Quest Magazine

Printed in the  Summer 2025  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Iyer, Shri Raghavan, "Buddhi Yoga and Svadharma"   Quest 113:3, pg 24-32

By Shri Raghavan Iyer 

Whosoever knoweth me to be the mighty Ruler of the universe and without birth or beginning, he among men, undeluded, shall be liberated from all his sins. Subtle perception, spiritual knowledge, right judgement, patience, truth, self-mastery; pleasure and pain, prosperity and adversity; birth and death, danger and security, fear and equanimity, satisfaction, restraint of body and mind, almsgiving, inoffensiveness, zeal and glory and ignominy, all these the various dispositions of creatures come from me. So in former days the seven great Sages and the four Manus who are of my nature were born of my mind, and from them sprang this world. He who knoweth perfectly this permanence and mystic faculty of mine becometh without doubt possessed of unshaken faith. I am the origin of all; all things proceed from me; believing me to be thus, the wise gifted with spiritual wisdom worship me; their very hearts and minds are in me; enlightening one another and constantly speaking of me, they are full of enjoyment and satisfaction. To them thus always devoted to me, who worship me with love, I give that mental devotion (buddhi yoga) by which they come to me. For them do I out of my compassion, standing within their hearts, destroy the darkness which springs from ignorance by the brilliant lamp of spiritual discernment.

—Bhagavad Gita, 10:3‒11

In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna represents the universality and versatility of boundless joy (ananda) and the unconditional love at the core of cosmic and human evolution. Wherever thought has struggled to be free, wherever the human heart has opened itself to the invisible Spiritual Sun, and wherever even a drop of wisdom has been awakened through suffering and pain, courage and persistence, there you will find the immortal Spirit, the sovereign power of the omnipresent purusha.

All the rishis and mahatmas reside within the universal form (brahmanda) of Vishnu-Narayana-Krishna. In saluting them, one experiences a sense of the timeless, a transcendence that reaches beyond all limits, frontiers. and boundaries of manifestation.

One may greet the Supreme in the midnight sun, in the dawn of Venus, at midday or in the gathering dusk—the time of memory or the time of reverie. And one must always reach out towards that Divine Darkness which is prior to all worlds and beyond all forms. Myriads upon myriads of worlds of billions of beings arise from that Divine Darkness and reside in the unmanifest light of the invisible form of Vishnu-Narayana.

That light neither rises nor sets, neither waxes nor wanes. It is the same light which, in the words of the Gospel according to John, irradiates every soul that comes into this world. It is the light to be found in the sound of the AUM, uttered, however imperfectly, by every baby at birth. It is the light that descends upon every human being at the moment of death, when he or she stands ready to cast off the external garments of this world and return to the inmost vesture, the karana sharira, and come closer to the atman. It is also the light-vibration of the ever-present Brahma vach that pulsates throughout the cosmos, maintained in motion by mighty men of meditation, dhyanis, rishis, mahatmas, Buddhas, and bodhisattvas. All human beings can return, again and again, to sit at the feet of Lord Krishna and so learn how to brighten their lives and awaken compassion in their hearts.

Every pilgrim soul who seeks to increase skill in action for the sake of increasing his or her capacity to add even a little to the sum of human good can benefit from the teachings of Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita. Taken as a whole, the Gita is a treatise on yoga, the kingly science, of the individual soul’s union with the universal Self.

That union is, ontologically, ever existent. But because of the maya of manifestation and the descent of consciousness through vestures which seem to create a world of many selves and many forms, the human mind becomes alienated from the true inmost Self in which Ishvara resides. It becomes confined within time and space, within past, present and future, and it must struggle to overcome these illusions. Thus the whole of the Gita is a summons and challenge to engage in that righteous warfare which every human soul must undertake.

In the eighteenth chapter of the Gita, Lord Krishna declares that if one will not voluntarily choose to engage in this righteous war, karmic necessity will compel one to do so. The wise are those who cooperate with cosmic necessity, with their own divine destiny, with their own sacrosanct duty or svadharma. The wisest are those who choose as firmly and as early as possible, making an irreversible and unconditional commitment, in the gracious manner and generous spirit of Lord Krishna. Without doubt or hesitation, they choose His path, His teaching. and His prescribed mode of skill in action.

In the second chapter of the Gita, Krishna begins by affirming to Arjuna the eternal existence of one indivisible, inconsumable, inexhaustible Source of all life, light, and energy. Having dispelled the danger that Arjuna would abandon through fear the righteous battle and his svadharma, Krishna presents before Arjuna the talismanic teaching of buddhi yoga:

Yet the performance of works is by far inferior to mental devotion (buddhi yoga), O despiser of wealth. Seek an asylum, then, in this mental devotion, which is knowledge; for the miserable and unhappy are those whose impulse to action is found in its reward. But he who by means of yoga is mentally devoted dismisses alike successful and unsuccessful results, being beyond them; yoga is skill in the performance of actions: therefore do thou aspire to this devotion. For those who are thus united to knowledge and devoted, who have renounced all reward for their actions, meet no rebirth in this life, and go to that eternal blissful abode which is free from all disease and untouched by troubles. (Bhagavad Gita, 2:49‒51)

Buddhi yoga requires a fixity and steadfastness in intuitive intelligent determination which is superior to karma yoga, the yoga of works, as a means of gaining enlightenment. It involves an eye capable of recognizing essentials, which, once awakened, will give a decisiveness without wavering or wandering. Through this resolute intellect, one’s actions may become shadowless— nischaya. Even though, as a member of the human family participating in the world’s pain, ignorance, and turbulence, one may be obscured, nonetheless one inwardly preserves the dignity of the power of choice. It is, therefore, possible to touch within oneself that level of absolute resolve which ensures that something essential will never be abandoned, diluted, or doubted, never weakened by careless speech or lost in the chaos of compulsive acts, but always protected from discursive and dissecting manasic reasoning. Every human being enjoys such moments of assurance. Otherwise it would not be possible to survive. Even fools and knaves have a few moments of sushupti at night inspiring them to awaken in the morning to greet another day. Were it not for this abiding sense of assurance about one’s minimum dignity within the core of one’s being, one could not go on.

This sense of one’s distinct place in the total scheme of things is what Spinoza called the conatus, the urge or will to sustain rational and spiritual self-preservation. This is not merely an intellectual notion but a biological fact. When a person begins to approach death, the anahata vibration in the spiritual heart ceases to sound in the linga sharira. The sage or seer can recognize this cessation of sound as well as a subtle alteration in the rate of breathing several months before the time of physical death. Throughout this period, the human being is engaged in a protracted review of the whole of his or her life, a review which is too often chaotic and confused, a jumble of recent memories and childhood events. Only at the time of separation from the physical body is the soul enabled to view in an orderly and rapid manner the entire film of an entire life. In the final preparation for this there is an ebbing of the connection between the sound vibration in the spiritual heart and the karana sharira and the vibration in the linga sharira, and therefore also in the sthula sharira. Once this ebbing begins, the person has begun to withdraw or die.

The sense of resolve and human dignity is so weak in human beings today that vast numbers, in the phrase of T.S. Eliot, are only “living and partly living.” They have become so disgusted with the world, so confused about the events of our times and the precipitous decline of humane values throughout the globe, that they are hardly incarnated. They are mostly asleep or sleepwalking, drowsy or passive, or they mechanically go about their duties. They maintain none of that minimal wakefulness that is found in many a humble villager who, through desperation and poverty, maintains intact the light in the eyes, the light of manas and human self-awareness. Paradoxically, one can sometimes sense the ray and radiance of pure consciousness in the most desperate and despised of human beings, whilst others have, alas, been educated beyond their capacity to make use of their knowledge.

