Manly P. Hall: The Last 10 Years can be the Most Important

A number of years ago, a Hindu astrologer in Bombay sent me my horoscope, which he had carefully worked out. He assured me that I would probably pass on around my 65th year, but that my funeral would be magnificent. I wasn't quite prepared for the future, but it crept up on me, and here I still am, doing what I can.

Actually, I believe that the last 10 years of life are by far the most important, most interesting, and most significant. But to make them all that they can be, you have to start on them early. The idea of waking up one morning and finding yourself retired does not work out well. So you begin in early life to recognize the responsibility to society. It is part of our duties to carry on a self-supporting program, to have a family, uh, to maintain our part of the responsibilities of society. And this process generally takes us a number of years, so that by the time retirement comes, many persons are psychologically exhausted, badly bored, weary of everything, and with actually very few internal resources with which to do things during one of the most interesting periods of life. It is very important, therefore, that we start early, for those last 10 years have to be fed before they arrive. You cannot work with them just when they occur.

Now, to take care of those last 10 years, one of the most important factors is a disciplined life during the working years. There must be a reasonable economy. The individual cannot afford to spend everything; he cannot live up to his salary or his wages every day. If he does not use certain providence, he will wake up at the end—at the beginning—of the last 10 years with nothing to sustain him but Social Security. Now, sometimes it has to be that way, but in many instances it is the lack of disciplined living. Now, self-discipline is getting to be very unpopular, but it is still one of the most important experiences of human life. Self-discipline helps us to control our dispositions, our appetites, our attitudes, udes. It helps to make us more valuable to other people and more important and significant to ourselves. So discipline can start by the time we get ready to go to school; it can more or less give us a basic program upon which to build. It can point out to us that our career is for a reason, that we are doing something because we have opportunities and responsibilities, and most of all, we have responsibilities to society. And if these are promptly and carefully met, life itself will be far more interesting and important.

Too many young people today are starting out bankrupt. They do not even wait till middle life to lose; they lose almost immediately. They live beyond their means from the day they take the first job. They reach a point where they get a little rage, and then they have to have a swimming pool; then they have to move into a larger house; then they have to do more social entertaining, join clubs, do things of this kind, buy the most expensive furnishings and clothings, lay outside a tidy sum for alcoholic refreshments, and in these days, dearly go into bankruptcy every week on narcotics alone. Now, with this program, if the person lives to those last 10 years that are significant, he will arrive there not only impoverished but sick and more or less forgotten and ignored by the people he used to call his friends. So the start is to put aside something for those days when you can enjoy it most and when you had best had it.

If, therefore, during the years of work and activity you can build up at least a moderate financial reserve, then there are many things you can do in your retirement years that otherwise would not be possible. It's not nice to wake up with all kinds of hopes and wishes and no way of satisfying them. Now, it may not be that these activities are the primary purpose in your personal cases, but they have to also play a part, especially in times of inflation. So we start in by planning a life rather than having a series of actions; we plan it from the beginning; we have some kind of a course we intend to steer, and it is high time that education stepped in and helped us to make these this plan a reality. The plan begins probably with the job; it begins with the reason for the education and the specialization that the individual has adapted.

There is also in society, however, a mistaken idea, and that is that if you have a certain job or a certain perspective or a certain concept of life, you must live by it and by it alone all the way. If you're a banker, you must start and be a banker till the day they put you away. If you are a businessman, the business comes first, second, and last. Now, the one-pointed life is very hard on advancing years because, in many instances, it cannot be continued. The individual, by circumstances or by the rules of his corporation, must retire, and then he has no—no other outlets to fall back on. His children are grown; his family are self-sustaining; and if he has spoiled them, well, they care very little for him. So what does he do? He goes into these last 10 years more or less disillusioned; he finds himself incapable of simple pleasures; he has no outlets to take the place of this one tremendous surge of energy which he has devoted to his business or his profession.

It seems to me, therefore, that every child going to school should have the same kind of basic pattern that we find in certain universities, namely that you have a major and a minor; you have a major purpose, but you support it with other supporting activities. You may be going to head for law, but you may take a little language, and you might take a little art or music along with it. These extra forms, these secondary activities, often build an appetite or a basic frustration within the individual, and retirement brings the opportunity to use these avocational or secondary interests. What is necessary is, therefore, that early life should be used as far as possible to broaden a basis of appreciations, to become aware of the significance of things that most people overlook, and to have a more or less balanced pattern of life. A person reaching middle age should have some attitude, some conviction, some beliefs that are going to help him to face a useful retirement. Without these added values, he's going to have a very dull time, to say the most.

Now, when the time comes for the individual to change from his pattern to something else, he may have a choice. Now, if it happens—and it is happening more recently—that the possibility of continuing his present employment for a further length of years is available, the advantages of this, of course, have to do with his income and things of this nature. But also, if he has no other interest, prolonging his natural vocation may keep him alive; may give him a continuity of purpose; for the job disciplines him and makes it necessary for him to keep rules which otherwise he would break and continue contacts which he might otherwise neglect. So if this choice is available and the person has no other interest, then it is probably wise for him to continue a little longer, or as many years as he feels he can handle the situation.

