Dharma and the Stages of Life

Remembering How to Live

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We have forgotten how to live. Not merely how to extend life, or how to fill it with activity, but how to inhabit it with grace. Our collective narcissism has collapsed the natural rhythm of existence into a single stage of endless striving. Children are rushed into adulthood before they have ripened. Adults cling to adolescence long after it has passed. Elders refuse to step aside, propped up as if relevance were eternal. What was once a cycle of learning, responsibility, withdrawal, and release has become one long performance — played to exhaustion.

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The Indian tradition preserved a map for the human journey: the ashrama (āśrama) system, the four stages of life.​

 

• Brahmacharya (studenthood): a time of discipline, learning, and wonder.

• Grhastha (householder): the stage of responsibility — raising families, contributing to society, fulfilling worldly duties.

• Vanaprastha (forest-dweller): gradual withdrawal, mentoring, and preparation for release.

• Sannyasa (renunciate): freedom from all roles, living for truth alone.

 

This was not rigid dogma, but recognition of the natural arc of human life. To skip or stretch a stage was to distort the whole.

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Today, the stages have collapsed. Each has been denied its dignity, and society itself cheers on the distortion.

 

Children are no longer allowed to linger in innocence. Their dharma of curiosity is sacrificed to productivity. They are handed screens instead of silence, schedules instead of play, grades and rankings instead of the freedom to grow. The student stage, which should build the foundation of character, is shortened into a race to become useful.

 

The dharma of young adulthood is to take up the mantle of responsibility, to become householders in truth — not merely in name. Yet our culture extends adolescence indefinitely. Young adults are encouraged to chase novelty, to live for entertainment, to avoid commitment. Their dharma of embracing the world is postponed, replaced by a search for perpetual self-expression.

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Even in middle age, many resist the full weight of grihastha dharma. Careers become platforms for endless self-advancement rather than service. Relationships are often treated as disposable. Parenthood is minimized or outsourced. Instead of maturing into those who bear responsibility for others, many chase the illusion of staying forever young.

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When old age arrives, society offers no wisdom for bowing out. Instead of vanaprastha and sannyasa, we see endless clinging: leaders who cannot retire, artists who cannot stop performing, executives who cannot release control. Rather than becoming guides, elders are urged to remain competitors. Their dharma of release is replaced by the illusion of immortality.

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Why Stages Matter for Dharma

 

Dharma is not static. What is right for a child is not right for an elder. To learn is dharmic for a student, but irresponsible for a parent if it comes at the expense of providing. To lead is dharmic for an adult, but undignified for an elder who refuses to step aside. Without the rhythm of stages, dharma itself is distorted — children lose wonder, youth lose courage, adults lose responsibility, elders lose grace.

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From Vedanta’s view, the ashramas are scaffolding — meant to prepare the mind for Self-knowledge. Childhood shapes discipline, adulthood shapes responsibility, old age shapes detachment. The final aim is not success or relevance, but freedom. But if one never bows out, one never makes space for contemplation, much less renunciation.

 

Remembering How to Live

 

We have many models of striving. We have very few of letting go. What would our world look like if children modeled wonder, youth modeled discipline, adults modeled responsibility, and elders modeled release?

 

We need not return to the ashramas as rigid social law. But we can remember their wisdom. Life has stages. Each carries a dharma. To honor them is to live fully — and to bow out gracefully when the time comes.

 

To forget them, as we have, is to forget how to live.

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This essay is part of series​ that explores the ancient concept of dharma as both diagnosis and prescription for our modern malaise. Drawing from Vedanta and mythology, each piece offers a lens through which to understand our turbulent world—not as a random mess, but as a lawful unfolding shaped by deep patterns.

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