Why Is There No Maturity Even Among Many Old People?

O Learned and Devoted Servants of God,

[Several devotees from various places, ranging from illiterate to highly qualified, came to Swami, seeking the clarification of their doubts in spiritual knowledge. Some of the prominent questions, along with the clarifications given by Swami, are given here.]

Q. Why there is no maturity even in many old people?

Swami replied:- The maturity in old people is expected normally because of weakness developed in the physical body to do the sin practically. This is not the correct concept completely. The judgement is given by the judge, but, it is not implemented due to the inefficiency of the executing department. At any time, the judgement can be implemented, once the department becomes capable due to full recruitment of its staff. The incapability of implementation is not perfect reason since the main level of giving the judgement is cleared. Hence, such maturity shall not be relied upon. Based on this imperfect concept only, the saying that an old man and an old woman are chaste resulted (Satiivrato naro vruddhah, vruddhaa naarii pativrataa)! Such a human being is said to be fraud (Mithyaachaarah sa uchyate— Gita).

The maturity shall come by the intensity of spiritual knowledge and not by age. Of course, you can find the possibility of some maturity in old people due to their long experience of their lives led. By the old age, the soul has a long account sheet of life, which is often recollected by the soul. By such repeated verification and analysis of many incidents in the past life, the soul will start linking the incidents as causes and corresponding effects. By observing an effect, its cause can be easily traced by following the principle of similarity between cause and effect, even in the absence of previous perception of the link between cause and effect elsewhere, as in the case of inference. The link between smoke and fire was seen in the kitchen and hence, elsewhere also, the hidden fire can be inferred from the smoke. But, if a lump of gold and golden chain exist side by side, one can infer gold as the cause of the chain even without any previous perception. The similarity between two is the gold. By this inductive analysis of similarity of gold, you can identify gold as the cause and the chain as its effect. The soul identifies the merits and sins done by it and their effects received in due course of time based on the similarity. If the soul damaged some other soul unnecessarily, it will link this to a later incident in which it was damaged by some other soul without any reason. Kalidaasa told that the causes of the effects can be easily inferred by the similarity in the nature (phalaanumeyaah Praarambhaah, samskaaraah praaktanaa iva). The long experience of the long previous life shows several such examples so that this concept is firmly established. Such confirmed concept is that both merits and sins will give their fruits in course of time without any failure. This concept is further extended by the concept of presence of unimaginable-omniscient-omnipotent God to implement these fruits of actions because fruits, actions and their links are inert by themselves and need a non-inert implementing authority.

The old person also realizes that the effects of his/her deeds were received by him/her even though he/she escaped the law of land through crooked tricks like corruption, influence etc. Once this concept is established, the old person gains the maturity of the spiritual knowledge related to Pravrutti or worldly life by which the person becomes an eligible adviser to the youngsters in the society. For this general concept, there are certainly some exceptions. A youngster with higher I.Q. may arrive at the establishment of this concept even through few examples observed in his/her short life. The youngster may also derive support from the advices of old people based on their long experience. Inference (Anumaana Pramaana) from experience of personal incidents observed and advice (Shabda Pramaana) from reliable elders can give perfect knowledge even to a youngster. At the same time, there are several old people, who do not make such analysis and spend all their time in the worries of worldly bonds of grand children (Vruddhastaavat chintaasaktah– Sankara). Hence, the general rule that an old person has maturity of knowledge has several exceptions on both sides! Therefore, age has the value of maturity of knowledge by way of long experience provided the analysis of the past life is taken up by the old people. We can say that the age has the chance of maturity, but, with several exceptional cases. The only reason for the maturity is the spiritual knowledge with logical analysis, which is irrespective of age. Kaalidaasa says that one becomes old even before attaining old age (Vruddhatvam jarasaa vinaa). Hence, it is said that the elderness in scholars is due to gained spiritual knowledge (Jnaana Vruddha) and not due to gained age (Vayo Vruddha). Shankara, a boy of sixteen years age, advised an old scholar of ninety years in the temple of Kaashi by singing ‘Bhaja Govindam...Muudhamate’. Here, the old man is addressed as a fool by the boy! You need not think that the boy is egoistic in calling the old man as fool. The reason is that if the maturity is not attained even in the old age, which is the fag end of the life, the situation is really horrible! If the student does not open the text book even after the declaration of preparation holidays in the month of March, how will you scold that student?

It is said that in the scholars, the respect shall be given by greatness in knowledge and that in the agriculturists, respect shall be given to the age of experience in the agriculture. The age of experience has no value if analysis was not done by the old person. Even a person of little age can strongly gain the experience of an old person by studying the scriptures written by the old people. It is said that the experienced knowledge is always stronger than the knowledge gained from books. But, if the youngster has full faith in the scriptures written by the old elders, the bookish knowledge also is very strong even in the absence of personal experience. In this point, faith is the main factor apart from personal analysis of self-experience.

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