By Janananda das
VANAPRASTHA chit chat
Dear Prabhus,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
This letter is a request to its readers to be as kind as to reply to me on the following topics regarding the Vanaprastha ashram in ISKCON. This letter is more of a feeler. We would very much appreciate feedback from young and old.
PANCASORDHVAM VANAM VRAJET
“Vedic authority says that a householder must leave home after his fiftieth year. One must leave his family life and enter the forest after the age of fifty.”
How is this relevant in our present society?
PURPOSES OF THIS LETTER:
• To gain a deeper understanding of what vanaprastha ashram is
• To create awareness
• To understand the value of it in our society
• To facilitate the vanaprasthas both spiritually and materially
• To give guidelines to vanaprasthas
• To outline the purposes of vanaprastha ashram
HOW TO WORK TOWARDS THIS:
• More dialogue and communication in the form of newsletters and literature
• To open up a forum for dialogue
• To conduct seminars and discussions on the subject
• To establish a vanaprastha ashram(s) somewhere
• Produce a vanaprastha manual
• Keep a database of devotees in the vanaprastha order
• To create awareness
• Discuss with individuals within and without ISKCON
I would very much appreciate as much feedback as possible on this to help us to get a broader more sastrically correct and applicable presentation. Don’t forget this is an ashram for both men and women. Sometime they will be together sometimes they will be alone.
MAYAPUR INSTITUTE OF HIGHER EDUCATION (M.I.H.E) SEMINARS FEBRUARY 2007 “LIFE BEGINS AT FIFTY”
– conducted by Janananda das
This is the title of the seminar presentation planned for this coming Mayapur Festival from 16th till 19th February. There will be 4 sessions dealing with more or less the following topics:
DAY 1. General overview of the meanings of vanaprastha and its relevance in today’s society
DAY 2. Does everyone have to take vanaprastha and if so when?
DAY 3. What do vanaprasthas do? where do they live? Etc..
DAY 4. Practical details and help in making the transition. General follow up
Other topics. – economics, health, follow on, Prabhupada as a vanaprastha, traditional vanaprastha, the family, and lots more.
We will try to provide ramps for the wheel chairs.
BACKGROUND:
Reaching 50 years of age my hair was going very grey.
I had lost most of my teeth. Wrinkles appeared here and there. This body was no more youthful and was losing its attraction. Not that it had any anyway.
I started to wonder about the statements in scripture which Prabhupada has mentioned many times like (pancasordhvam vanam vrajet) Vedic authority says that a householder must leave home after his fiftieth year. One must leave his family life and enter the forest after the age of fifty.
I compiled many of the statements which Srila Prabhupada made about Vanaprastha and tried to put them in some kind of practical form. The result was a preliminary manuscript on Vanaprastha. In the year 2000, I presented to the GBC the need to seriously discuss the vanaprastha ashram and its relevance to ISKCON. The GBC were into it but they left it to me to follow up on. Of the devotees I consulted with quite a few were interested and sympathetic but few were very serious. The GBC suggested we form a committee but it never got off the ground for various reasons. Rough manuscripts on vanaprastha were given or sent to several devotees but there was very little if any response.
In our busy life we may not have time for these things. I didn’t pursue the issue very much further except for the occasional seminar, lecture, and discussion here and there. Other angles, references and understandings cropped up over the years.
All said and done the reality still remains. Most devotees reach a certain age when they are faced with certain psychological and physical changes and we could probably as a society put more energy into this to formulate some guidelines for devotees reaching this stage.
Now the time has come to revive the vanaprastha discussions. I am proposing to start a website of blog for ongoing discussion and enlightenment – hopefully leading to something more solid and practical for devotees wishing to practice vanaprastha.
VANAPRASTHA QUOTES:
There are many references throughout Prabhupada’s writings and discussions – here are a few:
Srimad Bhagavatam 11.18.1 – Purport:
“Vanaprastha is intended as a gradual transition from materialistic family life to the stage of complete renunciation.
Caitanya Caritamrta Madhya 24.259:
“Narada Muni then advised the hunter, ‘Return home and distribute whatever riches you have to the pure brahmanas who know the Absolute Truth. After you have distributed all your riches to the brahmanas, you and your wife should leave home, each of you taking only one cloth to wear.’