Between the head and the heart there is a terrible chasm, or even a battle. Many tend to be lost and therefore they live and partly live. It is as if the will to live, the conatus, has weakened; nothing remains but an automatism of habit and the power of cohesion in the skandhas. This is the pitiable condition referred to by Lord Krishna when he speaks of those who are wedded to the fruits of action. The plight of those who have conditioned themselves only to act for the sake of results is an indictment of modern education in Kali Yuga. The Iron Age arms too many people to live only in terms of what is perceptible, measurable, and tangible. Having reduced all to the terms of a utilitarian consciousness, they come to view their fellow human beings in a crude Lockean fashion: “Every human being is a threat to you, unless you can join interests with him.” If a person is neither a threat nor an accomplice in some selfish interest, he is a stranger. Today vast numbers of human beings live in cities of strangers. They live alone amidst humanity, unloved, with no sense of warmth. Such is the tragic condition of modern man.

Over five thousand years ago Lord Krishna anticipated this condition of varnashankar, the confusion of castes. Although it will increase and proceed throughout the entirety of Kali Yuga, it will also provide an opportunity for those who engage consciously and voluntarily in a discipline of intuitive determination, buddhi yoga.

Human beings who are yoked to buddhi are lifelong exemplars of buddhi yoga. Preferably before the age of seven, and in rare cases even before the age of three, they have permanently married themselves to the Light of the Logos within the secret spiritual heart. Having so early betrothed themselves and permanently married themselves to the Lord within, they go through the obligations of life with ease, without much expectation, but with a certain lightness and skillfulness in the performance of duty. They do what is needed for their parents and grandparents. They do not despise those who claim to be their rivals or enemies. They do not become too attached to their own siblings and see themselves as essentially no different from the other children they encounter from poorer families, from humbler circumstances, or even from rich and unhappy families. All of them they recognize as a part of one sacred family.

Between the ages of seven and fourteen, having already secretly betrothed themselves to this inner core of the Ishvara within, they become quite ready to engage in the duties of the grihastha ashrama. At the same time, they have cultivated that skill in self-education which will last all through the grihastha ashrama and take them into the third ashrama. Even if they cannot retreat into the solitude of forests, mountains, or caves, but remain in the midst of society, they will be like wanderers or parivrajakas, preparing themselves for the fourth ashrama. They will always be one step ahead of the stages of life.

By the age of twenty-one they will have sharpened their powers of reason, and by the age of twenty-eight they will have developed sufficient buddhic insight to be able to synthesize and select, so they are able to let go of what is irrelevant and inessential. They can follow the teaching of the Buddha: “O Bhikshu, lighten the boat if you will cross to the other shore.” While others who are less wise are engaged in amassing and accumulating, they learn to lighten their claims upon the world and their demands upon others. By lightening their expectations from institutions, their hopes and fantasies in relation either to the opposite sex or to children or parents, they become capable of looking with eyes of wonder each day for what is unexpected. They begin to perceive the unwritten poetry of human life and the silent drama of human existence. Thus they become witnesses to the divine dialectic ceaselessly at work.

Such souls are fortunate, for they have chosen to become yoked to buddhi. Having established true continuity of consciousness in youth, by the age of thirty-five they have already started withdrawing. At the moment of death, whether it come early or late, they are able to engage in a conscious process of withdrawal, maintaining intact the potency of the AUM. In life they have not merely learnt to meditate upon the AUM, but also to enact it. They have learnt the art of will-prayer and gained the ability to act in any and every situation for the good of others, without expectation of reward. They have learnt to cast their actions, like offerings, into the ocean of universal sacrifice in the spirit of the AUM. Thus they are able to experience the AUM, whether in the silence that precedes the dawn or in the noisy rush and din of cities. Even in the cacophony and cries of human pain they hear the AUM. It cries out to them in all of Nature’s voices. So they maintain continually an awareness of the AUM, and well before the moment of death, they are able to receive the help that will enable them to follow a life of svadharma and buddhi yoga in their future incarnations.

Having given Arjuna preliminary instruction in buddhi yoga in chapter two of the Gita, in chapter four Krishna conveys the correct mental posture of the disciple. He depicts that divine bhakti which is the prerequisite for jnana and also the true spirit of karma yoga, because they all fuse into a sacred current of consciousness.

Seek this wisdom by doing service, by strong search, by questions, and by humility; the wise who see the truth will communicate it unto thee, and knowing which thou shalt never again fall into error, O son of Bharata. By this knowledge thou shalt see all things and creatures whatsoever in thyself and then in me. (Bhagavad Gita, 4:34‒35)

In this depiction of the perfect posture of the chela, Krishna stresses the humility of the wise and the silence of the strong, virtues of the sage whose portrait was given in the second chapter of the Gita. Having conveyed this ideal posture, Krishna proceeds in the seventh chapter to present buddhi as an element in cosmic manifestation. Here he goes beyond the teachings of the Sankhya school, which holds that buddhi is a kind of radiant matter or substance present throughout all Nature. Krishna affirms buddhi as wisdom itself and inseparable from himself, something that no human being can develop except by the grace of the Lord.

In all creatures I am the life, and the power of concentration in those whose minds are on the spirit. Know me, O son of Pritha, as the eternal seed of all creatures. I am the wisdom (buddhi) of the wise and the strength (tejas) of the strong.

Bhagavad Gita, 7:9‒10)

To understand this, a human being must be able to insert himself or herself into the whole of humanity, recognizing that there is a cosmic force working in human evolution. This is mahabuddhi, connected with mahat and akasha, the alkahest of the hierophants and magicians. It is the universal solvent and the elixir of life. It is the basis of self-conscious immortality and self-conscious transmutation of the linga sharira and the sthula sharira. It is the Light of the Logos.

All expressions of intelligence—whether latent, partial, or highly specialized, whether precise, diffused, or merely potential, whether in a dog or an adept—are drops in one universal shoreless ocean of cosmic buddhi. Therefore no human being can develop buddhi yoga on the basis of individualistic conceptions of progress. One cannot simply say to oneself that because one has seen through one’s illusions, one is now going to become an apprentice in buddhi yoga. To say that is to misapprehend the nature of the quest. All forms of yoga require, at some level, what M.K. Gandhi called anashakti, egolessness; this is supremely true in buddhi yoga.

In the practice of spiritual archery, one must forget oneself. One can do this meaningfully only if, at the same time, one remains spiritually awake. One must become intensely conscious of one’s kinship with all of creation, capable of enjoying its beauty and intelligence without any sense of “mine” or “thine.” Wherever there is a display of wisdom, one must salute it. Wherever one finds an exhibition of that true common sense which is helpful in the speech of any human being, one must acknowledge and greet it. This does not mean merely saying “Namaste” outwardly, but inwardly bowing down, prostrating oneself before others.

At night, before falling asleep, one must count all the benefactors and teachers that one met during the day. No matter how they are disguised, you must be so taken up in rejoicing that you have learnt from other human beings that you have no time to complain of injustice or to become discontented, let alone contentious and cantankerous.

