GROWING BY DECREASING. A historical journey through the concept of old age (II)

• Lecture presented at the EHU (University of the Basque Country) Summer Courses, 2026 (continuation)

3. Traditions of India: Hinduism and Buddhism

a) Hinduism

Within the great mystical and wisdom tradition of Hinduism, whose oldest texts date back to around 1500 BCE, the teaching of the four Ashramas, or stages into which human life is divided, took shape and spread:

1. From birth until the age of 25, the child or young person is a brahmachariya: they study, learn the skills necessary for life, and cultivate self-control.

2. From the ages of 25 to 50, the adult is a grihastha: they marry and work for the family and for society.

3. From the ages of 50 to 75, one gradually becomes free (or, as we would say today, retires) from family and professional duties in order to devote oneself to vanaprastha (withdrawal), that is, to spiritual seeking and meditation. The Code of Manu, one of the most influential texts of Hinduism (around the 2nd century BCE), teaches: “When the head of the household sees wrinkles on his skin, white hair, and the children of his children, then he should [or may] withdraw into the forest” (6.2).

4. From the age of 75 onwards (an age reached by very few people in those times), the elderly person, completely retired, becomes a sannyasa (renunciant), entirely renouncing the material world in order to devote themselves fully to contemplation, devotion, and the search for complete and profound spiritual liberation.

As we can see, the elderly person is not viewed as an unproductive person and therefore as useless, but rather, on the contrary, as someone devoted to what is essential: the fulfilment or culmination of life, fundamental wisdom, and liberation from all attachments. They do not renounce authentic life, but rather what prevents it: ambition, the desire to possess, and attachment to the ego.

Thus, the elderly person prepares to experience death as a passage (the Passover, we might say in Christian language): not merely a passage into a new body, but a passage towards immortal fullness. As expressed in one of the best-known prayers of Hinduism, in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (around the 7th–6th century BCE): “Lead me from the unreal to the real, from darkness to light, from death to immortality” (1.3.28).

b) Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama Buddha) (6th–5th century BCE)

It is said that Siddhartha Gautama was an unconcerned prince who lacked nothing in his father’s palace, and that his radical transformation of life began as a result of four journeys outside the palace, which allowed him to discover and confront the reality of life with its burden of suffering. During his first journey in a chariot, he saw a hunched old man walking with great difficulty, and he returned to the palace deep in thought. During the other three journeys, he successively encountered a sick person, a funeral procession, and an ascetic.

He discovered that life entails suffering, as expressed in the recitation of the “Five Remembrances” found in one of the best-known Buddhist texts, the Anguttara Nikāya:

“I am subject to aging; I am not free from aging.
I am subject to illness; I am not free from illness.
I am subject to death; I am not free from death.” (5.57)

Through attentive observation, he discovered that the fundamental cause of suffering is desire, attachment in all its forms. And he taught a “Noble Eightfold Path” as a way to free oneself from radical suffering; this path consists in becoming completely liberated from attachment in all its forms through the practice of mindfulness.

This, then, is the core of Buddha’s entire teaching, the heart of Buddhism: the truth of suffering, its origin, the possibility of liberation from suffering, and the path to overcome it. In a frequently quoted passage from the Dhammapada, Buddha teaches: “As a herdsman drives cattle with his staff, so do old age and death drive the lives of beings.” (10.135)

Nothing that happens and no person is classified by him as either good or bad, nor does he seek to examine the metaphysical origin and ultimate end of what exists. Likewise, old age, illness and death are not good or bad in themselves, but rather manifestations of human existence and of reality in its inherent impermanence. They are an opportunity to deepen our vision, our awareness, and the ultimate wisdom of detachment, which opens us to eternal fulfilment.

4. The Wisdom of Ancient Greece

a) Plato (c. 427 BCE–347 BCE)

He was a disciple of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle. In 387 BCE he founded the famous Academy of Athens. His fundamental teachings on old age are found in The Republic, a magnificent synthesis of the thought of the mature Plato. The most frequently quoted and commented passage by Plato on old age appears at the beginning of Book I, where Socrates converses with Cephalus, a wealthy and respected elderly man.

