Youth is energetic, age is wilting; youth looks forward, age is one foot in the grave; youth is overflowing, age is shrinking; youth is shiny, age is dull; youth exudes hope, age is in despair; youth can support others, age needs the support of others. This is true in life, not in Spirit. In Spirit, if age misses many attributes of youth, it has acquired several other attributes. Hence the being always has undiminished possibilities, which means at no time is there a loss for the embodied being. This is a philosophy that will strike many as strange. The lives of men who have succeeded late in life will confirm this. If any such men share with you their experience, you will discover that they have lost nothing at all.
There is more. It belongs to Spirit as a special characteristic. Moving to the Spirit is moving to a world of wonder. It has the capacity to compensate the loss in youth. As it has the capacity to neutralize the earlier loss, at a higher level the Spirit has the capacity to transform the loss into gain. Those who are failures in life will be happy to become a success, however late that success arrives. There are those who have missed a college degree. Others have been neglected children in youth. Many have entered government service as a clerk and retired as a senior clerk, not having been promoted as officer. A good many have missed a good many meals. Having been a neglected child, neglected by the parents is not an ordinary psychological loss. The rule is the same for all.
The one question is whether you are willing to invoke the Spirit. When you succeed, the very first thing you witness is your getting in abundance what you missed earlier. That everyone has experienced. What they may not have noticed is the FACT that those who were with you during the period of your neglect and who were not so neglected will not be so cheerful as you are now. Had you received your due in youth, it would not have been so rich as it is now, as NOW you are receiving these benefits in the rich experience of age when you can better appreciate them. The Spirit is different from life. The Spirit in life is different from the Spirit, as the Prime Ministers now are different from the first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Life gives leadership. Spirit in life makes the leader a Gandhiji.