Forest Dweller

 

In yoga philosophy, there are four stages to life each presenting us with a challenge that help us grow and, from that growth, a gift for our families and communities. I am excited and afraid as I enter the third stage of growth which in some translations is delightfully and ominously called the “forest dwellers”. If we have been on a spiritual path or long for one, this is the time of life when we begin the process of living with more and more detachment.  This is detachment from an egoic focused life to one tuned to the innermost divine self or soul.  We are coming to live a bit apart from the “town center” of life, making the transition from “doing” to “being”, letting go of power and certainty, falling into mystery, groundlessness and paradox.   

 

In the first two stages of life, we need to build up the ego so that we might have a sense of ourselves as separate from our parents and community.  We use this egoic will to make our way in the world, earn a living, enter intimate relationships, support family, friends, and community.  Overtime, what we also may start to sense is how accomplishments, relationships, and achievements alone do not fill our deeper longings for love and belonging.  We encounter loss, failures, betrayals, along with boredom, fear, and shame.  Psychological healing and egoic strength will only get us so far in filling interior gaps especially after midlife when we have seen  how unexpectedly life unfolds regardless of the strength of our will.

 

Aging lends itself to a release from the ego programs for self-happiness. Whatever beauty or strength that we once possessed (beauty and strength as traditionally defined by our culture) is clearly no longer available.  Most of us become less valued at work as we age and our culture makes fun of us.  It can be hard to comprehend how we have become the older and old people we also used to find strange, laughable, and even disgusting.  Yet, even though the culture we live in denigrates the aged and does far less than it should to care for old people, spiritual practices show us a way through aging with growth and purpose.  And like any stage, and even more in these later years, these practices like yoga offer us the potential for deeper healing, integration, freedom, and generosity.

 

The metaphor of the “forest dweller” can offer some guidance to this path.  The “forest dweller” is one who is no longer part of the “town center”, no longer raising a family and contributing to the creation or manufacturing of things, no longer accumulating wealth and power. The forest dweller lives closer to the earth, more simply and quietly, more alone with oneself in solitude.  Outwardly focused things and accomplishments no longer have the same attraction as they did in the previous phases.  We begin to realize that the nourishment we long for comes from a connection to the inner source. Through our spiritual practices, we are learning that we don’t need things to turn out a certain way to be happy and even if we did we see how little in life we can control so detachment from outcomes starts to be more inviting and practical if only to reduce the suffering.

 

Detachment helps us to live with more freedom, simplicity, and contentment.  We require less from the world, our family, friends, and projects at work to be content.  We are drawn to live at a slower pace, to fully take in what is unfolding, to savor the miraculous in everyday things. Living with less armor, we cultivate a greater capacity for tenderness, to be open to both joy and sorrow, and further to see how they are inextricably linked. There is during this time a new and great potential for inner healing as we make friends with all the parts of ourselves that we had to disown in the past just to get by.  In this time of the great (re)clamation, we become more whole and holy integrated. 

 

Our gift to the world now isn’t more stuff but in allowing ourselves to live in this more simple, true, and easy way, and through this the chance to be a healing presence in the world.