I began quite early in life with many avocational interests, and I have found that all of them have contributed to one general attitude toward life. I have so many hobbies I can't even count them, and yet with all of them there has never been any confusion or interruption in the projects with which I was concerned. These various sidelines are moments of relaxation; they shift the mind into another channel; they relax us away from a dismal immediate problem; and they also give us constant opportunity to mingle with other persons who have also subsidiary interests. In other words, every hobby is somebody else's major purpose for living, and by cultivating hobbies we enlarge friendships; we meet interesting people; we come in contact with interesting projects; and in all, we have a fuller and better balanced life. The life that is all one-pointed is not a good one; it doesn't help much.

Now, up to recent years, this problem of a monotonous life had very strong, uh, interest for women. They had not been generally as active in public affairs or in avocational interests. I know years ago I've asked many, many women what their hobbies were, and most of them have answered instantly, their children. This is an interesting answer, but it is a substitute that is not genuine. Children are not a hobby; children are something that is very much more significant and very much more permanent as a responsibility. Hobbies you can neglect for a while; children you cannot. Therefore, in the life of a woman, a hobby should not simply be parenthood or marriage; it should be interest in art, music, literature, civic matters—all kinds of outlets by means of which the person develops a balanced attitude toward living. A balanced attitude also strongly conditions an opinion on any particular subject. The individual who is too wound up in themselves has very little interest in other people. The person who has a dogmatic attitude loses association with anyone who will not agree with him. So by degree intensities overcome the natural tendency to be a social animal. We are not able to meet other people because we have locked ourselves against any ideas that they may have, and as—as if—as is quite often our own ideas are very limited, life gets smaller and smaller, and by the time we reach retirement it is very small indeed.

So all the way along we begin to plan for what we're going to do later, and now more than ever before the probabilities of later loom to us as a great and reasonable likelihood. Uh, 100 years ago, very few people lived past 60; then a few of them broke through into 65, and there was a great deal of excitement in the world when population longevity statistics indicate that we had reached the three score years and 10 referred to in the Bible. Now this—the pattern is much larger and the interest much more widely diffused today. The probabilities of reaching not only 70 but 80 are by no means exceptional, and it is quite possible that the average person retiring from business at 65 can have 20 years of life ahead. Assuming that there may be some limitations upon activity, especially in the closing years of this extended life, there is still a tremendous amount of time in which to do important things.

Now, what are important things? Well, here again the personality has much to say with it. I think one of the things that is necessary to all forms of important life is a firm basic religious conviction. If we believe we are here for a reason, and if we believe that we are here to help each other, and if we believe we are here to be part of the building of a better world, we can face the future with greater enthusiasm than those who have no such internal resources. So a little idealism and a little conviction about the reason for a personal existence—these will help greatly to give strength and purpose to advancing years. Without something of this kind, it becomes comparatively bleak.

The next point that I think we should consider is special training as we go along through life. A—a hobby should be something that disciplines us; it should be something that also contributes to the building of character or to the manifestation of submerged potentials within the person. A hobby which is simply a time killer is not worth having, and probably this is true of a great many people today who spend practically all of their spare time in front of a television set. People doing this are cheating themselves of those years that are coming up, because the individual who has no intention of thinking seriously on any subject is—is going to reach retirement in a pretty empty condition. It is not the proper thing simply to use relaxation, rest, or vacations simply to waste time, to do things that mean nothing to the individual and may actually prove a detriment to his character. So whatever time we have, whether it be during the working years or in the retirement period, whatever time we have, we should use to do something that is meaningful. Now, this does not mean drudgery; it doesn't mean that we have to go around worrying about the future or something of that kind; it means, however, that we should spend this energy as far as possible helping ourselves to grow up, helping ourselves to be more of ourselves than we were before, that we may call upon latent talents and abilities, that we may strengthen interests and attitudes, that we may correct mistakes of character, that we may train and censor memories. All of these things help to prepare for that time when we should have a very serious and useful span ahead.

I've talked to a great many people recently, and most of them say they're tired, that they can't handle any more responsibility. But when they begin to think of their own life as a responsibility that they can't handle, they're going to get into trouble. Most people are not weary, worn out, tired out; they're bored. The things they are doing do not interest them; the projects which they have undertaken, which may have been wrong in the first place, do not come out as they hope, and then there is discouragement. The individual who starts a project should know enough how to finish it, but most people do not; they expect heaven to intercede or miraculous providence to make sure that a business will succeed even though it is badly managed. So all these problems come into focus in the course of daily living, and they all point their way little by little to the time when we have to live with ourselves, when it is no longer possible for us to simply continue making mistakes and forgetting about them.

Now, some people feel that memory is—is aided in older years by simply not being so acute, that a lot of worries and problems are forgotten. That is partly true, but I observed that, unfortunately, a memory—what forgets—is most likely to forget the good things first and leave the individual more or less bound into mental habits that are most discouraging. A bad memory can also lead to very serious complications in living, in thinking, and in human relationships. So it is not an escape; it may, to some degree, be an inevitable indication of advancing years, but it is not something to be cultivated as a means of forgetting problems; they just don't forget that easily.

