FROM AGE-ING TO SAGE-ING
A PROFOUND NEW VISION OF GROWING OLDER
ZALMAN SCHACHTER-SHALOMI AND RONALD S. MILLER
WARNER BOOKS 1995
Introduction
- I was approaching my 60th birthday, and a feeling of futility had invaded my soul, plunging me into a state of depression that no amount of busyness could dispel.
- While my public life was bustling with activity, beneath the surface, away from my teaching and pastoral work, something unknown was stirring in my depths that left me feeling anxious and out of sorts whenever I was alone.
- I realized I was growing old. Feeling alone and vulnerable, I feared becoming a geriatric case who follows the predictable pattern of retirement, painful physical diminishment, a rocking-chair existence in a nursing home, and the eventual dark and inevitable end to my life.
- New questions began assailing me. With an extended life span guaranteed by medical advances and our health-conscious lifestyles, could I convert my extra years into a blessing rather than a curse?
- For all the earlier phases of my life, I had models to inspire and guide me, but when it came to growing old, there were no good models, codes of behavior, scripts, or social expectations to shape and give meaning to my life.
- As a rabbi and spiritual leader, I was supposed to provide answers to other people, but as I confronted my own aging process, I didn’t know how to answer the new questions that life so insistently was bringing to my attention.
- In 1984 I took a 40-day retreat. I was on a Vision Quest, an ancient shamanic rite of passage in which the seeker retreats from civilization, goes to a sacred place in nature, and cries for a vision of his life path and purpose.
- I realized that I was sloughing off an old phase of life that I had outgrown and was being initiated as an elder, a sage who offers his experience, balanced judgment, and wisdom for the welfare of society.
- I instinctively began harvesting my life, a process that involves bringing one’s earthly journey to a successful completion, enjoying the contributions one has made, and passing on a legacy to the future. I asked myself, “If I had to die now, what would I most regret not having done? What remains incomplete in my life?”
- Fueled by a sense of urgency and excitement, I did extensive reading in gerontology and life extension. I consulted with well-known consciousness researchers, such as Jean Houston and Gay Luce, who were doing remarkable work in developing the potentials of older adults. I applied the teachings of spirituality and transpersonal psychology to the issues of aging.
- Most of all, I studied my own eldering process, piecing together from my quest the tools that lead to successful life completion.
- In 1987 I founded the Spiritual Eldering Institute, which sponsors nondenominational workshops that provide the emotional support, along with psychological and spiritual tools, to help people become elders within our modern culture.
- Our culture’s limited, one-sided view of aging is undergoing a profound reconceptualization in our time. We are the first generation to apply the insights of humanistic and transpersonal psychology and contemplative techniques from our spiritual traditions to the aging process itself, giving birth to what some people call the conscious aging movement.
- The Age Wave is coming on like a tidal wave: Consider these facts:
- In 1776 a US-born child had an average life expectancy of 35; today it is 75 and by the middle of the next century is expected to be 86 for men and 92 for women.
- 100 years ago 2.4 million Americans were over 65 (4% of the population); there are now 30 million (12%), projected to be 35 million by the year 2000.
- 76 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964 – the health-conscious baby boom generation, with its interest in lifelong learning, healthy lifestyle practices, and political activism – will reach retirement age early next century.
- People are casting off the negative images and expectations that sentence older adults to the junkheap as social outcasts and hoisting the banner of successful aging, an activity-oriented approach that promises increased physical vigor, continued intellectual growth, and meaningful work during the elder years.
- We don’t normally associate old age with self-development and spiritual growth. This book proposes a new model of late-life development called sage-ing, a process that enables older people to become spiritually radiant, physically vital, and socially responsible ‘elders of the tribe.’
- The contemporary sage draws on 3 sources: the traditional tribal elder; state-of-the-art breakthroughs in brain-mind and consciousness research; and the ecology movement, which urges us to live in harmony with the natural world.
- Beginning with the Industrial Revolution, with its emphasis on technological knowledge that often was beyond their ken, elders lost their esteemed place in society. Today, as the Age Wave crests we confront existential questions about the purpose of our extended longevity.
- The model that I’m proposing does more than restore the elder to a position of honor and dignity based on age and long experience. It envisions the elder as an agent of evolution, attracted as much by the future of humanity’s expanded brain-mind potential as by the wisdom of the past.
- With an increased life span and the psychotechnologies to expand the mind’s frontiers, the spiritual elder heralds the next phase of human and global development.
- Until recently, the techniques for spiritual eldering were unavailable to the public, but from the 1960s the once hidden teachings of yoga, Zen and Tibetan Buddhism, shamanism, Sufism and Kabbalah (the mystical teachings of Islam and Judaism) entered mainstream Western culture.
- The same period witnessed the growth of humanistic psychology (with its emphasis on an expanded human potential), transpersonal psychology (which uses meditation as a therapeutic tool), and the brain-mind revolution, which uses contemplative techniques and the latest technology to expand our vast mental potential.
- Once elders are returned to positions of leadership, they will function as wisdomkeepers, inspiring us to live by higher values that will convert our throwaway lifestyle into a more sustainable, Earth-cherishing one. They will also serve as evolutionary pathfinders offering hope and guidance to all those searching for models of a fulfilled human potential.
- According to the new picture of aging presented in this book, extended longevity calls for the development of extended consciousness to help offset the physical and social diminishments of old age.
- Part One, consisting of the first three chapters, provides the conceptual understanding and historical perspective to help you begin your journey into elderhood.
- Part Two, covering the next 4 chapters, presents psychological and spiritual tools for transforming your life, such as meditation, life review, and journal writing. You will also learn how to broaden your understanding of time, live with the intimations of eternity that are part of the elder consciousness, and how to approach death consciously as an opportunity for spiritual awakening.
- Part Three, covering the last three chapters, focuses on becoming a mentor; healing the family, the community, and the planet through elder wisdom; and creating the social structures for elderhood to emerge as a significant force in the near future.
- I sincerely hope that From Age-ing to Sage-ing will help you recontextualize aging as the anticipated fulfillment of life, not its inevitable decline, a badge of success rather than a mark of failure.
- The book affirms, despite all the invalidations of our youth culture, that elderhood is a time of unparalleled inner growth having evolutionary significance in this era of world-wide cultural transformation.
- I invite you to accompany me into our unmapped potential. I urge you to undertake this journey not only for your own personal well-being, but for the health and survival of our ailing planet Earth. Together, we will help give birth to a new civilization of unprecedented human development, spearheaded by spiritual elders working with people of all ages to create a peaceful and harmonious global society.
PART ONE: THE THEORY OF SPIRITUAL ELDERING
PART TWO: SPIRITUAL ELDERING AND PERSONAL
TRANSFORMATION
PART THREE: SPIRITUAL ELDERING AND SOCIAL
TRANSFORMATION
Appendix: Exercises for Sages in Training
Bibliography
About the Authors
About the Spiritual Eldering Institute
Index