Purport
This is the process of renunciation at the stage of vanaprastha. After enjoying householder life for some time, the husband and wife must leave home and distribute their riches to brahmanas and Vaisnavas. One can keep his wife as an assistant in the vanaprastha stage. The idea is that the wife will assist the husband in spiritual advancement. Therefore Narada Muni advised the hunter to adopt the vanaprastha stage and leave home. It is not that a grhastha should live at home until he dies.
Vanaprastha is preliminary to sannyasa. In the Krishna consciousness movement there are many young couples engaged in the Lord’s service. Eventually they are supposed to take vanaprastha, and after the vanaprastha stage the husband may take sannyasa in order to preach. The wife may then remain alone and serve the Deity or engage in other activities within the Krsna consciousness movement.
Srimad Bhagavatam 3.24.41 – Purport:
“Going to the forest is compulsory for everyone. It is not a mental excursion upon which one person goes and another does not. Everyone should go to the forest at least as a vanaprastha. Forest-going means to take one-hundred-percent shelter of the Supreme Lord, as explained by Prahlada Maharaja in his talks with his father.”
Your servant,
Janananda das – Janananda@yahoo.com
This is a very topical issue now that so many of Srila Prabhupada’s disciples are in their 50s and 60s.
I really wish I could be in Mayapur for the seminar and I want to hear the realizations of all the devotees on this subject. I’ll be turning 50 in a couple of years and I want to know, what are we supposed to do as Vanaprasthas?
Obviously, retiring from grhastha life does not mean retiring from active spiritual duties such as preaching and temple services. It should mean freeing up energy (and money) to engage in more spiritual service.
I expect it also means giving up some bad things which fallen householders may have unfortunately accepted, like improper or unoffered foods, television, cinema, materialistic literature and other mundane association (or, at the very least, severely curtailing these things).
Even for first-class, serious grhasthas, there should be a perceptible change as they enter the Vanaprastha stage toward minimizing material occupations and increasing spiritual engagements.
Hopefully though, for those of us who have become entangled in too much sense gratification, materialistic association, hard struggle to earn money to pay for unnecessary material comforts, and who have fallen away from good practices such as attending strong morning and evening programs daily, retirement as Vanaprasthas can be a second chance to get back to Krishna conscious basics.
(We can feel fortunate to have a “second chance” like Ajamil, to see the error of our ways and become very serious as old age and death approach).
Or is it that grhasthas need to be highly qualified before they can be accepted as Vanaprasthas? I suppose some qualification is required, and I have heard it said that sudras may remain grhasthas until they die. Is any “approval” required before we can become Vanaprasthas (surely it cannot be as difficult as becoming sannyasis?)
Seriously, humans should not “retire” to play chess and bridge and golf and watch TV and do crossword puzzles like materialistic people do.
Financial planners are now advertising to baby boomers that they can help them live out their material “dreams” and fantasies in retirement. We have many “retirement” communities in the U.S., where there is a lot of social activity, consumption of meat and alcohol, restaurants (from fine dining to “senior specials” at greasy spoon chains like Denny’s), elderly widows and widowers “dating”, dances and mixers, etc. They are advertised as communities of “active” seniors, but the activities seem like imitation of young-people’s activities, inappropriate for those who should now be preparing for leaving their bodies.
Our devotees will not want to “retire” like that, but what will their retirement look like? Most will not be ready to become sannyasis. What should they do?
King Parikshit was preparing for leaving his body. He knew he did not have much time left. Older people should emulate him and should now strive for maximum focus on spiritual life. Now we are coming to the last lap and it is time to “kick in.”
Vanaprastha retirement should be embraced as an opportunity to wake up from material engagements and get back to what really counts. “What use is a prolonged life without spiritual experience? Better even a moment of full consciousness!”
My instinct is to want to stay in a holy place in India, at least for some time, for purification and training. However, I know Srila Prabhupada expects us to preach vigorously outside of India, and I have not done enough preaching to deserve to become a full-time resident of the dhama. That is a very high ideal to aspire for.
There are also practical considerations. The cost of living even a simple lifestyle near major U.S. cities is very high. How can devotees of limited means afford early retirement? We do not get Social Security in the U.S. until we are 65 or 67 (and it may not be there for us by that time)
Living in India seems like a solution, but I cannot believe what Prabhupada wants or expects from his non-Indian disciples is that most of us abandon preaching in the West to live complacently for less money in India. We have to preach, and preach vigorously. Most definitely.