In the Uttara Gita, long after the Mahabharata War had ended, Krishna told Arjuna that every time one speaks unnecessarily or falsely, one’s astral shadow lengthens. If one speaks unwisely, harshly or without thought and deliberation, one expands and fattens the linga sharira. One creates a smoky obscuration of the power of tejas, the light within the spiritual heart. The true yogi does the opposite, becoming very conscious and deliberate in the exercise of mental and therefore uttered speech. He learns the art of what D.K. Mavalankar calls “self-attenuation.” Through this stripping away of inessentials, one becomes capable of maximizing one’s every use of life-energy.

Paradoxically, one cannot acquire this self-mastery without recognizing that one cannot do it on one’s own. Therefore Krishna teaches that the power of universal buddhi is an omnipresent essence. Krishna is the radiance in all that is radiant and the intelligence in all the intelligences in the universe. Thus it is only by Krishna’s gift that one can arouse that power of devotion which brings the disciple to him.

This ultimate paradox, which can be understood in relation to music and love, is vital to spiritual life. It is not only that one must strive and try; a moment comes when one is so absorbed in the object of the quest that one feels the magnetic attraction of that which one seeks. Therefore the more one enjoys being drawn towards the Lord, the more one can recognize and receive His gift of buddhi yoga. To prepare oneself to use the gift of the Lord, one must, as the second chapter of the Gita teaches, become a spiritual archer, skilled in the art of action. One must become perfected in the precise performance of one’s self-chosen duty or svadharma.

Initially when Krishna uses the term svadharma in the second chapter of the Gita, he uses it in relation to the duties of birth, of calling and of caste. He chides Arjuna for forsaking the svadharma of a Kshatriya (warrior). He suggests that if one does not fulfill one’s own obligations, chosen and accepted over lifetimes, and if one does not come to terms with the limits, possibilities, and opportunities of one’s birth, one is moving in the wrong direction and will accrue much evil. Even this initial definition of svadharma in terms of one’s starting point in life is much more than a reference to mere occupation and caste.

In the early years of life, most human beings have so little meaningful choice with regard to circumstances that it is difficult to talk credibly of freedom at an early age. Nonetheless, there is for every human being a clear opportunity to accept or not accept that which one cannot alter. In that context, one may be said to choose one’s svadharma. The concept of choosing that which one cannot change is not fatalism. Rather, it is a critical assessment in consciousness of those elements in one’s life which are innate. In the very act of understanding and in the attempt to give meaning to these initial parameters, one must develop and apply some understanding of the karmic field. Moreover, by understanding the karmic tendencies in one’s own constitution and confronting one’s likes and dislikes, one may come to sense something about one’s lower nature and gain some understanding of one’s possible behavior in other lives. Thus one will recognize that in one’s family, for all its obvious limitations, there may be many opportunities for enjoyment and for learning. All true soul education is an unfoldment through worship and affection, and it is open to every human being to make all life a celebration of learning.

If one really wishes, through the power of worship coupled with affection, to become skilled in the performance of duties, one must recognize that there are those who have gone beyond the initial stages of buddhi yoga. They have become constant in the power of jnana yoga: men and women of ceaseless meditation and contemplation. They are the Buddhas and bodhisattvas of ceaseless contemplation, constantly ideating and thereby sustaining the possibility of human aspiration. They are able to do this through their conscious choice of mental solitude and their freedom from attraction and repulsion. Above all, they exemplify perfection of mental devotion. They have become supremely steadfast, like the immovable Himalayas. They are rock-like in their strength of tapas, bhakti, and dhyana.

Krishna repeatedly gives encouragement to all beginners making their first tentative steps on the path by urging them to discern in themselves something in common with the highest beings who have ever existed. He offers to Arjuna a living portrait, in potent words, of the true sage. Whilst it is difficult for modern man to understand, there are in fact many more sages, munis, and yogis than guessed by human beings incarnated on earth. Whilst there are billions upon billions of human beings, there are also galaxies of adepts and bodhisattvas. Whilst they are invisible to the physical senses, they nonetheless exist and they all have their roles in the task of cosmic and human evolution.

To become capable of recognizing them and saluting them means that it is possible to gain some light with regard to one’s own svadharma. Hence Krishna affirms that it is even better to die in one’s own svadharma than to be concerned with the duty of another. Even if little is going to change significantly in one’s life, the acquisition of wisdom always remains possible and worthwhile. It is a useful mental exercise just to imagine that one is going to die in exactly one’s present situation. Then, without giving any room to fantasy and expectation, one must understand how, through this acceptance of immediate svadharma, one may strengthen the power of mental devotion or buddhi yoga. Growth in the power of sacrifice, or jnana yajna, is always possible in every circumstance. But that growth requires a turning away from the region of separative consciousness towards the realm of the united hosts of perfected performers of yoga who reside within the universal form of Krishna.

To begin to apprehend this is to begin to prepare for the opening of the Wisdom Eye, a process that is beatified by the realization of the universal vision given to Arjuna by Krishna in the eleventh chapter of the Gita. At the end of that vision Krishna makes a statement which is the foundation of all self-conscious transcendence: “I established this whole universe with a single portion of myself, and remain separate.” Here Krishna is the paradigm of the Pythagorean spectator, the kutastha, he who is aloof and apart from all manifestation. He is the fount of those great dhyanis who descend in the dawn of manifestation, knowing its limits and uninvolved while performing their tasks in manifestation. Maintaining their continuity of consciousness and self-transcendence in the Logos, they remain free from the hypnotic spell of mahamaya. What is exemplified by dhyanis in the dawn of manifestation is repeatedly reenacted in the course of human evolution when human beings, by the power of vairagya—true dispassion established by the power of a vow of fixed determination—are able to generate a continuous current of buddhic insight. Establishing and maintaining this current, testing it in action and correcting themselves by it, individuals may become constant witnesses to the truth. After a while, their minds become so firmly yoked to buddhic discrimination that it becomes as natural as breathing. In many Buddhist schools and sanctuaries, particularly in the Hinayana tradition, neophytes are taught to observe their breathing. When coupled with the Mahayana refinement of motive, this can serve as the enduring basis of bare mindfulness and pure attention.

Vinoba Bhave sums up the whole teaching of svadharma in the Gita in terms of the concept of chittashuddhi—purity of consciousness. All human beings, even in Kali Yuga, and even surrounded by pollutions, are capable of mental purification. All are capable of maintaining unbroken and intact a stream of pure consciousness, but this requires spiritual food. One must learn to devise one’s own rituals and sacrifices, to treat one’s body as a temple in which one will greet and bathe in the Light of the Logos. One must learn to consecrate one’s own vesture, becoming wholehearted, uncalculating, and without expectation in one’s relationship with Krishna. When through self-consecration bhakti and buddhi come together, jnana is released. From jnana one may eventually rise to dhyana: ceaseless contemplation. Then it is possible to return to svadharma and understand it in the salvific sense expressed by Krishna in the eighteenth chapter of the Gita. There Krishna puts svadharma in terms of a universal formula, independent of birth, of early circumstances, of vocation and calling. It is the art of discovering one’s true nature, and therefore becoming creative in one’s capacity for self-expression.

Each human being is an original, and each act is unique. Out of enjoyment of the cosmic lila and out of veneration for the form and omnipresent light of Krishna, a human being can become unrestricted and spontaneous in enacting and delivering svadharma. There is a great joy in this, and such ananda is so all-absorbing that there is no time to interfere with other people or to criticize them. There is no distraction in relation to the demands of dharma. Instead, there is full concentration on becoming a servant and instrument of the universal Logos in the cosmos, the God in man, Krishna in the heart.