– Old age as liberation from passionate desires. Cephalus says: “When desires cease to torment us and lose their intensity, exactly what Sophocles said happens to us. I feel freed from many furious masters.” In contrast with the impulses of youth, old age brings calm and inner freedom. Plato insists on this point in his dialogues The Symposium and Phaedo. In the latter, he describes the death of Socrates in complete serenity, drinking the hemlock. But now, in The Republic, Cephalus says to Socrates: “The cause is not old age, Socrates, but character. Moderate and balanced men bear age well.” (329c–330a).

This is a decisive observation by Plato. Old age, therefore, is neither good nor bad in itself; rather, it depends on how it is lived. In The Laws, Plato tends to associate sophrosyne (good sense, moderation, and modesty) with old age more than with youth (Book II, 653a–c), while always warning that this quality must be cultivated from youth onward.

One of Plato’s great principles is the Greek maxim inscribed on the façade of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, alongside the famous “Know thyself”: “Nothing in excess” (a saying quoted in his dialogue Protagoras and in Hipparchus 228b).

– The serenity of the just elderly person. Cephalus explains: “When a man believes the end is near, he feels fear and concern about things that previously did not trouble him.” And he adds: “Whoever knows that he has committed no injustices lives with sweet hope.” (330d–331a). Old age is not necessarily a stage of life in which worries disappear. They may even increase. It depends on how one looks upon one’s past, how one faces the future, and how one understands what lies beyond death. Regarding the past, must one have been just in order to live old age in peace? Certainly not, even though Plato does not tell us so.

– The elderly as leaders of the polis. In The Laws, Plato assumes that the elderly should guide the city (gerontocracy). However, in The Republic, he argues that philosophers should govern it, after many years of political experience, after having passed through various trials, and after having reached the contemplation of the Good — something that cannot occur before the age of 50. Therefore, only the best among philosophers should lead the city (aristocracy) (Book VII, 539e–540a, and especially 540a–c).

b) Aristotle (384 BCE–322 BCE)

Philosopher and scientist, a multidisciplinary thinker, founder of the Lyceum of Athens, and considered, alongside Plato, one of the fathers of Western philosophy. Regarding old age, he is much more empirical and realistic than Plato. He does not idealise it as much as Plato does; rather, he observes it and presents both its opportunities and its physical and psychological limitations.

In his Rhetoric (Book II, chapters 13–14, 1389b14–18), he offers his most famous portrait of old age in contrast with youth. He does so with his usual sharpness of observation, and, truth be told, he does not portray us in a particularly flattering way. “The elderly live more from memory than from hope, because what remains of their life is little and what is past is much,” he says (Book II, 1389b). “They have lived many years, have been deceived more often by others, and have themselves made more mistakes; and since most human affairs turn out badly, they do not assert anything with certainty… They have been deceived many times and have committed many errors.” Later, he states that old people “are always suspicious, because they distrust; and they distrust because of their experience.” Old age frees them from the strongest passions (“they do not desire intensely,” he says), but this does not necessarily guarantee spiritual elevation. We know this well. The harshest passage is where he points out that old people “are lovers of money (philochrēmatoi), because deprivation has become familiar to them.” And he also says that they are “small-souled (mikropsychoi)” (Book II, 1389b21–23).

In the later Nicomachean Ethics, however, Aristotle presents a much more positive view: the elderly person is characterised by the virtue of phronesis (prudence, practical wisdom, and sound judgement), which requires long experience: “Young people can be mathematicians, but they cannot be prudent.” (Book VI, 1142a). For this reason, Aristotle encourages us to listen to the elderly: “Attention should be given to the statements of experienced and elderly people.” (Book VI, 1143b), because, thanks to experience, they are capable of “seeing correctly” (Book VI, 1143b). Would that both things were true: that we know how to see correctly and that we are listened to!

Finally, in his Politics, the Stagirite philosopher observes that nature has given young people strength and drive, while it has given older people prudence, good judgement, and wisdom, “making some fit to be governed and others fit to govern.”
(Book VII, 14, 1332b34–1333a16).

5. The Wisdom of Ancient Rome

a) Cicero (106 BCE – 43 BCE, 1st century BCE)

Marcus Tullius Cicero, besides being a philosopher, politician, and great orator, was one of the finest writers of the Roman Republic. He wrote the only Latin work devoted exclusively to old age: De senectute (“On Old Age”), an extraordinary affirmation of the opportunities that old age offers us in order to live with quality and fulfilment.

