I chuckled when one of your contributors wrote, satirically, about old age from the perspective of his 33 years. From my perspective, that's not very old at all. Aging is a strange dualistic phenomenon. What appears to be going on for all of us in the world we observe is that things are changing all the time and those changes certainly show an aging process that eventually results in death. Sure, many who contend that they are on a spiritual path say that what we view is all illusion, or that our life now is just one of many. They do this without acknowledging these views to be their beliefs or hopes, and so they sidestep the issue of this moment which is at hand.
Yet along with the aging process of the objective world there is a second component, the most important component, and that is that whoever or whatever that thing we call the 'observer' is, it does not change or age. Although I do not dwell on the past, and in fact find it difficult to remember much of it, when I do bring up something from my memory bank I am struck by the fact that the observing me-self has not changed. Sure my experiences (observations) have changed, the breath of them has widened, but that which did the observing when I was 7 is still the same right now.
So what or who is that experiencer, that intangible ineffable essence that we continue to try to define and thus put limits on? Are we tempted to think that we are on the 'true spiritual path'? In a kind of self congratulatory way we smile about those religious fundamentalists who perceive God as a kindly old white haired gentleman who benevolently smiles down on all the world from his seat on high. We think we are beyond all of that silliness for we know that God, or Reality, or Essence is that intangible substance which we then cheerfully conceptualize in our own way. In doing this, we are no different then they for all we are doing is to believe that our concept is nobler then theirs, but a concept is still only a concept, a phantom of the mind.
It seems to me that the only thing we can do, and it's difficult, is to carefully observe ourself, and in that watching we may come upon liberation. A bit of wisdom that helps keep me pointed in the right direction is from Krishnamurti who asks: "Can the mind be free of the need to create illusion?"
It helps.