Another problem that we have when we go along is to try to decide what we would do if we could do anything we wanted to do, and this—uh—someone—everyone should think about before they get to 50. What would they do if they could do anything—anything that pleased them, that they could have any type of life that they wanted within a re—a reasonable possibility or probability? There's no use wishing for something that is impossible, but that fulfillment of something that is attainable, some end that can be reached—this should be under consideration all the way through mature life. Mostly in business today, the person has not the outlets that he really enjoys; he is not doing the things he would most like to do, and that is one of the reasons why we are having so much problem with labor and so much tendency for society, business, and economics to deteriorate. It is because people are not basically keyed to that type of thing. The building of a vast economic empire was not the real reason for human invention or human life; it is something that has been forced upon us by the congestions of populations and the needs for food, clothing, and shelter. So we have to try to find out what is lurking in there. Uh, one person I know who did a very good job of it uh, took up watercolor painting at the age of 68, and at 78 won a national prize. Another took up sculpting past 70 and ended by having permanent pieces in the Lamborg in Paris. These things were—these people had always wanted to do these things but never could do them. The great problem here is, have you ever wanted to do them? Have you ever really wanted to do things sufficiently to train yourself, work for it, use your time and energy for that type of cultivation rather than what is commonly called relaxation, which is a more or less complete mental and emotional inertia.

On this basis, uh, the getting ready for the older years means that you're going to have more and more time to do the things you want to do. One person I knew also was a botanist, amateur botanist; never got any further than uh, naming and studying; read several books on botany; enjoyed it very much; and then after two children married, left and went away, and the husband died, this woman became more and more involved in botany. At the same time, however, she had to make a living, so she still held a job, but her heart and soul were in botany. But she was over 70; he began the compiling of a great book on herbal medicines and botany. It wasn't published during her lifetime, but it was later published, and this lady's career—that was a fulfillment of a great lengthily held conviction of importance. So everyone can do something that is important if they want to.

Now, several people also that I know think of uh, retirement as a period in which they should be entertained in some way; they should be surrounded by interests that are pushed on them; that they should have other people doing things to make them happy; that they should not be forced to make decisions of their own but should rather go—go along and let other people carry them to the end of life. This is another failure because today people just are not willing to help a person who is not willing to do anything on their own accord. It is far better for the individual to help himself than to wait for other people to take care of him.

After consideration of this thing, I kind of went back and looked myself over a little more to see what was happening. I remember very well that uh, the doctor who brought me in—who I knew as a very small infant—the doctor L.P., a medical man about 7 feet tall in Canada who always wore a tall Derby hat and smoked a terrible cigar; he looked at me one day and he said, "I don't know how you're going to live or how long you're going to live because of the symptoms and symbols that came in your arrival, cerian prenatal, all this type of thing, glandular complications, other odd ones," but he says, "I can tell you one thing, whether you live a long time or not, you're going to be over 6 feet tall." So he was right on that point, and uh, he also was more or less of the type of—of thinking that where health is not a basic commodity available, where you have to do the best you can with what you have, there is never the feeling that you're going to be a centenarian; it just doesn't seem that way. But I'm waking up now; I'm not a centenarian, and I still don't expect to make it, but I am finding that I have years that I hardly realized I would have, and looking back over them I realize that these years have been very interesting years.

If, for instance, we block out everything before my 65th birthday and say that I have lived certain things since then, I think I've had a very valuable and interesting experience. First of all, I've had things I've always done and always wanted to do that are not forced on me by anyone else but arising from convictions within myself. Those go on just the same. A doctor I know who had a family practice continued to be in active practice until he was 98 years old. Well, he had a practice that permitted it; he had a job that he could do that way, and I've had a job that I could do my way. But also, in the problem looking over, I find that has been a great deal of living that has been the most interesting and vital experiences of my life during this particular period of time. I have made five long journeys outside of the country—three to Asia and two to Europe. During this same period of time, I've advanced every hobby and attitude that I have and have still maintained a regular program of production—best maybe not as fast, not as quickly, but still with reasonable ease. I've enjoyed these years tremendously, and I have seen a lot of dreams that I had come true in these years. If I dropped out, I would never have known whether they came true or not, and if I hadn't had them, there would be no possibility of their working out constructively.

So I think there are all kinds of things that people can do and should be doing all the time to make life a constant challenge for growth and greater experience, and uh, these experiences all have something to do with uh, letting out the internal that is within ourselves. I think today, if people realize it, they could be much more valuable to each other. If they be quiet for a minute and remember what has happened to them and how they handled it and how their friends have met the problems of life, we could all learn from each other, and we can all learn from ourselves—from the mistakes we have made, from the decisions that have affected our characters and careers. There is no reason why the individual shouldn't roll up his sleeves at 70 and say, "Here we go," because if we're going to live longer, and if we continue to have improved medical facilities, health programs, and uh, Medicare and things of this nature, we should have the integrity to realize that these privileges cost money and that if we have them and benefit from them, we should contribute to the advancement of society. There is something that we owe when other people go in debt to take care of us. So there's really a very great reason for doing things that are basically important.

Now, what can we start with? We'll say if, by some chance, uh, we have reached retirement age with no valid program in mind, well, the first thing to do, I think, if we—health is good—is look around and find something that needs doing. Now, there are all kinds of things that need to be done which are not done because financial circumstances will not permit. If we are in a condition where we do not need this financial support other than what we have ourselves, then we can contribute to all kinds of works that need doing, that to help people, and we can find humanity as a hobby—something that is necessary and needed without consideration for money. I remember when I was growing up there were some people that did a little babysitting occasionally, and with this babysitting they never thought of being paid for it. Now I know a grandmother who babysits for $5 an hour for her own children and grandchildren; it's all on a business basis now. Well, if the person really wants to make a contribution to society and doesn't need financial return and would only expand it more or less wastefully anyway, here is opportunity to engineer and vitalize innumerable projects that are languishing because financial resources are over limited. There are all kinds of things that need to be doing also; there are all kinds of opportunities for the individual to take the experiences of the past and transmute them into progress for himself and other people.