With thy heart place all thy works on me, prefer me to all else, exercise mental devotion (buddhi yoga) continually, and think constantly of me. By so doing thou shalt by my divine favor surmount every difficulty which surroundeth thee; but if from pride thou wilt not listen to my words, thou shalt undoubtedly be lost. And if, indulging self-confidence, thou sayest, “I will not fight,” such a determination will prove itself vain, for the principles of thy nature will impel thee to engage. Being bound by all past karma to thy natural duties, thou, O son of Kunti, wilt involuntarily do from necessity that which in thy folly thou wouldst not do. There dwelleth in the heart of every creature, O Arjuna, the Master—Ishvara—who by his magic power causeth all things and creatures to revolve mounted upon the universal wheel of time. Take sanctuary with him alone, O son of Bharata, with all thy soul; by his grace thou shalt obtain supreme happiness, the eternal place. (Bhagavad Gita, 18:57‒62)

To become a true votary of buddhi yoga through the performance of svadharma is to become ready to serve the divine will of the atman, the workings of the Logos and the Avatar behind all the turbulent sifting and chaos of the historical process. The buddhi yogi recognizes the intimations of the divine dialectic in maturing human beings, mellowing minds and hearts, broadening and expanding their quintessential humanity. Cooperating with the Light of the Logos within, they are able to rediscover the germ of purity of consciousness and thereby enter the family of the wise, the fraternity who know all of this and exemplify it ceaselessly. The true hallmark of these rishis and mahatmas is the power of devotion and adoration. They are constant in adoration of Krishna, His lila, His wisdom, the joy of His dance, the beauty of His unconditionality. They understand from within themselves the way in which Krishna may be seen in Arjuna, in Arjuna’s aspiration to reach up to Krishna, and also in Krishna’s enjoyment of the seeming separation of himself from himself in Arjuna. This is the mysterious art of the universal diffusion of the one Light, the problem of the One and the many, and the participation of the many in the One. Through buddhi yoga, bhakti, and svadharma there can be a self-conscious return to the One, but only on behalf of the many.

This is the sacred teaching of Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, given to sustain humanity throughout Kali Yuga. All may benefit from the teaching, returning to it again and again, using it in individual ways, enjoying and appreciating its beauty. Those who are perceptive and appreciate this great gift will make resolute vows to be steadfast in maintaining unbroken a sacred relationship with the Teaching and its great Giver.

Sri Raghavan Iyer (1930‒95) joined the United Lodge of Theosophists in Bombay, India, at the age of ten and remained committed to the Theosophical movement throughout his life. He was educated at the University of Oxford, where he subsequently served as a don. After accepting a professorship at the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1965, he taught political philosophy there until his retirement at the age of fifty-six. His best-known books are The Moral and Political Thought of Mahatma Gandhi (1973) and Parapolitics: Toward the City of Man (1977).

This article is reprinted from Shri Raghavan Iyer, The Gupta Vidya II: The Golden Thread, with the kind permission of the publisher, Theosophy Trust Books, Norfolk, Virginia. The Gupta Vidya is a three-volume collection of Iyer’s essays on esotericism.

 

 

Glossary of Terms Used in This Article

alkahest. In alchemy, the universal solvent.

anahata. The fourth, or heart chakra.

ananda. Joy or bliss.

ashrama. In Hinduism, one of the four stages of life. grihastha ashrama. The life stage of the householder.

bhakti. Spiritual devotion.

brahmananda. Ultimate joy.

buddhi yoga. Mental devotion.

chittashuddhi. Purity of consciousness.

conatus. The inclination of a being to persist in and enhance its own existence.

dhyana. Meditation or contemplation, especially an uninterrupted state of mental concentration upon a single object. dhyani. one skilled in meditation.

Ishvara. The Hindu name for the supreme personal deity.

jnana. Knowledge, particularly personal experience of the divine; gnosis. jnana yajna. Literally, “sacrifice of knowledge”: studying sacred texts as a spiritual practice.

karana sharira. The causal body.

Kshatriya. A member of the Hindu warrior caste.

kutastha. Pure, absolutely independent consciousness.

lila. Play.

linga sharira. The subtle, astral body.

mahabuddhi. Great buddhi; great intelligence.

mahamaya. Great illusion.

mahat. In the Sankhya philosophy, the primordial principle of creation. Sometimes equated with buddhi.

manas. Ordinary mind; manasic in adjectival form.

muni. Sage.

nischaya. Determination.

parivrajaka. A wandering religious ascetic.

purusha. The pure consciousness of the Self.

rishi. A sage or adept.

Sankhya. Also Samkhya. One of the six orthodox darshans (perspectives) on the Hindu teachings, particularly focusing on the liberation of the purusha.

skandhas. In Buddhism, the five “bundles” or “heaps” that make up one’s physical and mental constitution.

sthula sharira. The physical body.

sushupti. Deep, dreamless sleep.

svadharma. One’s own personal life duty.

tapas. Austerities carried out as spiritual practice.

tejas. Radiance, luster; also spiritual power.

vach. Divine speech or logos, particularly in a creative sense.

vairagya. Detachment, particularly from worldly things.

varnashankar. The confusion of castes; interbreeding between different castes.

 

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Printed in the  Summer 2025  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Savinainen, Antti, "Life Review at the Gate of Death"   Quest 113:3, pg 20-23

Life Review at the Gate of Death

By Antti Savinainen 

Theosophical sources describe a life review at the beginning of the death process. The first description is found in 1882 in The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett (see below). After that, H.P. Blavatsky and Annie Besant added more details about the life review. Later, the Finnish Rosicrucian Theosophist Pekka Ervast (1875–1934) provided a somewhat more comprehensive description of the life review.

After five decades of research, the science of the near-death experience (NDE) has provided independent data on the life review. People who have survived heart attacks or other life threatening situations sometimes talk about how some or all instances of their lives were available to them in a very brief time. Expressions like “I saw my life flash before my eyes” have become part of Western culture.

I will discuss and compare life reviews from the perspectives of both NDE research and Theosophy. These perspectives have intriguing commonalities as well as some differences. First, however, I will present the first published account of the life review, which contains many features that also appear in the NDE research and Theosophical descriptions.

The First Published Account of a Life Review

British naval officer Francis Beaufort (1774–1857) provides the first published account of life review. The experience, which was induced when he nearly drowned in 1791, was written down in a letter circa 1825 and published in the autobiography of the English naval officer Sir John Barrow in 1847. Following is an excerpt: 

Though the senses were thus deadened, not so the mind; its activity seemed to be invigorated, in a ratio which defies all description—for thought rose after thought with a rapidity of succession that is not only indescribable, but probably inconceivable, by any one who has not himself been in a similar situation . . . Thus travelling backwards, every past incident of my life seemed to glance across my recollection in retrograde succession; not, however, in mere outline, as here stated, but the picture filled up with every minute and collateral feature; in short, the whole period of my existence seemed to be placed before me in a kind of panoramic review, and each act of it seemed to be accompanied by a consciousness of right or wrong, or by some reflection on its cause or its consequences; indeed, many trifling events which had been long forgotten then crowded into my imagination, and with the character of recent familiarity . . . 

