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September/October 2001 The Meaning of Age by Tosun Bayrak al-Jerrahi Recently I heard a lecturer on PBS say, "No one grows old
after the age of forty." It sounds helpful and encouraging,
doesn’t it? In fact it is what most older people wish to hear,
and confirms a pervasive attitude. People should eat, drink, and
make merry at the age of ninety just as they did at the age of forty.
Never mind that heart conditions, diabetes, digestive problems,
rheumatism–if not worse conditions–may not permit them
to. Even the few in good shape (with the help of doctors and drugs
and the gym) will precipitate their end if they behave like forty-year-olds.
Worse still, they are throwing away their last chance, their last
moment of peace on earth, and their place in the Hereafter. No, to encourage people to think they are forty when they are ninety gives no real hope, either to a person of forty or to a person of ninety. On the contrary, this attitude instigates hopelessness. First of all, it simply isn’t true. Even if one manages to be heedless of one’s aches and pains, the mirror bears witness to the truth. The Prophet of Islam asked people to "Know the value of five things before they disappear: life, before death comes; health, before sickness comes; wealth, before poverty comes; youth, before old age comes; and time, before there is no time left." The "good life," health, wealth, and youth are for people under forty. They have the time, and hope for the future. Sickness, death, and poverty (even for the rich, who cannot enjoy their riches in their old age) are for the old, for whom time is running out. Denying that is futile. And second, if ninety is no different from forty, then there is nothing to work toward. The Prophet said, "If two of your days are the same, you are in a state of loss." There are two alternatives to pretending to be forty. One is the thing everybody fears: to fall into depression, lie down, and wait for your death. But the other is to assume your responsibility as an old and wise person. The first is suicide. The second is a better life than forty-year-olds can have. At forty, you are hopeful. If you pretend to be forty, you are hopeless. But if you are old and wise, you are the hope of others. The Prophet of Islam said, "I love all people, but I love best the very young and the very old." Why the very young? Because they have sinned less, having had less time to sin. And if they are being brought up to be what God meant human beings to be, then they have hope–hope of God’s beneficence and the goodness of life. For in spite of their energy, their boiling blood yearning for adventure, and their newly-discovered active egos, they are able to control themselves, to aspire to being decent, moral, humane, caring, godfearing adults. Why the very old? Because it is they who have taught the young to be human, contrary to the temptations of their egos and their physical natures–to cherish an existence that holds more than the competition and self-gratification proper to animals. And they have taught them, not by words alone, but by the example of their own being. Performance of this duty is the salvation of the old. It is that which gives us peace and happiness in old age, as well as hope for a future in the Hereafter. When we undertake this task, we are loved by our families and children, and indeed by all. The Prophet says, "If you are loved by the people, it is a sign that you are loved by God." That should be the meaning of life for an aging person: for the love of God and for God’s sake–not for personal benefit–we should be serving humankind. Starting with our children and neighbors, then our society and country, we should be trying to spread beneficence to all humanity, and indeed all God’s creation: plants, animals, earth, water, and air…up to the galaxies. God created the human being to be His deputy in the universe, and sent His last prophet as His mercy upon the universe and an example of the fulfilled life. And the Prophet said, "The good deeds of people that will bring them to Paradise do not end with their deaths. The good things you leave behind continue to be counted in your favor as long as they continue to serve Creation. And the best of deeds is to leave behind good children who set an example to humankind." Woe to a society that sends its elders out to pasture! Once there was a meek man with a mean wife, a young child, and an invalid father who lived with him. Although the father was a nice old man, the wife did not want him in the house. One day she insisted that he had to be gotten rid of:, and the only way to do it was to leave him in a forest nearby. The weak husband painfully consented. The next day the man proposed to take his father on a picnic in the forest. When his little son chanced to hear of this, he insisted that he wanted to go with his grandfather. The old man also wanted the child to come, and rather than raise suspicions, the younger man said yes. All three went off to the forest and had a meal. After the picnic, the man told his father that he was taking his son for a walk in the woods. "Why don’t you have a nap, Dad," he said, "while we are gone?" The tired old man slept, and the father told his son that it was time to go home. "But what about Granddad?" the child said. His father told him that Granddad would have to be left behind. "But why?" asked the child. "Well, it’s the custom," said the man, at a loss. "When people get old, we leave them in the forest." "Oh, I see," said the child. "I guess I’ll be leaving you in the forest someday, too." When he heard this, the man suddenly realized the horror of what he was about to do. He gently woke his father up and tearfully confessed what he had planned. "No, my son," the old man said, "you would never have left me in the forest." "But Dad, I nearly did!" "No, no, son, it could never have happened." "How can you say that, Dad? It almost did happen!" "It was impossible for you to do that to me," the old man told him, "because I never did it to my own father." The good generates the good, the bad generates the bad, and societies generate their conditions out of their customs. Yet consciousness of God allows us to break the chain of evil circumstances. The Prophet of Islam said, at the end of his life, "I am leaving you with two teachers, a talking teacher and a silent teacher. The talking teacher is the Qur’an. The silent teacher is death." Even if nothing else will do it, remembering death reminds us of God’s majesty and the smallness of our concerns. When the heedless young detest the old, it is out of fear of their own mortality–but looking death straight in the eye makes us measure the worth of our acts. Without such self-evaluation, virtue remains an empty notion. To keep virtue possible in the acts of the young is the greatest service of old people and the true meaning of age. . q Shaykh Tosun Bayrak al-Jerrahi al-Halveti has been spiritual guide of the Jerrahi Order of the Americas, primary Western branch of the 300-year-old Halveti-Jerrahi Order of Dervishes, since 1977. Shaykh Tosun originated FOR’s Bosnian Student Project. His translations of classic works of Sufism include Divine Governance of the Human Kingdom (Ibn `Arabi), Secret of Secrets (`Abdul-Qadir Jilani) , Inspirations (Shaykh Badruddin), The Book of Sufi Chivalry (Sulami), The Shape of Light (Suhrawardi), and The Name and the Named: Divine Attributes of God (collected authors). Visit www.jerrahi.org for further information on the Jerrahi Order.
©2001 Fellowship of Reconciliation |