Cicero is an eclectic thinker; he draws inspiration from both Plato and Aristotle as well as from Stoicism, but the Stoic influence becomes especially evident in his reflection on old age. Thus, from the very beginning, he states that philosophy helps us “to face all the troubles of life without any kind of adversity” (no. 2), and that “we are wise because we have nature as our best guide and obey it as we would a god” (no. 5).

The book is structured as an ordered refutation of the four reasons why old age is regarded by many as “misery,” as an age of misfortunes, namely: 1) that it separates us from almost all activities (res gerendae, that is, “undertakings” or “affairs”); 2) that the body becomes weaker; 3) that it deprives us of almost all pleasures; and 4) that death is no longer far away.

Against the first argument (that old age distances us from activities), he maintains that this is true only with regard to those activities “that were carried out with the vigour and strength of youth” (no. 15). He states: “Many activities are not carried out through bodily strength, speed, or agility, but through counsel (consilium), authority, and judgement (sententia), all of which old age, far from lacking, possesses in abundance” (no. 17). And he insists that: “Old age is not only not weakened and vulnerable; on the contrary, old age is industrious and always has something in hand, with the same concern and dedication as in the earlier stages of life” (no. 26).

Against the second argument (that the body becomes weaker), he observes: “This is another of the common complaints about the ailments of old age,” but he adds that wisdom consists in: “acting according to the strength one has at the moment and making use of it, whatever one does” (no. 27). “Is there not still enough ability in old age to teach, educate, and prepare young people to undertake all kinds of positions?” (no. 29). “One should make use of this gift [strength] while one has it, but when it is gone, one should not seek it. Adolescence should not seek childhood, nor middle age should seek youth. The course of age is determined, and the path of nature is unique and simple. Each period of life has been given its own proper opportunity (tempestivitas)” (no. 32). “One must take care of one’s health, one must exercise moderately, one must eat and drink as much as is needed to gain strength, but not so much as to become fatigued (…). For both [food and exercise] should be remedies for the body, but much more for the mind and spirit (…). Bodies lose agility through the fatigue of exercise, whereas the spirit becomes more refined through mental training” (no. 36). “Old age is bearable if it defends itself, if it preserves its rights, if it is subject to no one, and if, until its final moment, the elderly person is respected among their own” (no. 37).

Against the third argument (that old age deprives us of almost all pleasures, voluptates), Cicero insists—drawing on his Stoic and Platonic background—that many pleasures (excesses, drunkenness, orgies…) are harmful to health. He warns: “Bodily pleasure (voluptas), when it is too great and prolonged, extinguishes mental clarity” (no. 41). But he praises many pleasures that an elderly person can and should enjoy, such as conversation and communal dining (convivium, symposium). He writes: “How great a thing it is for the spirit (animus) to free itself from ambition, from quarrels and hostility, from every form of desire, and, as they say, to live at peace with itself, as in military life! But for old age nothing is more pleasurable than intellectual life, if one still feels even a spark of attraction for study and discipline” (no. 49). And, quoting Solon’s statement (“one grows old learning many things every day”), Cicero declares: “I think that no greater pleasure can exist for the soul (animus)” (no. 50). He delights in describing the pleasure of contemplating agriculture and nature in general: “Rural activities are pleasurable because of the crops of the earth, the meadows, the vineyards and shrubs, as well as the orchards, the fruit trees, the pastures for animals, the care and tending of beehives, and the variety of all kinds of flowers. Likewise, one enjoys sowing and grafting, through which the cultivation of the land becomes much more delightful” (no. 54). “What more shall I say about the greenness of the meadows, the rows of trees, the varieties of vines and olive trees? To conclude briefly, nothing can be more abundant to enjoy, nor more beautiful to behold, than a well-cultivated field” (no. 57). “Even without those pleasures, old age can also be happy” (no. 58).