The length of time that was occupied by this deluge of ideas, or rather the shortness of time into which they were condensed, I cannot now state with precision, yet certainly not two minutes could not have elapsed from the moment of suffocation to that of my being hauled up. (in Barrow, 399‒401)

Beaufort’s account recapitulates the essential features of the life review:

• The operation of the mind is highly enlightened.
• The memories are detailed, and long-forgotten memories are available.
• The memories are described as being panoramic, although they are viewed in retrograde order.
• There is a moral evaluation of the actions and awareness of their causes and consequences.
• The time during which the life review takes place is at most two minutes.

 

Scientific Research on the Life Review

Many near-death experiencers (NDERs) describe their life reviews in terms of watching a movie of their own life. Some NDERs see their whole life with detailed memories, whereas some glimpse only fragments. At any rate, they view themselves from a third-person perspective. Moreover, some people can feel how their actions and words made other people—and animals—feel.  Here is an excerpt from such a life review: 

It was the proverbial “life flashing before my eyes” or life review, as I have since heard it called. I would describe this as a long series of feelings based on numerous actions in my life. The difference was that not only did I experience the feelings again, but I had some sort of empathetic sense of the feeling of those around me who were affected by my actions. In other words, I also felt what others felt about my life. (Long and Perry, 108–09)

 The life review often reveals that little acts of kindness are important and that our everyday judgment of our actions or inactions may not be correct:

I saw how acting, or not acting, rippled in effect towards other people and their lives. It wasn’t until then that I understood how each little decision or choice affects the world. I learned that many of the things I thought were “wrong” were not necessarily wrong. I also learned of opportunities to love others that I passed up. (Long and Perry, 114)

In addition to actions and words, thoughts have an impact on the world: “I found out that not even your thoughts are lost . . . every thought was there” (Lorimer, 13).

Thoughts have their effect on other sentient beings as well as on nature:

 For me it was a total reliving of every thought I had ever thought, every word I had ever spoken, and every deed I had ever done; plus the effect of every each thought, word, and deed on everyone and anyone who had ever come within my environment or sphere of influence whether I knew them or not (including unknown passers-by on the street); plus the effect of each thought, word and deed on weather, plants, animals, soil, trees, water, and air. (Lorimer, 14)

About half of the informants in a 1995 study by researchers Ian Stevenson and Emily Williams Cook reported that they remembered their “whole life” or “everything.” The same study reported that 23 percent of informants had a simultaneous sequence, a panoramic memory, whereas 50 percent reported that their life review took place from birth or childhood to the present. Only 13 percent reported having a sequence of memories going from the present back to childhood.

Although the timing of the life review is difficult, Stevenson and Cook could place outer limits of duration in drowning cases to a few minutes and, in the case of falls, only a few seconds. In some reported cases, the duration of the life review was much longer (and occurred more slowly).

The judgment of past life actions is typically carried out by the NDERs themselves. However, the NDER is sometimes accompanied by a spiritual being who acts as a loving guide and helper and whose comments help put their life in a higher perspective. There is rarely negative judgment by the spiritual being, although the NDERs can see the effects of their hurtful actions on other living beings. One crucial lesson conveyed by many NDERs is that there are only two things one takes to the other side: knowledge and love.

The life review and the NDE in general have a life-changing effect on the experiencers. Dr. Raymond Moody, who published Life after Life, the first book on the NDE, in 1975, has called it “one-minute psychotherapy.” Here is an excerpt on the aftereffects: 

Over the years I’ve undergone a number of changes. I feel a strong connection with nature . . . I’ve acquired a great sense of justice. I’ve become more patient and peaceful. I can see things in perspective now. My aggression is a thing of the past. I feel a strong inner urge to never lie again. I’d rather keep silent than tell a little white lie. I do struggle with deadlines: things must get done within a certain time . . . I enjoy life immensely . . . I believe that people have stopped living from the heart. (van Lommel, 47–48)

 

Theosophical Descriptions of the Life Review 

The earliest Theosophical account of the life review is provided in a Mahatma letter from 1882:

At the last moment, the whole life is reflected in our memory and emerges from all the forgotten nooks and corners picture after picture, one event after the other. The dying brain dislodges memory with a strong supreme impulse, and memory restores faithfully every impression entrusted to it during the period of the brain’s activity . . . Yet from the last pulsation, from and between the last throbbing of his heart and the moment when the last spark of animal heat leaves the body—the brain thinks and the Ego lives over in those few brief seconds his whole life over. (Letter 93b, in Chin, 326)

This passage states that all memories are faithfully restored and lived by the Ego. This is an important distinction: the Ego does not refer to the personality but to the higher self behind the personality. The higher self is the true essence of a human being, responsible for each incarnation and enriched by the spiritual efforts of the personality on earth. Notably, the judgment in the life review is not conducted by the mere personality but by a much wiser higher self.

Another interesting point is the duration of the life review: within a few seconds, all memories of the whole life are reviewed. This is consistent with some reported life reviews, for instance in the context of falling from heights.

The second Theosophical account of the life review is provided by HPB:

At the solemn moment of death every man, even when death is sudden, sees the whole of his past life marshalled before him, in its minutest details. For one short instant the personal becomes one with the individual and all-knowing Ego. But this instant is enough to show him the whole chain of causes which have been at work during his life. He sees and now understands himself as he is, unadorned by flattery or self-deception. He reads his life, remaining as a spectator looking down into the arena he is quitting; he feels and knows the justice of all the suffering that has overtaken him. (Blavatsky, 162)

Blavatsky adds that the dying person understands their life in a much deeper way and “feels and knows” why they have suffered. This is possible because the personality becomes “one with . . . the all-knowing Ego.” There seems to be an implicit element of evaluating the past life, since the dying person objectively understands themselves. All this takes place “for one short instant,” which is consistent with the passage in the Mahatma letter (“those few brief seconds”). Moreover, the dying individual is just a spectator of the unfolding memories.

Annie Besant, Blavatsky’s student and later the president of the Theosophical Society, described the dying process in terms of separating the etheric body from the physical, using the term “panorama”: “Slowly the lord of the body draws himself away, enwrapped in the violet-grey etheric body, and absorbed in the contemplation of the panorama of his past life, which in the death-hour unrolls before him, complete in every detail” (Besant, 109).

 

Pekka Ervast’s Account of the Life Review

Pekka Ervast was the pioneer of the Finnish Theosophical movement (see “Pekka Ervast: A Finnish Theosophist,” Quest, spring 2025). His most detailed account of the life review was provided in lectures from 1928–29:

When consciousness moves to the etheric brain during death, all memories are alive in front of us. Therefore, a person reviews the past life in all its details, although this happens very fast. What has happened in life through the decades is seen within half an hour as films in memory, yet everything happens in detail, while the person is outside the whole play . . . He does not live in his reminiscences as he did while being physically alive. He just watches the great play and judges it objectively, calling each thing—depending on its own quality—as good or bad, crime or merit, and so on. He remains in a great light, so to speak . . . In fact, the viewer is the personalized higher self. In death the solemn experience of memories is not due to the ordinary physical personality; instead, it is due to the higher self, the “I,” which is behind the physical personality. (Marjanen et al., 37–38)

Ervast’s account is in many respects consistent with the Theosophical descriptions above: he too talks about reviewing all details of a past life. This review takes place objectively, without an emotional component, and it is permeated with an ethical evaluation of all deeds. This is possible because the viewer is not the personality, but rather “the personalized higher self,” which aligns with what the cited Theosophical authors have stated. But there is one difference from the other descriptions presented above: Ervast states that while the life review happens fast, it takes place “within half an hour,” not seconds or days. 

