets of beings viz. teachers, parents, deities and other human beings. Last of all they divided human life into four stages: learning, family, retirement and renunciation.