The Āśrama Stages of Life

Lesson 17 ended with a problem: the four aims include both worldly flourishing and release from the world, and those pull against each other. The āśrama scheme is the tradition's most influential attempt to hold them together — by distributing them across a lifetime.

Brahmacarya, studentship: living with a teacher, learning the texts, celibate and simple. Gṛhastha, the householder: marriage, work, children, property, the maintenance of ritual and of other people. Vānaprastha, the forest-dweller: a withdrawal from household management, traditionally after seeing one's children established. Saṃnyāsa, renunciation: formal abandonment of property, home, ritual fire and social identity, in pursuit of liberation.