Four stages of Death and Ashrama Dharma
There are four stages of death that any human being experiences and those are; social, psychological, biological, and physiological. The first death is Social, a symbolic death of the human being in the world he or she has known. The human being’s social contacts in this stage diminish. This occurs in the post-retirement phase when we turn sixty when we finish all of our obligations at work and home. The first disengagement happens at work. As we age, the institution or organisation where we work gently fires us from service and sends us home to finish living our best life possible. The employees with whom we worked will slowly remove us from their memories since they are steeped in their routine work. The second social disconnection takes place in society. We are cut off from our neighbours and community as they too are immersed in their living. The third social disconnection happens at home. Children migrate out of their homes when they settle into adulthood. The parents are consequently left behind. This will keep us confined to our houses. The world as we have known it is gone. Our world gets smaller, mostly confining us to home reminiscing the past memories since we suffer from serious ailments if we have any.
The second death is Psychological. It is the dying of our own personality with diseases such as losing memory (amnesia), Alzheimer’s disease, language disorder (aphasia), reading disorders (dyslexia), and losing eyesight or hearing disabilities. This is usually caused by the aging process. The disease process often fosters personality changes biochemically. As these signs of decline take place, we slowly withdraw from the world and into ourselves.
The third death is biological. We become immobile as the internal organs one after another fails. This is when the organism as a human entity declines gradually as the age advances. This will totally confine us to home. All thinking and desires will collapse in this stage. If we are chronically ill, we may have to be fed with artificial tubes or life support systems to keep us alive. At this stage, we need someone’s physical and psychological support.
The fourth and final stage of death is physiological. This is the cessation of all vital organs. At this point, we are declared officially dead. These four major stages of death normally succeed one another. In rare cases, the last phase may occur at the middle age. The point here is that we have to help ourselves for a peaceful transition from one stage of death to another. Through these stages, we need a lot of support from family, friends, and faith community.
The last phase is crucial to one’s life. How do we deal with these four agonizing stages of death that come during the final period of life? In our Sastras, the third phase of the four ashramas, or life stages, is known as Vanaprastha. It is a Sanskrit term derived from vana, meaning “forest,” and prastha, meaning “going to.” Therefore, it may be translated as “retiring to the forest.” It is a partial retirement from worldly life and has its own dharma. Retiring to the forest is not a viable option in the modern world. However, adhering to the dharma established during the Vanaprastha Ashrama period is feasible even if one chooses not to live in the forest.
After fulfilling all the responsibilities in life, we can accept the bare necessities of life by detaching ourselves from all wealth, possessions, and attachments and devote time for contemplation, self-expansion, and sattvic life, exploring the meaning of existence, though it is a difficult choice to endure. This is the only right time in the given life styles we have in the modern fast-paced world. It tells us not to simply wait to become old and die. We can create an ambience at home totally different from the routine life that we have led and start living with dignity and in harmony with nature, which we might have missed in the first two stages, the Brahmacharya and Grihastha stages because of onus responsibilities and duties. We can choose to be creative, calling back the childhood stage, and spend time in reading, writing, researching, creating new things, community service, painting, music, dancing, and other art-related activities, finding joy and fulfilment in those things.
We cannot expect the third phase of life to be healthy if the first two ashramas of life, Brahmacharya and Grihastha, are not followed correctly. Each stage has its dharma. These stages of life are related to each other. The effects of one stage of life carry over into the next. However, we can change how we live the remaining part of our life to be something meaningful to prevent loneliness, dismay, and stress. To facilitate a seamless transition from a decreasing age to death, there is no other choice than to decide to live a life that differs from the past.
Old-age homes and nursing homes are places where the residents just pass their time, living monotonous lives in loneliness, without any aspiration or enthusiasm, and simply waiting for death. One idea is looking for community living centres for the elderly where people after retirement from active public and private life can join as residents and find all activities to suit their tastes. This can become the Vanaprastha Ashrama for many elderly people in this stressful age. This can be avoided if caring for the elderly with respect, compassion, and affection is deeply ingrained in one’s family tradition, particularly in children who should be told that they would also face a similar plight when they grow into adults and reach the third phase of life. Regrettably, the ashrama dharma has turned upside down in the technical world, leaving us feeling depressed and hopeless. We must each address the crisis alone, without expecting assistance from others.