We're living in an age that is changing constantly, day by day. There are new activities coming into existence. These activities are not miraculously bestowed by Heaven, however; they are the result of the gradual development of former situations that were less modern or less active. Therefore, today, each one of us, regardless of age, has the privilege of adjusting our own consciousness to progress. Now, in some cases, this progress may seem a little dubious, and I think there is no doubt in the world that all change is not progress, but there are new things coming along every day that can challenge the mind and can create new areas of interest, and to the last hour we live, we are here to learn. Therefore, every new development of society presents a challenge, and whether we ever intend to do anything about it or not, we should be contemporary to the degree of taking advantage of all facts that are made available in our generation. We cannot simply depend upon those that we held as right and proper 30 or 40 years ago; we must try to understand change; we must try to understand the—the critical situation the world is in and how it got there. There's no use of just swinging out and—and cursing someone or something; the problem is is to understand, to try to find out. Well, one person said, "Well, what's the use? I'm going to be dead in 10 years anyway; why should I understand these things?" Well, there's where your philosophy has to come in.

A little bit and help you out. It may well be that we'll drop the body somewhere along the line, but there's no proof that we'll be dead. There's no proof that we can die, and there's much to recommend the idea that when we leave here, we are better off if we take a group of valuable assets with us. The only things that we can take with us are our own insights, understandings, and achievements of inner Consciousness. We can take with us a disposition we have enriched, a temperament that we have disciplined and trained, an appreciation which makes us constantly aware of the wonderfulness of life itself. These inner powers can take us further. Otherwise, I do not see how nature could have justified the accumulation of them. If we were not going somewhere, there would certainly be no need to put hindrances in our way, but hindrances are there for us to overcome as part of growth. And if we can do that and do it properly, we have a very definite Advantage.

So now we'll take the other end of the stick and consider the probability that we are within a few years going to retire. Now, a lot of people do this in itself with as a certain type of Calamity. It is a bewilderment, and the most common reason that is given for looking forward to retirement is because the individual is tired. They're tired of the job; they're tired of work; they're tired of responsibilities. And they sort of see that they're going to have a kind of Indian summer, a late fall full of leisure, happiness, and contentment. But no matter how old we are or what we are doing, we still have to live with ourselves. And nearly everyone reaches the retirement age with some defects of character. We do not suddenly become perfect because we become older; we only become perfect when we become wiser, when we gain more and more insights as to what life means. And if there is anyone who needs deep and correct and inspiring insights, it is the individual who is reaching advanced years. There is every reason to want to meet those years with with a with attitudes that are constructive, happy, and useful. All these things take a certain amount of preparation.

Therefore, let us assume that having come to this point in life, that we estimate what our own internal resources are. Sit down quietly and say to yourself, "What am I going to do when this time comes? What am I really going to do? Am I going into a condominium? Am I going to go into a community retirement plan? Am I going to wait until there's a vacancy in some unit I have my mind on? Am I expecting to go with my children? What am I planning to do? What is it all going to be? And is it any prob is there any probability that it's going to be the happy and wonderful State we've looked forward to?" No one seems to be very sure about these things, but when the time comes, the individual has a tendency to be lazy. They have a tendency to say, "Well, I don't have to worry anymore. I can get by. I can't do much of anything, but there's not much of anything I want to do." So in these conditions, they sort of settle back and gradually rusticate into Oblivion. This has not much real Advantage. The individual who thought they were going to be blissfully happy isn't blissfully happy; they're bored; they're tired. They form all kinds of artificial interests to keep them busy, and these artificial interests, they know themselves, are not real; therefore, they do not do a great deal of good. Out of this also there comes a gradual breaking down of Health. The bored person, the individual without any real pattern for life, is is a good candidate for early illness. They have not kept up any discipline; they have not built for the future; and as the future becomes less and less interesting, they begin to wish they were out of here already instead of waiting a few more years. There are a great many people who really wish they weren't here anymore, and that means in some mysterious way they have managed to go down through the years and miss the meaning of life. There is something to be done that needs to be doing, needs the doing in order to cheer these people into a more correct and constructive relationship. So the time comes and something has to be done about it. And uh, sometimes there's ways you can go right out and do big and important things, but there are also times where much of this fullness that you search for has to be within yourself.

Now, in religion, we know that the theology is acceptable to a lot of people. They believe as their parents believed; they believed as their ancestors believed, and they continue in this belief to the end of life. There is a certain strength in this believing, because at least they believe something, whereas too many people come to these years believing nothing; they have no convictions on any reasonable subject. But in these people who are religiously inclined, are gradually changing their attitudes toward religion, little by little. The belief in the infallibility of theology is breaking down. We also become increasingly aware of the fact that religion is not something that can simply be communicated to us; it is something it's not something that can be bestowed by baptism; it is something that has to develop within the person himself. In the Oriental World, there are meditational groups that meditate for divine and guidance and light. And in India, of course, there is a kind of rule that at 7 at 65 years of age, the man or woman can retire from worldliness and devote themselves to preparation for Life Beyond. In other words, as they were brought into the world and grew up here as children, now they are going to go to another world where they also must grow up, where they must be prepared as far as possible for a different kind of life. And this different kind of life is indicated by meditational disciplines. The individual tries to discover the identity locked within himself. He tries to equate the values that he has assembled during his years of activity. Now, of of course, if he hasn't uh equated much, if he hasn't given it much thought along the way, he will be at a disadvantage, but even so, in these years there is what might well be termed a period which corresponds almost to Pythagorean discipline. The individual suddenly finds that uh it's just as important to put his own inner life in order as it was to educate himself when he was still a child. In this world, everything has to be prepared for, and in the older years, the contemplative life becomes more and more significant. It is almost inevitable that we should think about it, because we are quite certain that when we do finally depart from here, we're not going to be surrounded by Warfare; we're not going to be surrounded by institutions of one kind or another; and we're not going to attend the international uh Minneapolis uh car racing, nor are we going to watch from Heavenly Heights all the athletic teams and so forth which we watch so carefully on television every day. We're going to have a different kind of world, but there must be a different kind of us inside of ourselves that can adapt to this, or we wouldn't be here in the first place.

