The Way of the Traveller or the Hearthmaker
Which way leads to a fulfilling life
According to ancient Hindu texts there are four stages of life (Ashrama). The four Ashramas are:
- Brahmacharya – the student
- Grihastha – the householder
- Vanaprastha – the forest walker/forest dweller
- Sannyasa– the renunciation
Each stage follows in chronological order. The time of life to renunciate the world is when you reach your seventies. The householder ends towards the end of the your forties, so you leave the hearth to tramp the roads and forests in your fifties.
The age groupings are not so important and not entirely appropriate for our times. But the stages themselves are interesting by highlighting some of the tensions between our own competing needs. If one stage cannot follow neatly, one after the other, how do you reconcile the need to maintain and dwell in the hearth along with the lure of travel and experiencing the challenges of the world?
Narziss and Goldmund (1930) by Hermann Hesse, is set in medieval Germany, and places these two stages into the two…
