Secrets to Longevity
There is no requirement to die at any established time, even if your doctor tells you that you have only two years to live, even if your astrologer predicts it, even if your enemies hope for your early demise. I was told that in Africa if a powerful medicine man tells a person he is going to die, the fear and belief are so strong that within hours he succumbs. Mind over matter? It’s not much different when everyone around us is chanting the senility mantra—when your wife, kids, friends and boss keep saying, “You’re not getting any younger, you know.”
There are high laws to invoke as age advances, to sustain the prāṇas, to strengthen the force of life within. Those who know wisdom’s ways have overcome the “I’m getting old” syndrome, a mantra no one should ever repeat, even once. They know how the mind works, and by applying the laws, they have lived long, useful, happy and healthy lives. The redundancy system of one part of the body failing and another part taking over, especially within the brain, should be understood by the aging person, to know that all is not lost. If memory loss is experienced, things can often be memorized again and shifted over to another part of the brain. These are simple techniques that are based on the truth that the mind is constantly maturing; so are the emotions, and so is the intelligence and accumulated knowledge. Most importantly, the wisdom of how to use the knowledge and to judge whether it is worthwhile at all—that, too, is maturing from decade to decade and life to life.
The psychological secret is to have a goal, actually many goals, in service to humanity to accomplish. People helping people, people serving people, that is what the Hindu Dharma is and has been proclaiming for some 8,000 years or more. Good goals and a will to live prolong life. It is even more life-giving when the goal of human existence, in helping people to fulfill dharma, is strengthened by daily sādhana. When pre-dawn morning pūjās, scriptural reading, devotionals to the guru and meditation are performed without fail, the deeper side of ourselves is cultivated, and that in itself softens our karmas and prolongs life.
Life is eternal on the inner planes, in the refined bodies of the soul. But a physical body these days is hard to obtain. We have to go through the embarrassment of birth, being slapped on the bottom, talked to in baby talk, and learning to walk, read and write all over again. It takes years and years before we get back to, if we ever do in the new life, the wisdom years that we attained in the previous birth.
So, take care of your physical body. No need to know too much about it, for it knows what it needs. Listen to its messages, respond quickly, find an āyurvedic doctor who can help you through the many changes the body will naturally go through, and face each one positively. This body is impermanent, true, but it is the only one you have, so make the best use of it. You have good work to do, and knowledge born of experience to pass along to the coming generation.
The older you get, the more disciplined you should get, the more sādhana you should perform as you drop off the extraneous things of the world. If your children leave home and cultivate other interests, find new eager children to teach, new ways to serve. Be useful to others. Keep planting the seeds of dharma. Maybe they will be annuals instead of perennials, but keep planting for the future. Others might be saying, “old and gray and in the way,” but we say, “old and gray and here to stay.”
NANDINATHA SŪTRA 233: RESTRAINING INVOLVEMENT WITH OTHER FAITHS
Śiva’s devotees avoid the enchantment of other ways, be they ancient or modern. They remain friendly toward but apart from other religions, except when their members sincerely approach Hinduism for its wisdom. Aum.