So the problem of readapting a point of view, of enlarging, mellowing, and deepening the realities of Life can constitute a discipline. Now, this discipline, as the Swami Viand observed on one occasion, is not a a meditation that is taken on for half an hour in the morning or 2 hours at night. The real discipline is a continuing realization of value all the time and the constant exploration of experience to discover value, to to see the world around us as a great symbolism, as a mass of figures and emblems bearing witness to Eternal realities. This type of approach can be cultivated; it can be and must be cultivated alone. It can't be done in group form, for the growth from within out is everyone's personal Journey. Others can Inspire us perhaps to attempt it or can tell us well how they're getting along with how they're doing it, but each person must make that Journey for themselves. And it's nice to believe that in order that this journey may be as useful, practical, and simple as possible, that a period of life is set aside for it, that this period of Life comes as a natural development of the maturing Instinct in ourselves. This this change in our life pattern has been intimated by Jung in his psychological writings, that gradually the individual of of themselves and of their own purposes begins to drop away from the false values that they've lived to most of their adult years. They are no longer interested in being foolish; they're no longer finding the satisfaction in selfishness; they discover that revenge is no motive that produces anything worthwhile that and self-pity is about as poor as any of them. All these things mean nothing in the form of growth or happening or security. Therefore, the time is given to us, sometimes maybe 5 years, 10 years, even 20 years, in which to really experience the growth of an inner nature, a growth that is no longer directly interfered with by the complex and competition of economic life. In retirement, the individual is in a sense partly free from the pressure of the sterility around him. He has an opportunity to think his own thoughts, to be himself, to make his own plans, and these things should be done properly and with insight and with definite realization of value. If the person begins to think about straightening out his own character, he will gradually find that he has found an avocational interest that is better than any other. But at the same time, he is not supposed to sit around all the time thinking about his mistakes or planning for some invisible future. What he is supposed to be doing in his meditation is releasing his real self to discover what his purpose in space is, where he came from and where he goes and why at this moment he is where he is and what this has to do with the past and how this is overshadowing the future. A study of orientation, sometimes as I've known on a number of cases, leads to a new friendliness that was never present before. Suddenly, the person has no enemies; they have no adversaries, for they have discovered that their problems were within themselves. Also, in this type of Life, there comes a certain necessity for judgment and to a measure for adjustment with an other world Beyond this one. Little by little, the material Consciousness disentangles itself; it gradually separates from many of the pressures that it once knew. Now, this separation is not in the form of loss; there is no sense of loss; it is merely a problem of dropping some ballast that we don't need. It gradually becomes obvious that if we would travel far, we must travel light. Too many burdens of thought, too elaborate establishments to keep up, too many duties to do, the material things—these become unreal. Reality shifts from what we have to what we are, and when this happens, we've made a very great step into the future, because after all, the great step is to the unfolding of the Divine potential within ourselves. If we are searching for God and searching for truth, we must finally turn that search Church search inward into the deepest parts of our own natures. And many have done this with great success and have enjoyed it immensely.

If a person in good in good middle life with family responsibilities and so suddenly desires to leave the world of M material things and and a monastic orders or something of this nature, he may do so to escape responsibility; he may be making a very serious mistake. If, however, his responsibilities are finished, as in older years, he then has a perfectly proper right to direct his attention upon the internal life of himself. Under those conditions, the monastic life may come, but not at a time when he should be taking care of his material obligations. So we can divide life like the mysteries of the Ancients; they do three essential steps or grades. The uh first grade is that of physical emphasis. In the first grade of life, we pay the debt that we owe to the world and to our own parents and to the circumstances around us. Other people are helping to make our life possible; they are helping to give us an education; they are providing with with as much health and happiness as they can; they are guarding our well-being with certain solicitude. Therefore, these things all constitute a debt, and this debt we sometime must pay. So whereas the first third of life is to learn and to become capable of manifesting the full measure of our potential, then comes the second part of life in which it is our duty to make payment for what was done for us, as we were helped by our parent, so we become parents to help our own children. As we have carried the responsibilities uh of learning, so we must pay these debts and must perform our part of maintaining the E the economy and the survival of physical Society. So in the second third of Life, the individual goes into business, earns his living, pays his debts, raises his children, and uh becomes a householder. Now a lot of people now feel that the householder is a is some kind of a profane thing, that he should try to dodge all these responsibilities, make a solo flight to Nirvana. This is not very practical. However, we do not accomplish by evasion or by neglect the development of the householder, and his duties are just as sacred as any other part of life. The individual who doesn't pay his debt to society with a good Grace by doing those things for others that others did for him is missing the entire meaning of religion; he is living a very selfish, self-centered life, and he is not supposed to do this. He must pay his debts as he goes along, and to avoid the payment of debt is a moral sin, and especially this is true in connection with his responsibilities to society. This means means also that in these years he is permitted to have all natural and proper happiness, all things that are useful and proper to to his family. He can know the affection of parents, no affection of the marriage partner, understand the love of children—all these things are part of Domesticity, and this is the second step in the mystery of growth, that these things should be proper. Therefore, the individual who on small count breaks up a home or refuses to accept the responsibilities because he wishes simply to enjoy life himself at the expense of other people, he has flunked the second test; he is not doing what he's supposed to do. He cannot solve this by going to church; the only way he can solve it is to do the thing he is supposed to do, the thing that is is his proper obligation in life. Failure to do that and hope for spiritual achievements goes out the window. He must grow. Life is a growth, and no one grows by becoming an alcoholic or antics addict; no one grows by spending everything on themselves and ignoring those who are dependent on them; and no one grows by making a home; no one can live in this type of thing. Is the part of the second path; it is a test; it is a probation ship, which is the proper term for it. A probation ship is a period of testing; it is a period to prove that you are worthy of what comes next, and if you have weighed in the balance and found wanting, you will go no further at that time, at least. You may have to wait for other embodiments in order to make any further progress, because we if we are obedient and faithful unto small things, we will be made Masters over greater things. The tendency now is to forget the Small Things, ignore them, and make mad dashes for some kind of happiness that has little or no significance.