Discussion

Theosophical sources maintain that there is an objective evaluation of all deeds in the life review. The judgment aspect is consistent with the NDE descriptions, although Theosophical accounts differ from many (but not all) NDE accounts at in one respect: according to Theosophy, the emotional component is absent. Interestingly, the first written account of the NDE by Francis Beaufort is in line with the Theosophical view.

According to Theosophy, the second phase of the unfolding death process is entering kamaloka or the astral world. The soul will live through all the deeds, words, and thoughts in kamaloka and intensely feel how their actions affected other sentient beings.

Incidentally, the perspective of later Theosophy differs from that of the Mahatma Letters. According to the latter, the deceased individual is unconscious in kamaloka rather than experiencing their actions. (Deaths resulting from accidents and suicides are exceptions to this rule.)

This life review in kamaloka can be very painful, but its purpose is to become free from earthly life and its digressions; some religions call this state purgatory. The purgatory state resembles the NDE descriptions of the life review, since in both cases the effect of past actions is felt the same way as other people felt them. The emotional aspect of the life review can cause remorse and a strong will within NDERs to make amends. Still, it does not appear to be painful in the same sense that Theosophical descriptions of kamaloka imply. Rather, it seems that the emotional component of the NDE life review acts as a way of knowing how the world was affected by their actions.

To sum up, the many accounts of the NDE life review have interesting similarities and differences. On the one hand, they involve reviewing at least parts of past life deeds in order to understand how they affected others. NDERs also recall long-forgotten memories. On the other hand, the details vary: some see all the memories at once in a panoramic style, some relive their life from childhood to present, and some relive from present to childhood. Moreover, some life reviews take place within a few seconds, whereas some last a few minutes (and others can take a considerably longer time).

The life review can have life-changing effects on NDERs. It can also be a life-changing experience for those who delve into these accounts. The life review reveals the ethical core of life shared by all great religions and true philosophies: compassion and love toward all sentient beings.

Sources

Emphasis in quoted material is from the original.

Barrow, Sir John. An Auto-biographical Memoir of Sir John Barrow, Bart., Late of the Admiralty: Including Reflections, Observations, and Reminiscences at Home and abroad, from Early Life to Advanced Age. London: John Murray, 1847.

Besant, Annie. The Ancient Wisdom: An Outline of Theosophical Teachings. 2d ed. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 2015 [1897].

Blavatsky, H.P. The Key to Theosophy. Pasadena, Calif.: Theosophical University Press, 2002 [1889].

Chin, Vicente Hao, Jr., ed. The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in Chronological Sequence. Quezon City, Philippines: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993.

Long, Jeffery, and Paul Perry. Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences. New York: HarperOne, 2010.

Lorimer, David. Resonant Mind: Life Review in the Near-Death Experience. Woking, Surrey, UK: White Crow, 2017.

Marjanen, Jouni, Antti Savinainen, and Jouko Sorvali. From Death to Rebirth: Teachings of the Finnish Sage Pekka Ervast. N.p.: Literary Society of the Finnish Rosy Cross, 2022. The e-book version is available online at https://www.teosofia.net/e-kirjat/Pekka_Ervast-From_Death_to_Rebirth.pdf.

Stevenson, Ian, and Emily Williams Cook. “Involuntary Memories During Severe Physical Illness or Injury.” The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 183 (no. 7), 452–58.

van Lommel, Pim. Consciousness beyond Life: The Science of Near-Death Experience. New York: HarperOne, 2010.

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Printed in the  Summer 2025  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Smoley, Richard, "Spiritual Aging: An Interview with Carol Orsborn"   Quest 113:3, pg 14-19

By Richard Smoley

For the past forty years, Carol Orsborn has been a leading voice of the post‒World War II generation. She is the best-selling author of over thirty-five books, most recently Spiritual Aging: Weekly Reflections for Embracing Life (Inner Traditions). Other recent books of hers are The Making of an Old Soul: Aging as the Fulfillment of Life’s Promise; Older, Wiser, Fiercer: The Wisdom Collection; and The Spirituality of Age: A Seeker’s Guide to Growing Older (with Robert L. Weber, PhD). She has recently launched the Spiritual Aging Study and Support Group at Substack. She founded the Sage-ing Book Club in conjunction with the organization Sage-ing International.

I interviewed her via Zoom in January 2025. The full interview is available on the TSA YouTube channel. Following is an edited version of the transcript.

 

Richard Smoley: Much of your work in recent years has had to do with the relevance of spirituality to aging. Presently the baby-boom generation is getting old, if it’s not already. What problems do you see that may be unique to this generation?

Carol Orsborn: We were the generation of hope following World War II, and there were great expectations put upon us. We felt that whatever problems had not been solved, we were going to solve, and in our lifetime. We were going to be the harbingers of peace and the marriage of technology and spirit. We were known as a generation of seekers, and we were incredibly optimistic until, say, the last four to eight years.

Many of us have been holding on to the idea that the that the world was going to follow our marching orders and bring our ideals to fruition in our lifetime. It’s become very clear to many of us that that is not going to happen on our beat. Many of us are having to rethink our relationship to spirituality and try and find a spirituality that will go the distance, even in times like these.

Smoley: You mentioned that this is a generation of seekers. One major feature of this generation was a countercultural spiritual revival, and that has obviously born some fruit. I’m wondering if you could comment about its long-term effects.

Orsborn: I see a massive awakening going on right now. When an individual has a crisis or is in chaos, or falls into what I call the void, they have the potential to reconfigure themselves around the dark night experience.

That happens to individuals when they’ve gone through a divorce or a serious illness or a war. I feel that many baby boomers who were awake and alive and aware during the consciousness movement of the sixties, even into the 2000s, have spiritual practices that are have prepared us for this sudden mass awakening. And I feel that it’s happening.

Smoley: That’s very reassuring to hear. For many people, the biggest encounters with death often occur in middle age. They have to do with deaths of parents—seeing mom and dad go—which is of course a milestone for everyone. How does this confrontation with death shape your concept of yourself and affect the aging process?

Orsborn: In my middle age, at the age of forty-nine, I had breast cancer, so I was facing my own death. I had the sense that death was something that I could beat or overcome. And I did. I’m seventy-six now, so I’ve had a lot of years of life after thinking that I could die any day.

But when you’re old yourself, your friends are starting to pass away—and your loved ones and your favorite pets. I had three pets pass away during Covid. The losses that we go through seem endless. You realize that this is not rehearsal; this is real.

Even if I thought that I could prolong life, I now realize that death is going to happen to me. There’s no more kidding about it, and it makes everything that much more accentuated and serious. I think that’s the great accelerator of our spiritual growth and development.

Smoley: Our confrontation with death has a great deal to do with our beliefs about what happens after. Today many people seem confused about the question. They may say there’s a heaven and a hell, or reincarnation. Most Americans—80 percent by one count—say they believe in an afterlife. But there seems to be a profound uncertainty about what happens after death, and religion as it is now doesn’t seem to give much assurance that anyone’s really willing to believe. Maybe you could talk a little bit about our attitudes toward the afterlife, particularly as we get closer and closer to it.

Orsborn: My doctorate is in history and critical theory of religion from Vanderbilt, and one of the main things we were studying was the lessening influence of religion on many of us. We also examined the difference between a childlike relationship to a religion that tells you what to believe versus the spiritual developmental stages you go through that include questioning your original faith and reconstituting something that works for you.

