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life. An old person becomes like a child in the end, so that's why the dependence; nothing is wrong in it.
A child is dependent. You are never angry with a child because he is dependent; you know that he is a child. An old person is again a child; it is a second childhood. And my feeling is that the old person is more dependent than a child because the child has no knowledge of what dependence is, what independence is. The old person has, and now he feels it; it hurts.
In the West, old people are really suffering much. The western society seems to be just for the young people. That is ugly because each young person will become old. The society should be able to adjust to all, from children to the old; then the society is complete. Then it has a real, comprehensive span.
Now the western society seems only for the young people -- but each young person is going to become old! Sooner or later you will be thrown in the dust bin and then you will suffer it also, in the same way. So there is no need to be hard. Just have love, have compassion. He needs; nothing is wrong in it. He is dependent because he is old. And now, no work; no work relationships, no family, so by and by one becomes very isolated. Sitting the whole day and waiting only for death; it is hard.
And in the West you have a conception of only one life; that makes it very hard. In the East, nobody is worried. If you are going to die you will be born again. In fact, one is happy: this old body will be gone and you will have a new body.
Just as you change a new model car -- you drop the old and you sell the old model and you purchase a new model every year -- in the East life is a question of renewal. An old person has an old body; he is happy dropping it. Soon he will get another body -- better, younger; he will live his life again.
In the western countries you have the concept of only one life, no rebirth; that makes it very ugly. I am not saying what is right and what is wrong. I am simply saying it makes it unnecessarily ugly: a person just waiting for death and nothing else. What has he left to think about? the life is gone, all is past and in front only death
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