If as a householder you have completed your labors, if your children have grown and are on their own, self-supporting, and the husband and wife are facing the future together, then there are two ways they can go, according to the Oriental path. One is to retire into an Asam or go into a seclusion somewhere or join a religious community or settle down to the reading of Sacred Scriptures or perform pilgrimage or do anything that they feel is right, often including a dedication of service to orphans and to the parentals, those who have lost everything to God and help the suffering, to give peace to those in trouble, but absolutely no longer any emphasis upon self-achievement in worldly things. On the other hand, if the person doesn't wish to do that particular uh thing, he can simply retire into a proper Hermitage or a quiet place and there commune with life and commune with nature. He can allow himself to be rewarded for the fact he has kept all the rules, but he is not there just for the purpose of being comfortable; he is there because he realizes that within himself is something that all this evolutionary process is all about, that somewhere within himself is this growing thing. He realizes that in the in childhood or youth he didn't understand this thing and couldn't do much about it. In the maturity of Life as a householder, he had to sacrifice his own good for the service of other people. Now, however, freed of this, he sacrifices his own good for the glory of Truth. He settles down to understanding the best that he can, his place in a universe that goes on and on. He wants to become adjusted to the divine plan, a plan which will always be a threefold plan. As he goes on, he will go on to learn again; he will become a householder again, and he will retire again, but in each embodiment he should do it more wisely, more lovingly, and with greater insights. Every decision of life depends upon insights brought forward from previous embodiments. As these insights improve and grow and strengthen, they are available to add more substance to Future lives. The person then becomes a kind of well-integrated subject of life.

Now, in our Western way of life, we can't probably do quite these things, and it may not be that we should, but we have not had the background training; we have not been brought up in a broad sense of responsibilities; we have not been taught from the beginning to develop our own characters; we have waited for other people to shape them for us. Also, in our various forms of employment, we have never really experienced the mystery of relationships; we have never really understood how the divine plan works out on every professional level, on every trade and business level, in every craft. There isn't a thing we do in this world, from the most abstract banking down to hoeing in a garden, that is not a m some manifestation of universal law. Everything is part of something else, something bigger and something more complete. Today, in the West, we have the eyes to see the Divine purpose behind the commonplace. In fact, we take many glorious things and interpret them as commonplace, which is a serious mistake. But anyway, we are going to go on and carry these problems with us, and we are going to try the next time we are a child to be a better child, to be a truer and more faithful friend, parent, and relative, more helpful, not necessarily just simply a doting child, but a cooperating one, a child that even in its early life helps the family problems, finds full satisfaction in being being useful in the household instead of thinking of every possible way to escape from it. So by degrees our childhoods are changed by rebirth and by experience, by meditation and by contemplating the consequences of our own conduct. Then, as we go further into the household stage, we carry each time something we have learned from the past. Perhaps we will have had from the past the realization of the tragedy of a broken home, and we will try to prevent it again. We will do what we can to be more patient and more understanding. Uh, perhaps in the past we had a good home, but it was damaged by War and catastrophe, and we had to face the problem of surviving the losses of the very natural uh occurrences which make life significant and valuable. All the way we have to learn to accept, interpret, and use everything that we have known. We will also be more patient and kindly in the problem of supporting those who depend upon us. We will gradually learn that it is our duty to meet every responsibility we have assumed, and having committed ourselves to a responsibility, that we shall fill it at all cost. This becomes more and more obvious as time goes on. And today we have homes of different values all over the world. There are many wonderful homes in which those who have brought forward the experience of the past have learned how to make a wonderful home. There are others which are very brittle and temporary and have very little substance because they are the result of a life still undisciplined and dedicated and unaware of the realities.

