Material and spiritual wellness

Four stages of life were spoken of in traditional texts —

brahmacharya, grihastha, vanaprastha and sanyasa —
and in each stage there were prescribed duties, said
Goda Venkateswara Sastrigal, in a discourse.

The first stage was devoted to learning by the

gurukula method, where a student stayed in the house
of his teacher and was provided food by the teacher.
The teacher never demanded any fees. At the end of
the period of study, whatever the student could give to
the teacher as a token of his gratitude was accepted
gladly. During the period of study, the student’s only
concern was to study without distraction.

Once study was over, the life of the grihastha would

begin. He would get married and would undertake the
responsibilities of a householder. The grihasthasrama
was the most important of all the four, because it was
the householder who had to provide for his family and
for society. He had the duty of providing for any guest
who turned up on his doorstep and he had to do this
without resenting the presence of an uninvited guest.
Once a person reached the age of sixty, his role was
mainly an advisory one. He would advise youngsters in
the family, for with his experience of the world he was
well placed to offer advice. At the same time, he
remained detached from his family. The elders never
offered advice unless asked for it.

In the last stage — sanyasa — a person did penance

for the welfare of the world. Man needs both material
and spiritual wellness, and with the provision of food
and shelter to even strangers by a householder, with
uninterrupted study facilitated for students, with the
wise advice of elders, and with everyone spending
their last days in penance, physical and spiritual
wellness were taken care of through the prescribed
four stages.