Vaanaprastha

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanaprastha

Vaanaprastha is this the solution to the aging population problem?
better than this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%84ttestupa ;-)

This also gives a feeling of relief when thinking about the future which seems to extend for long time. How long will my old age be? Whether I will have money, meaning goal etc... these kind of questions are answered. atleast for me, Its good to put an end date to our pursuits.?

My thoughts were already running along these lines when I started thinking about how you would live if you knew u had an expiry date( hehe literally ;-) ).
We have technology and we can indeed live very long lives, but there is stress involved in that, you will live long but we may not be earning.  Save to save for indefinite old age, with indefinite set of health problems, who will take care? Burden on the younger generation etc etc. Old times people had children as support for old age and then now we have pension schemes. Its all not that grim really, but The idea of winding down life style and needs and going into spiritual pursuits is very attractive.

What is VanaPrastha? It means heading toward forest. In old days when any person had their first grand child, it was assumed that they had finished all their worldly responsibilities and they were eligible to go into spiritual pursuits. Go to the forest and live in an ashram, studying or worshiping etc. Some people chose this, some people stayed with families interpreting vanaprastha as handing over responsibility.
If we decide that at certain age - say 55 I will retire in the true sense, if I dont have any responsibilities. Then take up full time meditation. So we dont need a pension or money. If you fall sick in small ways you can get a cure , but if you need care - no care is available just like for wild animals, its The end.
Is it so bad?
Are we holding on too tight to life? Is it ok to let go? Is it even possible in this age - when cure is available for almost everything? Does it feel like suicide to not take advantage of this?
 In a world where Partners in firms who die as soon as they retire at 55 due to lack of purpose.  Is Vanaprastha like giving up?Vanaprashta is not giving up, Its more like change of focus. Climbing Everest and running marathon can be done as part of Vanaprastha no?
Will it be hard to give up on the current life style or wind down? If you are going to live to be 100 then can we live doing meditation for 40 years?

What is the difference between old age home and Vaanaprastha?

would you go to school if...

How hard parents try to train their children and craft their life, to make it better for them. So many classes and school and making their life hell :-D
And my cat? I just let him be, no school! no training, he is fed and he sleeps and chills out :D life is so much fun for him :-D
 I wonder if I am letting him do what I want  because he will live only 10 years... if  a kid was like that, life span of just 10 years would parents send him to school? or would the kid live like a pet? what if it was 25?would the priorities be same if they knew kid would live for only 40?

How would people bring up their kids if they knew for sure that the kid would live for 40 years only,  How would I live if I knew for certain that I would live only 40 years? Or 50? or only 10 more years?
How would I live if my death was decided and a certain event? I mean it is, but if I knew the time and date?


MaranaSati 
Buddhism has a meditation on contemplating death, that it can happen any moment, today or in another week or next year, not just ours but our loved ones as well.   It is so easy to forget this in this modern world, Also we avoid thoughts like this like plague.
I dont know the answers to the above questions? I can guess that if we had knowledge of shorter life we would probably spend time more enjoyably?  or not.

I should contemplate on that.

ps: Its not easy to contemplate death, we have some kind of firm belief that we will live for ever i think, I intellectually know and can think those things but I do not experience it. It feels like something that can happen to others but not me, like war, poverty etc :-O

priorities

This is how our priorities are. This is the information from 1998. Today I can only imagine that spending on materialistic things has gone up exponentially.  Time to rethink our spending - not money wise but in terms of actual cost to earth.

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/764

Amount of money needed each year (in addition to current expenditures) to provide reproductive health care for all women in developing countries	$12 billion
Amount of money spent annually on perfumes in Europe and the United States	$12 billion
Amount of money needed each year (in addition to current expenditures) to provide water and sanitation for all people in developing nations	$9 billion
Amount of money spent annually on cosmetics in the United States	$8 billion
Amount of money needed each year (in addition to current expenditures) to provide basic health an nutrition needs universally in the developing world	$13 billion
Amount of money spent each year on pet food in Europe and the United States	$17 billion
Amount of money needed each year (in addition to current expenditures)  to provide basic education for all people in developing nations	$6 billion
Amount of money spent each year on militaries worldwide	$780 billion

health and safety

We are over cautious these days! The level of health and safety in current day western world almost feels like dystopia. "Mind the Gap"  "You are approaching the end of the escalator" ( Ok may be this is for blind (I am not calling them visually impaired! )  Caution written on plain plastic bag. People not planting flowers because bees will bite their baby. Children below 11 accompanied by adults at all times!

I feel like has the society lost faith in human common sense and intelligence? Or I wonder if this is a side effect of loss of belief in God?
Did belief is god allow people to live a free but ( may be slightly more risky) life?
Like They say in NLP, it does not matter if a belief is true, it just has to be beneficial to you. I kind of cant accept this I want the true truth :D but I see the merit in this. I have seen people live very stress free life, leaving the worrying to God.

When we believe in God, do we indirectly believe in our biology, genetics and evolution?  and is that what we have lost faith in , in recent times.

I was swimming in the river and my brother was tossing stones into it ;-) deadly combination, a stone hit me, right between my eyes , 1 mm and I would have been hit in the eye. I have seen a lot of near misses to the eye. Is that pure luck? or god?  I believe its our instincts. I must have seen the stone and jerked the head just a lil bit to miss the eye. Not soon enough to avoid the stone completely but just enough to avoid the eye?

Driving in Bangalore makes me feel the same, People turn into streets without looking, no one is using rear view mirrors. Still the number of accidents is low, the number of near misses is many times over the accidents. I joked that I started believing in god after driving here. Its not co-incidence is it ? Its again our instincts which are saving us?
Babies falling from high places and surviving, We do not appreciate our minds and bodies enough, its 3 billion years old technology with constant improvement! Its miraculous . We are insulting this by lame health and safety.

falling off the wagon

"Falling off the wagon is inevitable, Should just learn to get back up quickly!"
Gyan! very apt gyan  from yours truly after falling off the wagon and wallowing in guilt and regret upon gaining 3 kg in 1 month, out of which 1 kg was in one week :D

It is true isn't it? It will happen, after few days, few months or few years. More likely than not, may be after 11 years... even u will fall off. Its fine. Just Get back on it with out fuss as fast as possible.
So Slow, this is very hard, have to start from scratch etc etc thoughts will come , so what?
Is there any other option?

Experiment ;-)