So finally, as it comes to the meditational part of life, we find various ways of working with these subjects. We find Opportunities to help Society; we help to help underprivileged ations to take care of those in burdened and in sorrow. And if our intelligences and integrities are sufficiently developed, we may be able to become in public a leader in some field of Reform or revitalization of Virtues. All these things are part of a cycle, and it is in the period after our retirement from the business world today that we really have a chance to think about these things. We have a chance to do our own dreaming, do our own building, and also to watch every day for opportunities to learn more and to understand better. We find out gradually that while we started out in life perhaps to criticize a lot of things that we didn't believe in, that by the time we retire our tendency to criticize is uh considerably reduced. Uh, probably was good of rule on that is to come maybe in the maturity of our years to the realization that everyone or nearly everyone is doing the best he can for what he is, and it's that for what he is that there is the big catch in the question. We expect more from people than they are. That doesn't mean that they should not be more than they are; they should be, but if they have not achieved it, then from what they are they move, and their actions are often very unpleasant. But we have have to understand that behind all unpleasantness there is a life locked in that unpleasant person that is just as beautiful and just as wonderful as that of the greatest canonized Saint; it just hasn't come through, and we must try in all ways to recognize that what hasn't come through we must encourage in any way that we can, and what what we cannot encourage we should suffer as quietly and patiently as possible.

Now, another problem that confronts these older folks is fa failings of Health. Uh, after a while, somewhere along the lines U the body doesn't respond as well as it used to. The body, instead of being a vehicle, becomes a prison, and of course we can look back, and many people do look back and realize that they help to build that prison themselves. The failure of the individual to keep the laws of the the physical health is just as detrimental to his body as he breaking the moral laws is detrimental to his morality. The body is a very useful instrument, a wonderful power, and it should be treated with as much natural respect as possible, always served wisely, never spoiled, always in every way possible uh maintained as a Priceless asset, something that has that has made it possible for us to have all the learning, all the thought, all the affection, all the progress that have been given to the world for thousands of years. We then say, "Well, if that's all true, why do we have so much trouble in this world? Why are people so often incapable of reacting uh to the better side of themselves?" That again is a problem that we have to go back into rebirth to find the answer. There are some who have simply not grown up; there are a great many human beings in middle life today who are spoiled children; there are some who are just barely out of infancy, and yet they may consider themselves great people and hold public office. They just don't realize that maturity is not something that is measured in terms of years or in terms of the formal education or the business experience that we have have. Maturity is an unfolding of value within ourselves. An individual who is mature does not do things which damage himself or others; he chooses his Arts, his interests, his Hobbies, his advocations, and his Pleasures from among those things which are constructive, useful, and in and in some way Advance his own aesthetic and moral conduct. Maturity, therefore, is something that you cannot

Make in terms of physical years, and we have to recognize that every individual who falls short of basic integrities is immature. Every person who is selfish is adolescent. Every individual who finds pleasure in the sufferings of others is infantile. The uh, the things have to remain; these problems occur, but the wise person—the one who is trying to grow—tries to understand them and not let these delinquencies affect his own integrities. He must realize that because others are dishonest, this does not justify dishonesty on his part; if he knows better. We must live on the level of our convictions; to compromise them is fatal. If we compromise them too much, we can destroy the mind, the emotions, and the body. If we neglect the body, it sickens; if we neglect the emotions, they become bitter and cruel; if we neglect the mind, it becomes critical and harsh. Therefore, to keep all these things in a good condition so that we can learn something every day and grow every day, we must watch and discipline our own conduct. And in the last years of life, we can pull all these strings together and make one solid pattern out of them.

It's not that we are leaving either forever or for some distant and unpredictable future; we are just going out to the next step in our own growth, and we might as well be prepared to recognize that until we grow, we continue to suffer the absence of the growth that is necessary. The individual is, we say, looking for happiness. Now, happiness is not something that can be measured exactly in terms of our lives as we know them. Happiness is the reward for doing right. Happiness is the something mysterious that puts all things in order. If we live as we should, there can be no true or lasting happiness apart from maturity of emotions and minds. They cannot—the happiness can be contentment for the moment. The alcoholic thinks he's happy if he's intoxicated, but he is; intoxication is a false happiness, and any type of happiness that is based upon false values will ultimately break down.

So, all through the time we have in life, we can look back, and we can say, "I knew Jones. I know what happened to him. I'll never forget the bad time a sister had on a certain occasion. I can't forget the problems we had with the children, nor can they forget problems we had with the government or with the community or with the neighbors. We can't forget the fact that we were overcharged, underprivileged, and exploited." All these things come back in our older years, but with them comes perspective. The moment we can look back over 60, 70 years of things happening and rehappening, we will begin to see coming through the pattern of the Divine Purpose. If we don't see that pattern, then all this living we've done is in vain, and we will leave this world embittered and disillusioned, to come back and fight it out again. But if we are enlightened, we will see, by looking back, hundreds of examples, hundreds of proofs of the importance of values, of the significance of what really works, what really is accomplished in life. We'll begin to find out what really made the most—most—of life for ourselves; how we got along the best; how we were able to hold our friends; how we kept the love of our relatives; how we kept the laws of our land. All these things come back, and little by little, we find that this perspective spreads. You can't get a good perspective on life unless you work out where it came from and where it goes from here. You can't get a proper perspective—I've—on the destiny of humanity unless we realize that it comes in with unfinished business and it goes out with unfinished business. No one is going to accomplish all of it in any one lifetime. We are bringing into life problems that we haven't solved; we take out—with us—problems we haven't solved. But somewhere between birth and death, some of these problems should be solved. There should be advancement of some kind; there should be at least a 1% improvement all around. If there isn't, then we're in a serious problem, and for many people, there isn't a 1% improvement. They are more disillusioned than when they leave than they were when they came in; nothing has satisfied them; life has been miserable, largely because their own personal ambitions were frustrated. They tried to be happy but didn't try to make anybody else happy, so everyone was miserable.

