GROWING UP, GROWING DOWN

Growing up is construction and complication, while growing down is deconstruction and simplification.  Corresponding to this are what Vedanta calls the four stages of life, the ashramas. 
 
The brahmachari :  In  the  student  life  the emphasis is on commitment to learning.  Some professional skills are to be learned, along with training in Vedanta under a guru.  The principle goal of the student is to become a person of refinement.
 
The grihasta:  The householder life is where one learns such virtues as tolerance, accommodation, and adjustment for the sake of others.  It is a life of service and sacrifice.  The qualities of forgiveness and trust are also developed while one is a householder.

The vanaprastha:  This is a training period for gradual withdrawal.  Here the individual learns to remove himself from family matters, passing on his responsibilities to the next generation.  This frees him for spiritual pursuits and studies.  He learns, in this phase, to love solitude and activities that are introverted.  Self-knowledge is the focus here, in preparation for sanyasa.

Sanyasa:  In this stage, the individual gives up everything, especially ignorance, i.e. wrong thinking, and the egoic self.  He becomes “purified” in this way and places his life in God’s hands.  Whether or not he physically renounces all things is not important.  Rather it is his state of mind that matters.  Shaving off his hair or wearing ochre robes is not the point, so much as his abandoning all attachments.  Even while living with his family he can mentally be a sanyasi.

This is the growing up, growing down trajectory then, the construction, complication, deconstruction, and simplification that an individual’s life is to take according to Vedanta.  It is viewed as a spiritual journey.