Should Vanaprastha couples live in ISKCON communities and be supported there because of the practical service they perform? (It is a regulative principle to live in a holy place, after all, and Srila Prabhupada said we can do that in the West by living in a temple.) Are there facilities for this? Do we need to arrange such facilities?
(Janananda metioned establishing ashrama(s) for Vanaprasthas to live in, but shouldn’t the Vanaprasthas be spread more evenlythrough the society? Should they just “bunch up” near a few major temples? That doesn’t sound right.)
For wealthier devotees, is it proper for Vanaprasthas to keep their money invested to produce sufficient income for retirement? As a practical matter it just seems like that is how they are going to pay the bills, but it also seems to cut against the spirit of renunciation somehow, to be living off investment income like pukka capitalists. On the other hand, what alternatives are there?
Should Vanaprasthas adopt a different style of dress?
Is there some sort or ritual or samskara for formally accepting Vanaprastha ashram?
It does seem that this third spiritual order or stage of life is not very well defined or recognized in ISKCON.
Defining and organizing ourselves into four varnas may present all kinds of challenges and problems, but we ought to be able manage better with the four ashramas. We already have a lot of precedents for brahmacaris, grhasthas and sannyasis, but not so much yet for Vanaprasthas.
I am really eager to hear from thoughtful, advanced devotees about the Vanaprastha ashrama and how it will be practically adopted in today’s world. This initiative by Janananda is extremely important and relevant and seems very well conceived. I look forward to hearing the outcome of these discussions and getting my hands on a Vanaprastha “manual” if one is developed.
Dear prabhu,
Perhaps it is worth knowing whether devotees whose wife and children are Krsna conscious have to be renounced in the same way as materially inclined people should. If not, then under which circumstances should they?
Ys, Kesava Krsna dasa.
I think it would be very wonderful if devotees established some sort of retirement home system for older Vaishnavas. Perhaps something like a small version of the Snug Harbor program established long time ago for retired sailors (see http://www.snug-harbor.org/history/sailor.html ). Not that all devotees should retire like that, but to have such an option would be very benefitial in my opinion. As a community we are rapidly entering the time when such issues become very relevant and even urgently needed.
I would like to create such a program not merely for devotees to live out their last years of life in relative comfort and ease among other Vaishnavas (an important reason by itself), but also as a way to provide our communities with valuable service and spiritual grounding.
Older Vaishnavas have so much to offer! Wealth of experience and realization, as well as time, skills, and patience to perform all kinds of service. If there was a Vaishnava retirement home near your temple, the resident devotees would be able to lend a helping hand in the temple as well as nurture the congregation. They could hold seminars, translate and publish various Vaishnava books and writings, do research on important subjects, and provide much needed spiritual grounding for smaller centers.
Even from an economic point of view such retirement homes make a lot of sense. Pooling together resources, as well as sharing various costs and responsibilities is much more cost effective than individual retirement. It is much more fun too.
I am very serious about this project. If anybody is interested in helping please send me an email to: kpav108 (at) earthlink.net
Dear Janananda Prabhu,
I am in my 50th year and am feeling a strong pull towards vanaprastha life. I have read some scriptural teachings, and honestly I can not help but feel that this is what Krishna wants me to do. My sons are grown, it’s time for me to get serious about my spritual life and offer Krishna whatever service I can. I’m in good health, and could be quite valuable in service.
What I am wondering is why do you need to set up a special vanaprastha ashram? I have been visiting temples with the intention of becoming a regular live-in temple devotee, and I see no reason why this would not be a feasible arrangement, at least in my case. I have found some very nice places to stay. Not everyone in my situation would probably desire to live in the temple though. I feel it is my duty to try to serve Krishna will all the life I have left, and I’m hoping it’s quite a bit. There is alot of work to do. I am hoping, that with Krishna’s mercy, I will be living in a temple by the end of this year.
I have to say though, I am glad to hear that someone is also interested in this ashram though, and I would very much like to hear any scriptural teachings about the subject. Thank you for helping answer my questions as to whether this is the right decision in my life. I think it is.
Hare Krsna,
your servant,
Sue S.
Hare Krishna,
Very timely article and seminar! Being 55, this has been on my mind as of late. Is it possible to make disks of this seminar available to those of us who will not be able to travel to participate?
yours in service,
Hari Bhakta dasa