So these things we have to learn, and we can, by looking back upon the experiences of life. We can also look back upon great art; we can look back upon wonderful music. We can find all kinds of social and human values that have come down to us. We can appreciate the achievements of creative genius. We can also recognize how very simple and humble things brought us the greatest comfort and security. We can remember the Walden of Thoreau and the simple poems—the very beautiful poems—of Emerson. We can find all kinds of achievements, and our lives can be rich with constructive ideals and deeper types of thought. All these things—all add up to a little confusion when you start on it. They—some of them will tumble over each other; some of them will frustrate each other—but out of a long life, they should come a pattern—a pattern that is our pattern and yet, at the same time, is not really ours because it is the pattern of everything that lives, but we have adapted it in our own way to our own need. And uh, if at some time along the way we—we were a little careless and a little thoughtless, and we reach our 70s and we say to ourselves, "I've not been the genius I thought I was, or I've not been the Great Soul I believed myself to be," there is probably still another 10 or 15 years to make more progress. We can begin at that point to make those changes that we know we should have made when we were young, and we realize finally that nature is perfectly willing to accept it that way. Nature is perfectly willing for us to become enlightened when we can—can—and in whatever way is possible to us. And if we solve a problem now, we won't face it again. If we correct a fault honestly and sincerely, we will not again have that fault to bother us. But to correct a fault does not mean to say, "I shouldn't have done it that way." It is a deeper feeling of realization of a mistake; it is also a deeper recognition of what would be necessary to correct that mistake and a resolution not to make that mistake again.

Perhaps in the course of this type of—ry, if you want to call it that—you might pick up the telephone and talk to someone in a kindly way that you have not spoken to for 20 years, simply because you had a few—but unless the thought of doing it better produces some kind of tangible result, it is apt to be forgotten; it is apt to be passed over lightly when the times of testing come. But if we really do something, we can say to ourselves, "All right, I—I really did do that. I found him, and he hung up on me; he wasn't at all interested in renewing the acquaintance." When we hung up on you, that was his problem; when you found him, that was yours. And the fact that you tried and sincerely made an effort to the point of doing something, there was a certain tiny modicum of advancement here; there was something that's a little better, and you have overcome a deficit in your own nature. Now, there are large deficits and small ones. One of the—the common kind that we find a lot is difference of opinion in religion. Many people grow up in a conservative religious home, perhaps very orthodox, or they grow up in a home where there isn't any religion at all. But regardless of these two extremes, each individual has to make his own peace with truth; if he doesn't, he's going to be in a bad way. And always we have to realize that religious sectarianism, with religious conflict, religious intolerance, and religious bigotry are something that we must all face in ourselves if it happens to be our problem. If we have a kind of—of mind that is unable to go over the boundaries of our own creed to see good in anything else or anyone else, or we begin to think of ourselves as saved because we have a belief whereas somebody else with identically the same belief isn't saved because he doesn't belong to our faith, this type of thinking is something else we have to get over. We have carried religious intolerance in this world for thousands of years, and it is obvious from experience that it is one of the difficult things to get over; it is something that has taken ages to get even to the point where we are now. Therefore, it's—it's true, and something we have to face, that unless we are able to do better, unless we are able to overcome these intolerances in ourselves, the religious conflict will go on to the end of time. But if we begin to correct ourselves, the conflicts will cease.

Therefore, wherever we—asso—see a social evil, something that is wrong in society, and we recognize that it is wrong, then we must try to cease practicing it ourselves. We must not add to that which obviously is a desperate dilemma for humanity. We have crime; we have war; we have all these things that prove that the human race has not yet outgrown deficiencies within itself. If it has these deficiencies, it is quite possible that each of us shares to some degree in these deficiencies. We also very likely have not come to a dynamic solution of problems; we have not found the religious—uh—tradition that is proper and right in each other; we have not—now—allowed ourselves to be at peace with the God of All Peoples. We have the same problem in racial situations; we have it in all kinds of arts and sciences. We have modern artists we don't appreciate; we have modern music we don't think anything can appreciate. But all these things represent rebellions, represent efforts to escape from something, and wise people don't make these strangely disordered and distorted escapes. Wise people, finding something that they can't stand or do not like, go to work on themselves; they either learn to give other people the right to like as they please, or if the matter is one where actual difficulties or dangers are involved, the individual takes his own position and refuses to be overwhelmed by the things around him. If we can start building good, we will find—ev—evil gradually vanishes. If we start living together in a cooperative manner, many forms of crime and delinquency which are based upon competition and discord will fade away. And as we gather to see what we're going to leave behind us when we go, it is a very wise thing to try to prove or see in ourselves these laws operating—that no matter what we think or how we feel, there are great patterns of reality that we cannot change—change. We are part of those patterns; we come and go with those patterns; and while we are here and able to breathe, we should do all we can to become adjusted with that which is essentially right in life. And after we get to the point of reminiscence, after we get to the point where we're no longer vitally involved in the conflicts of life, we have a right to sit back and think about it and try to see if we can't leave this world at peace with all things here and with an eager and open heart to go on to that which is next, according to the divine plan. We do that, we'll get along somehow. Okay, thank you very much.