There’s period of disillusion, of your belief system breaking apart, which is very scary. You’re out there, floating, not knowing, until it starts to come back together again, including a new relationship to death and dying.

From the hospice workers I’ve worked with, and also from my reading, such as Leo Tolstoy’s Death of Ivan Ilyich (a favorite book of mine), they all say the same thing: no matter how much kicking and screaming and fear and regret there is—all that stuff around the fear of aging—there is a moment when you get it, and it’s often with your last breath—on the deathbed.

That’s what happened with my parents, especially my mother, who was a real fighter. She really believed she could control everything that happened to her. She was offended by the fact that death would actually come this close and take her. I was there at the moment of her death, and the room turned into sparkles. That was how I knew that she died. It’s hard to describe, but I felt like the world got fizzy. The line between life and death disappeared, and there was just this sparkling room.

A hospice worker was also present. Her phone went off accidentally at that moment, and her ring was “Hava Nagila”—the Jewish song of celebration—although this woman was Hispanic. Later I asked her why she chose that as her ringtone. She said, “Oh, I just thought it was a pretty song.” Because my mother and I are Jewish, it was like a message from the beyond. So I am a believer in that way, and I’ve had enough miraculous experiences that have made me less afraid of death.

I think it’s an accumulation of life experience, plus spiritual practice, that pushes us over the edge to a moment of enlightenment or awakening. In religious terms, you might call it grace.

From my religious studies, I’ve come to understand that we just don’t pop into this new place where we’re not afraid of death anymore out of nowhere; it’s a lifelong practice. Then there is going through periods like Covid, where so many people were dying and death is in the air. These are quickening agents. They push many people over the edge into a surprising, new, and calmer relationship with the subject.

Smoley: It’s been a long time since I’ve read The Death of Ivan Ilyich, but as I remember, the punchline is that as Ivan Ilyich is dying, he realizes that everything that he’d been preoccupied with in his life had little or no significance whatsoever. I’m wondering how you would fit that realization into the concept of aging spiritually.

Orsborn: I would experience that differently. It’s not that nothing matters or mattered; it’s that you see it is all of a piece, that it was all love. I think we come from love, and we go to love. That was the big realization I had during Covid: I had this visceral sense that I had been being pushed through life by fear, from the moment of birth, that moment of separation and the original wound, with the doctor’s slap on your bottom, and your crying as the harsh air comes into your lungs. There was a sense of being pushed forward by fear, feeling that it was about trying to win approval in order to survive and to create masks in order to dull the pain of being too exposed.

During Covid, the miracle that happened for me is that I felt that same love that I had felt before I was born, reaching out from the future and grabbing me forward. It was as if my life pivoted from being chased by fear to being pulled by love. Since then, that feeling has never left me.

It’s not that I’m not afraid sometimes, but as Einstein said, the most important question you have to ask yourself is: is this a friendly universe or not? I answer that yes, this is a friendly universe. I believe that even if bad things happen to me and other people, there is a greater reality beyond everyday life. That’s perhaps what Tolstoy was talking about. We get intimate intimations of it from time to time, and if we’re doing aging as a spiritual experience, the older we get, the more we have these moments of breakthrough.

Smoley: Have you ever worked with A Course in Miracles?

Orsborn: Yes. A friend of mine gave me a whole volume, and I read it from cover to cover and loved it. However, when I had breast cancer, a lot of people were using A Course in Miracles and other New Age philosophies to say, we create our reality; we create our illness. I couldn’t buy that. It was too harsh for me. My attitude back then was, “If this is a gift from God, I’d like to give it back. Does God take returns?”

Many influences have brought me to two foundational principles: First, you have to accept reality for what it can’t help being. Second is, you can feel beloved no matter what, because you are beloved, no matter what.

Anything beyond that is subject to debate and exploration and curiosity, but to me, those are the foundational principles upon which I test my own and other people’s spirituality, at least in terms of my life.

Smoley: Thank you; that’s very beautiful. As you say, many New Age people have been implying, if not stating, that disease is the sufferer’s fault. But guilt about illness is much more pervasive than that. If you have lung cancer, is it your fault because you were smoking? Many people act that way. America is a society that is predicated on inflicting guilt on everyone else.

Orsborn: As much as possible, especially when it’s commercially advantageous.

Smoley: Even apart from the New Age, people are often led to think one way or another that if you’re sick or aging or frail, it’s somehow your fault.

Orsborn: This culture worships power and the illusion of power, as well as the idea that we should be able to control our destinies. Even now, the best-selling books on aging are basically saying that if you fear aging, if you don’t want to do aging, don’t do it. Just stay in midlife forever. And if, God forbid, you should get an illness or start to look infirm, you’d better go hide behind a gated community; you’d better take yourself out fast.

Aging is considered an illness in popular culture. But this misses the truth that aging is a life stage with meaning and purpose of its own; I believe it has an evolutionary purpose, otherwise we wouldn’t grow old.

This society has denied even looking at this issue. Why? Because people who really understand serious aging are not going to be big consumers of products or manipulatable by power structures. We start to have a direct contact with our inner wisdom and powers greater than ourselves, which is dangerous to society.

Smoley: Let’s focus a little more on your work specifically. Let’s say I’m coming to you cold and saying, “I’m getting old. I’m kind of worried about it. It must have something to do with spirituality, although I don’t know what that is.” How would you start to work with that person?

Orsborn: Well, you know, the gift is aging itself. That’s the teacher, not me. By the time they come to me, they are partially deconstructed and saying, “Help! I don’t want to do this alone. It is scary.” But it’s like any void. Say you clasp your hands; this is the status quo. Then you have to move your hands into another position. There’s a moment of letting go, of emptiness.

These people are asking, “Is there something better? Is there another way? Does it have to be this painful?” The answer, I’m afraid, is, yes, it does have to be that painful: confronting the reality of death, illness, and loss, and feeling anger and regret. Those are painful experiences.

But this is why I say aging is a natural, spiritual experience, and both teacher and practice: How many people have taken course after course trying to erode their ego? They understand that their egos have a grip on them and that they’re attached to images of the past, and they would like to have a more spiritual, more loving persona. They want to be less invested in their things and who they used to be. With aging, you don’t need a yoga mat. Just look in the mirror: that will do wonders for eroding your ego.

The flip side of eroding your ego is the birth of humility, and humility is the birthplace of all true spirituality—the overcoming of the arrogant belief that this is our show, that we’re calling the shots, that God ought to do what we tell God to do. True humility says, “I can’t stop all the bad things from happening, but I can’t stop the good things from happening either, so I need to look at life differently. I need to look at it with curiosity rather than dread.”

That’s a huge turning point. The minute that you can add that little element, you can have dread and then have curiosity about that dread. The kind of people that that come to me are already having some kind of awakening, but they’re in the discomfort part of it.

Fortunately or unfortunately, right now I’m a main connector of people, a way for them to find each other. There’s a grassroots movement that’s building up around the organizations I’m involved with, like Sage-ing International and Spirit of Sophia, and my book Spiritual Aging, because it contains weekly reflections for embracing life. I’ve been hearing about convents, old people’s homes, community centers and friendship groups who are working these readings one week at a time.

