The Journey Called Life

Preface

According to the great spiritual masters the true purpose of life is to realize our divine nature and to express it in our day-to-day life through spiritual living. To help reach this inspiring goal the Vedic masters classified the entire life span of a person into four stages, along with their specific duties and disciplines. They provided guidelines for each stage of life so that we could harmonize our everyday duties with our spiritual goal. The authors in this book clearly show how following these guidelines helps to develop our personality and character so that we may gain the strength and courage to meet the many challenges in life. They also affirm that how we travel our outward journey of life affects our inner journey of spiritual evolution.

            The book begins with an overview regarding the four stages: brahmachary, (student life); grihasta (householder’s life); vanaprastah (retirement); and sannyas (renouncement). The authors in this first section clearly demonstrate the significance of these classifications for our lives today. They emphasize that we do not necessarily have to follow the stages sequentially in order to realize the spiritual goal, for depending on our spiritual growth, it is possible to achieve it from any of these four stages.

            The first stage of life, student life, is comprised of study and the disciplining of body and mind. The authors state that it is only when students are given ethical guidelines through the teacher’s teachings and their living examples that they can learn to live in harmony with themselves and the society.

            The second classification is that of the householders’ life. The authors in this section clearly show the crucial role of the householder in maintaining the society. When approached with the right attitude, marriage is a sacred path prescribed for the sake of the spiritual development of the husband and wife.

            The main objective in the next stage, retirement, is to move away mentally from the hustle and bustle of life into a more contemplative way of being. When we perform our spiritual practices with firm determination and mental detachment we can achieve the goal wherever we are. At the last stage, the stage of renunciation, the mind has developed a single-pointed devotion to God, and God alone, and this becomes the culmination of the four stages.

            The authors in this book show that the ultimate goal in life is to realize our divine nature, and through inspired living this goal can be reached in any of life’s four stages. It is then that our journey of life becomes meaningful and full of harmony and beauty.