Old Age

As a human being we are many things and have been many things. We have been the sperm swimming to the precious egg; the fetus that passed through all evolution in its growth; the helpless baby needing so much care; the youngster exploring and experiences so much; the youth like something emerging from a chrysalis into a new life as the body changed; the maturing adult, the middle aged and the old aged person.

Or we may think that we didn’t have any memory of being the fertilised egg or the unborn baby. But that is not so, but we believe it because we live in thoughts which are usually words – all of which were learned long after out birth. But such memories are behind the often irrational things we do, or react to. See Programmed

 Here is a mans memories recorded during a therapy session. “In one session Richard described that he felt immersed in foetal liquid and fixed to the placenta by the umbilical cord. He was aware of nourishment streaming into his body through the navel area and experienced wonderful feelings of symbiotic unity with his mother. There was a continuity of circulation between them; life – giving liquid – blood – seemed to create a sort of magical link between him and her. He heard two sets of heart sounds with different frequencies that were merging into one undulating acoustic pattern. This was accompanied by peculiar hollow and roaring noises that he identified after some hesitation as those produced by gas and liquid during the peristaltic movements of his mother’s intestines adjacent to the uterus. He was fully aware of his body image and recognised that it was very different from his adult one: his head was disproportionately large as compared with the body and extremities. On the basis of cues that he was not able to identify and explain, he diagnosed himself as being a rather mature foetus just before delivery.”

Of course we usually identify fully with our body and its age and condition – yet that is only our outward self. We also have an inner self that is everything we have been or dreamt and colours our experience of the outer life we live. Unfortunately many people identify with their body as it is today, instead of realising they are all that they have ever been, experiencing the body of today. It makes a wonderful difference and creates much laughter.

So old age in your dreams can be anything – an awful ending going down hill; or a wonderful creative act. Below is statement of a man’s struggle with ageing.

Example: Realised that I was this damaged tower block, yet while I stood there I was keeping my head up like I have always done. I stand always being seen but never knowing what way I will fall (or go). People are never sure about me. I felt that this feeling was from an early age. I was 19 when I got married there had been a cut off point; I felt that it had something to do with being pushed around by my wife. She was not my partner, I was in fact her convenience.

I took this abuse with my “I’m above it all stand. When the building crashed I cried and cried, it was the death of my adulthood, for want of a better word. I was now confronted with old age and the way I had lived trying to stay above it always has gone. I hated my Mother and Father and I always kill myself as I couldn’t kill them. How I deprived myself of my needs—the picture of Jesus suffer the little children to come unto me (at Sunday school ) in Hampden Road, where I lived before I went into the orphanage. Even he – Jesus – never came to get me out.

There has been no ability to believe in anyone since that time. I also saw that if my partner was happy then so was I. Yet this growing up has come about because of all the misery I have seen in my relationships. I then felt a deep fear that I must turn to God as I am now in old age, to know the Divine Principle as much as possible before I die. The thought of the pain that I would have to go through to achieve this. The building is down now and there is a strong feeling that I should turn inwards and focus on rebuilding my inner character. With a sense of self worth and not just an acceptance of my lot as given by parents and society. I was also happy that I had got mypartner out of the building. I felt it showed a gentle love was still within me, leaving me with a wider feeling of gentleness that has encompassed me since. end.

Then later in another exploration he wrote the following.

 Example: Then I felt my child speak from within as words came out they said, I have had to live through you (the adult ) it was not safe it would have died. I then felt like a shoot buried deeply yet still growing through all the obstacles and was nearing the surface, I cried out that I am alive, getting old with age yet being filled with life.  See Where My Stallion

So even in extreme old age we can still contact the young and growing self. Here are more words about that.

 Example: Do I want to settle down into old age suburbia? Yes, if I’m still inquisitive and want to understand things. I’m an ageing male. I have a sense of progression even into death. I am doing something. I am helping creating something, an enormous structure with a sense of real beauty. It leads up and up and up into a new dimension.

There is a wonderful difference between identifying with your body and its aches and pains, and the realisation that within you – especially in old age – is a treasure house of wonderful experience. So call on it. See Life’s Little Secrets; Simple Truths

 Example: In my own case I felt love had passed me by, and I would go into old age and die without love. But I didn’t want to die. I got to the edge and peered over, but I chose to live, to want, to crawl on hands and knees for love. So I pulled back from the loss of self called Buddhahood. I sense another way though – the way of growth, of becoming more, of allowing more of life to express through me. I see this as occurring if we let events and people call out of us more than we were, so we grow beyond ourselves.  See beyond the 60’s

Useful Questions and Hints:

What have I felt or imagined about being old?

What has my dream said about it?

Do I see my body as myself and have not claimed my inner world?

See Inner World – Spiritual Life In Dreams – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams