There are high laws to invoke, as age advances, to sustain the pranas, to
strengthen the force of life within. Those who know wisdom’s ways have
overcome the “I’m getting old ” syndrome, a mantra no one should ever
repeat, even once. They know how the mind works, and by applying the laws,
they have lived long, useful, happy and healthy lives. The redundancy
system of one part of the body failing and another part taking over,
especially within the brain, should be understood by the aging person, to
know that all is not lost. If memory loss is experienced, things can often
be memorized again and shifted over to another part of the brain. These are
simple techniques that are based on the truth that the mind is constantly
maturing; so are the emotions, and so is the intelligence and accumulated
knowledge. Most importantly, the wisdom of how to use the knowledge and to
judge whether it is worthwhile at all–that, too, is maturing from decade to
decade and life to life.
Life is eternal on the inner planes, in the refined bodies of the soul. But
a physical body these days is hard to obtain. We have to go though the
embarrassment of birth, being slapped on the bottom, talked to in baby
talk, and learning to walk, read and write all over again. It takes years
and years before we get back to, if we ever do in the new life, the wisdom
years that we attained in the previous birth.
So, take care of your physical body. No need to know too much about it, for
it knows what it needs. Listen to its messages, respond quickly, find an
ayurvedic doctor who can help you through the many changes the body will
naturally go through, and face each one positively. This body is
impermanent, true, but it is the only one you have, so make the best use of
it. You have good work to do, and knowledge born of experience to pass
along to the coming generation.
The older you get, the more disciplined you should get, the more sadhana
you should perform as you drop off the extraneous things of the world. If
your children leave home and cultivate other interests, find new eager
children to teach, new ways to serve. Be useful to others. Keep planting
the seeds of dharma. Maybe they will be annuals instead of perennials, but
keep planting for the future. Others might be saying, “old and gray and in
the way, ” but we say, “old and gray and here to stay.”
Forty years of age is well known as a change of life. Seventy years of age
is the prime of life. Eighty is the fulfillment of that prime. An
eighty-year-old person, who has fulfilled the prime of life, holding a
new-born infant makes a complete circle of life. As one nears eighty years
of age, this is again time to revamp one’s life, motivations, desires, and
to plan for the next forty years, which recognizes a natural life span of
120 years. It is interesting to note that the muscular structure of the
physical body does not start to deteriorate until after age seventy-two,
and then only slightly, unless one neglects to exercise. Mystics say that
eighty years of age is a difficult time to get through psychologically,
physically and emotionally, because it is definite that you're old when you
are eighty. Therefore, a new plan for motivation for the future should be
made well in advance, at least at age seventy-two, so that when eighty
rolls around it is well impressed in the subconscious mind that, this might
be time to start slowing down and preparing for life after the life of the
physical body.
*AGEING GRACEFULLY ( not from western titled book)*
Prof B M Hegde
*“Age, I abhor thee, Youth, I adore thee.”
Shakespeare.*
One does not have to abhor aged people at all. I do not agree with
Shakespeare. One could grow up gracefully and could achieve many things
even at the ripe old age. There are examples of people who have been
creative even in their eighties and nineties. How to grow old gracefully is
a million-dollar question. Any society, which does not have the wise
counsel of its elderly people, is a poor society. Age mellows people a lot.
If one is a thinker, age teaches many useful lessons. Life is not long
enough for each of us to make all the mistakes ourselves and then learn
from them. We could learn from others’ mistakes and, in this direction, the
thinking elders are a great boon.
The craze for money and power seems to be the cause of degradation of
societal morals and ethics. The bad effects of this are seen in all walks
of life. Competition, which is alien to human physiology, is the key word
these days. Competition breeds mediocrity in every sphere, resulting in
falling standards of morality, ethics, and common courtesies. This is not
new. Look at what Shakespeare wrote about the state of affairs then:
*“For in the fatness of these pursy times, Virtue itself of vice must
pardon beg.” Hamlet.*
If one goes deep into this malady, one quickly realizes that the root cause
of our entire competitive ethos starts with our present system of education
at the primary level. The innocent child, born with only two basic
instincts of self preservation and procreation, is injected with the
poisons of pride, ego, jealousy, hatred and anger right from the first
examination in school where we encourage all these by grading students into
different ranks.
Ageing starts from the day one is made in the mother’s womb, soon after the
father’s spermatazoan enters the mother’s ovum. The resultant zygote is
only a small speck of protein weighing just 0.0000000000001 gm. This little
speck of protein is the beginning of man. The zygote starts life at that
very second with a consciousness, which gets to know all about all other
living things on this planet postori and priori. The consciousness runs the
person from that time till he eventually dies. The difference between life
and death could only be made out by observation by others. This is the
Schrodinger’s cat hypothesis. All zygotes thus formed have one certainty in
this world, that is death. All other aspects of life are uncertain.
Thus defined, ageing starts from the day you are made, and goes on
ceaselessly until death. In other words, ageing is a constant change from
conception to death. The most important stimulus for ageing is the human
consciousness; which, in simple terms, boils down to the vagaries of the
human mind. Where, then, is the human mind? Never mind! The mind certainly
is not in the brain or the heart or any other anatomic structure at the
cellular level. *Mind is a sub-cellular, sub-atomic quantum concept. * It
transcends all the physical laws of deterministic predictability. Even the
Einstein’s theory of motion that states that “nothing could move faster
than light” does not apply to the human mind. Mind could travel faster than
light and could even communicate unconventionally by *teleportation.*
Mind has the greatest influence on all bodily functions that physical
sciences understand now. The mind, in short, runs the body. For every
change in the body there are reasons in the mind and every alteration in
the mind and human feelings would have to have corresponding reverberations
in the body. Mind could influence every single cell in the human system, of
which there are 10 14 cells in all.
The human consciousness (mind) is at the root of all our illnesses as well
as our happiness. The inner mind is always happy to be of some use to
others and is not very happy to hurt someone else. The Universal
consciousness demands the survival of all creatures in this Universe. The
rules of the game are such that very bad people with malice would have to
be, per force, curtailed in their demonic behaviour in society. This may be
one of the reasons *why *one gets illness in the first place. Modern
science does not tell us why does one get a disease, but tries to explain
as to *how *one gets an illness. It was the great brain in Medicine, Dr.
Charles Sherrington, who at the age of 42 became the youngest professor of
Physiology at the University of Liverpool in England. Medical students
would remember Sherrington very well as he has contributed a lot to medical
science. It was he who said in 1899 AD, while accepting his new assignment:
*“ Positive sciences could never answer the
question why. They could, at best, answer the questions how or how much but
not the question why! A physiologist could say how does the heart contract,
but would never be able to why does the heart contract; he would be able to
define death but would not be able to define life! Ratio rei is therefore
not reason why.”*
He has come very close to quantum physics, which says that life could only
be observed by the *eye of the beholder. *(Schrodinger’s cat) Later in the
year 1937, aged 90 years, Sherrington gave a Lumlein Lecture at the Royal
College of Physicians of London, entitled *Wisdom of the Human Body.*
All those thinkers have also found it impossible to understand the human
mind completely. It is now known that the human consciousness runs every
cell in the human body from the time of conception. Cancers to common colds
are the result of unhappiness and its bad effects on our consciousness and,
consequently, on all our body cells. Even the abnormal heart rhythms that
we have been treating as an aberration of the heart’s function without much
success have been now traced to the human mind!
What pleases the human consciousness is the Universal consciousness of
*Universal
Love*. What hurts it is anything against this dictum. Ageing that happens
from day one of our existence would, per force, depend on this principle.
Love and compassion slows the ageing process while hatred and anger along
with ego, pride, jealousy, and fear would enhance the ageing process. The
secret of keeping your cells healthy and young (as much as possible), is
Universal love. This message has to go down to the next generation before
they get converted like us to hate one another. We, in the present
generation, could not get the benefit of this message, except in a limited
sense, since we have had all the bad feelings all along for our brethren in
society. We could still benfit if we change now! But the next generation
could change all that for their good if we let them grow up with the
innocence that they are born with.* One positive way of achieving that
would be avoid examinations and ranking in schools till the child attains
the age of fifteen, when most of the foundations for future life vis-à-vis
the human mind are well set.*
I wonder if I would be bale to convince our powers-that-be in charge of
primary education, the most important part of a nation's growth, about this
message. Healthy citizens of the future need healthy education to keep
their body cells young and healthy. Copying the West in keeping our old
elderly comparatively comfortable is secondary. If we could teach our young
the secret of love and compassion, they would look after their elders as in
the past. They used to venerate their teachers, parents and God. Times have
changed with the western ways getting more fashionable with our younger
generation, who think that the Indian wisdom of yore is only a myth and the
reality is to live a rat race of living with hatred and greed. Medical
science and quantum physics have proved them wrong and have shown how
modern and scientific are the Indian thoughts of the Vedas, even in this
field of trying to keep oneself young and healthy. The West is now anxious
to go back the large family system of the East, especially India. Since
they can not change overnight they are forming *so-called church groups.* These
are a group of unit families that live like a large family in every way
possible, helping each other. The latter gives that *sense of belonging* that
keeps the mind happy and the body cells healthy and young. The long-term
solution for the problems of our elderly is to inculcate this new
philosophy in our young minds.
Morphological ageing has very little to do with cellular ageing. One could
still see many white haired elderly looking people still happy and healthy
while the young looking people could have the most devastating illnesses.
Cellular ageing depends on the mind to a great extent and the mind is *not
a cellular concept but a sub-cellular-sub-atomic concept.* Happy mind
resides in a healthy body and vice versa. The modern epidemics of the
West, *divorce
and suicide,* both originate in the mind. Wars are born in the minds of men
and not in the battlefields. Did we not notice in recent time’s wars each
time Monica Lewinsky came out with more revealing sexual exploits of those
in charge of the deadly arsenal?
The solution to all the ills of the world is to ensure a healthy mind in
our next generation by the methods advocated above. It may not be very
appealing to most of the readers, as this concept has not reached medical
textbooks yet* .“Truth”, said Aristotle, “ could influence only half a
score of men in a given century or time, while falsehood and mystery would
drag millions by the nose.”*
Listen to the sane voice of the Indian wisdom:
*Prasanna Aathma Indriya Manaha Swastha Ithyabhideeyathe.*
[Happiness of the soul, senses, and the mind would ensure good health
definitely]
How to achieve that?
*Janaha Naanaa vachasam……Naanaa Dharmanaam,…Napaschuraanthi.*
[People in this world speak different tongues and belong to different
religions; but please give me a thousand milch cows so that they could all
be fed]
These two thoughts from the Vedic literature give credence to my hypothesis
above that we have to keep our mind happy to keep ourselves healthy* as
long as we live; death being the only certainty in life,* we can not afford
to hate anyone due to any reason. Even the different religions that were
going to come up later were predicted in those lines; but they have also
got to be loved and respected as one’s own religion! I have not been able
to find anything more laudable than this. Long live mankind on this planet!
Love everyone to live happily till you die. Ageing would then be not a
problem for the East as also the West. Death can never be postponed, nor
avoided; as it is against the Laws of Nature.
The following Ameri-Indian song tells it all.
* “ I eat when I am hungry, I drink when I am thirsty, If heavens
don’t fall down, I shall certainly live till I die.”*
The only thing that we could try to do is to live well till death. Modern
medicine and all the scientific knowledge, put together, could just about
do that; if only we could change our attitude to life as enunciated above.
KR IRS 26123
On Thu, 26 Jan 2023 at 10:57, 'venkat giri' via iyer123 <
[email protected]> wrote:
> *Respected Sir/s,*
> * AGEING, an inevitable process, is commonly measured by
> chronological age and, as a convention, a person aged 65 years or more is
> often referred to as "ELDERLY". However, the ageing process is not uniform
> across the population due to differences in genetics, lifestyle, and
> overall health.Ageing is a natural part of life that changes the body in
> ways we sometimes might not like.*The body ages at different rates, a
> phenomenon that doctors call “biological” vs. “chronological” age.It’s
> also important to note that individuals can age in multiple different ways
> and will typically have a combination of ageotypes to varying degrees .Natural
> changes happen in the body as we age, such as skin damage from sun
> exposure, loss of muscle and physical strength, loss of some sight and
> hearing, as well as changes to our sleep patterns, energy levels and
> appetite.
> Ageing is the progressive accumulation of changes
> with time that are associated with or responsible for the ever-increasing
> susceptibility to disease and death which accompanies advancing age” and
> “the sum of the deleterious free radical reactions going on continuously
> throughout the cells and tissues constitutes the ageing process or is a
> major contributor to it”.
> However, the ageotype insight is that
> everyone is also predisposed to biologically aging in different ways.
> Someone’s ageotype defines how they will get older, with parts of their
> body aging faster or more slowly than others.
> *Some people's hearts stay strong well into their 60s, but
> their kidneys begin to fail. Others may have the kidneys of a 30-year-old
> but fall victim to constant infection. *
> * Now, scientists may be one step closer to understanding
> why the ageing process varies so drastically between people. Even within a
> single person, ageing unfolds at different rates in different tissues,
> sometimes striking the liver before the heart or kidney, for example.
> People fall into distinct categories depending on which of their biological
> systems ages fastest, and someday, doctors could use this information to
> recommend specific lifestyle changes and design personalized medical
> treatments.**Ageing causes changes to the brain size, vasculature, and
> cognition. The brain shrinks with increasing age and there are changes at
> all levels from molecules to morphology. Incidence of stroke, white matter
> lesions, and dementia also rise with age, as does level of memory
> impairment and there are changes in levels of neurotransmitters and
> hormones.Memory decline also occurs with ageing and brain activation
> becomes more bilateral for memory tasks. *
> Protective factors that reduce
> cardiovascular risk, namely regular exercise, a healthy diet, and low to
> moderate alcohol intake, seem to aid the ageing brain as does increased
> cognitive effort in the form of education or occupational attainment. A
> healthy life both physically and mentally may be the best defence against
> the changes of an ageing brain.It has been widely found that the volume
> of the brain and/or its weight declines with age at a rate of around 5% per
> decade after age 40, with the actual rate of decline possibly increasing
> with age particularly over age 70.Brain changes do not occur to the same
> extent in all brain regions.
> By 2030, 1 in 6 people in the world will be aged 60
> years or over. At this time the share of the population aged 60 years and
> over will increase from 1 billion in 2020 to 1.4 billion. By 2050, the
> world's population of people aged 60 years and older will double (2.1
> billion).
> MEDICAL RESEARCH :
> Scientists have looked for ways to slow down, stop or reverse
> the ageing process. While research and medical advances have helped to
> increase life expectancy..... ageing continues.*For many years, most
> researchers have believed changes to a body’s DNA — called mutations are a
> leading cause of ageing. *Now a team led by researchers from Harvard
> Medical School finds support for an alternative hypothesis: it is the
> changes that affect the expression of the DNA — called epigenetics— that
> affect ageing. Scientists demonstrated this via a mouse model where changes
> in epigenetic information caused mice to first age and then reverse aging.
> Gene activity, the “switch on” and “switch off” of
> genes, is associated with epigenetic changes, chemical changes in the DNA
> that do not alter the DNA sequence. Epigenetics studies show the
> environment can modify how genes work without actually changing the genes
> themselves.
> Factors that may lead to epigenetic changes are :
> Diet,Ageing,physical activity, OBESITY,Tobacco and Alcohol use,environmental
> pollutants,stress,infections and diseases like cancer.
> Dr. David Sinclair, a professor in the Department of Genetics
> and co-director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for Biology of Aging Research
> at Harvard Medical School, is the senior author of this study.Dr.
> Sinclair said the research team decided to study epigenetics as a potential
> driver for the ageing process.
> During this study, researchers created temporary, fast-healing “cuts” in
> the DNA of mice. These cuts imitated the effect of certain lifestyle and
> environmental effects on the DNA’s epigenetic pattern.Researchers found the
> cuts caused the mice’s epigenetic pattern to change and eventually
> malfunction, causing the mice to begin looking and acting older. These mice
> also had increased biomarkers indicating ageing.Scientists then gave these
> mice gene therapy to reverse the epigenetic changes, which they said
> “reset” the mice’s epigenetic program and ultimately reversed the ageing
> the mice had experienced.
> “We hope these results are seen as a turning point in our ability to
> control ageing,” Sinclair says. “This is the first study showing that we
> can have precise control of the biological age of a complex animal; that we
> can drive it forwards and backward at will.” Dr. Santosh Kesari, a
> neurologist at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, CA,
> and Regional Medical Director for the Research Clinical Institute of
> Providence Southern California, says this was a “very exciting study,”
> opening up the understanding of how ageing occurs and how we can measure it
> at the DNA level.“And it turns out it’s not just that we accumulate
> mutations in the DNA, which is we think is one of the main factors that
> cause age-related disorders, … but more of how the DNA is read that is
> really contributing to ageing,”. Dr. Kesari explained. “And as we age, the
> reading of the DNA is affected in a big way. Thisreally opens up a new way
> of thinking about aging, but also a new way to think about targeting ageing
> by developing drugs that affect how the cell reads the DNA.”
> As this study was conducted in an animal model, Dr.
> Kesari said ; the next question and challenge would be to understand how
> individual humans age in the real world — what tests are required, and how
> scientists can monitor for bad agieng.
> “And then doing really smart studies to look at
> biomarkers that gives a signal that actually affects ageing in a positive
> way,” he continued.... Testing drugs, and then having short-term
> biomarkers that tell us whether a drug is working or not and affecting
> age-related disorders,” Dr. Kesari concluded.
> ......
> Regards
> V.Sridharan
> Trichy
>
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