From Carly Wade, as she enters the stage of the “Forest Dweller”
I’ve been thinking a lot about changes recently. I always think about changes at this time of year. Many of my students will graduate next week. Others will move on to other classes and programs. Are your questions for yourselves anything like mine for my students? What will come next for them? What will they learn that delights them? That consternates them? What will they take with them from Milton? What will they leave behind? Especially, what do they know about themselves now because they’ve been Milton students?
This year, in particular, as I started to ask myself these questions—in part because I, too, will graduate from Milton next week—I remembered a piece of ancient teaching that I hadn’t thought about for some time. I went back to some readings to see what that teaching had to say to me now. Then I thought that it had something to say to you, as well, because the passage of time and the changes we live through have meaning for our lives. But what meaning?
Here’s what I found:
In ancient Hindu belief a human life had to be understood in four stages. Each stage had its essential role to play. No stage was less or more important than any other, because only in living properly within each of the times of life could a person reach the ultimate goal of life on this earth: self-realization.
In the first stage of life, called living with Brahma or the divine, the young person is a Student. She gives her entire attention, energy and devotion to learning from her teachers, absorbing the knowledge and wisdom of the ages. This is a time when the cares and concerns of the larger world remain distant, because they don’t belong to this stage. The Student’s teachers may be many. The wisdom she is thinking through is helping her learn what her life is, what the world is, how the problems of life might be understood. It is this part of the pursuit of self-realization that you have done so well during your years at Milton, and that you will continue, with other teachers, in the next four or six or eight or who knows how many years beyond Milton. This is what life is asking of you now.
In the second stage, a person enters into the activities of the world. It is called the time of the Householder. In this time a person will practice his profession, trade or craft. He will participate in the concerns of his family and of the community where he lives. Through these activities in the busyness of every day he will demonstrate the understanding he gained in his Student days. He will plant his garden and raise his children; he will fl y airplanes, heal the sick or run for President. He will make his mark in the world. But there comes a time when that busyness is no longer sufficient, when the growing knowledge of human life in the world begs for reflection. This is the stage of the Forest Dweller. She withdraws from her profession—although she is still available for advice and consultation—she bequeaths to her children the daily management of the world of affairs, and she begins another life of some solitude and contemplation of nature’s world. Now I bring this up because I am about to go dwell in the forest, but I know that for you such a time is far in the distance, and probably looks deeply unappealing just now. My point is that in this ancient teaching, whose certainty is that life on this earth has but one purpose, the third stage that centers on contemplation, on weaving together the threads of study and of engagement in the world, is a stage that must not be missed. I understand that imperative now, as I never have before.
But you, the Students. You’ve made a fine start in your search for understanding. You’ve started to ask many of the essential questions: Who am I? What do I want? What is true? And beautiful? And good? Of course, what is life? And what is life for? The answers you will find as you study, and then as you live within the human community, will be many and wonderful and distressing and confusing. But all worth your consideration. So my message to you, finally, is this: Live your time as a Student deeply. Study with teachers whose approach to learning is compelling to you. Don’t ever for a moment think that you’ve learned enough. As I said before, this is the time of your life given for opening yourself to the knowledge that our species has amassed. Live this time fully. Question, and think, and find some time for quiet reflection. Value the friends who question and reflect and share their insights with you. There will be time to own a house metaphorically or otherwise. There will be a time to dwell in the forest—or the mountains, or the desert. Those times will come. If you’ve been counting, you know that I haven’t gotten to the fourth of life’s stages. That’s right. I have no insight about that one yet. Check back with me in 20 years or so. In the meantime, one step at a time. I do wish you all joy in the journeys that lie before you. Thank you.
May 31, 2011