Finally, against the fourth argument (the nearness of death), Cicero observes that it is certain that we will die, but that we know nothing about what lies beyond. He inclines towards the Platonic conviction that death is liberation, but in any case we should not be anxious about death; rather, we should live the present worthily, grateful for the time we have lived. “Old age can be lived properly, provided one is capable of fulfilling one’s responsibilities and even of disregarding one’s own death” (no. 72). “Certainly the hours, days, months, and years pass; the time that has gone by can never be recovered, and what is going to happen cannot be known. Therefore, the time granted to each person is meant to be lived; for this very reason one should be content” (no. 69). “I depart from life as from an inn, and not as from my own home” (no. 84). If there is nothing after death, we have nothing to fear. If death is the gateway to eternal life, then we should desire it.

Cicero’s greatness is admirable: his elevation together with his realism, the quality of his wisdom, and the beauty with which he expresses it.

b) Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BCE – Rome, 65 CE)

He is one of the greatest representatives of Stoic philosophy, which is clearly reflected in his well-known work De brevitate vitae (On the Shortness of Life) and in his famous thirteen Letters to Lucilius. The twelfth letter deals precisely with old age (with the advantages of old age and readiness for death). It does not possess the brilliance of style and content found in Cicero, but it is worth mentioning a couple of passages that clearly reveal its Stoic character.

“The most delightful part of every pleasure is reserved for the end. Life is more pleasant when it has already begun to decline, but has not yet fallen into decrepitude; and even when it is close to perishing, I believe it still has its pleasures, or at least, at that stage, instead of such pleasures we rejoice in no longer needing any of them. How sweet it is to have exhausted and abandoned desires!” (no. 5). The difficult thing is learning to taste that sweetness. “If God grants us one more day, let us accept it with joy. Truly and securely enjoys possession of himself the one who says to himself each day: ‘I have lived’; each day he will rise to new gains” (no. 9). “I have lived” reproduces the famous expression Bebiotai, which was used in ancient Greek to say that someone “has died.” Saying “I have lived” is a very wise and healthy way of giving thanks for life each night and preparing oneself to begin it anew every morning.

6. Sufi Islamic Wisdom: Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207–1273)

Jalal al-Din Rumi was a great Persian poet and thinker, one of the foremost figures of Sufi Islamic mysticism, and the founder and master of the dervish school. In his characteristic provocative style, full of paradoxes, chapter 33 of his book Fihi ma Fihi (“In It What Is In It”) contrasts deep joy in living with superficial and illusory joy, metaphorically associating the former with the elderly person and the latter with the young person. At the end of the chapter we read:

“They say: ‘Should a man play after the age of eighty?’
And I say: ‘Should one not play before the age of eighty?’

Through His grace, the Most High grants elderly people a youthful ardour that young people cannot imagine. This youthful ardour gives the elderly person a freshness that makes them leap and laugh, and gives them the desire to play, because they see the world with new eyes without being weary of it. When an elderly person sees the world renewed, they desire to play, they leap, and they become young again.

Noble is old age if, while the hair turns grey,
the cord of joy breaks loose.

The majesty of old age comes from the springtime of divine majesty, and the autumn of old age does not replace it. Autumn abandons its autumnal nature. There is never weakness in the springtime of divine grace.”

And here, suddenly and without warning, Rumi goes on to describe the opposite experience: that of the ordinary person who loses heart and collapses as soon as they perceive any sign of ageing: “In the same way,” writes Rumi, “each time a tooth falls out, the smile of the divine spring weakens; each time a hair turns grey, the freshness of divine grace withers; and each time the autumn rain sheds a tear, the garden of truths becomes darkened”.

Rumi therefore teaches that, for those who live through the illusions of the ego (the craving for power, success, and perpetual well-being), old age becomes a threat to their joy of living. By contrast, in those who are free from the ego and its aspirations, the losses that accompany old age do not destroy freshness, playfulness, or the joy of living. Of course, this requires also becoming free from the desire for complete liberation. The springtime of life is not incompatible with weaknesses and contradictions.

This teaching of Rumi essentially coincides with the teachings of all the philosophical and spiritual traditions of Antiquity that I have referred to in the preceding pages, as well as with the teaching of the biblical tradition to which I will later refer. But all those ancient teachings also correspond, in their essence, with the recommendations offered by contemporary thinkers for living a good old age, although these recommendations are now expressed in a new language.

We shall therefore make a leap of 700 or 800 years and move on to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

José Arregi, Aizarna, 29 July 2026
www.josearregi.com

(to be continued)