We were ashamed of our aging. It was something we were doing in secret. It’s a revolutionary and radical act to step out of the guilt, the shame, and the self-isolation coming out of what other people might be thinking of us and moving into this new place of finding out that we’re not in this alone. We’re learning from one another who we are and how we’re handling aging, and other people can point out the water we’re swimming in that we’re not even seeing. It’s an exciting time for those of us who are finding each other, and scary as heck until you do.

Smoley: As you suggested, many of the people who are drawn to this kind of work were, in a sense, already drawn to it. They may not be completely open, but they’re at least a little open. But what about the large portion of the aging population who seem to have done the exact opposite? They’ve become frozen, almost as a survival technique.

Orsborn: Here’s the truth about aging: I believe you become more of who you are, who you really are, as you age, and there are only two choices. One is being contracting, constructing more armor, shrinking your world, getting more invested in old paradigms, trying to exert more power. That is all contraction.

The other choice is expansion: opening your heart, being curious, being honest. All the spiritual masters that I’ve read say that that is our choice in life. It may not feel as if you have a choice, but you do. Are you going to be the kind of person who gets smaller and lets your challenges and issues turn you hard and wrinkly and self-protective, like a wrinkled old apple? Or are you going to take the risk? It’s a giant risk, it’s a huge leap of faith, be closer to death, and open your heart and say, “I believe this is a friendly universe. I believe I can be beloved, however my life looks to myself and to other people. I’m going to take that leap of faith.” That is the choice we have to make.

Smoley: Thank you. That’s very apt. Last night I was watching a TV show called Hacks.

Orsborn: I love that show.

Smoley: The young woman in it is going through all sorts of crises in her life, and she’s talking to her mother across the country on the phone. The mother’s neurotically worried and obsessed about the slightest things. The young woman can’t discuss anything in her life with her mother in any real way.

This seems to be a very common situation. I think it was very true of our generation: you didn’t tell your parents anything, because they would worry about it, which would just make everything worse. How do you see that phenomenon? How do you see the best way to deal with it?

Orsborn: I’m a member of Al-Anon. Al-Anon is the Twelve-Step program that has to do with loving other people too much, or loving them in the wrong way, in a controlling way.

It’s so counterintuitive, because you think you’re being a good mother when you’re trying to save your kids, or when you hold them so close that it’s too painful to hear them talk about their problems.

One of the things I’ve learned from the Twelve-Step program is detaching with love. How can you be a loving witness to somebody going through hard times without feeling it’s your job to heal them, cure them, save them?

That’s a core principle of individuation; it is, the psychologists teach us, is the healthy way for families to individuate. For people in different generations to grow in tandem, it requires a certain amount of letting go, but not without love.

I’d say our relationships with our adult children is probably the number one stumbling block, even for people who’ve done spiritual practices all their lives. They say, “I’m so enlightened. I’ve been through all this, and I could save you from so much. Why don’t you just do what I tell you to do?”

We forget that we can’t protect our children from life. That’s why my first principle, was, if you recall, you can’t stop reality from being what it can’t help being. That acceptance is a part of the Serenity Prayer: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Smoley: Another issue today that weighs on people of all ages is the polarized political scene. Whatever side you’re on in this tug-of-war, chances are you’re upset about it.

It’s always those people. Those people are no good. Everything would be great except for those people. Whether those people are Republicans, Democrats, or whatever is almost a mere matter of taste. This polarization troubles many people. Maybe they’re even projecting or displacing their own fear of death onto the political situation. How do you suggest that people deal with their upsets about politics?

Orsborn: I am one of those people that worry about complacency masquerading as spirituality. I think you need to know where you stand. You need to know what your values are, and you need to know when you’re up against values that you find abhorrent. I think that’s one of the gifts of aging: to know who you are and what you believe to be true and important.

Now that said, I believe very much in people listening to their own heart in terms of their callings. Are you called to be a protester? Are you called to write books? Are you called to go to jail for your principles?

We are all deeply called, but spiritual people can get tripped up by a confusion between what their gut is telling them and what their heart is telling them, which is very easy to do.

To younger people, I’m going to say, please save our society. Please act in the world on what you believe. We did. We tried. Please take your turn and try it.

But many older people have seen their dreams crumble in recent years and realize they might not see their dreams come true in this lifetime. They’ll say to me, “I feel really guilty that I am not out there doing everything I can. I know I should be protesting, doing acts of civil disobedience.”

 “OK, you feel guilty and bad,” I say. “But where are you being called right now? Look into your heart and tell me what, at this exact moment of time, you really wish you were doing.”

Often they’ll say something like, “Oh, God! I just wish I could just go out in my garden and garden. I just wish I could sit down with a good book, you know. I wish I could go out for coffee with a good friend.”

“That is your heart calling you,” I say. “Your heart is not always calling you to do the hardest, scariest thing. Sometimes it’s as simple as cleaning your drawers out. Stop to listen to your heart, and stop second-guessing it and arguing with it. You may need time out working in your garden, or sewing, or whatever it is. It may be your way of grieving, your way of opening yourself up to new levels of compassion and maybe to a breakthrough of creativity.

If you’re meant to stay involved in the world, or take a political stand or engage in civil disobedience, you’ll know. Until you know, take the time to not know, to be in curiosity and exploration and self-nurturing. Many of us need a lot of self-nurturing right now.

As I mentioned, my book Spiritual Aging contains daily readings for the year. Some of the passages speak to this very issue, such as, “When was the last time you looked to see if the moon was still out in the early morning?” “Have you checked to see if there’s a bird flying by your window?” “Does your favorite tree have snow melting off its branches?” “What pictures are the clouds drawing in the sky?”

When you take the time to appreciate all that you’ve been given, you are awestruck with life. You’ve had disappointments; of course you have. There are things you wish had worked out differently. You’ve missed opportunities. You’ve made mistakes. But today, all you have to do is look out the window to be reminded that when you’ve been stripped bare, the veil between your heart and the mystery is thin indeed. Take advantage of this precious moment to experience the abundance of miracles that effortlessly surround you, just patiently waiting for you to notice.

Many of the people have said they’re afraid of death and dying or aging. If they’re doing their spiritual homework, if they are connected to their hearts and allowing themselves to be supported later in life, they may find joy beyond anything we’ve imagined.

Smoley: Beautiful. We’ve covered quite a bit, and I’m wondering if you have anything you want to add.

Orsborn: The word that comes to my mind is simplicity. Many people experience economic impacts when they’re older.

They’re downsizing or moving into assisted living facilities and have had to pare all their lifelong belongings down to fit into one room.

At first, the thought of having to let go of our big lives, with its cars and travel, is horrifying. But in my experience, the hard part of growing older is going from midlife into old age, not becoming old as such. Until you arrive to old, you can’t imagine how glorious old can be. Until then, you’re regretting the losses, you’re hanging on, and you’re feeling the pain. You’re going to have to trust me that, even with the pain of old age, there is still an ecstasy and a passion about it that is possible—not guaranteed, but possible, and that’s enough to keep us going.

 

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VOLUME 113, NUMBER 3
CONTENTS

Spiritual Aging: An Interview with Carol Orsborn
Richard Smoley

Life Review at the Gate of Death
Antti Savinainen

Buddhi Yoga and Svadharma
Shri Raghavan Iyer

Open to the Unknown: The Teachings of Jean Klein 
Judith Sagg

A Meditation on Impatience
Arlene Gay Levine

From the Editor's Desk

Members' Forum: The Voice of the Silence as Yogic Discipline
Peggy Heubel

Viewpoint: Aging: A Time -Honored Process
Douglas Keene

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